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By now you’ve probably read a number of scathing reviews of “The Mummy,” Universal’s inaugural entry in a possibly grievously ill-advised “Dark Universe” franchise, wherein the legendary studio intends to reboot its most Famous Monsters of Filmland. Perhaps I’m becoming jaded in my old age, but I was more amused than appalled.
Don’t get me wrong. “The Mummy,” directed (if that’s what you want to call it; I honestly think the better term here is “ostensibly overseen on behalf of the studio executives”) by Alex Kurtzman from a script by David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie, and Dylan Kussman, has plenty to get irritated about. I got sand in my synapses during an early scene in which Tom Cruise, as a looter named Nick Morton (oh, “Mort,” I get it now), and his sidekick, played by Jake Johnson, casually slaughter a bunch of “Iraqi insurgents” trying to track down a mysterious treasure. Oh, sure, filmmakers, by all means use a tragic and unnecessary war that’s still yielding horrific consequences for the world as the backdrop for your stupid horror movie plot machinations, no problem here.
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And, of course, there’s the movie’s very old-school sexism. "The Mummy" has two female characters: One is corrupt albeit not unattractive ancient Egyptian royal Ahmanet, who, once freed from her tomb in the present day, is the incarnation of all evil and stuff. (She is played by Sofia Boutella, whose filmography testifies that she’s accustomed to being ill-used in motion pictures). The other is faux-archeologist/genuine anti-evil secret agent Jenny (Annabelle Wallis) who’s mainly around to be rescued by Nick, and whose surface venality suggests that his business card describes him as a “lovable rogue.”
So yes, should one choose to take offense, one certainly may. But I have to be honest—speaking of venality, I found something almost admirable about the film’s cheek. It’s amazingly relentless in its naked borrowing from other, better horror and sci-fi movies that I was able to keep occupied making a checklist of the movies referenced. At its opening, remnants of a past civilization are discovered while workmen are tunneling underground for a new subway route. That’s from “Quatermass and the Pit,” aka “Five Million Miles to Earth.” As many other reviewers have noted, once Jake Johnson’s character buys in and is reborn as a wisecracking undead sidekick warning Nick about how he’s been cursed by incarnation-of-evil Ahmanet, it’s “American Werewolf in London” time, albeit with PG-13-rated special effects rather than the side of ketchup-dipped corned beef that fell from Griffin Dunne’s face in the earlier movie. What else? A woman whose kiss drains the life force out of those who receive it, from the wacky space-vampire movie “Lifeforce”? Check. A brain-draining insect in the ear from “Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan”? Check. Spavined slapstick undead assaulters out of “Evil Dead”? Check. Underwater fights with the undead out of Lucio Fulci’s “Zombie”? Check. (These too are toned down considerably from the source material.) Someone saying “Plans?” with the precise intonation Sir Ralph Richardson used in “Tales from the Crypt”? Also check. Don’t even get me started on the, um, appropriation of a famous line from the Universal monster movie “Bride of Frankenstein.” But that’s life, and that movie literally IS Universal’s property.
There have been a lot of crocodile tears already shed about the fact that The Mighty Tom Cruise has allowed himself to be used in such dreck, and also that Russell Crowe has been compelled to continue to sink into a form of self-parody by appearing as the head of Jenny’s anti-evil agency, a character named Dr. Henry Jekyll, and yeah, it’s the same guy. Or some iteration of the same guy. As it happens, Dr. Jekyll was never one of the Universal Studios monsters, but the character IS in the public domain, so I guess the corporate overlords of the Dark Universe figured “what the you-know-what.”
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Anyway, I cannot feel too aggrieved for either star. As Richard Harris and Richard Burton found out for themselves many years before Crowe came along, there comes a time in the career of every loose-cannon macho actor where the any-port-in-a-financial-year-storm approach to career management is all for the best. As for Cruise, he is known for his try-anything-once sense of cinematic adventure, and he does like his franchises. The Morton character is admittedly more of a callow nothingburger than any he’s played. And given how the movie ends I’m a little disappointed that he wasn’t named Larry Talbot. But who knows, maybe he’ll be obliged to change it for the next installment. Which I am looking forward to, out of nothing but base curiosity. ||||| PLOT An explorer disturbs a mummy’s tomb and unleashes an evil force. CAST Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Russell Crowe RATED PG-13 (violence, scary images, suggestive content, partial nudity) LENGTH 1:50 BOTTOM LINE A blaring, bloated zombie of a movie.
What happens when you update Universal Pictures’ classic monster movies, with their old-world charm and Gothic elegance, for a new audience accustomed to the high-tech action and postmodern sarcasm of Disney’s Marvel movies? The answer, in the case of “The Mummy” — a big-budget reboot of the 1932 Boris Karloff gem — is a hideous Frankenstein of a film that seems doomed to repulse anyone who comes across it.
Sorry for the mixed monster metaphor, but this is one massive mess of a movie. The first in a planned series of reboots, in which everyone from the Wolf Man to the Hunchback of Notre Dame will live in a shared Dark Universe, “The Mummy” sets a tone of thematic confusion and box-office desperation. Written by what seems to be a conflicted three-man team (including David Koepp, of “Jurassic Park”) and directed as if in a panic by Alex Kurtzman, “The Mummy” is an action-horror-fantasy driven entirely by special effects, with incongruous elements of black comedy, eroticism and gadgetry — all laid atop the narrative blueprint of an “Avengers” movie.
Not even the charisma of Tom Cruise can shine through this film’s CGI-generated murk. Cruise plays Nick Morton, a mercenary tomb raider who discovers the sarcophagus of the cursed Egyptian princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella, half-naked and covered in rune tattoos). Once reanimated, she gets the hots for Nick and appears to him in gauzy hallucinations that resemble a perfume commercial. Luckily, Nick’s sort-of girlfriend, Egyptologist Jenny Halsey (an oddly icy Annabelle Wallis), knows who to call: a genial if somewhat unstable doctor whose last name is Jekyll (Russell Crowe).
This may be the movie’s worst conceptual misfire. “The Mummy” wants to establish Jekyll/Hyde as its own Banner/Hulk, but also as its own Nick Fury, the top commander behind the Marvel heroes. Crowe is surprisingly fun in the role — he plays Hyde like a steroidal Cockney gangster — but the character can’t serve triple duty as head honcho, superhero and mad scientist all at once.
Virtually everything in this movie seems like the wrong decision. Why does “The Mummy” spend so much time in 12th century England? Why is it partly a zombie comedy, in which Nick is pestered by an undead wisenheimer (Jake Johnson)? Why are the one-liners so dopey? It has to be said: This “Mummy” makes even the Brendan Fraser versions of the franchise seem like classics. |||||
Sofia Boutella stars in “The Mummy.” This monster flick starts in the Middle East but ends up mostly involving chase scenes with the mummy on the loose in England, kissing innocent people to death, then reanimating them. (Universal Pictures)
Given that “Spider-Man” is getting its third reboot since 2002, it’s a small miracle that Universal waited as long as it did to resurrect 1999’s wildly successful sleeper hit “The Mummy.” In the midst of franchise mania, the studio is launching its very own universe of monster flicks, and the Tom Cruise-led action thriller heralds the start of a world that may include “The Bride of Frankenstein,” “The Invisible Man” and “The Wolfman,” to name a few.
That’s some pressure the movie doesn’t shoulder well, considering it’s hardly the unqualified success of other trial balloons, like “Iron Man,” “X-Men” or even “Man of Steel.” In fact, “The Mummy” might make a viewer wonder whether this universe will even take off at all.
It won’t be for a lack of star power. Cruise plays Nick Morton, a brave, foolish soldier of fortune who, along with his buddy Chris (Jake Johnson), scours the Middle East looking for antiquities to loot and sell on the black market. During one such trek he stumbles upon an Egyptian crypt. But as his recent bedfellow, archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), breathily describes it: “This is not a tomb — it’s a prison.”
We already know what that means, thanks to some thoroughly informative voice-over narration by a certain Dr. Jekyll (Russell Crowe), who reveals the identity of the woman buried at this site. The daughter of a pharaoh, Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) made a pact with Set, the god of death, before murdering her father, his wife and their newborn baby so that she could take the throne. She was caught before she could carry out the prophesy — using a fancy dagger to kill a man so that Set would have his very own body — and was mummified and buried alive far from Egypt.
She’d be forever stuck under a pool of mercury if Nick’s reckless gunfire didn’t upend the complex cable-and-pulley system holding her there. She appears to Nick in one of many daydream sequences to say how pleased she is with this turn of events, although once again Jenny is on hand to overexplain things: “We’ve angered the gods,” she laments.
Boutella stars as Ahmanet, a mummy unleashed by treasure hunter Nick Morton (Tom Cruise). (Universal Pictures)
The rest of the movie, directed by Alex Kurtzman, is mostly chase scenes with the mummy on the loose in England, kissing innocent people to death, sucking the life out of them and then reanimating the corpses to create her own zombie army. In fact, “The Mummy” has more in common with “The Living Dead” movies than the 1932 horror film or its 1999 remake, although the dead aren’t the only ones working for this villainess. She also has rats and spiders on her payroll, among many other creepy-crawlies designed to make the audience squirm and shudder.
Nick joins forces with Jenny and her boss, Jekyll, who is hammered into the story so that we don’t forget this is the start of a franchise rather than a stand-alone movie that already has plenty going on without yet another plot thread.
Nick (Cruise) and Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) in “The Mummy.” Universal Pictures’ action-horror movie, which seems to be the first in a series of reboots, has star power and a few thrills, but the convoluted story decays before our eyes. (Chiabella James/Universal Pictures)
Some of the action is thrilling, especially a brilliantly choreographed plane crash that has Nick and Jenny tossed around the cabin before he straps her into a parachute and pulls the cord, whisking her out into the sky. The movie also has a few genuinely funny moments. When the mummy ominously runs her long nails over Nick’s torso, he starts giggling; he’s ticklish, apparently.
But the big thrills and few laughs are no match for the cumbersome, convoluted story, not to mention the nonexistent chemistry between Cruise and Wallis. (We’re not going to pin the blame on her considering the way her connection with Cillian Murphy popped off the screen in “Peaky Blinders.”)
The whole thing culminates in an underwater chase scene that’s painfully lugubrious. After the fast-paced thrills of the “Fast & Furious” franchise, among other action movies, seeing Cruise breaststroke away from some zombies is bizarre and comical. If something is in fact being launched with “The Mummy,” it’s not off to a very snappy start. ||||| How meh is The Mummy? Let me count the ways. For all the huffing and puffing and digital desperation from overworked computers, this reboot lands onscreen with a resounding thud. Tom Cruise should have played the Mummy – that way his face would be swathed in bandages and his fans wouldn't have to see him sweat so hard to get this lumbering loser off the ground.
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In a gender flip, the title role originated by Boris Karloff in 1932 is played by Algerian actress Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service). She's Ahmanet, an evil Egyptian princess who killed her daddy a few millennia back – she wanted to be pharaoh instead of her baby brother, see – and for her trouble got buried alive for several millennia in Mesopotamia, currently known as Iraq. Cruise takes the role of Nick Morton, a hustler in antiquities who unearths the tomb of this "3000-year-old prune," a hellion who wants to use our hero's body to house Set, the god of the dead.
Still with me? Director Alex Kurtzman – who, as a screenwriter, has tackled everything from Alias episodes to a Transformers movie – can't seem to make sense of a script by numerous writers clearly unashamed of hack work. Nick, his blond British squeeze Jenny Halsey (Peaky Blinders' Annabelle Wallis) and his wisecracking best-friend-forever Chris Vail (New Girl's Jake Johnson) all end up in modern-day London fighting Ahmanet and her ghouls. How do you win a fight against the undead? My point exactly.
Meanwhile, Russell Crowe, looking winded and all-too-aware of the schlock he's selling, shows up as mean Dr. Jekyll and his even meaner alter ego Mr. Hyde. No reason, except to set the stage for Universal's coming Dark Universe series of which The Mummy is the first installment. You heard us right. They are already prepping revamps of Jekyll & Hyde, The Invisible Man with Johnny Depp and Bride of Frankenstein, starring Javier Bardem as the monster. This anticipation killer is not going to help. It's a monster fail. | – The Mummy marks a return to the past and a nod to the future for Universal: Taking inspiration from its 1932 and 1999 films of the same name, it's the first installment of a new "Dark Universe" franchise that is set to include flicks like Jekyll & Hyde and Bride of Frankenstein. Tom Cruise stars as an antiquities hunter who disturbs an Egyptian sarcophagus and awakes an evil spirit. Here's what critics are saying: Peter Travers calls The Mummy "a monster fail" that kills anticipation for future franchise flicks. It has too much CGI, and director Alex Kurtzman "can't seem to make sense of a script by numerous writers clearly unashamed of hack work," he writes at Rolling Stone. He adds Russell Crowe appears as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for no good reason. Crowe is "surprisingly fun" in this role, but the film's attempts to make him into "head honcho, superhero, and mad scientist all at once" may be its "worst conceptual misfire," Rafer Guzman writes at Newsday. But then, "virtually everything in this movie seems like the wrong decision." It's a "massive mess of a movie" that "seems doomed to repulse anyone who comes across it," he writes. Glenn Kenny was also thrown off by the Jekyll character, but that's just one reason he's warning that the "Dark Universe" franchise might be a "grievously ill-advised" one. Its first installment has "plenty to get irritated about," including some "very old-school sexism," he writes at RogerEbert.com. It's "amazingly relentless in its naked borrowing from other, better horror and sci-fi movies" to boot. It's not all bad, though, writes Stephanie Merry at the Washington Post. "Some of the action is thrilling, especially a brilliantly choreographed plane crash," and there are a "few genuinely funny moments." But those moments "are no match for the cumbersome, convoluted story, not to mention the nonexistent chemistry between Cruise and [Annabelle] Wallis," she notes. Not a good start, Universal. |
Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, released some of the department's tapes of the fatal shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, which has sparked days of protests across the city.
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Police Chief Kerr Putney announced the release at a news conference today, saying that other footage will come later.
In the dash cam video Scott is seen exiting his car, he then walks backwards with his hands before four shots are heard. It is unclear whether there is anything in his hands.
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The actual shooting is neither seen nor heard in the body cam footage.
Officer Brentley Vinson, identified by police as the officer who shot Scott, cannot be seen firing his weapon in either video.
The chief says the tapes show that Scott was "absolutely" in possession of a handgun and will offer "indisputable evidence" of the department's account, and he said that at this point, he the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department will not be charging any officer in the shooting. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is also investigating the case.
Police also released photos of a handgun and holster and of a marijuana "blunt" that were taken as evidence in the case.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department
Putney said officers were conducting surveillance related to a warrant they intended to serve on someone else, but their attention was drawn to Scott. They saw marijuana and a weapon in Scott's car and said believed, "this is a safety issue for us and the public," the police chief said.
He said Scott was shot after he did not follow police commands to drop his weapon.
"At every encounter, people can make a decision to follow loud, verbal commands. They (officers) were reacting to what they saw and they have a duty to do so," Putney said.
He added that he believes the footage can now be released without jeopardizing the investigation.
Ray Dotch, Scott's brother-in-law, said at a press conference this evening that the family was glad that the body camera and dashcam videos have been released but added that unfortunately the family is left with more questions than answered.
Justin Bamberg, a lawyer for the Scott family said, that they appreciate that their request for the video release was heard and that it is another step in the pursuit for all the facts, but said that in his opinion, he does not see Scott look aggressive or lunge at officers.
Charles Monnett, another attorney at the press conference said that the community should express their opinions but should do it lawfully and peacefully.
The police announcement came after hundreds of people gathered in Charlotte's Marshall Park demanding the release of the police video footage, marching peacefully under the hot sun in, chanting and holding signs that said "Release the Tape."
Jason Miczek/Reuters
Calls to release the footage had intensified after Scott's family released cell phone video of the moments leading up to and after the shooting Tuesday.
A woman identified as Scott's wife, Rakeyia Scott, recorded the incident with her phone and the video was provided to ABC News on Friday by attorneys for the Scott family. In the video, Rakeyia Scott can be heard pleading with police to not shoot her husband, a 43-year-old black man, as officers order the man to "drop the gun." As the encounter continues, the woman yells back at police, insisting her husband is harmless and doesn't have a weapon.
"He doesn't have a gun," she says. "He has a T.B.I. [traumatic brain injury]. He's not going to do anything to you guys. He just took his medicine."
Police repeatedly scream at Keith Lamont Scott to "drop the gun" and, moments later, multiple gunshots ring out. The actual shooting is not shown on the video as Rakeyia Scott points her cellphone at the ground and screams, "Did you shoot him?" She then runs closer to the scene, angling the cellphone camera this time at the spot where her husband was shot. Scott's body is seen lying in the street surrounded by several officers.
The cellphone video was the first footage of Scott's deadly encounter with police to be publicly released. One of the attorneys representing the Scott family, Charles G. Monnett, said they released the video "in the name of truth and transparency."
During the rally today in Charlotte, activists and religious leaders joined protesters' calls for investigators to release the videos. Corine Mack, president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP, told the crowd amid cheers that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) had launched an investigation into the case.
The DOJ's Community Relations Service has said it is "is working to maintain open lines of communication and ease tension in Charlotte," but the department has not yet decided whether to open an investigation. A Justice Department spokesman said Attorney General Loretta Lynch's remarks from Thursday, indicating the department is monitoring the case, still stand.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said its officers were searching for a suspect who had an outstanding warrant when they encountered Scott in a vehicle outside an apartment complex around 4 p.m. Tuesday. Police said Scott was not the suspect that officers sought but that he was holding a handgun, which investigators recovered from the scene, and posed a threat because he was not obeying police orders to remain inside his car and drop the weapon.
Officer Vinson subsequently fired his gun, striking Scott, who police said was treated immediately and later pronounced dead, police said.
Vinson, who has been employed with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department since July 21, 2014, and is currently assigned to the metro division. He has been placed on paid administrative leave while the investigation into Scott's death is ongoing, according to Putney.
Vinson, who is black, was not wearing a body camera at the time.
Scott's family maintains he was not holding a gun and he was just waiting for his son to be dropped off from school. Justin Bamberg, a lawyer representing Scott's family, said in a statement Thursday that it's "impossible" to detect from the police footage what Scott is holding and at no point did Scott appear or act aggressively. ||||| Play Facebook
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Charlotte police on Saturday released portions of bodycam and dashcam footage and a photo of the gun police said Keith Lamont Scott was holding when he was fatally shot by an officer.
The dashcam video shows Scott come out of a white SUV while police stand behind another vehicle with their weapons raised and command him to drop the gun. Scott eventually emerges from the SUV slowly and backs away. As he is backing up, four shots can be heard, and Scott can be seen falling to the ground.
The bodycam video briefly shows Scott standing outside of the SUV with the door open before he is shot, and then shows officers respond to him while he’s on the ground.
Neither video shows whether or not Scott had a firearm in his hand during the incident, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said before the videos were released. He said other evidence concluded that Scott was in possession of a gun.
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Related: Scott Family Says Police Videos Bring More Questions Than Answers
The officer who shot Scott was not wearing a body camera, police have said.
Along with the videos, police on Saturday released a photo of the handgun and an ankle holster they said were in Scott's possession. Police said a lab analysis showed Scott’s DNA and fingerprints were on the gun.
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Scott’s family maintains that he did not have a gun at the time of the shooting.
An attorney for the Scott family, Justin Bamberg, said the video appears to show Scott walking backwards and not posing a threat before he was shot, and it isn't clear from the footage that he had a gun.
A pistol that police said was in the possession of Keith Lamont Scott is seen in a picture provided by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. Sepr. 24, 2016. HANDOUT / Reuters
"Do those actions, do those precious seconds justify this shooting?" Bamberg said at a news conference after the video was released.
Scott’s shooting death ignited protests in North Carolina’s largest city, fueled in part by criticism of police over the use of lethal force by officers against black men. Only one officer shot Scott, police said, and that officer is also black.
Police in the press release Saturday gave a fuller account of what caused police, who were looking for another person, to confront Scott.
Police said plainclothes officers were in the parking lot preparing to serve an arrest warrant against someone else Tuesday when an SUV parked beside them. The officers saw Scott rolling a marijuana “blunt,” which they ignored, but then Brentley Vinson, who fired the fatal shots “observed Mr. Scott hold a gun up.”
A police officer shot and killed Keith Lamont Scott, 43, near the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. via Facebook
"Due to the combination of illegal drugs and the gun Mr. Scott had in his possession, officers decided to take enforcement action for public safety concerns,” police said.
The officers left to don marked duty vests and "upon returning, the officers again witnessed Mr. Scott in possession of a gun," police said. An officer tried to use a baton to “breach the window” of the SUV in order to make the arrest, police said.
"Mr. Scott then exited the vehicle with the gun and backed away from the vehicle while continuing to ignore officers’ repeated loud verbal commands to drop the gun,” the police statement said.
"Officer Vinson perceived Mr. Scott’s actions and movements as an imminent physical threat to himself and the other officers," the statement said.
Related: Why Viewing Bodycam Video Isn't Easy Under New N.C. Law
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The statement said that after Scott was shot, officers rendered first aid and called a medic to the scene.
Not all the video was released. Putney said some of the other police video was not relevant to the shooting.
The videos were released at around 6:35 p.m. Police had earlier in the week declined to release police video of the encounter.
"I have decided that we're at a stage where I can release additional information without adversely impacting [the State Bureau of Investigation's] investigation," Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said at a news conference Saturday afternoon. "Prior to this point, it would have had an impact."
A gun holster that police said was in the possession of Keith Lamont Scott is seen in a picture provided by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sept. 24, 2016. HANDOUT / Reuters
"The footage will not prove anything true or not it, only can support the physical evidence," he said, adding that new evidence as a whole would provide "the most complete puzzle" that police could offer.
The Scott family was permitted to view the police video Thursday. The Family released cell phone video taken by Scott's wife, Rakeyia Scott, that shows part of the encounter but not the shooting.
"He doesn't have a gun. He has a TBI [traumatic brain injury]," Rakeyia Scott says in the video that she took. "He's not going to do anything to you guys. He just took his medicine."
Brentley Vinson, the plainclothes officer who fired the fatal shots at Scott, was not wearing a bodycam, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police. But three other officers who were at the scene were.
A handout picture made available by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) on Sept. 24, 2016 shows a marijuana 'blunt' allegedly recovered from the person of Keith Lamont Scott after he was fatally shot by police officers in Charlotte on Sept. 20, 2016. HANDOUT / EPA
Gov. Pat McCrory, who declared a state of emergency after the protests became violent again Wednesday, said in a statement Saturday that he agreed with Putney's decision to release footage.
"I have been assured by the State Bureau of Investigation that the release will have no material impact on the independent investigation since most of the known witnesses have been interviewed," he said.
Earlier Saturday, the NAACP in Charlotte joined the calls for police to share the footage, calling it "video that is ours." ||||| Police in Charlotte, N.C., released video from one body camera and one dashboard camera on Sept. 24th of the fatal Keith Scott shooting. (Editor's note: This video contains graphic content.) (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department)
Police in Charlotte, N.C., released video from one body camera and one dashboard camera on Sept. 24th of the fatal Keith Scott shooting. (Editor's note: This video contains graphic content.) (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department)
Police officials here relented amid increasing pressure Saturday and released two videos showing the shooting death of a black man by police five days ago that has sparked several nights of sometimes-violent protests.
The videos — one taken from an officer’s body camera and another from the dashboard camera of a police vehicle — show Keith Lamont Scott, 43, exiting his vehicle and falling to the ground. But they do not answer a crucial question about whether Scott was holding a gun as police have said and Scott’s family has denied.
The police department also offered fresh insight into how the encounter happened. Plainclothes officers were sitting in an unmarked car at an apartment complex preparing to serve an arrest warrant against someone else when Scott pulled in beside them, the department said. The officers initially noticed that the 43-year-old was rolling a marijuana “blunt” in his car — and then saw him raise a gun, the police said. The combination of the gun and the marijuana created a public safety hazard, the officers concluded. The officers left and returned in vests and equipment that identified them as cops.
That is when the encounter began, police say. “There was a crime that he had committed [possessing marijuana] that caused the encounter, and then the gun exacerbated that encounter,” said Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney at a news conference.
Putney’s office also released photos of a gun, an ankle holster and a “blunt.” The gun was loaded and had Scott’s fingerprints and DNA, according to police.
Rakeyia Scott filmed a cellphone video during her husband Keith Lamont Scott's fatal encounter with Charlotte police officers on Sept. 20. (Editor's note: This video contains graphic images and language.) (Family of Keith Lamont Scott)
Scott’s widow, who was standing nearby when the shooting occurred, remains unconvinced that the gun was in her husband’s hand or pointed at officers when he was shot, the family’s attorney said.
“Our goal has, from the beginning, been to get the absolute unfiltered truth, and the only way to get that for the police is to release the videos,” said Ray Dotch, Scott’s brother-in-law. “Unfortunately, we are left with far more questions than we have answers.”
The fatal shooting has turned Charlotte, considered by many the beacon of the “New South,” into the latest U.S. city to face tough questions about the treatment of minorities by police. Hundreds of protesters have descended on the city’s uptown for the past five nights, prompting the state’s governor to call in the National Guard and the city’s mayor to put in place a midnight curfew.
The city was still healing from the shooting death of Jonathan Ferrell, an unarmed black man who was shot by a white police officer in 2013 when Scott’s death reopened old wounds, protesters have said.
The chief focus of protesters had been the release of the police videos, but now even that doesn’t appear to be enough.
“What does marijuana have to do with it? Why did he mention that?” asked Kayla Jefferson, 24, who was among hundreds of protesters listening to the news conference at a park in uptown. “They’re trying to make him look like a bad guy without releasing all of the information.”
Neighbors of Keith Scott, the African American man whose fatal shooting by police in Charlotte, N.C. spurred days of protests react to cellphone video of the encounter that was recorded by his wife. (Reuters)
Charlotte officials appeared to acknowledge that the controversy surround the shooting would continue. No matter what the police department releases it will not satisfy Black Lives Matter protesters, Bill James, a 10-term commissioner for Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte, said in a Twitter post. “You cannot satiate a mob with facts. Not in Ferguson, Baltimore, or Charlotte,” he said.
[GOP lawmakers’ remarks amid unrest in Charlotte point to more alienation from black voters, critics say]
Putney, the police chief, said he decided to make the video footage available after confirming that doing so would not hurt an investigation into the shooting being carried out by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. There are other videos and pieces of evidence, including statements by the police officers who witnessed the shooting, that will be released later, he said.
The two videos were not enough for some protesters. “We would like to see full transparency,” said Nicole Galloway, 28, who lives in Charlotte and was among the protesters Saturday. “We believe in justice and we believe in full transparency, so we can all see what happened.”
The videos show officers in police tactical vests taking up position behind the cab of their white flatbed truck. Scott then exits his own vehicle, which is reverse parked, with his back to the officers. It is not clear if Scott is holding anything in either hand.
As he approaches the end of the officers’ truck, he turns slightly to the right, and police open fire. Four gunshots are heard; Scott falls and can be heard moaning. Scott was shot by Brentley Vinson, an African American officer.
The release of the videos came one day after footage shot by Scott’s wife, Rakeyia Scott, showing her pleading with officers not to shoot her husband of 20 years, was made public. In the video, Rakeyia Scott can be heard yelling to the officers that her husband was unarmed and had a traumatic head injury. “Don’t shoot him,” she says.
Officers say Scott pointed a gun at them; Scott’s family has disputed that he was armed and that, if he was, that he raised the weapon.
“Mr. Scott does not appear to be acting aggressive,” attorney Justin Bamberg said of the video. “He doesn’t lunge at the officers. It appears he has his hands by his side. The moment he is shot, he is passively stepping back.”
[Read the Charlotte police department’s investigative summary on the Keith Lamont Scott shooting]
That dispute is not settled by these videos, and it is unclear how long it will be before the State Bureau of Investigation completes its examinations.
Putney said that he has no plans to charge any of the officers involved in the fatal shooting with a crime but left open the possibility that charges could come from the state investigation. “If laws were violated I would be taking different action,” he said.
Many stores in uptown Charlotte have been closed since violent demonstrations began Tuesday evening, and even those that are open are seeing little business or closing early. Bank of America and Wells Fargo, which have thousands of employees in the area, told them to stay home most of the week. Restaurants and businesses in the city popular uptown Epicentre closed early, by 4 p.m. in most cases, most of the week.
Hundreds of protesters have spent hours snaking their way through uptown Charlotte over the past few days, continuing to demonstrate hours past the city’s midnight curfew. Police officers on bicycles have watched close by, directing traffic away from major highways, and National Guard troops stood in front of major city markers, including Bank of America Stadium, the home of the Carolina Panthers.
Unlike the early days of protests, when demonstrators broke windows and police arrested dozens of people, marches over the past several evenings have remained relatively calm. Several local clergy members, who wore yellow ribbons on their arms to distinguish themselves, say that after the initial violence, they are focused on defusing any potential conflicts.
“It’s not enough for me to be in the pulpit,” said Byron Davis, leader of Liberation Ministries in Charlotte. “We’re here where Jesus would be.”
On Saturday, hundreds of protesters emerged again, this time chanting “release the full tapes.”
Instead of satisfying protesters’ questions about the incident, the limited video release generated new suspicions among some. "I feel like they cut out the parts that were most important," said Erin Richards, 25. "I feel like they didn't show anything. They cut out the stuff that mattered. You can't see the shooter, you can't see a gun. You can't see anything."
“I’m out here because I have three sons who I do not want to have become a hashtag,” said Verdetta Turner, 40, of Charlotte.
Her oldest son, Justus Jenkins, 15, followed not far behind his mother, carrying a sign that declared: “My humanity should not be up for debate. I don’t wanna be a hashtag.”
“I’m out here to stand with the cause and make a difference,” Justus said. “It’s more than a police problem. I think that it’s a racism problem, it’s a stereotype problem of police fearing black people. . . . They see us and they fear us.”
By 1:45 am the crowd had shrunk to about 50 people who continued to march through the streets and chant peacefully. Police continue to follow at a distance.
Ann Gerhart in Washington and Sarah Larimer in Charlotte contributed to this report. ||||| Video footage released Saturday shows Keith Lamont Scott taking four steps slowly backward with his arms at his sides when he is hit in a burst of four gunshots from police, then crumples to the pavement.
From neither vantage point – a police dashboard camera and a body camera worn by one of the officers on the scene – can it be determined whether Scott is holding a gun.
But police can be heard repeatedly shouting “Drop the gun!” at the 43-year-old Scott, who died from his wounds Tuesday as his wife stood nearby.
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SHARE COPY LINK WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department released body and dash-cam videos of the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott on Saturday after days of mounting public pressure. In a press conference, Chief Kerr Putney
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney released the videos Saturday after a tumultuous week of protests and two nights of street violence spurred by the shooting.
In the dashboard video, a police SUV can be seen pulling into the parking lot where Scott’s white SUV is parked. An officer in a red shirt is visible pointing his weapon at Scott’s vehicle, whose tinted windows are up.
In a deadly tableau lasting about three seconds, Scott, surrounded by officers at varying distances, then opens his door, steps out, turns and walks backward, hands at his side. Four shots are heard and he falls.
In neither video is the resolution good enough to show whether Scott was holding a weapon. Nor does either show the officer firing at him.
A body cam on another officer at the scene shows Scott emerging from the SUV, then lying in the parking lot seconds later. Police handcuff him while Scott’s wife can be heard yelling at police, “He better be alive!”
Marijuana keyed action
On Saturday, Putney said that Scott drew the attention of officers who were trying to serve an arrest warrant on an unrelated suspect at the Village at College Downs apartment complex in University City because they saw him rolling marijuana in his vehicle.
Police were going to let it go and continue on their original mission until an officer spotted a weapon in the vehicle, Putney said.
“It was not lawful for him to possess a firearm,” Putney said. “There was a crime he committed and the gun exacerbated the situation.”
Officer Brentley Vinson, who Putney said fired four shots at Scott, was not wearing a body cam, so his visual perspective was not part of the footage. Putney said that body cameras are being rolled out across the department and not all tactical officers have them yet.
Putney said the footage supports the larger weight of evidence in the case, which includes accounts from officers at the scene, forensics and interviews with witnesses.
He said he has found nothing to indicate that Vinson acted inappropriately, given the totality of the circumstances, and he does not think his officers broke the law that day.
They were, he said, reacting to what appeared to be an imminent threat.
“At every encounter, people can make a decision to follow lawful, loud verbal commands and avert some things like this,” he said.
SHARE COPY LINK Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney speaks to the media before releasing footage of a police shooting.
Details of encounter
Police on Saturday gave this account of the fatal encounter:
Two officers in plain clothes were in an unmarked car waiting to serve a warrant when Scott’s white SUV pulled in beside them.
They saw Scott roll what they believed to be “a marijuana ‘blunt.’ ” They returned to watching for their suspect, then Vinson saw Scott hold up a gun.
They withdrew to a spot nearby and put on duty vests that said “Police” that would identify them as officers.
When they came back, Scott still had the gun. They identified themselves as police officers, the department said, and told him loudly and repeatedly to drop the weapon. Scott did not comply.
Then a uniformed officer in a marked SUV drove up to assist, and an officer started pounding on the front passenger window.
Scott then got out with the gun and backed away from the vehicle, police said, but did not drop the weapon.
“Officer Vinson perceived Mr. Scott’s actions and movements as an imminent physical threat to himself and the other officers,” police said in a statement. “Officer Vinson fired his issued service weapon, striking Mr. Scott. Officers immediately rendered first aid and requested Medic to respond to the scene.”
Police said multiple witnesses interviewed by homicide detectives heard the police shouting at Scott to drop the gun.
Scott’s DNA and his fingerprints were found on the loaded gun recovered at the scene. Scott was wearing an ankle holster, police said.
Family response
Family members of Scott said they still have more questions than answers.
“It does not make sense to us how this incident led to loss of life,” said Scott’s brother-in-law, Ray Dotch, who spoke at a press conference called by the Scott family after the videos were released. “He was an American citizen and he deserved better.”
Lawyers for the Scott family said the videos do not clearly identify what, if anything, Scott had in his hands. CMPD said he was holding a handgun, but the family believes he was unarmed, the lawyers said.
When CMPD released the videos Saturday night, they also released photos of a handgun, ankle holster and marijuana blunt they said were in Scott’s possession at the time of the incident. The gun was loaded, they said.
Debate over release
Widespread calls were heard during the week for release of the police video footage from civic and political quarters – and even street protesters who chanted “Release the tapes!” repeatedly outside CMPD headquarters and in marches.
On Friday, attorneys for Scott’s family released a dramatic cellphone video taken by Rakeyia Scott during her husband’s shooting.
In it, she can be heard pleading with officers not to shoot as they shouted at Scott to drop his gun.
Putney said the appearance of that footage had no impact on his decision to release the police videos.
He said he decided to release the videos in the interest of transparency and because the State Bureau of Investigation, which is leading the inquiry in the case, had completed key interviews with witnesses and assured him the release would not harm the integrity of their probe.
“Doing so before this would have had a negative impact on the investigation,” he said.
In the aftermath of Scott’s death, Charlotte was roiled by several nights of protests. After street violence on Tuesday and Wednesday night, dozens of arrests and the death of one man in uptown, Gov. Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency.
Hundreds of National Guard and State Highway Patrol officers were sent into the city to restore calm and a midnight-to-6 a.m. curfew was announced.
McCrory, who recently signed a law, going into effect Oct. 1, that sets new limits on public access to police videos, said he agreed with Putney’s decision to release the tapes.
“We have appreciated the ongoing dialogue and teamwork between state and city officials,” McCrory said, “to seek public transparency while protecting the integrity of the investigation and the rights of all parties involved in this case.”
‘A way forward’
U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, D-N.C., whose district includes parts of Charlotte, said she hoped the release would lead to healing dialogue.
“We all deserve the truth, justice and a way forward so that we can heal and become an example of a city that emerges stronger and safer because we choose to address our problems,” she said, “even after all the television cameras have gone.”
Police had shown Scott’s family two videos Thursday. Through their attorneys, the family requested they be immediately released to the public.
Justin Bamberg, one of the family’s lawyers, said after viewing the police tapes that he felt Scott’s demeanor was calm and non-aggressive.
Another video that appeared to have been taken by a resident of the apartment complex shooting from a balcony surfaced on social media on Friday. It showed police moving around Scott’s body.
Also at issue is a photograph that circulated this week on social media, and was shared by CMPD. It showed a dark shape near Scott’s feet. Some have said the shape is a weapon. That shape is not apparent in Rakeyia Scott’s video.
Neither police video shows any weapons on the ground, but they were not well positioned to cover the entire scene.
Teddy Kulmala of the Rock Hill Herald and Anna Douglas of the McClatchy Washington Bureau contributed. | – In a reversal of course, police in Charlotte on Saturday released bodycam and dashcam footage from the fatal shooting of Keith Scott. (See it here via the Washington Post.) In addition to the video, police also released a photo of the gun they say was spotted in Scott's vehicle. Some early descriptions: Charlotte Observer: The videos "do not show Keith Lamont Scott raising a weapon toward officers nor a gun in his hand." NBC News: "The dashcam video released shows Scott come out of a white SUV while police stand behind another vehicle with their weapons raised and command him to drop the gun. Scott eventually emerges from the SUV slowly and backs away. As he is backing up, four shots can be heard, and Scott can be seen falling to the ground." AP: "Scott can be seen in police dashboard camera video backing away from his SUV with his hands down, and it's unclear if there's anything in the man's hands. Four shots are heard, and he falls to the ground." ABC News: "The actual shooting is neither seen nor heard in the body cam footage.Officer Brentley Vinson, identified by police as the officer who shot Scott, cannot be seen firing his weapon in either video." Rakeyia Scott released her own video of her husband's shooting Friday. |
* Fungus-infected tree saved from felling in 2007
* Tree misses Anne Frank House, no injuries reported
* Pieces of the tree offered for sale on Internet
(Adds support group comments)
By Aaron Gray-Block
AMSTERDAM, Aug 23 (Reuters) - A giant chestnut tree that comforted Dutch diarist Anne Frank as she hid from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic during World War Two collapsed in heavy wind and rain on Monday.
No one was hurt and the 150-year old tree fell across a fence, missing the Anne Frank House, which has been turned into a museum and was full of tourists.
"It broke off like a match. It broke off completely about one metre off the ground," a spokesman for the house said.
The tree was one of the few signs of nature visible to the Jewish teenager from the concealed attic she hid in for over two years during World War Two and it is mentioned in the diary which became a worldwide best-seller after her death in a concentration camp in 1945.
"Our chestnut tree is in full blossom. It is covered with leaves and is even more beautiful than last year," she wrote in May 1944, not long before she was betrayed to the Nazis.
The tree had developed fungus and was set to be felled in 2007 due to concerns for the safety of the 1 million people who visit Anne Frank’s house each year.
But officials and conservationists later agreed to secure it with a steel frame to prolong its life and saplings from the tree were planted last year in an Amsterdam park and other cities around the world.
A Dutch tree foundation, which fought to keep the tree alive with another support group, said horticulturalists had estimated the tree could still have lived for dozens of years.
Arnold Heertje, a member of the Support Anne Frank Tree group said there were no plans to plant a sapling on the site or preserve the tree’s remains.
"You have to bow your head to the facts. The tree has fallen and will be cut into pieces and disappear. The intention was not to keep this tree alive forever. It has lived for 150 years and now it’s over and we’re not going to extend it," he said.
Parts of the tree, located on a residential property adjacent to the Anne Frank House, were later being offered for sale on Dutch auction website marktplaats.nl. The highest offer was 10 million euros ($12.72 million). (Additional reporting by Ben Berkowitz; editing by Noah Barkin and Nina Chestney)
||||| FILE - In this Nov. 14, 2007 file photo a view on the chestnut tree is seen which comforted Anne Frank while she hid from the Nazis during World War II, and the attic window in the secret annex at the... (Associated Press)
The monumental chestnut tree that cheered Anne Frank while she was in hiding from the Nazis was toppled by wind and heavy rain on Monday.
The once mighty tree, now diseased and rotted through the trunk, snapped about 3 feet (1 meter) above ground and crashed across several gardens. It damaged a brick wall and several sheds, but nearby buildings _ including the Anne Frank House museum _ escaped unscathed. No one was injured, a museum spokeswoman said.
"Someone yelled, 'It's falling. The tree is falling,' and then you heard it go down," said museum spokeswoman Maatje Mostart. "Luckily no one was hurt."
A global campaign to save the chestnut, widely known as The Anne Frank Tree, was launched in 2007 after city officials deemed it a safety hazard and ordered it felled. The tree was granted a last-minute reprieve after a battle in court.
The 150-year-old tree suffered from fungus and moths that had caused more than half its trunk to rot.
Two years ago city workmen encased the trunk in a steel support system to prevent it from falling, but that failed under windy weather Monday.
The Netherlands' Trees Institute, one of the most prominent supporters of the preservation project, said it was "unpleasantly surprised" by the news of the tree's fall early Monday afternoon.
"On the advice of experts in tree care, it had been calculated that the tree could live several more decades" with the support structure, the institute said in a statement.
"Alas, in the event it seems that nature is stronger."
The institute said it didn't know why the support structure had failed.
Many clones of the tree have been taken, including 11 planted at sites around the United States and 150 at a park in Amsterdam. It is not clear whether a new tree will replace the original one on the same spot, since it rests on property belonging to a neighbor.
The Jewish teenager made several references to the tree in the diary that she kept during the 25 months she remained indoors until her family was arrested in August 1944.
"Nearly every morning I go to the attic to blow the stuffy air out of my lungs," she wrote on Feb. 23, 1944. "From my favorite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind."
She also wrote: "As long as this exists, ... and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies _ while this lasts I cannot be unhappy."
Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945. Her diary was recovered and published after her death. It has become the most widely read document to emerge from the Holocaust. | – A tree beloved by Anne Frank is gone, toppled by a storm today in Amsterdam. The chestnut tree stood outside the window of the attic where Frank hid, and she often wrote about it in her diaries. In the years since her death, the 150-year-old “Anne Frank Tree” became rotted and diseased; city officials ordered it felled, but a 2007 campaign managed to save it. Its trunk was encased in a steep support system, but even that failed to protect it from today’s strong winds, the AP reports. No one was hurt, and the nearby Anne Frank House museum was unharmed. The tree lives on through more than 160 clones planted in Amsterdam and the US. “From my favorite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind,” Frank wrote in 1944. Pieces of the tree are now for sale on a Dutch auction site, Reuters adds. |
MANILA — The International Criminal Court said on Thursday that it was opening a preliminary investigation into accusations that President Rodrigo Duterte and other Philippine officials had committed crimes against humanity in the course of the government’s deadly crackdown on drugs.
Fatou Bensouda, a prosecutor for the international court, said in a statement that the inquiry would gauge whether there was enough evidence to build a case. She said she would be looking at events since July 1, 2016, “in the context of the ‘war on drugs’ campaign.”
“My office undertakes this work with full independence and impartiality,” Ms. Bensouda said. “As we do, we hope to count on the full engagement of the relevant national authorities in the Philippines.”
Harry Roque, a spokesman for the Philippine president, said that the government’s crackdown was a “legitimate police operation” and that the president welcomed The Hague-based tribunal’s decision. ||||| The international criminal court has launched an initial inquiry into allegations of crimes against humanity committed by Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine president, in his brutal anti-drugs crusade.
A report submitted to the ICC last year laid out evidence that Duterte had been directly responsible for “extrajudicial executions and mass murder” over three decades since he began his war on drugs as mayor of Davao in 1988.
Thousands dead: the Philippine president, the death squad allegations and a brutal drugs war Read more
According to official statistics, 4,000 people have been killed by the police in anti-drug operations since Duterte became president. However, the 77-page report submitted by a Philippine lawyer, Jude Sabio, alleged the death toll was over 8,000.
The ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement that her office would “analyse crimes allegedly committed … since at least 1 July 2016 in the context of the ‘war on drugs’ campaign”. The inquiry will be the ICC’s first preliminary examination in a south-east Asian nation.
Gary Alejano, an opposition politician who tried to get Duterte impeached last year and submitted evidence to the ICC as part of the complaint, said the move was an affirmation that the claims against Duterte had legitimacy, and it offered “a ray of hope for the victims of his war on drugs, which is still ongoing right now”.
He said: “In this country, people are at a loss where to go if members of your family feel victim to the war on drugs. They cannot go to police because they are involved, they cannot go to the department of justice because the secretary will say there’s no such thing as extrajudicial killing. And when we request an investigation from the House of Representatives, we can not get an impartial hearing because they are covering up for the president. There is a clear and blatant violation of the rule of law in the Philippines right now, and so the ICC are the only ones who can step in.”
Alejano said he believed they had a “strong case, if we are given the opportunity to be heard.”
Duterte’s spokesperson, Harry Roque, described the inquiry as a “waste of the court’s time and resources,” stressing that many of the allegations predated the Philippines signing up to the ICC in 2011, and therefore could not be considered. However, Bensouda specifically referenced killings since 1 July 2016 in her statement.
Roque said continuing with the investigation would undermine the sovereignty of the Philippines “because the domestic courts are functioning and willing to entertain this matter … and the alleged deaths, if true, were because of a legitimate police exercise.”
He alleged that “domestic enemies” were behind the complaint and said Duterte was prepared to go on trial and defend his actions, though he said he was confident the ICC would not proceed. “He’s sick and tried of being accused. He wants to be in court and put the prosecutor on the stand,” Roque said.
Since securing a landslide victory in the 2016 elections on a pledge to kill tens of thousands of criminals and eradicate drugs in Philippine society, Duterte has authorised police to violently crack down on illegal drug use, urging them to kill suspects and promising to protect them from prosecution. His abrasive tongue and brutal methods have kept him popular in the Philippines, where he enjoys high approval ratings and legislative support.
He maintains that the thousands who died were suspects who resisted arrest, but human rights groups and political opponents allege that many murders have been carried out and covered up.
When he was mayor of Davao, Duterte’s crackdown on criminals was often carried out by vigilante groups, known as death squads, allegedly with his approval. The thousands of deaths in Davao were part of the complaint filed to the ICC.
Duterte’s war on drugs leaves tragic legacy for Filipino families – in pictures Read more
Duterte is notorious for his dislike of the ICC, calling it “bullshit”, “hypocritical” and “useless”, and he has threatened to withdraw his country’s membership multiple times, even daring the court to bring him to trial.
Human Rights Watch, which has been calling for an independent international investigation into Duterte’s war on drugs, welcomed the ICC’s move. Phil Robertson, a deputy director in its Asia division, said the ICC “absolutely should initiate a full investigation into these alleged crimes because to date there has been no serious attempt to investigate them by the Philippines police or prosecutors, much less take suspected killers to court”.
The ICC defines crimes against humanity as “serious violations committed as part of a large-scale attack against any civilian population”. Since it was established in 2002, the court in The Hague has received more than 12,000 complaints or communications, and nine cases have gone to trial. | – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte welcomes a preliminary investigation into allegations of crimes against humanity now underway by the International Criminal Court, a spokesman said Thursday, marking an about-face for a man who once described the ICC as "bulls---." Duterte is "sick and tired of being accused" and is prepared to defend himself in court, though the investigation is "a waste of the court's time and resources," spokesman Harry Roque said in announcing the inquiry that is to decide whether there's evidence to build a case, report the New York Times and Guardian. Roque maintained the government crackdown that's left an estimated 12,000 people dead under Duterte's leadership—though police put the number at 4,000—is a "legitimate police operation" to weed out drugs. Duterte swore to "kill" criminals when he took office in June 2016. He has since faced accusations of mass murder while keeping up a "great relationship" with President Trump. It's those allegations that launched the ICC probe, confirmed by a prosecutor, per the Guardian. In a complaint sent to the ICC last April, a Filipino lawyer representing two men who say they were assassins for Duterte called him a "mastermind" of killings spanning the three decades since he became mayor of Davao in 1988. "Hopefully a warrant of arrest will be issued by the ICC against Duterte and his cohorts," 11 of whom are named in the complaint, the lawyer said, per the Times. Arguing the government is attempting a cover-up, Duterte political opponent Gary Alejano says ICC officials "are the only ones who can step in." |
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A bullfighter and a man participating in a village bull-run were killed in Spain on Saturday, while another two men were gored by the animals at the world-famous festival in the town of Pamplona.
Spanish bullfighter Victor Barrio, 29, is carried out from the bullring. ANTONIO GARCIA / EPA
Victor Barrio, a 29-year-old professional bullfighter, was killed when a bull's horn pierced his chest in front of spectators as he competed in a fight in the town of Teruel in the eastern region of Aragon.
His death, shown live on television, was confirmed on the website of Madrid's Las Ventas bullring, where Barrio began as an apprentice bullfighter in 2010. He is the first Spanish bullfighter to die in a ring since the turn of the century.
Related: Bullfighter Dives Over Charging Bull in Spain
In the southeastern village of Pedreguer near Valencia, a 28-year-old Spaniard was killed during a bull-run, in which people risk life and limb by racing alongside specially-bred fighting bulls through narrow streets.
A bull's horn pierced his lung and heart as he was trying to help another runner during the event, a spokesman for the regional government said.
Buen tentadero en la plaza toros de #Peralta con vacas de Jose Antonio Baigorri #SeguimosAvanzando #MañanaMasYMejor pic.twitter.com/ltKPBkGJj0 — Víctor Barrio (@BarrioVictor) December 26, 2015
Many of Spain's towns hold summer festivals involving bulls, and several people die each year.
The San Fermin festival, in which bulls chase red-scarved runners through Pamplona's cobbled streets during nine days of events, attracts thousands of revellers from Spain and overseas.
In Saturday's run there, a 33-year-old Japanese man was gored in the chest and a 24-year-old Spanish man in the arm, while 12 others suffered minor injuries, the local government said on its website. ||||| FILE - In this May 16, 2011 file photo, Spanish bullfighter Victor Barrio performs during a bullfight of the San Isidro's fair at the Las Ventas Bullring in Madrid. The matador has been fatally gored... (Associated Press)
MADRID (AP) — A bullfighter was fatally gored in Spain in an eastern town — the first professional matador to be killed in the ring in more than three decades.
Victor Barrio, 29, was pronounced dead late Saturday by a surgeon at the Teruel bullring. Barrio was first gored in the thigh by the 1,166-pound (530-kilogram) bull's left horn and his body was flipped over.
He was gored a second time in the chest and the blow penetrated a lung and his aorta as the matador was on the ground.
Medics were at his side almost immediately, but attempts to save his life were unsuccessful. The goring of Barrio was broadcast live on television and news of his death stirred widespread reaction ranging from the bullfighting community to well-known politicians.
"My condolences to the family and colleagues of Victor Barrio, the deceased bullfighter this evening in Teruel. Rest in Peace," Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy tweeted.
Prominent bullfighter Enrique Ponce said he was "deeply saddened by the death of my colleague in the ring. Let God embrace him in all his glory. Great matador."
Participants at the famed running of the bulls at the San Fermin festivities in Pamplona wore improvised black armbands in honor of the fallen matador while dashing along the streets on the way to the bullring on Sunday morning.
Festivities in Teruel were immediately suspended following Barrio's death, and Las Ventas, the Madrid bullring were he debuted back in 2010, posted a heartfelt remembrance of the young bullfighter.
He was the first professional matador to die during a bullfight in Spain since 21-year-old Frenchman Jose Cubero Yiyo was fatally gored in 1985 in Madrid.
Before Barrio's death, Manolo Montoliu, then 38, and Ramon Soto Vargas, 39, were also fatally gored in 1992 in Seville while serving as "banderilleros," matador's assistants. | – A Spanish bullfighter was gored to death Saturday on live television in a horror not seen in the ring in more than three decades, reports the AP. Victor Barrio, 29, was pronounced dead late Saturday by a surgeon at the Teruel bullring. Barrio was first gored in the thigh by the 1,166-pound bull's left horn and his body was flipped over. He was gored a second time in the chest and the blow penetrated a lung and his aorta as the matador was on the ground. Medics were at his side almost immediately, but attempts to save his life were unsuccessful. The goring of Barrio was broadcast live on television and news of his death stirred widespread reaction ranging from the bullfighting community to well-known politicians. "My condolences to the family and colleagues of Victor Barrio, the deceased bullfighter this evening in Teruel. Rest in Peace," Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy tweeted. Prominent bullfighter Enrique Ponce said he was "deeply saddened by the death of my colleague in the ring. Let God embrace him in all his glory. Great matador." Participants at the famed running of the bulls at the San Fermin festivities in Pamplona—which also suffered two non-fatal gorings on Saturday, reports NBC News—wore improvised black armbands in honor of the fallen matador while dashing along the streets on the way to the bullring Sunday morning. Festivities in Teruel were immediately suspended following Barrio's death, and Las Ventas, the Madrid bullring were he debuted in 2010, posted a heartfelt remembrance of the young bullfighter. He was the first professional matador to die during a bullfight in Spain since 21-year-old Frenchman Jose Cubero Yiyo was fatally gored in 1985 in Madrid. |
BEIJING/TAIPEI (Reuters) - The United States should not allow a delegation from Taiwan to attend U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, raising a new bone of contention in Beijing’s relations with the incoming government.
A demonstrator holds flags of Taiwan and the United States in support of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen during an stop-over after her visit to Latin America in Burlingame, California, U.S., January 14, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam - RTSVJRJ
Trump broke with decades of precedent last month by taking a congratulatory telephone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, and he has also said the “One China” policy was up for negotiation, a position Beijing strongly rejected.
A Taiwan delegation, led by former premier and ex-ruling party leader Yu Shyi-kun, and including a Taiwan national security adviser and some lawmakers, will attend Friday’s inauguration, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said this week.
It is typical for Taiwan to send a delegation to U.S. presidential inaugurations.
A spokesman for Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s office said no meetings were scheduled with the new Trump administration while the delegation was there for the event.
China considers Taiwan a breakaway province, with no right to have any kind of diplomatic relations with other countries.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China was opposed to Taiwan using any excuse to send people to the United States to “engage in activities to interfere in or damage China-U.S. ties”.
“We again urge the relevant side in the United States not to allow the Taiwan authority to send a so-called delegation to the United States to attend the presidential inauguration and not have any form of official contact with Taiwan,” Hua told a regular news briefing.
“China’s position has already accurately and unmistakably been given to the U.S. administration and Trump’s team.”
China’s ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, will attend the inauguration on its behalf, she added.
Defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communists.
China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, and proudly democratic Taiwan has shown no interest in wanting to be run by Beijing.
China is deeply suspicious of Taiwan’s Tsai, whom it suspects of wanting to push for the island’s formal independence, a red line for China.
Tsai, who visited the U.S. this month while traveling to and from Central America, says she wants to maintain peace with China.
The administration of President Barack Obama has repeatedly reinforced the U.S. commitment to the “one China” policy, under which Washington acknowledges China’s position of sovereignty over Taiwan, since Trump’s call with the Taiwanese leader.
Trump is to be sworn into office on Friday. ||||| BEIJING (AP) — China on Wednesday called on the U.S. to bar a Taiwanese delegation from attending Donald Trump's inauguration on Friday, underscoring concerns that the incoming president could seek to redefine relations between Beijing, Taipei and Washington.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the request had been passed to Trump's transition team and to the current administration of Barack Obama.
"We urge the U.S. side once again not to allow the Taiwan administration to send the so-called delegation to attend the inauguration and to avoid any forms of official exchange with Taiwan," Hua said at a daily briefing.
China firmly opposes "anyone from the Taiwan administration engaged in activities that interfere or undermine the China-U.S. relationship in the U.S. under any pretext," she said.
Delegation leader and former Premier Yu Shyi-kun departed for Washington on Monday together with politicians from both Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the opposition Nationalists.
Along with attending the inauguration, the delegates plan to hold talks with politicians, academics and overseas Chinese community representatives.
Trump angered Beijing and upset decades of diplomatic precedent by talking by phone with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen shortly after winning November's presidential election.
Last week, he said in a newspaper interview that Washington's "one China policy" under which it recognized Beijing in 1979 was open to negotiation, and earlier questioned why the U.S. should be bound by such an approach without China offering incentives.
The U.S. has no formal relations with Taipei in deference to China, which claims the island as its own. However, the two maintain robust informal ties, while Washington sells Taiwan arms and is legally bound to regard any threat to the island as a matter of grave concern.
Tensions across the Taiwan Strait have risen since Tsai's election last year, with Beijing cutting off contacts and working to deepen Taiwan's diplomatic isolation. | – A tense political triangle just got even stickier in advance of Donald Trump's inauguration. China's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday the US shouldn't allow a Taiwanese delegation to attend Friday's ceremony, Reuters reports. This request was passed to both the Trump transition team and to President Obama's people, a Foreign Ministry rep said, per the AP. Taiwan's own Foreign Ministry announced earlier this week that, as per usual protocol during US presidential inaugurations, it would be sending a delegation, including ex-Premier Yu Shyi-kun, a national security adviser, and a sprinkling of legislators. China hasn't been happy with the incoming administration since Trump spoke on the phone with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in early December. A Tsai rep tells Reuters no delegation members are scheduled to meet in any official capacity with members of the Trump administration during their trip. |
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — The key to a healthy heart?
Optimism.
As 1010 WINS’ Kevin Rincon reported, a study conducted by several universities published in the journal Health, Behavior and Policy Review found that happier people had better heart health by a ratio of 2-to-1.
Study: Optimistic People Twice As Likely To Have Healthy Hearts Kevin Rincon reports playpause
“It’s incentive to try to be optimistic, which is oftentimes difficult in the times we live in, in the world we live in and the sad news all the time,” one physician told Rincon. “But if you knew that you could actually save your life, I think that’s a pretty good prescription.”
The results of the study didn’t change for people who are rich, poor, young, old or even if they had poor mental health.
“Happier people, they live longer. They feel more fulfilled,” one New York man said. “And people that are sad, they don’t live as long.”
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THE FACTS
Laughter may not exactly be the best medicine. But a cheerful outlook on life may be good for your heart. So concludes new research on the impact of happiness and optimism on cardiovascular health.
Scientists have known about the reverse relationship between psychological health and heart health for some time; studies show that depression and anxiety can worsen outcomes for heart patients. But the findings on happiness and its medical impact over the years have not been as consistent.
Really? Anahad O’Connor tackles health myths.
In a new analysis, researchers at Harvard sought a more definitive conclusion by reviewing the results of more than 200 studies looking at cardiovascular risks and emotional state, making this the largest report on the subject to date. Over all, the researchers found that traits like optimism and hope, and higher levels of happiness and satisfaction with one’s life, were linked with reductions in the risk of heart disease and stroke.
Such associations can be hard to untangle. Does being optimistic directly protect health, or is it the reverse — that people who watch their weight, exercise often and are generally in good health simply have more reason to be happy and optimistic? While researchers cannot say for sure, some studies have found a protective effect for optimism even after controlling for things like socioeconomic status, body weight and smoking.
One study last year, for example, looked at 8,000 people and found a lower risk of heart disease among those who reported more happiness or satisfaction in areas like career, sex life and family, but not in areas like romance and standard of living. The relationship remained after accounting for the subjects’ demographic data as well as their health behaviors.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Optimism and happiness are associated with lower cardiovascular risk, but whether a positive outlook directly protects health is still under investigation.
ANAHAD O’CONNOR
scitimes@nytimes.com ||||| Optimists are twice as likely to be in ideal cardiovascular health
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- People who have upbeat outlooks on life have significantly better cardiovascular health, suggests a new study that examined associations between optimism and heart health in more than 5,100 adults.
"Individuals with the highest levels of optimism have twice the odds of being in ideal cardiovascular health compared to their more pessimistic counterparts," said lead author Rosalba Hernandez, a professor of social work at the University of Illinois. "This association remains significant, even after adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics and poor mental health."
Participants' cardiovascular health was assessed using seven metrics: blood pressure, body mass index, fasting plasma glucose and serum cholesterol levels, dietary intake, physical activity and tobacco use - the same metrics used by the American Heart Association to define heart health and being targeted by the AHA in its Life's Simple 7 public awareness campaign.
In accordance with AHA's heart-health criteria, the researchers allocated 0, 1 or 2 points - representing poor, intermediate and ideal scores, respectively - to participants on each of the seven health metrics, which were then summed to arrive at a total cardiovascular health score. Participants' total health scores ranged from 0 to 14, with a higher total score indicative of better health.
The participants, who ranged in age from 45-84, also completed surveys that assessed their mental health, levels of optimism, and physical health, based upon self-reported extant medical diagnoses of arthritis, liver and kidney disease.
Individuals' total health scores increased in tandem with their levels of optimism. People who were the most optimistic were 50 and 76 percent more likely to have total health scores in the intermediate or ideal ranges, respectively.
The association between optimism and cardiovascular health was even stronger when socio-demographic characteristics such as age, race and ethnicity, income and education status were factored in. People who were the most optimistic were twice as likely to have ideal cardiovascular health, and 55 percent more likely to have a total health score in the intermediate range, the researchers found.
Optimists had significantly better blood sugar and total cholesterol levels than their counterparts. They also were more physically active, had healthier body mass indexes and were less likely to smoke, according to a paper on the research that appears in the January/February 2015 issue of Health Behavior and Policy Review.
The findings may be of clinical significance, given that a 2013 study indicated that a one-point increase in an individual's total-health score on the LS7 was associated with an 8 percent reduction in their risk of stroke, Hernandez said.
"At the population level, even this moderate difference in cardiovascular health translates into a significant reduction in death rates," Hernandez said. "This evidence, which is hypothesized to occur through a biobehavioral mechanism, suggests that prevention strategies that target modification of psychological well-being - e.g., optimism - may be a potential avenue for AHA to reach its goal of improving Americans' cardiovascular health by 20 percent before 2020."
Believed to be the first study to examine the association of optimism and cardiovascular health in a large, ethnically and racially diverse population, the sample for the current study was 38 percent white, 28 percent African-American, 22 percent Hispanic/Latino and 12 percent Chinese.
Data for the study were derived from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, an ongoing examination of subclinical cardiovascular disease that includes 6,000 people from six U.S. regions, including Baltimore, Chicago, Forsyth County in North Carolina, and Los Angeles County.
Begun in July 2000, MESA followed participants for 11 years, collecting data every 18 months to two years. Hernandez, who is an affiliated investigator on MESA, is leading a team in conducting prospective analyses on the associations found between optimism and heart health.
"We now have available data to examine optimism at baseline and cardiovascular health a decade later," said Hernandez, who expects to have an abstract completed in 2015.
###
Co-authors of the current study were Kiarri N. Kershaw of Northwestern University; Juned Siddique, Honghan Ning and Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, all of Northwestern University; Julia K. Boehm of Chapman University; Laura D. Kubzansky of Harvard University; and Ana Diez-Roux of Drexel University.
The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the National Center for Research Resources funded the research. | – Feeling gloomy about life, the universe, and everything? Then take note of a new study that links optimism to heart health and a handful of other health positives, EurekAlert reports. Analyzing data on more than 5,100 adults, researchers found that the most optimistic are twice as likely to be "in ideal cardiovascular health compared to their more pessimistic counterparts," says lead author Rosalba Hernandez. "This association remains significant, even after adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics and poor mental health." Optimists were found to have better total cholesterol levels, blood sugar levels, and body-mass indexes, and to get more physical activity. "It's an incentive to try to be optimistic," CBS New York quotes a physician as saying. That's "oftentimes difficult in the times we live in, in the world we live in and the sad news all the time," the physician goes on. "But if you knew that you could actually save your life, I think that’s a pretty good prescription." Published in Health Behavior and Policy Review, the paper looks at 11 years of data on people aged 45 to 84 across six US regions. They were assessed every 18 months to two years by seven health metrics (including blood pressure, BMI, and dietary intake) and filled out surveys about their optimism and physical and mental health. It's likely the first study linking heart health and optimism in the general population, although a 2012 Harvard study did connect overall happiness with cardiovascular health, the New York Times reported at the time. (Another study finds that those who feel younger than their age will live longer.) |
RYAN SEACREST He's Not Sayin' No To Hosting 'Idol'
EXCLUSIVE
Ryan Seacrest sounds like he's game for round two of "American Idol."
TMZ broke the story..."Idol" is coming back in March, 2018 on ABC. We got Ryan and GF Shayna in NYC Saturday night and he certainly didn't shut down the possibility of hosting the show again.
As we reported ... the new gig has almost super-human strings attached, requiring him to fly coast to coast twice in two days in the middle of the night each week to pull it off. Ryan seems to think he's up to the task... with an L.A. Fitness membership.
BTW... we got him going in to Le Bernardin restaurant in NYC. It's super expensive, so we're guessing he's banking on "A.I." money to pay the check. ||||| CLOSE The long-running music competition series "American Idol" is coming back for the 2017-2018 season on ABC instead of FOX. USA TODAY
Original 'American Idol' judges Randy Jackson, left, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell returned for the series finale in 2016. Fox says it's "too soon" for a return, though ABC will give it one. (Photo: Matt Sayles, AP)
This ... is American Idol, on a new network.
The singing competition, which set ratings records over a storied 15-year run on Fox but was canceled last spring, is being resurrected on ABC.
The Disney-owned network confirmed the news early Tuesday, providing no details about judges, a host, timing or the duration of the series, though it's been speculated that a shortened season will begin next spring on Sunday nights. The show's previous seasons, about 20 weeks each, stretched from mid-January to mid-May.
TMZ first reported Idol producers FremantleMedia and 19 Entertainment's talks with ABC after earlier discussions with NBC ended.
As for who might be back?
TMZ says Ryan Seacrest, who joined the Disney family only last week as the new co-host of Live with Kelly!, "seems interested" in returning as host, though Seacrest Monday played coy on Live!, saying, "I don't know if I can host it."
If the show remains in Los Angeles, as expected, Seacrest would have to jet back and forth each week during live Idol episodes. But Live!'s previous co-host, Michael Strahan, did the same thing each week during NFL season, when he moonlighted as a host of Fox NFL Sunday in Los Angeles, though the weekend gig didn't pose as direct a conflict.
Simon Cowell, the judge who vaulted the show to fame, is now executive producer and a judge on NBC's America's Got Talent. NBC is also the new network home of fellow judge Jennifer Lopez, who has a major deal to produce and star in a new reality-competition series, World of Dance (premiering May 30) in addition to her current detective drama Shades of Blue.
Idol was the top-rated show for eight seasons of its run, peaking in its fifth with an average of more than 30 million viewers (and 36 million for its May performance finale). But by the end of its run, Idol drew only about one-third of that audience, even as the show's expenses — some judges were paid $15 million a season — skyrocketed. Fox announced a planned final season in 2015, and the show ended its run only last May, after NBC's The Voice had eclipsed it.
While ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey, in a statement, called Idol "a pop-culture staple that left the air too soon," former executive producer Nigel Lythgoe expressed skepticism about the speedy return, telling Variety, "it feels a little too soon to bring it back." But ABC has been struggling on Sundays with dramas, ranks fourth among the major networks and with no NFL contract, can sorely use another reality hit. And all of the networks have struggled in recent attempts to launch new unscripted hits; NBC's Little Big Shots,which started strongly, already has faded in its second season.
Although ABC found success adapting two other British reality hits, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Dancing with the Stars, it has failed in several attempts to clone Idol. Among the notorious bombs were The One: Making a Music Star, a costly summer series that opened with 3 million viewers and was canceled after two weeks in 2006; and Rising Star,which aired in 2014 and featured contestants singing behind partitions. But Idol has a built-in (if faded) fan base, and the reboot will likely be heavily promoted during ABC's Oscar telecast, typically the highest-rated entertainment program each year. Except for that time Idol beat it.
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2pZOIk5 ||||| GIF Image via Fox/GIPHY.
That strange rash on your elbow that miraculously went away but then resurfaces. A baby on the train that stops crying for five seconds, then starts up again, LOUDER. A Black Eyed Peas reunion album. American Idol.
In mystifying news, the singing competition that won’t stop picking at its scab will return on ABC following a bidding war between networks, which included NBC and the show’s former home Fox.
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When Idol was officially cancelled, it seemed like the perfect time to let the series go gentle into that good night after 15 seasons. Not only were ratings lower than ever (as in, no one you knew was still watching or cared), the show’s ability to build its contestants into actual stars had long faded. The last three winners of Idol: Trent Harmon, Nick Fradiani (??) and Caleb Johnson.
Even more perplexing than the show’s return is that Ryan Seacrest has not been ruled out of hosting, given that he’s ALREADY the host of ANOTHER show that would seem to take up A LOT of his time: New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.
Despite the logistical challenge, Idol producers are reportedly looking to relocate the show to New York City to perhaps accommodate Seacrest and avoid a tiring search for a host. On Monday’s Live with Kelly & Ryan, Seacrest said, “I had no idea it was being talked about to come here until late last week I heard a rumor in the news and made a phone call, and they said, ‘Yeah, it may actually end up here.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s kind of good to know since I work here.’” Except, he added, “I don’t know if I can host it.”
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A source told People, “There have been no formal discussions with Ryan about his involvement, but he may well be open to it… in the right capacity and if it fit in with his other commitments.” Well, welcome back Idol. Thought we ghosted you. ||||| 'American Idol' ABC Gets the Show Seacrest Likely Host
'American Idol' Goes to ABC with Ryan Seacrest the Likely Host
EXCLUSIVE
"American Idol" will go to ABC, because TMZ has learned the deal is now closed.
TMZ broke the story ... ABC made the offer nearly 2 weeks ago, and the networks's plan is to officially announce it at the Upfronts in a week.
As we reported, FOX came on strong with an offer at the last minute, but the ABC deal was sealed Friday night.
Sources involved in the deal tell us ... the co-owners of the show, Fremantle and Core, along with ABC, want Ryan Seacrest to host the show. As we reported, the show will be filmed in Hollywood and Ryan would have to make 2 round trip coast-to-coast flights in as many days to shoot the show each week.
That now appears to be a reality.
Our sources say the show will debut in March of 2018. ||||| It’s official: ABC has revived American Idol — and is throwing some shade at Fox in the process.
The network has struck a deal to bring back the reality competition series next season, ABC confirmed Tuesday.
What’s more, ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey took a swipe at Fox for canceling the series in the first place, suggesting its rival misstepped by dumping the show prematurely.
“American Idol is a pop-culture staple that left the air too soon,” said Dungey. “ABC is the right home to reignite the fan base. We are thrilled viewers will once again share in these inspiring stories of people realizing their dreams.”
ABC reportedly outbid Fox and NBC for the reality show’s return.
Fox aired Idol‘s last episode — or what would have been its last episode — in 2016, after 15 seasons. The show was canceled due to a combination of its expensive cost and sagging ratings.
ABC doesn’t have a host or judges locked down yet for its edition of the show (though Ryan Seacrest is expected to likely return now that he’s joining ABC anyway — co-hosting Live with Kelly Ripa). But Disney Media Networks co-chairman Ben Sherwood — in another line that could be interpreted as a dig at their rival — said the new version would be an improvement upon Fox’s run.
“‘Idol is an entertainment icon, and now it will air where it belongs, in ABC’s lineup of addictive fan favorites alongside Dancing with the Stars and The Bachelor,” he said. “America, get ready for the return of a bigger, bolder and better-than-ever Idol.” | – Turns out all that fanfare over the end of American Idol was a bit premature. The singing competition is coming back after all, just not on its original network. ABC will revive the show next season after reportedly outbidding NBC and Fox (which canceled it last year due in part to flagging ratings), Entertainment Weekly reports. In its official announcement, ABC got in a couple little digs at Fox: "American Idol is a pop-culture staple that left the air too soon," says ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey. "ABC is the right home to reignite the fan base." "Idol is an entertainment icon, and now it will air where it belongs, in ABC’s lineup of addictive fan favorites," adds Disney co-chairman Ben Sherwood (Disney owns ABC). "America, get ready for the return of a bigger, bolder, and better-than-ever Idol." The network does not yet have a host or judges lined up, though TMZ reports Ryan Seacrest might be interested in returning as host. The speculation is that ABC will launch a shortened season, starting next spring, on Sunday nights, USA Today reports. How excited is the general public? Well, not very. "American Idol is back by popular demand! ..oh wait there was no demand? Oh okay. American Idol is just back then," reads one tweet. Another: "Not real sure why anyone thinks bringing American Idol back is a good idea. Go ahead and keep it, we're good." Meanwhile, Jezebel compares the show to "that strange rash on your elbow that miraculously went away but then resurfaces." |
Donald Kravitz via Getty Images Sam Haskell has helped Miss America regain prominence after the institution struggled for several years. But emails tell a different story about his thoughts on the women competing in his pageants.
In late August 2014, the CEO of the Miss America Organization, Sam Haskell, sent an email to the lead writer of the Miss America pageant telecast, Lewis Friedman, informing him of a change he wanted to make in the script: “I have decided that when referring to a woman who was once Miss America, we are no longer going to call them Forever Miss Americas....please change all script copy to reflect that they are Former Miss Americas!”
Friedman replied, “I’d already changed “Forevers” to “Cunts.” Does that work for you?”
Haskell’s short reply came quickly: “Perfect...bahahaha.”
Supplied
At that point, Haskell had been the leader of Miss America for nine years, after rising through the ranks at a top Hollywood talent agency. Many prior winners, or as they’re called, “formers,” consider the pageant a wonderful, wholesome activity for young women. But Haskell’s behavior behind closed doors shows he regularly maligned, fat-shamed and slut-shamed the former Miss Americas, calling them shocking names and in one case laughing at the suggestion that one of the women should die.
When it came to one particular former, Haskell took his efforts so far that she lost her pageant coaching business.
Getty Images Miss America Organization board members Tammy Haddad, left, and Lynn Weidner.
Two Miss America board members served as a virtual rubber stamp for Haskell’s behavior: Tammy Haddad, a media consultant and D.C. power connector; and Lynn Weidner, a Las Vegas socialite. And though Friedman was never a board member, he regularly sent offensive and sexist messages to Haskell, which Haskell often responded to by indicating he thought Friedman was funny or endorsed what Friedman was saying.
For this story, HuffPost reviewed nearly three years of internal emails provided by two sources. They reveal a CEO who regularly wrote and responded to unprofessional, offensive emails about the women who poured their hearts into the pageants and the organization he was leading.
(Update: The board suspended Haskell on Friday, hours after an open letter from 49 former Miss Americas called for top-level resignations, adding, “The Board will be conducting an in-depth investigation into alleged inappropriate communications and the nature in which they were obtained. In addition, the Board wishes to reaffirm our commitment to the education and empowerment of young women, supporting them in every way possible.”)
Improving A Struggling American Institution
Sam Haskell joined Miss America’s board in 2005 after retiring from the William Morris Agency (now called WME), where he was the worldwide head of television.
Most everyone agrees that to a certain extent, Haskell helped the organization get back on its feet. Miss America has returned to broadcast television, airing on ABC after being relegated to basic cable. It has also come back to its original home of Atlantic City, New Jersey, from Las Vegas, where the pageant took place in a smaller venue. In 2014, the Miss America Organization and Dick Clark Productions announced a one-year deal (later extended to three years) for the storied entertainment company to produce and cover the cost of the annual pageant telecast, in addition to paying a fee to the Miss America Organization for the rights to produce the telecast. As part of the deal, Dick Clark Productions received two seats on the Miss America Organization board.
Over the past 12 years, Haskell has gone from a board member to a well-compensated CEO. He makes $500,000 a year, which has been a source of internal and external controversy.
But despite his success at growing the pageant, internal emails show a different story.
Michael Loccisano via Getty Images Sam Haskell applauds at the 2018 Miss America event in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
In some cases, Haskell was professional. In an August 2013 email exchange, one month before Mallory Hagan, 2013’s winner, would crown the new Miss America in Atlantic City, Haskell exchanged emails with his daughter and one of his top employees, Brent Adams, about Hagan.
His daughter, Mary Lane, said, “Here’s hoping you get another good one!”
Haskell replied to Mary Lane, “It’s going to be hard to replace Mallory, but I’m hopeful!”
But in other cases, Haskell and Haddad routinely maligned the former Miss Americas, calling them “malcontents” and treating them as embarrassing inconveniences rather than honored alumnae.
In May 2014, Haskell forwarded one of Haddad’s emails to a Miss America executive. In it, Haddad had referred to some former Miss Americas as a “pile of malcontents and has beens who blame the program for not getting them where they think they can go.”
She added, “80% of the winners do not have the class, smarts and model for success.”
She then encouraged Haskell to try to avoid getting riled up by the “formers,” saying, “YOU have to let them go. You don’t need them. They need you. We also have to punish them when they don’t appreciate what we do for them.”
In his forward, Haskell called the advice wise.
In response to email questions sent to Haskell and Haddad, HuffPost received a response from a Miss America Organization spokesman. He said Friedman had been let go from the organization after an investigation.
“The Miss America Organization Board of Directors was notified about the concern of inappropriate language in email communications several months ago. Consequently, the organization’s Board of Directors took the allegations of inappropriate comments very seriously and formed an investigative committee,” he wrote. “As a result of the investigation, the Board directed the organization terminate the relationship with most egregious author of inappropriate comments. In addition, the Board has started the process of instituting additional policies and procedures for communication.”
“The Board has full confidence in the Miss America Organization leadership team,” he added.
In a reply to an email with questions about his statements, Friedman said, “Before commenting to correct your information and provide context, I’ll speak to my attorney as this matter is the subject of pending litigation.” It is not clear what litigation he was referencing.
‘It Should Have Been Kate Shindle’
Donna Connor via Getty Images Kate Shindle winning in 1998.
Haskell sometimes focused on Kate Shindle, who was crowned in 1998. The former Miss Illinois is now a successful actor and singer, and serves as president of the Actors’ Equity Association, the union representing more than 51,000 American stage actors and stage managers.
In 2014, Shindle released a book in which she questioned the Miss America board’s decision to pay Haskell a $500,000 consulting fee, during a year the organization was over $400,000 in the red. (The board said the money was back-pay for Haskell.)
Shindle was not revealing new information; press accounts had already exposed the payment. In her book, she also alleged Haskell blacklisted those who dissented against his leadership, with the national organization calling state-level pageants and giving those groups names of people they could not associate with.
In December 2014, Friedman emailed Haskell to offer his condolences on the death of former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley, writing, “So sorry to hear about Mary Ann Mobley”
The subject line of Friedman’s email read: “It should have been Kate Shindle.”
Haskell replied, “Thanks so much Coach...even in my sadness you can make me laugh...how was the Kennedy Center Honors? Love you and appreciate you! Sam.”
Shindle declined to comment for this article.
‘Drive Gretchen Insane’
Astrid Stawiarz via Getty Images Gretchen Carlson was involved with Miss America for years.
Haskell and Haddad also appeared to dislike Gretchen Carlson, who won the Miss America title in 1989 and was on the organization’s board of directors for many years. The root cause of their disdain, according to three sources, was Carlson’s push to modernize the organization and her refusal to attack former Miss Americas.
Haskell told Carlson not to have Hagan on her program, according to three sources familiar with the conversation. Carlson refused.
On Aug. 15, 2014, Weidner sent an email to a group of former Miss Americas, including Carlson, about Shindle’s book, saying, “Is it possible for each of you to speak out in defense of Sam and the organization?”
Carlson replied, “It’s one thing to talk about your own personal experience as Miss America … but totally different to attack people individually.”
Haskell forwarded Carlson’s response to Haddad, who replied to Haskell, “Snake but now u have not doubts as to her loyalty. Makes it easy not to respond. Right?”
Just before Shindle’s book came out, Haddad emailed Haskell and said, “Why don’t u read susan POWELL’s [former Miss America] email on the board call and say it’s a shame that only one miss america who has come forward to offer help in any way.” Haddad was referring to an email Powell had written that was supportive of Haskell.
Haskell replied, “Brilliant…..fucking Brilliant!!!! That will drive Gretchen INFUCKINGSANE.”
After the email exchange, Haskell did not feature Carlson in the next Miss America broadcast ― an unusual decision given her prominence.
In a statement sent by email, Haddad said, “I have the highest regard and gratitude for Gretchen and her extraordinary leadership in fighting for women.”
Carlson later resigned from the Miss America board. Haskell and other board members were telling people Carlson couldn’t be trusted, which she felt was maligning her integrity, according to a source familiar with her thinking at the time.
Carlson responded to HuffPost on Thursday, “As a proud former Miss America and former member of the Board of the Miss America Organization, I am shocked and deeply saddened by the disgusting statements about women attributed to the leadership of the MAO. No woman should be demeaned with such vulgar slurs. As I’ve learned, harassment and shaming of women is never acceptable and should never be tolerated. Every MAO executive and board member who engaged in such crude behavior and signed off on it like it was no big deal should resign immediately. The Miss America Organization, which is tasked to uphold an almost 100 year old tradition of female empowerment and scholarship, deserves better. I hope all former Miss Americas, state and local titleholders and volunteers will join me in a collective effort to fight for the dignity of this great institution.”
In 2016, Carlson rocked the media world when she sued former Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. Carlson’s suit led to Ailes being pushed out, and she later received a settlement. She has since focused on bringing attention to the epidemic of sexual harassment in the workplace and is working with members of Congress to approve legislation to protect women’s rights in the workplace.
Focused Attacks
Steve Marcus / Reuters Mallory Hagan wins the crown in 2013.
Haskell also appeared to have special disdain for Hagan. In January 2013, she was crowned Miss America at the pageant in Las Vegas.
But just three months later, she was publicly fat-shamed for a bikini photo that surfaced. Haskell said nothing publicly about the images at the time. Later, though, he did internally.
Splash News/Getty Images Hagan was publicly fat-shamed for the photo on the left. The right shows her while competing for Miss America.
As the reigning champion, Hagan spent time in Oxford, Mississippi, at Haskell and his wife’s home. It was there Hagan got to know Adams, whose official title was director of development at Haskell’s production company, which had a television deal with Warner Brothers. Adams essentially acted as a chief of staff, overseeing the various elements of Haskell’s business and personal life, including Miss America.
Adams and Hagan realized they had a connection after spending time together, but, fearful that professional entanglements could complicate a romantic relationship, the two decided if they were going to date it would be best to wait until Hagan’s reign was over.
Shortly after Hagan crowned the new Miss America in September 2013, she and Adams started dating. According to Adams, Haskell wanted Adams to date his daughter, not Hagan, and was open about this request.
Adams recalled an encounter with Haskell at his home in which Haskell attempted to convince Adams to break up with Hagan and instead date his daughter. Haskell stretched out his arms and told Adams, “All of this can be yours,” ostensibly referring to his Oxford mansion and the family’s money.
“You don’t need a piece of trash like Mallory. You need someone with class and money like my daughter,” he said, according to Adams.
When Adams was in New York with the Haskell family, Haskell accidentally sent a text message to a group chat that suggested his daughter try to hold Adams’ hand. Adams described the text in a phone interview.
Once, when Hagan made a payment for dinner to Adams via the peer-to-peer payment app Venmo (which shows payments between friends), Haskell confronted Adams about it, asking why he was still in touch with Hagan.
‘Are We Four The Only Ones Not To Have Fucked Mallory?’
In August 2014, Haskell received an email from someone he knew, who said Hagan’s hairdresser in New York had been commenting on Hagan’s sex life while Hagan was living in Los Angeles, as well as her recent weight gain.
Haskell forwarded the email to Friedman saying, “Not a single day passes that I am not told some horrible story about Mallory.”
Friedman replied, “Mallory’s preparing for her new career … as a blimp in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade As she continues to destroy her own credibility, her voice will attract less and less notice while she continues her descent to an unhappy pathetic footnote.”
Friedman ended the email with, “Ps. Are we four the only ones not to have fucked Mallory?”
Haskell replied and said, “It appears we are the only ones!”
He then wrote Hagan had slept with someone he knew, and he told the man’s mother “he needs to have a blood test because we lost count of the number of men she slept with at 25.”
A source close to Hagan says the accusations about her hairdresser and having sex with the man in question are not true.
Supplied
′Why Does He Want That?′
On Jan. 25, 2015, Weidner sent Haskell a photo of Hagan with three other former Miss Americas. Weidner did not comment on the photo in her email.
Haskell replied, saying, “OMG she is huge...and gross...why does he want that?????” Haskell did not name Adams specifically, but it appears he was discussing his employee, who was still dating Hagan at the time.
Haskell then forwarded the email to Josh Randle, who now serves as president of the Miss America Organization, and added, “Look at MH in this photo...OMG...Why does he want that?”
Randle said, “She’s a healthy one!! Hahaha.”
Haskill said, “Look at this photo from the Former Retreat!!! Shindle was there too and I was told she made everyone sign an NDA as she rolled out her plan of attack...evil lurks.”
Haddad said, “Mallory is barely recognizable”
Haskell said, “It is unreal.”
Haddad replied, and said, in part, “U think he left u for that? Don’t believe it. It makes NO sense.”
Haskell also forwarded the email to Friedman, who said, “My screen just cracked! What happened?”
Hagan declined to comment for this article. A Miss America Organization spokesman replied to questions sent to Randle with the same statement he gave for Haskell and Haddad. That statement said Friedman had been let go and the board was instituting new guidelines for internal communication.
Consequences For Hagan
Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images Hagan meets children at a school in 2015.
At the end of December 2015, emails suggest Haskell felt Hagan was personally maligning him. In an email to Haddad, Weidner and Randle, among others, Haskell asked for help, saying Hagan was “viciously and cruelly” attacking him and his family “every day.”
It’s unclear what Hagan was doing or saying at the time, but a comb of her social media posts doesn’t reveal anything egregious. She continued to be critical of Haskell’s leadership and the direction of the organization, but not in a way that would warrant what was suggested next by Haddad in response to Haskell’s urgent plea.
Haddad said, “Hi. I am so sorry. It is ridiculous but she is not going to stop. She has no control. I think u should hire an investigator to get something on her.”
(A source close to Haddad said she was not suggesting in the email that Haskell hire an investigator to dig up something of a personal nature on Hagan. Rather, her intention was to suggest Haskell hire an investigator to see if Hagan had been posting messages anonymously on internal Miss America message boards.)
Haskell said, “Thoughts on Tammy’s note below? Threatening her won’t work and we already have ‘enough info on her’ to shut down Ft. Knox.....ugh. I really think the best way is to shut down her social media, and convince the Formers to ostracize her”
Weidner said, “I wish I had an easy answer to this dilemma. If we can prove a direct connection between MH and specific instances of cyber bullying, we could at least threaten her with a lawsuit right? I do believe that our anti coaching initiatives are already impacting her business. And that our policy of ignoring her is driving her crazy!”
I do believe that our anti coaching initiatives are already impacting her business. an email from Lynn Weidner about Mallory Hagan's pageant coaching business
“I pray none of you ever experience anything like this....It is finally clear that I am on my own,” Haskell replied.
In response to list of questions sent via email, specifically if it was appropriate for nonprofit resources to be used to investigate former Miss Americas, Haddad said in an email, “This was a terrible, highly divisive time in the Miss America Organization, fueled by inflammatory character attacks. I along with the Board worked to stop the damage that was being inflicted on the organization and members of its community.”
In a statement, Weidner called Haskell “one of the most outstanding individuals I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.”
“Sam had led us to becoming a nationally recognized and positive force for the education and the empowerment of young women,” she wrote. “The fact that he would be so ruthlessly attacked by a handful of disgruntled malcontents is disgraceful. I am very proud of the way he has kept above the fray and always conducted himself in a way that does honor to this program.”
Opportunities Lost
Ethan Miller via Getty Images Women compete during the swimsuit portion of the 2007 Miss America pageant.
After winning the pageant, Hagan signed with a WME agent in Los Angeles, Lee White, whom Haskell introduced her to.
But within months, a source close to Hagan says White started to withdraw and decline requests to meet with her.
In one email from White to Haskell described verbally by a source, White suggests he shouldn’t have drinks with Hagan based on something Haskell told him. Haskell replies, saying White made the right judgment.
A few months later, Hagan dropped White as her agent. She moved back to New York and joined a friend training contestants for the all-important interview portion of the pageant.
But within months, the national Miss America Organization told contestants they couldn’t have coaches ― specifically, interview coaches. The national organization also said that anyone wanting to use a coach would have to seek approval from the executive director of their local organization.
The national organization had an informal list of coaches contestants couldn’t use, which contestants found out about through their local and state pageant directors. Hagan was on the list.
Soon after, Hagan’s lucrative coaching business fell apart.
In August 2016, Hagan moved back home to Alabama, where she had to rebuild her career. Today, she is the evening anchor of a small NBC affiliate in Columbus, Georgia.
Cease And Desist
In August 2017, Adams and a former Miss America board member, Regina Hopper, flew to Los Angeles to talk to Dick Clark Productions about Haskell’s behavior. They had copies of egregious emails from Haskell, some of which are included in this article.
The duo expected that Dick Clark Productions, a large entertainment company, would be horrified by the messages. In the meeting, Amy Thurlow and Mark Bracco, both executives at Dick Clark Productions who held the two Miss America board seats, thanked Hopper and Adams for providing the emails and told them Dick Clark Productions would conduct its own investigation.
A month later, Adams received a cease-and-desist letter from a law firm representing the Miss America Organization. It read, “Your deliberate actions constitute a clear violation of the Non-disclosure Agreement you knowingly and willfully entered into….the letter directed to the Chairman of the Board from Dick Clark Productions, dated September 13, 2017, noticed us of your illegal disclosure of information, which includes several internal email communications.”
The two Dick Clark executives presented the emails to the board, hoping it would lead to a change in leadership, according to two well-placed sources who are familiar with the executives’ thinking at the time.
But, the sources said, no change took place. In fact, last September, knowing full well the kind of language Friedman used in his emails about former Miss Americas, the board allowed him to continue to write for the Miss America pageant telecast.
Based on the board’s refusal to take action in response to the disturbing emails, Dick Clark Productions decided to end its agreement with the Miss America Organization, the sources said. Several prominent Miss America supporters were stunned at the news. The agreement was a lifeline to Miss America ― the production company covered the costs of producing the telecast; paid the Miss America Organization a fee as part of the agreement; and featured, among other things, the current Miss America on the various awards telecasts it produces, like the Billboard Awards.
In a statement Thursday to HuffPost, Dick Clark Productions explained its decision: “Several months ago, dick clark productions was made aware of a portion of the emails that were referenced in the December 21 Huffington Post article. We were appalled by their unacceptable content and insisted, in the strongest possible terms, that the Miss America Organization (MAO) board of directors conduct a comprehensive investigation and take appropriate action to address the situation. Shortly thereafter, we resigned our board positions and notified MAO that we were terminating our relationship with them.”
The same prominent Miss America supporters said they found it unfathomable that the board would side with Haskell and Friedman over Dick Clark Productions.
‘These Young Women Put Their Heart And Soul Into Being the Best They Can Be’
Steve Marcus / Reuters Audience members cheer contestants during the 2010 Miss America pageant.
Unsurprisingly, the email that angered the people who spoke to HuffPost for this article the most was the one referring to former Miss Americas as “cunts.” In particular, sources found it offensive that Haskell appeared to think that was funny.
Hopper recounted how she reacted to the email by sharing what she experienced at the last Miss Arkansas pageant, when the reigning Miss America Savvy Shields, who is from the state, made an appearance.
“I sat in the audience and watched her [Miss America] walk out on stage, and the young women and those in the audience all wanted to see and hear her. And that email floated into my head, and tears started running down my face,” she said. “Across this country, there are parents who are sitting in audiences who put their young daughters into this system with the trust that they’re going to walk away from participating with something good. These young women put their heart and soul into being the best they can be. That the CEO of this organization would agree that word is the perfect characterization of Miss Americas and then laugh ― it’s heartbreaking.”
This article has been updated with Haskell’s suspension Friday. ||||| CLOSE CEO Sam Haskell, president and COO Josh Randle and board chairwoman Lynn Weidner have all stepped down after internal emails were published showing Miss America contestants described with vulgar and offensive language. Wochit
Miss America chief executive officer Sam Haskell is shown with Miss America 2018 Cara Mund, on Sept. 10, 2017, after the pageant held in Atlantic City. (Photo: Thomas P. Costello, Asbury Park Press-USA TODAY NETWORK)
Three Miss America Organization leaders have resigned following an email scandal in which vulgar, offensive language was used to describe former Miss America contestants, USA TODAY confirmed Saturday.
The resignation of its Executive Chairman and Chief Executive, Sam Haskell, who was suspended from the organization Friday as he was put under investigation, will be effective immediately, according to a statement from interim chairman Dan Meyers.
The board further accepted the resignation of chairman Lynn Weidner along with President and Chief Operating Officer Josh Randle. The two will remain in their current positions for several more weeks to "facilitate a smooth transition," according to Meyers' statement.
The organization said its board of directors accepted Randle's resignation Saturday "in light of recent events and new developments."
► Friday: Miss America CEO Sam Haskell suspended over offensive emails
► Friday: 131 so far accused of sexual misconduct in 'Harvey Weinstein effect'
The Miss America Organization was rocked following the release of internal emails published Thursday on Huffington Post. The published messages showed offensive language Haskell used to describe 2013 Miss America Mallory Hagan — describing her as "fat and gross" in one note.
In another exchange from August 2014, Haskell received an email that said Hagan’s hairdresser had been commenting on Hagan’s sex life as well as her recent weight gain.
Miss New York Mallory Hagan reacts as she is crowned Miss America 2013 in Las Vegas. (Photo: Isaac Brekken, AP)
Haskell forwarded the email to Miss America telecast lead writer Lewis Friedman and noted, “Not a single day passes that I am not told some horrible story about Mallory.”
Friedman replied, “Mallory’s preparing for her new career … as a blimp in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. As she continues to destroy her own credibility, her voice will attract less and less notice while she continues her descent to an unhappy pathetic footnote.”
Friedman ended the email with this: “P.S. Are we four the only ones not to have (slept with) Mallory?”
► Thursday: Miss America chief exec accused of slut-shaming, fat-shaming winners
► Sept. 12: Miss America 2018 on wanting to run for office, winning crown
Haskell replied, “It appears we are the only ones!”
Haskell had been suspended pending the investigation.
"Much of what was reported is dishonest, deceptive, and despicable," he said in a statement released Friday. "The material is based on private emails that were stolen three years ago by ex-employees. The story is so unkind and untrue, and hurts me, my family, and the stewardship of this non-profit."
Miss America CEO Sam Haskell is shown with Miss America 2017 Savvy Shields. (Photo: Thomas P. Costello)
Hagan was among dozens of former Miss Americas who signed a petition, which Miss North Carolina 1991 Jennifer Vaden Barth started Friday, calling on the group's leadership to step down. The petition called the emails from Haskell and others “despicable” and faulted officials who “sat by without objection while such derisive comments were passed around.”
On Jan. 25, 2015, Haskell forwarded a photo of Hagan with three other former Miss Americas to Randle and said, “Look at MH in this photo...OMG," the Huffington Post reported.
Randle reportedly replied, “She’s a healthy one!! Hahaha.”
► Sept. 11: Miss Texas slams Trump's Charlottesville comments
► Sept. 10: Miss North Dakota Cara Mund takes Miss America crown
On Saturday, Randle told The Associated Press that his comment responding to an email to his private account about Hagan's physical appearance came months before he started working for the Miss America Organization in 2015. But he said it was wrong.
“I apologize to Mallory for my lapse in judgment,” Randle said. “It does not reflect my values or the values I worked to promote at the Miss America Organization. Although this terrible situation was not caused or driven by me, in light of recent events and new developments, I am no longer willing to continue in my capacity as president and earlier today offered my resignation to the MAO Board of Directors.
“I feel terrible, but this is the right thing to do,” he said.
► Sept. 9: Road for Miss Missouri, first openly gay contestant, to pageant
► Sept. 8: Miss Louisiana wins swimsuit competition on Night 2
Randle said his resignation was voluntary and the board of Miss America, based in Atlantic City, N.J., had not requested it. In May at age 29, Randle became the youngest president of the Miss America organization in its history.
Haskell joined Miss America’s board in 2005 after retiring from the William Morris Agency, now called WME, where he was the worldwide head of television.
Gretchen Carlson, 1989 Miss America, tweeted a statement from herself and Kate Shindle, 1998 Miss America, Saturday calling the resignations "reassuring" but adding "this by no means fulfills the need for a thorough housecleaning of the Board."
"We will continue to demand the resignations of every individual who either participated in the abuse of women or stood by and was complicit," the statement said.
Follow Sara M. Moniuszko and Bryan Alexander on Twitter: @SaraMoniuszko and @BryAlexand
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2BrXeLr ||||| "Those who know my heart know that this is not indicative of my character, nor is it indicative of my business acumen," Haskell said. "I was under stress from a full year of attacks by two Miss Americas, and while I don't ever want to offer an excuse, I do want to offer context." ||||| President and COO Josh Randle has also submitted his resignation, according to the Huffington Post.
Sam Haskell, CEO of the Miss America Organization, has submitted his resignation amid an unfolding scandal involving unearthed vulgar emails he sent about contestants. Chairman Lynn Weidner, who sent some of the emails included in the initial report, has also resigned.
The developments come one day after the Miss America Organization board of directors voted to suspend Haskell pending an investigation into disparaging internal emails about contestants. The Huffington Post first published the emails Thursday, showing Haskell commenting crudely on the appearances of women who had competed in the pageant to other members of the organization.
Josh Randle, president and COO, has also resigned, along with fellow member Tammy Haddad, HuffPost's Yashar Ali first reported on Saturday.
The board had announced it would be conducting an investigation into the alleged inappropriate communications, telling The Hollywood Reporter on Friday: "The Board wishes to reaffirm our commitment to the education and empowerment of young women, supporting them in every way possible."
Dan Meyers, who has stepped in as interim chairman, confirmed Haskell's resignation is effective immediately.
“This afternoon, the Board of Directors of the Miss America Organization accepted the resignation of Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sam Haskell, effective immediately," he said in a statement. "The Board of Directors also accepted the resignation of Chairman Lynn Weidner. At the Board’s request, Ms. Weidner has agreed to remain on the Board for up to ninety days to facilitate a smooth transition for the MAO to new leadership."
Adding, "The Board thanks Lynn and Sam for many years of tireless work for, and significant financial support to, both the Miss America Organization and thousands of young women who received millions of dollars of educational scholarships from the Organization as a direct result of their efforts.”
Randle will also stay on for a few weeks to hep the transition. "Earlier today, in light of recent events and new developments, the Miss America Organization’s Board of Directors received and accepted the resignation of President & COO Josh Randle," said a spokesperson in a statement to THR. "At the Board’s request, Josh has agreed to remain in his current current capacity for several weeks to facilitate a smooth transition."
1989 Miss America Gretchen Carlson, who reportedly clashed with Haskell and was one of many targets in the ousted CEO's emails, released a statement on Twitter following the news.
"While it is reassuring that some of the perpetrators of the abuses within the Miss America Organization have resigned, this by no means fulfills the need for a thorough housecleaning of the Board," she said, calling for more board members who were involved with the unfolding scandal to step forward and resign. "We will continue to demand the resignations of every individual who either participated in the abuse of women or stood by and was complicit by failing to conduct proper due diligence."
She added, "This Board has lost the trust of the country. For the good of the organization, they must step away."
In the emails Haskell, who was formerly executive vp and head of TV at the William Morris Agency, jokes about renaming former Miss America winners "C—s" and calls the past winners a "pile of malcontent," among other misogynistic and fat-shaming claims.
Haskell called the claims "unkind and untrue," though he did not specify which belonged in the latter category. “Much of what was reported is dishonest, deceptive, and despicable. The material is based on private emails that were stolen three years ago by ex-employees," he said in his statement.
Dick Clark Productions, which has a three-year deal with the Miss America Organization to produce the TV pageants, said the company was "appalled" by the content of the emails and that after being made aware of allegations of sexual misconduct in August 2017, terminated its relationship with the Miss America Organization. "Shortly thereafter, we resigned our board positions and notified MAO that we were terminating our relationship with them," said the statement in part.
ABC airs the annual pageant, which takes place in Atlantic City and is hosted by Chris Harrison.
Dec. 23, 12 p.m.: Updated with Haskell's resignation; MAO statement.
Dec. 23, 3:27 p.m.: Updated with Carlson's statement. | – Miss America chairman and CEO Sam Haskell resigned Saturday—just a day after saying he wouldn't, the New York Daily News reports. He was joined by chairman Lynn Weidner, president and COO Josh Randle, and board member Tammy Haddad. The resignations of Miss America leadership come after HuffPo published internal emails Thursday that feature Haskell calling a former Miss America winner "fat and gross" and joking that he's one of very few people who haven't had sex with her, according to USA Today. He also mused about renaming Miss America winners "c--ts," as per the Hollywood Reporter. On Friday, Haskell was suspended pending an investigation as 49 former Miss America winners signed a petition calling on pageant leadership to resign. Haskell remained adamant that he wouldn't resign over what he said were false accusations and a "mistake of words." In a statement, the Miss America Organization says Haskell's resignation will take effect immediately. Randle and Weidner will stay on for the coming weeks to "facilitate a smooth transition." "The board thanks Lynn and Sam for many years of tireless work for, and significant financial support to, both the Miss America Organization and thousands of young women," the statement reads. In addition, the board says it "will be conducting an in-depth investigation" into the emails. |
Dwight Yoakam performs "Seven Spanish Angels" at the 50th annual CMA Awards at the Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP) (Associated Press)
Dwight Yoakam performs "Seven Spanish Angels" at the 50th annual CMA Awards at the Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP) (Associated Press)
Garth Brooks, who lost entertainer of the year at last year's Country Music Association Awards when he returned to music after a 13-year break, won the top prize at the show Wednesday, where Beyonce and the Dixie Chicks' surprise duet performance was met with love and hate.
Brooks beat out Carrie Underwood, Chris Stapleton, Keith Urban and last year's winner, Luke Bryan.
"We are so damn lucky to part of this thing called country music," Brooks yelled loudly at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.
Taylor Swift presented Brooks the award, but she wasn't the only pop star in the building: Beyonce sang her twangy song "Daddy Lessons" on a night celebrating the CMA Awards' 50th anniversary. It was the first time Beyonce, a Houston native, performed at the country awards show. The performance also marked a return for the Dixie Chicks, who hadn't attended the CMA Awards in some time.
"Everybody get on your feet. Put your hands together," Beyonce told the crowd.
The diva sported a sheer champagne-colored dress that plunged in the center and layered pearls around her neck. Faith Hill sang along, Trisha Yearwood clapped and Miranda Lambert moved side to side during the song, which the Dixie Chicks have also covered at their live shows.
Beyonce and the trio's appearance, though, wasn't cheered by everyone: On social media some fans tweeted angrily about the performance — some country music fans have disliked Dixie Chicks since band member Natalie Maines criticized former U.S. President George W. Bush over a decade ago.
The night featured a number of other memorable performances, too: A mix of classic and contemporary country stars kicked off the show with 12 performances to celebrate its milestone anniversary, which included Randy Travis, Vince Gill, Charley Pride, Roy Clark, Alabama, Charlie Daniels, Ricky Skaggs, Alan Jackson, Dwight Yoakam and Merle Haggard's youngest son, Ben.
Dolly Parton, who earned the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award, was honored by Reba, Underwood, Martina McBride, Jennifer Nettles and Kacey Musgraves, who all sang a rousing rendition of "I Will Always Love You."
"I would have cried, but I didn't want to mess up my eyelashes," said Parton, sporting a bright yellow dress.
Chris Stapleton, who won big at last year's show, was the night's top winner with two: He took home male vocalist and music video of the year.
"What a wonderful night ... I've cried just watching everybody," said Stapleton, who walked into the show as the top nominee along with Eric Church and newcomer Maren Morris.
Underwood won female vocalist of the year, ending Lambert's six-year consecutive winning streak since 2010.
"Glory to God, thank you Jesus," said a teary Underwood, who also thanked her husband and son.
Church won album of the year for "Mr. Misunderstood" and Morris picked up new artist of the year.
"Last year, I sat across the street at a bar and watched this show. I never thought as a songwriter I'd be standing here today," she said.
A number of celebrities were in the audience and presented awards, including Matthew McConaughey, Peyton Manning, Jennifer Garner, Olivia Newton-John, Nicole Kidman, Lily Tomlin, Sharon Stone and the Final Five Olympic gymnasts: Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, Laurie Hernandez and Madison Kocian.
Paisley and Underwood, returning as hosts for the ninth time, told jokes about politics, Wikileaks, Brangelina's breakup and more.
"We're so sick of politics, we don't even care who wins," they sang in harmony. At one point, Paisley called Underwood a "nasty woman," mocking Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The three-hour-plus show, which aired on ABC, also featured performances by George Strait, Brooks & Dunn, Jason Aldean and Little Big Town, who sang their new song "Better Man," written by Swift.
The first award of the night went to Thomas Rhett, who won single of the year for "Die a Happy Man."
"I gotta first thank the Lord ... my lovely wife in the blue dress; she was the full inspiration of this song," said Rhett.
Lori McKenna won song of the year for writing Tim McGraw's "Humble and Kind," a tune she said was based on a prayer she wrote for her five children. McKenna co-wrote Little Big Town's megahit "Girl Crush," earning a Grammy Award this year and last year's song of the year honor at the CMAs.
"I have a job in this town because of this guy's wife, Faith Hill," said McKenna, who was escorted to the stage by McGraw.
Kenny Chesney, who released a new album last week, earned the Pinnacle Award. Little Big Town and Brothers Osborne won vocal group and vocal duo of the year, respectively, while Dierks Bentley and Elle King's "Different for Girls" won musical event of the year.
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Online:
http://www.cmaworld.com/ | – Garth Brooks, who lost entertainer of the year at last year's Country Music Association Awards when he returned to music after a 13-year break, won the top prize at the show Wednesday, the AP reports. Brooks beat out Carrie Underwood, Chris Stapleton, Keith Urban, and last year's winner, Luke Bryan. "We are so damn lucky to be part of this thing called country music," Brooks yelled loudly at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena. Taylor Swift presented Brooks the award, but she wasn't the only pop star in the building: In a surprise duet with the Dixie Chicks, Beyonce sang her twangy song "Daddy Lessons" on a night celebrating the CMA Awards' 50th anniversary. Dolly Parton, who earned the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award, was honored by Reba McEntire, Underwood, Martina McBride, and Kacey Musgraves, who all sang a rousing rendition of "I Will Always Love You." "I would have cried, but I didn't want to mess up my eyelashes," said Parton. Stapleton, who won big at last year's show, was the night's top winner with two: He took home male vocalist and music video of the year. Underwood won female vocalist of the year, ending Miranda Lambert's six-year consecutive winning streak since 2010. Eric Church won album of the year for "Mr. Misunderstood" and Maren Morris picked up new artist of the year. Click for a full list of winners. |
A recent Colorado Tourism Office survey of summer travelers shows 48 percent were influenced by legal recreational pot
Marijuana businesses have long proclaimed that cannabis is drawing visitors to Colorado. Now they have proof.
A study commissioned by the Colorado Tourism Office and presented to the office's board of directors on Wednesday shows legal weed as a growing motivator for trips to Colorado — conflicting with the mantra of tourism officials statewide that savvy marketing alone is responsible for record visitation and spending in the past two years.
While the state's "Come to Life" ad campaign is certainly successful, surveys in October and November of potential summertime visitors who were exposed to the state's tourism ads revealed that the marijuana laws influenced vacation decisions nearly 49 percent of the time.
Budtender Kate Evans, behind counter, helps a customer at Native Roots Dispensary at 1550 Champa street in Denver on December 9. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)
"I think it is rearing its head as a significant travel and tourism amenity for visitors coming to Colorado," said Al White, who retired as boss of the Colorado Tourism Office in August and now serves on the board of a cannabis tourism company.
But the survey's director said the questions may not have captured the opinion of people who opted out of Colorado travel because of legal pot. And only 8 percent of the Colorado tourists who responded to the survey said they visited a marijuana dispensary.
"I think definitely the laws are having an influence when people are considering Colorado. We can see that it's still not a large percentage in terms of what people are doing, but it's become more of a motivator for those who want to do it," said Denise Miller, director of tourism surveys for Strategic Marketing and Research Insights, or SMARI, as she presented the midyear update to the tourism office's board of directors. "It's certainly having some influence — both, I think, positive and negative — on that decision process."
SMARI conducted 33-question surveys of 3,254 tourists from target markets in Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, San Diego, St. Louis and other cities. About 10 percent of those surveyed had vacationed in Colorado between April and September.
The state tourism office has spent more than $5.3 million to run its "Come to Life" television, print, billboard and digital ads in these cities as well as nationally this summer. The campaign hit 11.1 million households, up from 9.4 million in 2014.
SMARI estimated the 2015 summer ad campaign spurred 2.1 million leisure trips, generating an economic impact of $2.6 billion. That means for every dollar the state invested in its tourism promotion effort, it generated a $490 return, up from $344 in 2014.
So the ad campaign is working very well. But those ads never mention marijuana. Yet, 22 percent of survey respondents said marijuana was "extremely influential" in their decision to visit Colorado. Twenty percent said it was "very much influential" and nearly 7 percent said it was "somewhat influential."
But only 8 percent of tourists said they visited a marijuana dispensary during their trip to Colorado — the same percentage who said they visited a pot shop last year, according to SMARI's survey.
Of the 8 percent who went pot shopping, 85 percent this year said marijuana was a primary motivator of their visit to Colorado, up from 29 percent last year.
Retail sales of recreational marijuana became legal Jan. 1, 2014.
Last year — the first year SMARI asked marijuana questions to potential Colorado vacationers — 65 percent of Colorado visitors did not consider legal weed in their vacation decision, with the remainder split between respondents saying they were "more likely to visit" and "less likely to visit" because of marijuana.
This year, those results moved slightly, with 20 percent of potential Colorado vacationers saying the state's marijuana laws made them more likely to book a vacation and 15 percent saying they were less likely. The remainder said it wasn't an issue.
The question in SMARI's summer survey asked: "How much did the legalization of marijuana usage influence your decision to visit Colorado?"
SMARI's Miller said her team needs to follow up with better questions.
New tourism office chief Cathy Ritter, who started her job last week, said last month that legal cannabis is "a great topic for discussion and a great topic for more research."
Ritter did not speak during the board discussion of marijuana Wednesday. But in November, when she was named to the post, she said it "seems to be that the tourism program today is essentially silent on the whole issue."
In Telluride, where 80 percent of voters approved recreational weed in 2012, the new tourism tagline is "The Most Colorado Place on Earth." It's one of the few Colorado towns that doesn't ignore pot as a guest amenity. One local dispensary delivers goods through its own app.
"We dabble, but ... we don't want to fly the freak flag. I don't want to put it under the rug, but I don't want it to be the most important thing we do," said Michael Martelon, the president of the Telluride Tourism Board, noting that taxes from weed in the town rarely top 3 percent of the town's overall sales tax revenue.
When White announced 2014's record visitation and spending in June this year, he was quick to not credit cannabis.
"This is because we are doing a good job in Colorado. Is marijuana beneficial?" said White in June of this year. "Marginally, yes, I think it may be a decision influencer for some people coming."
Marijuana is no longer in the margins of Colorado tourism. It's taking a starring role.
"It's extremely influential," White said this week.
Danny Schaefer let out a hoot when he heard the recent survey numbers. His My420Tours hosts 120 to 200 visitors a week and just inked a deal with a national hotel chain to host his clients, each getting a cannabis vaporizer to use in the room when they check-in. (He won't name the chain yet. White is a member of his board.)
"This is absolutely validating," said Schaefer, who has urged tourism leaders to celebrate marijuana before other states where the recreational sales are legal, including Oregon and Washington, steal the tourism thunder. He's making plans to expand to Portland, Ore., where, he said, local tourism officials are welcoming him.
"The state of Colorado has had an amazing opportunity to embrace this industry," he said. "It a complete advantage for Colorado to become the Napa Valley and Sonoma County of cannabis."
Selling, possessing and using marijuana is illegal under federal law. State officials say they have never promoted marijuana because Amendment 64 regulations prevent pot businesses from advertising outside Colorado.
Schaefer says that's fine. But visitors need information. Why doesn't the state help on that front, he wondered. Education doesn't have to be advertising, he said.
"Shatter, wax, hash, dabs and transdermals. Our visitors, they have no idea what the modern industry has in the store for them and they are really lacking that education," Schaefer said. "Consumption education is absolutely necessary. We have so many people saying we were looking for information on marijuana on Colorado.com or at a Visit Denver welcome center and they couldn't find anything even mentioning marijuana. But they found hundreds of fliers and pamphlets on craft beer and liquor."
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, jblevins@denverpost.com or @jasonblevins ||||| Tourists stopping in at pot shops are not coming to Colorado specifically for marijuana, a recent survey by a Fort Lewis College professor found.
Shortly after marijuana was legalized, the survey garnered answers from 325 people exiting five marijuana shops across three Southwest Colorado counties, said Lorraine Taylor, assistant professor of management at FLC.
The survey is part of Taylor’s larger study on the effect of marijuana on the tourism industry that has not been completed.
But the early findings are positive for those who feared marijuana would damage Colorado’s reputation as a family-friendly destination, she said.
“I think a couple years ago, we were really worried – we as in the tourism community – that just hoards of people were going to come and get stoned and sit on Main Street. That’s not what’s happening,” she said.
Instead, most tourists are coming to Colorado to partake in other recreational activities, she said. But being able to purchase legal marijuana in Colorado is “the icing on the cake.”
The attraction of marijuana is likely to diminish as a tourism factor in the coming years because other states are working on legalization efforts, Taylor said. There are efforts in nine states to legalize marijuana in 2016, CNN reported in November.
The study also found that while some people surveyed were purchasing marijuana legally for the first time, 200 of the 325 people used marijuana daily.
“If you are a daily user, you probably have access to product that you wouldn’t have to pay such a high tax on, but yet these people are going to the legal shops as opposed to the black market,” she said.
Many people said they preferred to buy products legally because legal weed is more likely to have been tested. Therefore, it’s safer to use.
The views reflected in the survey came mostly from men younger than 30 because that demographic was the most open to sharing, Taylor said.
Taylor plans to continue her survey work in the spring. At that time, she plans to hone in on the main reasons why tourists purchase marijuana using a methodology that could be replicated by other researchers. ||||| Partygoers listen to music and smoke marijuana on one of several days of the annual 4/20 marijuana festival, in Denver's downtown Civic Center Park, Saturday April 18, 2015. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley) The Colorado Tourism Office has spent more than $5.3 million on its campaign enticing visitors to the state, all without mentioning marijuana.
Yet a new survey by the office finds that potential summertime tourists were influenced by marijuana laws about 49 percent of the time, reports the Denver Post.
Former Colorado Tourism Office head Al White has previously called marijuana's effect on tourism "mariginal." He now calls it "extremely influential" and serves on the board of a cannabis tourism company, the paper reports.
Over in southwest Colorado, a survey of tourists leaving pot shops found that visitors weren't coming specifically for marijuana. Fort Lewis College professor Lorraine Taylor told the Durango Herald that her survey indicates pot is more like "icing on the cake." | – Legal marijuana is taking tourism in Colorado to new highs, if a new study is to be believed. The Denver Post reports a study commissioned by the Colorado Tourism Office found nearly 49% of Colorado visitors between April and September came at least in part because of pot. "I think it is rearing its head as a significant travel and tourism amenity for visitors coming to Colorado," a former tourism office head says. The survey also showed 20% of potential tourists were more likely to visit Colorado because of legal weed compared to 15% who were less likely. Somewhat surprisingly, only 8% of tourists surveyed admitted to actually visiting a marijuana dispensary while in the state. A smaller study out of Fort Lewis College found most tourists come to Colorado for other reasons, but legal marijuana is "the icing on the cake," the Durango Herald reports. According to the Post, Colorado has welcomed a record number of tourists in the past two years. Prior to the study, tourism officials had been crediting that increase solely to "savvy marketing." The Colorado Tourism Office spent more than $5.3 million on a new advertising campaign, which doesn't mention pot at all, Colorado Public Radio reports. But it shouldn't be that way, the owner of one pot tourism company tells the Post: "The state of Colorado has had an amazing opportunity to embrace this industry. It is a complete advantage for Colorado to become the Napa Valley and Sonoma County of cannabis." |
The previously unseen picture, captured by Lance Corporal Guy Adderley of British Intelligence in May 1945, shows the Nazi second-in-command lying dead after biting a cyanide pill, still wearing his trademark round glasses.
Himmler, who had been arrested by Army officers, was due to be interrogated over his war crimes the following day.
After his death, propaganda photographs of his corpse slumped on a makeshift bed were released. But Adderley kept this grainy photograph among his wartime mementoes.
Adderley’s family will sell the photograph at the auctioneer Dreweatt’s sale of militaria in Bristol on March 29, with a pre-sale estimate of £2,000-£3,000.
Malcolm Claridge, the auctioneer and militaria expert, said: “This is a very important and historic collection. Himmler was Hitler’s Reichsführer, the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany.
“He oversaw the Gestapo and the concentration camps and is regarded as the architect of the Holocaust.
“Adderley’s collection takes us right to the heart of Himmler’s arrest and into the very room in the British safe house in Lüneburg where he bit into the cyanide capsule he had concealed in his mouth.
“Guy Adderley was one of the team that arrested Himmler, and there are also two photographs showing British and Russian officers in the safe house with Adderley in the background.”
Conspiracy theories surrounded Himmler’s death after Army personnel were ordered to sign the Official Secrets Act, keeping the details under wraps for 100 years.
The mystery has been compounded by the fact that four British soldiers took Himmler’s body from the safe house and buried it in an unmarked grave on Lüneburg Heath. It has never been found. ||||| By Toby Axelrod , August 2, 2016
Long-lost sections of a work journal kept by the notorious, high-ranking Nazi Heinrich Himmler have been found in an archive in Moscow, according to reports in the German tabloid BILD.
Himmler, who was head of the SS and a chief architect of the genocide against the Jews, reportedly took assiduous notes on his daily activities. Parts of his wartime diary are known, particular from the later years. The newly discovered sections were in a file marked "diary".
Some 1,000 pages in all, the documents are being studied by the German Historical Institute in Moscow, whose director, Nikolaus Katzen, told BILD they are "of outstanding historical significance" and made him "shudder".
He noted everything from the banal details about his various working trips and leisure activities, to his observation of a gassing of hundreds of prisoners. The same evening, he attended an SS banquet.
Early diaries of Himmler were found in the 1950s. Hundreds of letters turned up in Tel Aviv several years ago.
Researcher Matthias Uhl told BILD that the newly uncovered documents help complete the picture of Himmler, who was "a beast full of contradictions. He was on one hand the unscrupulous executioner, who uttered death sentences in passing and who planned the Holocaust. On the other hand, he went to great lengths to please his SS elite, their families, friends and acquaintances."
Himmler committed suicide in May 1945 rather than face post-war justice. | – Among their 1,000 pages, the newly found diaries of Holocaust architect Heinrich Himmler track his hourly schedule—filled with activities both mundane and grotesque—over the years 1938, 1943, and 1944. The Jewish Chronicle reports that some of Himmler's diaries were discovered in the 1950s, and hundreds of letters surfaced in Tel Aviv more recently; these "service diaries" were reportedly taken by the Red Army, archived in Podolsk near Moscow, and forgotten. Germany's Bild newspaper on Tuesday began serializing the diaries, and the Times of London has details. Himmler began many days with a lengthy massage in an effort to assuage chronic stomach cramps. Hours of meetings would follow (one entry shows 19 policy meetings in a four-hour span); meetings occurred with 1,600 people over the course of the diaries. The Times reports plenty of innocuous moments: looking at the stars and planned phone calls with his daughter Gudrun, identified as "Puppi." But interspersed are execution orders, the purchase of guard dogs for Auschwitz, and movements that sound innocuous but were anything but. A February 2, 1943, entry lists a visit to the Sobibor death camp for “inspection of special commando”; the Times reports his visit was to include a demonstration of gassing, and 400 women and girls were reportedly brought to the camp from a nearby city for that purpose. The German Historical Institute has authenticated the diaries, and its director says that what appears to be "rather dry" is actually very valuable. "We get a better structural understanding of the last phase of the war," says Nikolaus Katzer. Himmler killed himself with a cyanide pill in May 1945. (A trove of personal documents revealed more about Himmler.) |
QUINCY, Mass. - It seems this kid is destined for law enforcement.
A 6-year-old boy from Quincy, Massachusetts, called 911 on his father, who he said ran through a red light, CBS Boston reported.
A recording of the 911 call was shared Wednesday on the Quincy Police Department Facebook page.
"Every day we answer numerous 911 calls," police said. "Often times, these calls are from individuals who are in need of immediate assistance. Sometimes, it's a simple misdial. Then there's Robert's 9-1-1 call. Robert is a six year old resident of Quincy."
In the video, the dispatcher asks 6-year-old Robert what his emergency is.
"My daddy went past a red light," Robert replies.
The dispatcher asks him what happened next.
"We had to go to the car wash and then he went past the red light," he adds.
At that point in the call, the dispatcher asks Robert to get his father. Robert's father gets on the line and quickly realizes what the call is about.
"Oh no, I apologize," he says with a laugh, before telling the dispatcher there is no emergency.
Karen Barkas, a detective with Quincy police, told the Boston Globe that the call was "pretty unique." She said no ticket was issued to the father. ||||| QUINCY — Robbie Richardson wants to be a police officer when he grows up. During the Memorial Day weekend, the 6-year-old Quincy boy got a taste for what it’s like to be behind the badge.
Robbie dialed 911 to get in touch with the police Saturday after his father, Michael Richardson, ran a red light while the two were out running errands.
Michael said that after stopping at a light near Furnace Brook Parkway, he proceeded to take a right turn on red.
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As he rolled through the intersection, Robbie belted out that his dad had broken the law.
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Robbie wasn’t shy about it Wednesday. “I told him to stop, but he didn’t listen,” he said outside his family’s home.
At the time, Michael tried to explain to his son that it was OK to take a right turn at a red under certain circumstances.
Robbie wasn’t convinced. He knows his traffic laws.
“When a green light says go, you go that way, or that way, or that way, or that way,” he said, motioning with his hands different directions a car can drive. “A yellow light makes you slow. And then a red light makes you stop.”
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Mom taught him that, he said. Not Dad.
Robbie warned his father — they were headed to the car wash in Robbie’s mother’s white Nissan Rogue — that as soon as they returned home, he was going to notify the police.
Michael laughed, he said, and brushed off the comment.
But Robbie wasn’t bluffing.
“I called the police,” said Robbie, who enjoys sitting inside a toy police cruiser and propelling it around the driveway while making siren sounds. “I know how to call the police. Easy peasy.”
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As Michael, his wife, Joleen, and their 18-month-old daughter enjoyed the sunny weather outside on Saturday, firing up the grill for a start-of-the-summer feast, Robbie headed with determination to the house.
It was then he picked up the phone, unbeknownst to his parents, and dialed the emergency number.
“Um, daddy went past a red light,” Robbie said during the 911 call, which was shared nearly 200 times on Facebook by Wednesday afternoon. “He was in a brand-new car, my mummy’s car.”
When the dispatcher asked what happened next, Robbie told him that his father was headed to the car wash, but seemed to have been in a hurry to get there.
“Then he went past the red light,” Robbie again explained.
The dispatcher then asked to talk to the boy’s father.
Michael said his son brought the phone outside, where the family was preparing their meal.
“He has the cordless phone in his hand and he says, ‘Dad, somebody called, they want to talk to you,’ ” Michael said. “And I look at the number on there and I saw 911, and I kind of sank a little bit.”
He knew the jig was up.
Michael said he may have been shocked — so much so that he accidentally told the dispatcher his son was 5 years old — to learn there was a police official on the other end of the line.
But he wasn’t surprised that his son had stuck to his word, and reported the alleged misdeed.
“He’s a smart kid. When he says he’s going to do something, he does it,” Michael said. “He doesn’t bluff.”
Michael apologized to the dispatcher for allegedly running the red light — and for his son’s calling 911 for a nonemergency. The family then turned the situation into a teachable moment for their son.
“We talked to him, and told him you can only call in an emergency,” Joleen said. She said she had taught her son how to call 911, in the event that the family really does require immediate assistance from first responders. “But I didn’t think he was going to call like that.”
Robbie, like his father, learned his lesson — next time his father runs a red light, he won’t call 911.
“When my daddy goes past a red light again, I’ll call the eye doctor,” Robbie said. “So he can fix his eyes.”
Steve Annear can be reached at steve.annear@globe.com . Follow him on Twitter @steveannear | – Michael Richardson says he was heading to the car wash with his son in Quincy, Mass., on Saturday when he turned right on a red light. "I told him to stop, but he didn't listen," says 6-year-old Robbie, who knows "a red light makes you stop." His dad tried to explain that turning right on a red light is sometimes allowed, but Robbie promised to call the police when they got home, reports the Boston Globe. He wasn't joking. "I know how to call the police," he tells the Globe. "Easy peasy." While his parents were outside, he dialed 911, telling the operator, "Um, Daddy went past a red light." The operator eventually asked to talk to Robbie's dad, who was so shocked that he couldn't properly remember his son's age. He then apologized for allegedly running the light and for his son calling in a non-emergency. Police say no ticket was issued to Richardson, per CBS News. And after his parents explained he should only call 911 in an emergency, Robbie says he won't make the same mistake again. "When my daddy goes past a red light again, I'll call the eye doctor so he can fix his eyes," he says. |
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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 ||||| US ride-hailing company to appeal against ruling but new chief executive admits it is the ‘cost of a bad reputation’
Uber has been stripped of its London licence in a surprise move that dealt a serious blow to one of Silicon Valley’s fastest rising companies and sparked an outcry from a coalition of customers, government ministers and drivers at the ride-hailing company.
The firm’s application for a new licence in London was rejected by Transport for London on the basis that the company is not a “fit and proper” private car hire operator.
Uber’s cars will not disappear immediately as its current licence expires on 30 September and it plans to challenge the ruling by London’s transport authority in the courts immediately. The firm can continue to operate in the capital – where it has 3.5 million users – until it has exhausted the appeals process, which could take months..
How will you be affected by Uber losing its licence to operate in London? Read more
Uber’s chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, wrote to staff on Friday confirming that the company would appeal against the ruling. He said he disagreed with the decision but it was based on past behaviour.
“The truth is that there is a high cost to a bad reputation,” he wrote. “It really matters what people think of us, especially in a global business like ours.
“It’s critical that we act with integrity in everything we do, and learn how to be a better partner to every city we operate in. That doesn’t mean abandoning our principles – we will vigorously appeal TfL’s decision – but rather building trust through our actions and our behaviour. In doing so, we will show that Uber is not just a really great product, but a really great company that is meaningfully contributing to society, beyond its business and its bottom line.”
Khosrowshahi, who was brought in to run the firm after a series of scandals, also tweeted an appeal to Londoners to “work with us” in solving the issue.
dara khosrowshahi (@dkhos) Dear London: we r far from perfect but we have 40k licensed drivers and 3.5mm Londoners depending on us. Pls work w/us to make things right
The decision by TfL was backed by the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, employment rights campaigners, and the trade body for the capital’s black-cab drivers, who have been staunch opponents of the US-based company.
However, it drew immediate criticism from Uber users, drivers and Greg Hands, the trade minister.
One of Uber’s 40,000 drivers in the capital, James Farrar, who has campaigned for better working conditions at the firm, said TfL’s decision was a “devastating blow”.
TfL said it had rejected the company’s application to renew its licence because “Uber’s approach and conduct demonstrate a lack of corporate responsibility” in relation to reporting serious criminal offences, obtaining medical certificates and driver background checks.
The licensing body also said it was concerned by Uber’s use of Greyball, software that can be used to block regulatory bodies from gaining full access to its app and undertaking regulatory or law enforcement duties.
The decision to remove Uber from one of its biggest markets is the latest blow for a company that has shot to a $70bn (£52bn) valuation since it was founded in 2009 but has been hobbled by opposition from national and municipal governments around the world – including in Italy and Rio de Janeiro – due to concerns over safety or the threat to existing taxi businesses.
Prof Andre Spicer, from Cass Business School in London, said the decision was a “potentially mortal blow” to Uber. “In the past Uber operated at the edge of the law with new technology as an alibi. Now its rogue business model is proving to be a big liability.”
Khan said he fully supported TfL’s decision, saying all companies needed to “play by the rules”.
He said: “I want London to be at the forefront of innovation and new technology and to be a natural home for exciting new companies that help Londoners by providing a better and more affordable service.
“However, all companies in London must play by the rules and adhere to the high standards we expect – particularly when it comes to the safety of customers.”
But Hands, who is also minister for London, said: “At the flick of a pen Sadiq Khan is threatening to put 40,000 people out of work and leave 3.5 million users of Uber stranded.
“Uber must address safety concerns and it is important there is a level playing field across the private hire market.
“But a blanket ban will cause massive inconvenience to millions of Londoners, all while showing that the Mayor of London is closed to business and innovation.”
Sam Gyimah, a Conservative justice minister and MP for East Surrey, said it was “possible to have effective regulation of Uber without
penalising the consumers who benefit from more choice and lower
prices”.
How will TfL's decision affect Uber? Read more
Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, which represents black-cab drivers, said the mayor had made the right decision.
“Since it first came on to our streets Uber has broken the law, exploited its drivers and refused to take responsibility for the safety of passengers. This immoral company has no place on London’s streets,” he said.
Uber said in a statement the decision would “show the world that, far from being open, London is closed to innovative companies”.
“3.5 million Londoners who use our app, and more than 40,000 licensed drivers who rely on Uber to make a living, will be astounded by this decision,” the company added.
The company wrote to users on Friday asking them to “defend the livelihoods” of its drivers and sign a petition asking the mayor to reverse TfL’s decision.
Uber (@Uber) Help ensure Londoners have more, not fewer, transportation options—sign the petition. https://t.co/nheuOcYjQH
Farrar, a co-claimant in a landmark employment tribunal decision against Uber and chair of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain’s private hire drivers’ branch, said TfL should have stepped in earlier to protect drivers.
“To strip Uber of its licence after five years of laissez-faire regulation is a testament to a systemic failure at TfL,” he said.
The majority of Uber users responding to a Guardian request for comment opposed the decision to revoke the company’s licence.
Helen, from Walthamstow in east London, criticised the decision and said TfL should be working more closely with Uber. “With a lack of staff and police visible [on public transport], I often feel unsafe travelling alone and Uber has given me an affordable alternative to get home safely,” she said.
Leo, a wheelchair user, said less than 30% of the tube network was accessible to him and buses were slow. “Uber has been a lifesaver for me. It has got me to visit family at short notice when the nearest accessible station was miles away and the bus took two hours,” he said.
Uber is treating its drivers as sweated labour, says report Read more
In London, Uber has faced criticism from unions, lawmakers and traditional black-cab drivers over working conditions. Unions including the IWGB and GMB called on TfL to insist Uber guaranteed basic employment rights under the terms of its new five-year licence.
Employment rights campaigners said TfL’s decision was a warning shot to so-called gig economy companies, which include apps such as Deliveroo and delivery firms such as Hermes who argue their drivers and riders are self-employed.
Frank Field, the Labour MP who led a parliamentary inquiry which found that Uber drivers were treated as Victorian-style “sweated labour” said: “This is a gamechanger for the gig economy. Uber must now respond to TfL’s decision by totally resetting its business model.” ||||| FILE - This Wednesday, June 21, 2017, file photo shows the building that houses the headquarters of Uber, in San Francisco. Transport for London says it won't renew a license for Uber to operate in the... (Associated Press)
FILE - This Wednesday, June 21, 2017, file photo shows the building that houses the headquarters of Uber, in San Francisco. Transport for London says it won't renew a license for Uber to operate in the... (Associated Press)
LONDON (AP) — London's transport authority said Friday it won't renew Uber's license to operate in the British capital, arguing that it demonstrates a lack of corporate responsibility with implications in public safety and security.
Transport for London says the car-hailing app was not "fit and proper to hold a private hire operator license."
It cited its approach to handling serious criminal offenses and its use of software to block regulatory bodies from gaining full access to the app, preventing "officials from undertaking regulator or law enforcement duties."
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he supported the decision, saying any operator of taxi services in the city "needs to play by the rules."
He says that "providing an innovative service must not be at the expense of customer safety and security."
Uber can appeal within 21 days. | – London's transport authority says it won't renew Uber's license to operate in the British capital, arguing that it demonstrates a lack of corporate responsibility with implications in public safety and security. Transport for London says the car-hailing app was not "fit and proper to hold a private hire operator license." It cited Uber's approach to reporting serious criminal offenses and its "approach to explaining the use of Greyball in London"; that's the software Uber reportedly used to block regulatory bodies from gaining full access to the app, preventing "officials from undertaking regulator or law enforcement duties." The AP reports London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he supported the decision, saying any operator of taxi services in the city "needs to play by the rules." He says that "providing an innovative service must not be at the expense of customer safety and security." Uber's current license is up on Sept. 30, but the Guardian reports it can appeal the decision over the next 21 days. It can keep operating "until any appeal processes have been exhausted," per Transport for London. |
Jared Fogle is desperately trying to get out of prison anyway he can, and now he is dragging disgraced Larry Nassar into his fight by using the disgraced Team USA doctor as a benchmark for his own charges.
Fogle filed documents in his case, obtained by The Blast, arguing that he should have never been charged with “traveling for the purpose of engaging in illicit sex.” He specifically points out that “Dr. Larry Nasser was not charged with ‘travel for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct,’ yet he clearly engaged in unlawful conducts with young women.”
He says that “Fogle, in contrast, traveled as a Media Spokesperson for Subway, yet he was in error allowed to be charged” with the “traveling” crime.
Fogle — who is currently behind bars serving his 15 year sentence — is questioning why Nassar wouldn’t also be charged with the same crime if he was “clearly violating young women” during his medical travels. He claims this is “diverging applications of the law,” and wants it dropped.
Fogle is also claiming he was pressured into pleading guilty in the whole case, and wants his plea withdrawn from court. He accuses the prosecution of “tinkering” with a charge to “create crime” and force him to plead guilty or risk being forced into bankruptcy. He also blames his “high priced” legal team for allegedly forcing him to plead guilty.
Lastly, he blames many of his issues on “alcohol and sex addictions” and claims doctors put him on medication to successfully curb his “overactive libido.”
Fogle is adamant the courts have been in “grave error of the law.”
The court has not yet responded to his motion … but Fogle is clearly pulling out all the stops to get out of prison. ||||| Jared Fogle I Got A Raw Deal ... Nassar Got Leniency!
Jared Fogle Thinks He Got Screwed and Larry Nassar Got Leniency
Breaking News
Jared Fogle might have his most ridiculous legal argument yet for a judge to undo his plea deal -- and Larry Nassar is his exhibit A.
Fogle filed docs seeking to withdraw his guilty plea, and focuses on one of his many charges ... traveling for the purpose of engaging in illicit sex. He points out Dr. Nassar did NOT get slapped with this charge, and Fogle clearly thinks he should have been.
Yes, it's true ... Nassar was traveling with Team USA Gymnastics when he committed some of his crimes. Fogle, who filed the docs himself, thinks there was some bias against him because he did get that charge. He thinks he and Nassar should have gotten equal treatment under the law.
Here's why Fogle's not a great lawyer. Just one of Nassar's several sentences was for 175 years -- whereas Fogle's doing 15. He's asking the court to let him withdraw his guilty plea, presumably to get a do-over in his case.
Careful what ya wish for, jackass. | – Jared Fogle remains very busy trying to get himself out of jail—and apparently keeping up with current events. The former Subway pitchman's new legal gambit revolves around the case of disgraced Team USA gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, reports the Blast. In newly filed legal documents, Fogle complains that he was charged with "traveling for the purpose of engaging in illicit sex" while he was on the road for Subway, but Nassar was not similarly charged even though he committed crimes while on the road with the gymnasts. Fogle apparently sees this as an example of how the case against him was unfair. He also says he was pressured into pleading guilty and wants to withdraw his pleas to charges of distribution and receipt of child pornography and traveling to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor. TMZ points out that Fogle is serving a 15-year sentence, while Nassar has no hope of ever leaving prison, raising the question of why Fogle would take the risk of withdrawing his pleas to get a new trial. (Fogle previously said the judge was biased because she has daughters.) |
SEOUL—Pope Francis arrived in South Korea on Thursday for his first trip to Asia as pontiff, kicking off a five-day visit that will showcase the Vatican's efforts to spread the faith on a continent where just 3% of the population is Catholic.
The opening day of the visit—Pope Francis' third abroad and the first papal trip to Asia since St. John Paul II went to India in 1999—included meetings with bishops and South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who said the pontiff's decision to make the trip demonstrated his special... ||||| SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Pope Francis called Thursday for renewed efforts to forge peace on the war-divided Korean Peninsula and for both sides to avoid "fruitless" criticisms and shows of force, opening a five-day visit to South Korea with a message of reconciliation as Seoul's rival, North Korea, fired five projectiles into the sea.
Pope Francis waves from a car after his arrival in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. As Francis became the first pope in 25 years to visit South Korea on Thursday, Seoul's never-timid rival,... (Associated Press)
Pope Francis, center, receives flowers from children in traditional dress as South Korean President Park Geun-hye, left, looks on upon his arrival at Seoul Military Airport in Seongnam, South Korea, Thursday,... (Associated Press)
Pope Francis poses with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, for photographers at the presidential Blue House in Seoul Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. Pope Francis became the first pontiff in 25 years to visit... (Associated Press)
Pope Francis, left, and South Korean President Park Geun-hye inspect honor guard upon his arrival at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, South Korea, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. Pope Francis has arrived in South... (Associated Press)
South Korean President Park Geun-Hye, right, talks with Pope Francis at the presidential Blue House in Seoul on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. Pope Francis became the first pontiff in 25 years to visit South... (Associated Press)
Pope Francis, center, is escorted by South Korean President Park Geun-hye, left, upon his arrival at Seoul Military Airport in Seongnam, South Korea, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. As Francis became the first... (Associated Press)
Pope Francis is welcomed by a 21-gun salute upon his arrival in Seoul, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. The Pontiff arrived in South Korea on the first papal visit to the Asian nation in a quarter century, stepping... (Associated Press)
Pope Francis walks with South Korean President Park Geun-hye upon his arrival in Seoul, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. The Pontiff arrived in South Korea on the first papal visit to the Asian nation in a quarter... (Associated Press)
Pope Francis waves upon his arrival at Seoul Air Base as South Korean President Park Geun-hye, left, smiles in Seongnam, South Korea, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. Pope Francis arrived here on a visit meant... (Associated Press)
North Korea has a long history of making sure it is not forgotten during high-profile events in the South, and Thursday's apparent test firing off its eastern coast made its presence felt.
In the first speech of his first trip to Asia, Francis told South Korean President Park Geun-hye and government officials that peace required forgiveness, cooperation and mutual respect. He said diplomacy must be encouraged so that listening and dialogue replace "mutual recriminations, fruitless criticisms and displays of force."
The Argentine pope spoke in English, the first English speech of his pontificate. Usually he speaks in Italian or his native Spanish, but the Vatican said he would deliver at least four speeches in English on the trip to accommodate his Asian audiences.
North Korea's apparent test firing was conducted from Wonsan on its east coast and the initial three short-range projectiles flew about 220 kilometers (135 miles), according to a South Korean Defense Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing office rules. It wasn't immediately clear what the projectiles were. After an initial three firings an hour before Francis arrived, North Korea followed up with two others a short time after he landed.
North Korea has conducted an unusually large number of short-range missile and artillery test firings this year. It has expressed anger over annual military drills between the United States and South Korea, which it says are invasion preparations. A new round of drills, which Seoul and Washington call routine and defensive, are expected to start in coming days.
Neither Francis nor Park referred to the firings in their public remarks.
Organizers of the pope's trip had invited a delegation of North Korean Catholics to attend his Aug. 18 Mass for peace and reconciliation at Seoul's main cathedral. But late last month, North Korean authorities told the organizers that they wouldn't participate for various reasons, a Vatican spokesman said.
North Korea's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but in practice only sanctioned services are tolerated by the government. The U.S. State Department says North Korea permits no religious freedom at all. Currently, there are no Vatican-sanctioned institutions or resident priests operating in North Korea.
As he arrived at an airport just south of Seoul on the first papal visit in a quarter century, the pope shook hands with four relatives of victims of a South Korean ferry sinking that killed more than 300 and two descendants of Korean martyrs who died rather than renounce their faith. Francis plans to beatify 124 Korean martyrs who founded the church on the peninsula in the 18th century, hoping to give South Korea's vibrant and growing church new models for holiness and evangelization.
Some elderly Catholics wiped tears from their faces, bowing deeply as they greeted the pope on the tarmac. A boy and girl in traditional Korean dress presented Francis with a bouquet of flowers, and he bowed in return. The pope then stepped into a small, black, locally made car for the trip into Seoul where the official welcome ceremony and speeches took place.
Park, the South Korean president, said she hoped the pope's presence would heal the Korean Peninsula's "long wounds of division," referring to the 1950-53 Korean War, which continues to divide the Koreas along the world's most heavily guarded border.
"Division has been a big scar for all Koreans," she said.
Francis sought to encourage the pursuit of peace.
"Korea's quest for peace is a cause close to our hearts, for it affects the stability of the entire area and indeed of our whole war-weary world," he said. "May all of us dedicate these days to peace: to praying for it and deepening our resolve to achieve it."
As his plane flew through Chinese airspace early Thursday, Francis sent a telegram of greetings and prayers to Chinese President Xi Jinping. It was a rare opportunity for an exchange since the Holy See and Beijing have no diplomatic relations, and furthers a low-key push for better ties with China and efforts to heal a rift between the Chinese authorities and those Catholics who worship outside the state-recognized church.
Other highlights of Francis' visit include his participation in a Catholic festival for young believers from around Asia. The pope is also expected to meet with some families of the South Korean ferry sinking in April. The government's response to the disaster, which killed mostly high school students, has angered many South Koreans.
Park said she hoped the pope's visit would heal the pain many South Koreans are feeling because of the sinking and the recent deaths of young soldiers.
"A lot of bad things keep happening in our country right now, and people are going through tough times," said Ryun Sun-hee, a 19-year-old college student. "So I hope this event can encourage people and bring more positive things to our country."
It's the first papal visit since Pope John Paul II traveled to South Korea in 1989. In January, Francis plans to visit Sri Lanka and the Philippines.
South Korea's church, which has been growing steadily over the last half century, is seen as a model for the future. Local church officials hope for a continuing increase in believers in a country that once welcomed missionaries to help spread the faith but now sends its own priests and nuns abroad to evangelize in other countries.
Park credited Catholics in South Korea with playing a big part in making the country what it has become: South Korea has risen from poverty, war and dictatorship into Asia's fourth biggest economy. She called the Korean martyrs "pioneers who spread freedom and equality," and said their sacrifice helped develop Korean society.
There was high anticipation in South Korea ahead of the visit. Banners and posters welcoming the pope decorated streets and subway stations. The Yonhap news agency reported an increase in sales of rosaries and other Catholic goods, and special displays of books on the pope and Catholicism sprung up in book stores.
___
Associated Press writer Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this story. ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Pope Francis: "Korea's quest for peace is a cause close to our hearts"
Pope Francis urged dialogue between the two Koreas instead of "displays of force" at the start of his five-day visit to South Korea.
The Pope's call for peace came hours after North Korea fired short-range rockets around the time of his arrival.
It is his first visit to Asia since he became pope in March 2013.
Pope Francis will beatify Korean Catholics who died for their faith, attend a Catholic youth festival and conduct a "reconciliation" mass.
In a speech addressed to South Korean President Park Geun-hye and senior officials, the Pope said reconciliation on the Korean peninsula had implications for "the stability of the entire area and indeed of the whole war-weary world".
"Diplomacy... is based on the firm and persevering conviction that peace can be won through quiet listening and dialogue, rather than by mutual recriminations, fruitless criticisms and displays of force," he said.
He also called on Koreans to set an example for future generations. "I think it is especially important for us to reflect on the need to give our young people the gift of peace," he said.
Earlier in the day, North Korea fired three rockets off its east coast as the Pope's plane approached South Korean airspace. It fired another two in the afternoon.
Pyongyang has engaged in several such launches in recent months in what it says is a response to US and South Korean provocations - in the latest case, a military drill due to start on Monday.
No North Koreans
The Pope is spending five days in South Korea, where the Catholic Church is growing. It currently has just over 5.4 million members, some 10.4% of the population.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption President Park Geun-hye greeted the pontiff on his arrival in South Korea
Image copyright AP Image caption Preparations are under way at Gwanghwamun Square for the papal mass
Pope Francis will pay tribute to some of South Korea's first Catholics when he beatifies 124 Koreans who died in the 18th and 19th Centuries. After an individual is beatified, he or she is given the title "blessed".
The ceremony will be held on Saturday at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul, with up to one million people expected to attend.
The pontiff is also attending Asian Youth Day, a festival for young Catholics from across the region, and will meet students who survived the Sewol ferry disaster.
On the last day of his visit, on Monday, the Pope plans to hold a "reconciliation" mass in the Myeong-dong cathedral in Seoul.
He will deliver a message of peace for the divided Koreas and East Asia, according to Yonhap News Agency.
North Korea rejected an invitation by the Archdiocese of Seoul for 10 North Korean Catholics to attend the final mass, South Korean officials say.
It is not clear how many Catholics there are in North Korea. A UN Human Rights Council report released in February 2014 said that apart from the few organised state-controlled churches, Christians were prohibited from practising their religion and were persecuted.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Rupert Wingfield-Hayes: "South Korea is a huge success story for the Catholic Church"
Pope Francis is due to visit Asia again in January when he travels to Sri Lanka and the Philippines, one of only two Asian countries with a Catholic majority - the other being East Timor.
Pope John Paul II was the last pope to visit South Korea in 1989, where he prayed for reunification between the North and the South.
Beijing detente?
Meanwhile, on his way to South Korea the Pope also sent a telegram to China's leaders, a tradition when the pontiff flies over a country.
"I extend best wishes to your Excellency and your fellow citizens, and I invoke the divine blessings of peace and wellbeing on the nation," he said.
In response, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman told AFP news agency that "China all along has retained sincerity towards improving China-Vatican relations."
She added that China was "willing to continue making efforts with the Vatican to advance constructive dialogue and promote the process of improving bilateral relations".
The Vatican has no official ties with Beijing. The last time a pope visited the region, he had to avoid Chinese air space.
But in what a Church spokesman has called "a sign of detente", the papal plane was given permission to use Chinese air space.
More than 100 Chinese people were due to attend Asian Youth Day, but about half were unable to attend due to "a complicated situation inside China", said a spokesman for a committee organising the Pope's visit. | – South Korea welcomed Pope Francis today with flowers and a red carpet, as the pontiff kicked off a five-day visit in which he called for peace on the divided peninsula. North Korea, on the other hand, shot off rockets. Pyongyang fired five short-range projectiles off its east coast, including three around the time of the pope's arrival—though none endangered his plane, the Wall Street Journal reports. On his first Asian tour since becoming pope, Francis also marked another first: He made a speech in English, the AP notes. "Quiet listening and dialogue" must replace "mutual recriminations, fruitless criticisms, and displays of force," he said. Though 10 North Korean Catholics were invited to attend Pope Francis' upcoming "reconciliation" mass in Seoul on Monday, the invitation was declined, officials say. Then again, a UN Human Rights Council report this year said Christians "were prohibited from practicing their religion and were persecuted," the BBC notes. The Vatican didn't extend an olive branch only to North Korea, however. In what the Church called "a sign of detente" with Beijing, Francis was allowed to fly through Chinese airspace on his way to South Korea and sent a telegram of prayers to President Xi Jinping as he did so. |
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Pro-independence party candidate Tsai Ing-wen took a commanding lead in Taiwan's presidential election results late Saturday evening, and the candidate for the China-friendly Nationalist Party conceded a massive loss.
Taiwan's ruling KMT or Nationalist Party presidential candidate Eric Chu, front center, with his wife Kao Wan-ching, front right, waves to supporters as he concedes defeat in the presidential election,... (Associated Press)
Supporters of Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen cheer at the campaign headquarters as early polling numbers arrive in her favor, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016, in Taipei,... (Associated Press)
Taiwan's ruling KMT or Nationalist Party presidential candidate Eric Chu and his wife Kao Wan-ching bow to supporters as he concedes defeat in the presidential election, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016, in Taipei,... (Associated Press)
Voters cast their ballots in the presidential election at a local temple, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016, in Taipei, Taiwan. Voting began Saturday in the election in which the island's China-friendly Nationalist... (Associated Press)
A Taiwanese man exits a voting booth with his ballots in the presidential election at a local polling station in Taipei, Taiwan, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016. Voting began Saturday in Taiwan's presidential... (Associated Press)
Supporters of Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen cheer at the campaign headquarters as early polling numbers arrive in her favor, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016, in Taipei,... (Associated Press)
Taiwan's ruling KMT or Nationalist Party presidential candidate Eric Chu delivers a speech as he concedes defeat in the presidential election, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016, in Taipei, Taiwan. Pro-independence... (Associated Press)
Supporters of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen cheer as they wait for election results at the party headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016. Tsai... (Associated Press)
The Democratic Progressive Party's Tsai was poised to become the self-governing island's first female president in an election taking place amid concerns that the island's economy is under threat from China and broad opposition to Beijing's demands for political unification.
Tsai had about 60 percent of votes while Nationalist Eric Chu had about 30 percent, with about half of votes counted.
"We failed. The Nationalist Party lost the elections. We didn't work hard enough," Chu said before a thin crowd of a few hundred supporters at his campaign headquarters. He followed his concession speech by making a long bow.
"As the Nationalist Party chairperson, I need to pay the highest level of responsibility. Dear all friends, Eric Chu apologizes to everyone. I'm resigning as party chief," he said.
Outgoing Nationalist President Ma Ying-jeou has served eight years and is constitutionally barred from another term.
The outcome of the contest for a majority in the 113-seat legislature remained uncertain, with independents and smaller parties posing a threat to both the Nationalists and the DPP.
"Taiwan and China need to keep some distance," said Willie Yao, a computer engineer voting in Taipei who said he backed Tsai. "The change of president would mean still letting Taiwanese make the decision."
Reflecting unease over a slowdown in Taiwan's once-mighty economy, undeclared voter Hsieh Lee-fung said providing opportunities to the next generation was the most important issue.
"Economic progress is related closely to our leadership, like land reform and housing prices. People aren't making enough money to afford homes," Hsieh said.
A win for Tsai would introduce new uncertainty in the complicated relationship between Taiwan and mainland China, which claims the island as its own territory and threatens to use force if it declares formal independence.
"This is not about defeating the other party. This is about working to overcome the obstacles in Taiwan's path," Tsai told supporters in the rain at a final rally Friday night in front of the presidential office building in the center of the capital, Taipei.
Tsai has pledged to maintain the status quo of de-facto independence for the island of 23 million, although she has refused to endorse the principle that Taiwan and China are parts of a single nation to be unified eventually.
Beijing has made that its baseline for continuing negotiations that have produced a series of pacts on trade, transport and exchanges. Observers say China is likely to adopt a wait-and-see approach to Tsai's presidency, but might use diplomatic and economy pressure if she is seen as straying too far from its unification agenda.
Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1885 to 1945 and split again from China amid civil war in 1949.
Chu was a late entry in the race after the party ditched its original candidate, Hung Hsiu-chu, whose abrasive style was seen as alienating voters.
China has largely declined to comment on the polls, although its chief official for Taiwan affairs this month warned of potential major challenges in the relationship in the year ahead.
Tsai supporters appeared confident that ties with China would weather a change in government.
"As long as Tsai doesn't provoke the other side, it's OK," said former newspaper distribution agent Lenex Chang, who attended Tsai's rally. "If mainland China democratizes someday, we could consider a tie-up," he added.
Candidates from across the political spectrum sounded a rare note of unity Saturday after a teenage pop star posted a video online apologizing for having waved the Taiwanese flag on a South Korean TV program.
Sixteen-year-old Chou Tzu-yu, who performs under the name Tzuyu, had apparently been compelled to apologize after her South Korean management company suspended her activities in China for fear of offending nationalist sentiments on the mainland.
Ma, Tsai and Chu all condemned what they described as the bullying of a young girl.
___
Associated Press writer Ralph Jennings contributed to this report. ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Tsai Ing-wen said people in Taiwan wanted a transparent government
Tsai Ing-wen has been elected Taiwan's first female president.
Ms Tsai, 59, leads the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that wants independence from China.
In her victory speech, she vowed to preserve the status quo in relations with China, adding Beijing must respect Taiwan's democracy and both sides must ensure there are no provocations.
China sees the island as a breakaway province - which it has threatened to take back by force if necessary.
In her speech, Ms Tsai hailed a "new era" in Taiwan and pledged to co-operate with other political parties on major issues.
The will of the Taiwanese people would be the basis for relations with China, Ms Tsai said.
"I also want to emphasise that both sides of the Taiwanese Strait have a responsibility to find mutually acceptable means of interaction that are based on dignity and reciprocity.
"We must ensure that no provocations or accidents take place," Ms Tsai said, warning that "any forms of suppression will harm the stability of cross-strait relations".
She thanked the US and Japan for their support and vowed Taiwan would contribute to peace and stability in the region.
Ms Tsai had a commanding lead in the vote count when Eric Chu of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) admitted defeat.
Mr Chu congratulated Tsai Ing-wen and announced he was quitting as KMT head. Taiwan's Premier Mao Chi-kuo also resigned.
Read more about Taiwan's election
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Taiwan's first female leader, shy but steely
Why does this election matter?
Who is running?
Is it all about the economy?
What's behind the China-Taiwan divide?
Taiwan profile
The election came just months after a historic meeting between the leaders of Taiwan and China.
However, the flagging economy as well as Taiwan's relationship with China both played a role in the voters' choice, correspondents say.
The KMT has been in power for most of the past 70 years and has overseen improved relations with Beijing - Ms Tsai's is only the second-ever victory for the DPP.
The first was by pro-independence advocate Chen Shui-bian; during his time as president between 2000 and 2008 tensions with China escalated.
Analysis: Cindy Sui, BBC News, Taipei
The victory by Tsai Ing-wen marks a defeat for not only the pro-unification ruling party KMT but also China.
Despite the past eight years of reduced tensions and much improved relations built by the KMT and China, Taiwanese voters have voted for Ms Tsai from the pro-independence party instead. Basically, they've voted to keep Beijing at a distance.
This reflects not only widespread dissatisfaction with President Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT over insufficient measures to improve the lacklustre economy, low wages and widening wealth gap - it also reflects growing worries by Taiwanese people that the island may become too economically dependent on China and that this will make it hard for Taiwan to fend off pressures by Beijing to reunify with it one day.
The message voters have sent Beijing is that, while they want reduced tensions and good relations, they cherish Taiwan's sovereignty, democracy and self-rule even more.
The challenge now is for Ms Tsai to find a way to work with China, the island's biggest export market, trade partner and security threat.
Ms Tsai, a former scholar, has said she wants to "maintain [the] status quo" with China.
She became chairwoman of the DPP in 2008, after it saw a string of corruption scandals.
She lost a presidential bid in 2012 but has subsequently led the party to regional election victories. She has won increased support from the public partly because of widespread dissatisfaction over the KMT and President Ma Ying-jeou's handling of the economy and widening wealth gap.
Image copyright AP Image caption Eric Chu's loss shows the KMT has lost a nearly 70-year monopoly on power
Saturday's polls come after a historic meeting between President Ma and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore in November for talks that were seen as largely symbolic - the first in more than 60 years.
Eric Chu, 54, is the mayor of New Taipei City and stepped up to become chairman of the party in October.
The KMT has lost its majority in the legislature for the first time in history.
The former accounting professor was seen as popular with young people in the party, but had been unable to change public opinion that is increasingly unhappy with the party's friendly stance towards China and the island's economic travails.
In 2014, hundreds of students occupied the parliament in the largest show of anti-China sentiment on the island for years. Labelled the Sunflower Movement, protesters demanded more transparency in trade pacts negotiated with China.
Taiwan for all practical purposes been independent since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, when the defeated Nationalist government fled to the island as the Communists, under Mao Zedong, swept to power. | – Tsai Ing-wen promised a "new era" for Taiwan on Saturday after being elected as the island's first female president. The 59-year-old, from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, defeated the Nationalist Party's Eric Chu with around 60% of the vote, reports the Los Angeles Times. Tsai will take office in May. Nationalist President Ma Ying-jeou has already served two terms and Taiwan's constitution didn't allow him to seek a third, the AP notes. "We failed. The Nationalist Party lost the elections. We didn't work hard enough," Chu told supporters at party headquarters, announcing his resignation as party chief. The election marks what the BBC calls a "turning point in Taiwan's democracy and relationship with China," which still officially considers the island to be a renegade province. "I am very happy. I feel I have finally accomplished something for Taiwan, so that Taiwan will have great autonomy instead of just following China," a 32-year-old engineer who voted for Tsai tells the LAT. Tsai has said she favors maintaining the status quo, though her refusal to support the principle of reunification between China and Taiwan makes it uncertain whether the closer ties with Beijing that Ma introduced will continue, reports the AP. |
ATLANTA (AP) — A man hired women to work as dancers inside a million-dollar mansion and threatened to kill at least one of them if she tried to leave, according to a 911 call.
Officers helped eight women leave the home after the 911 call was made Tuesday morning, police said Wednesday in a news release. In the 911 recording, the caller cryptically asks the dispatcher for help getting out of a "bad situation."
Under questioning from the dispatcher, the woman describes a boss who carries a gun, sent her to get plastic surgery, tells her she can leave anytime she wants — but threatens to kill her if she does.
Kenndric Roberts, 33, faces charges of false imprisonment and trafficking a person for labor. He was in jail with an initial court appearance scheduled for Thursday. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney who could comment on the charges.
"What we believe is he was luring these women to this house with promises of either modeling careers or financial assistance. We're not 100 percent sure on that. The investigation is continuing," Sandy Springs police Sgt. Sam Worsham told WSB-TV.
As the dispatcher learns more about what's happening, her surprise is clear, her tone at times incredulous: "Wait. Did you say you're in a house full of girls?"
"Mmm hmm," the woman responds.
"And somebody's threatening to kill you if you leave?"
"Mmm hmm."
"Who's threatening to kill you? One of the girls?"
"No, our boss."
"Your boss?"
The woman says she knows her boss only as "Ken something," that she met him online and that it initially seemed like a good situation because she could make money for dancing. When she arrived about a month ago, he sent her to get plastic surgery, she told the dispatcher.
The situation quickly turned bad: "He's, like, so mean I just can't stay."
She describes the home as "a very nice house" in a gated subdivision, with cameras inside. According to Fulton County property records, the two-story brick home measures 6,806 square feet and is valued at $976,300.
Her boss also lives in the house, drives a lot of different cars and generally has a handgun with him, she told the dispatcher.
Throughout the 14-minute 911 recording, the woman repeatedly says nothing illegal is going on but that she's scared to leave.
"Does he know holding someone against their will is against the law?" the dispatcher asks.
"He is so smart. He knows exactly what he's doing," the woman said. "He'll be like, 'You can leave whenever you want,' and then he'll, like, threaten you right after."
There were seven other women in the home, she said, but she was the only one who wanted to leave.
The woman told the dispatcher she was planning to run out of the house and call a car to come pick her up and take her to the airport because she had to catch a flight home to Orlando, Florida, that friends got for her.
The woman asks the dispatcher to have officers pull up in front of the house and that she'll go out to meet them. ||||| The voice was calm and quiet and desperate: "I'm in a very bad situation, and I need to get out."
The caller, a 20-year-old woman, told a Georgia dispatcher that she was being held against her will. And it wasn't just her.
"It's a house full of girls and ... if I try to leave, he'll try to kill me and stuff," she said, prompting the dispatcher to ask, "Wait — did you say you're in a house full of girls?"
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The caller's Tuesday morning plea helped Georgia authorities to uncover what they believe is a case of human trafficking based out of a $1 million luxury home in the suburbs of Atlanta. The suspect, Kenndric Roberts, 33, was charged with additional felonies Friday, Sandy Springs police told NBC News.
Roberts faces five counts of false imprisonment, five counts of trafficking persons for labor and two counts for possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. An AK-47 and a Glock .45-caliber handgun were found in the home, police said. Possible federal charges are also pending.
In total, eight women ranging from ages 19 to 22 were found at the home, said Sgt. Sam Worsham.
Roberts was renting the residence, Worsham added, and the homeowners weren't there. The president of the local homeowners association told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the group had received complaints from neighbors about cars constantly "coming in and out."
It's unclear how long some of the women were allegedly held at the home, which is listed as having five bedrooms and five-and-a-half bathrooms. The 911 caller said she had been there about a month.
Kenndric Roberts, 33, is suspected of human trafficking. via 11alive.com
She said she met the man holding her captive via SeekingArrangement.com, a website that offers "mutually beneficial relationships," and that "he had me go get, like, plastic surgery."
Police said Roberts had lured the young women by telling them he could provide them modeling jobs.
But the promises made of easy money turned into threats of violence, detectives said in an affidavit.
Related: Flight Attendants Train to Spot Human Trafficking
One woman "stated that Kendrick [sic] had threatened her on numerous times, one instance where he stated he was going to pay someone to cut her chest open, take out the implants and cut her up," the detective wrote.
Some of the women also said he forced them to work at local strip clubs, and they had to leave their IDs and phones at home, police said. He offered to pay them more money if they stayed with him — and threatened to hurt them or their families if they left.
Roberts waived his first court appearance Thursday. He is being held without bond in Fulton County Jail with another hearing planned for later this month.
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The FBI office in Atlanta is helping to assist the investigation, and is asking for other potential victims to come forward.
Worsham said all eight of the women have been brought to families or placed in safe houses.
Atlanta remains one of the largest hubs in the country for sexual exploitation and human trafficking, federal authorities say.
Kasey McClure, who runs the faith-based nonprofit 4Sarah Inc., which assists victims of sex trafficking in the Atlanta area, said this latest case should be an eye-opener because it happened in an affluent bedroom community where neighbors failed to notify police.
Related: Human Trafficking Increased in 2016, Organization Reports
For the women, who are oftentimes desperate for money and a place to live, the lifestyle can seem irresistible, she added.
"These girls think, 'Well, I’m in a beautiful home. I’m getting fed. I’m getting transportation. I don’t have to worry about paying bills.' It’s glamorized," said McClure, who began the nonprofit in 2005 after leaving the sex industry herself.
Her organization, which began as a "strip club ministry," aims to help women turn their lives around. While some young girls and women are put off by the violence and leave on their own accord, others sometimes return because they have nowhere else to go, she said.
But she remains hopeful organizations such as hers can make a difference: "You change lives one girl at a time." ||||| Just One More Thing...
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Close | – A man has been charged with holding eight women against their will inside a million-dollar home in the suburbs of Atlanta, NBC News reports. Authorities say 33-year-old Kenndric Roberts met the women online and offered them modeling jobs. But once they moved into the 6,800-square-foot, five-bedroom house he was renting, things changed, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The women—who range in age from 19 to 22—tell police Roberts threatened them if they tried to leave, forced them to work at strip clubs, threatened their families, and made them get plastic surgery. One of the women referred to Roberts as "our boss," the AP reports. It's unclear how long the women had been in the home. What authorities now believe was a human trafficking operation was discovered Tuesday when one of the women called 911 and asked police to help her escape a "very bad situation" in a "very nice house." She said a man who had a "house full of girls" was threatening to kill her if she left. Police responded and found the eight women. Roberts was arrested on Wednesday. He's been charged with multiple counts of false imprisonment, trafficking persons for labor, and more. Federal charges are also possible. The women have been returned to their families or placed in safe houses. |
President Donald Trump and former John McCain presidential running mate Sarah Palin are not invited to memorial services for the iconic Arizona senator, multiple sources tell PEOPLE.
“Two names you won’t see on the guest list: Trump and Palin,” says a Capitol Hill source with knowledge of funeral plans for McCain, who died of brain cancer Saturday at age 81.
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“Invitations were not extended” to the two political figures, confirms Carla Eudy, a fundraiser who has worked with and been friends with the McCain family for decades.
A source with knowledge of the funeral arrangements adds that several longtime McCain staffers were also removed from the invite list in recent days by Eudy.
The fundraiser, who helped plan the memorial services, did not specifically address where the requests originated, nor how they were conveyed.
Speculation in Washington, D.C., is that they came from “the family.”
“My guess is, it came from Cindy,” says a source close to the McCain family. “She is very protective of John’s memory and legacy. She’s also a grieving widow. I think she wants to get through this as best she can.”
Speculation also has focused on the process of disinviting someone to a funeral.
“Donald Trump and Sarah Palin were not served official notice outright,” says the source close to the McCain family. “I want to make that clear. It wasn’t a no-trespass order. They won’t be turned away by guards if they show up at the funeral.”
The stay-away messages were sent through intermediaries, the friend tells PEOPLE.
The messages were received, sources say.
RELATED VIDEO: John McCain’s Mom, 106, Is ‘Proud’ of His Legacy — But It’s ‘Tough’ to ‘Bury Your Child’: Source
Trump and McCain had a heated and very public feud, stemming from days leading up to the Republican primary. In that sense, a Senate source says, it “follows that the family could feel less than warm” about Trump.
Not so with Palin, other political operators say.
“It’s sad” that Palin was told to stay away, says a Republican source with ties to both camps. “They had a good friendship.”
Wednesday marks the 10-year anniversary of McCain selecting Palin as his vice presidential running mate. Palin is credited with reenergizing McCain’s poll numbers during his failed presidential bid in the fall of 2008. She also helped his re-election when he needed a boost.
In McCain’s two-hour HBO documentary and book, The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and other Appreciations, released in May, he praised Palin for her work on the campaign but admitted for the first time that he regretted choosing her as his running mate.
Palin said at the time that she feels a “perpetual gut punch” every time she hears reports about McCain’s regrets, but added that “that’s not what Sen. McCain has told me all these years.”
Palin paid tribute to McCain on Saturday after news broke of his death.
“Today we lost an American original. Sen. John McCain was a maverick and a fighter, never afraid to stand for his beliefs. John never took the easy path in life — and through sacrifice and suffering he inspired others to serve something greater than self.”
She continued, “John McCain was my friend. I will remember the good times.”
Another source close to Palin tells PEOPLE now that “out of respect for Sen. McCain and his family we have nothing to add at this point. The Palin family will always cherish their friendship with the McCains and hold those memories dear.”
Washington, meanwhile, is already looking past the funerals to see who will be appointed to replace McCain in the Senate.
Rumors that Cindy McCain is a candidate spring from Cindy herself, a source tells PEOPLE.
“I didn’t hear it directly from her, but that’s the common inside knowledge,” says the Senate source. “It was Cindy’s idea.”
Insiders expect the replacement to be named soon.
“The Governor of Arizona is coming into town [Washington, D.C.] on Saturday,” a Capitol Hill source says. “He’s going to meet with some folks to discuss the replacement.”
“We expect to know who it is next week,” says a political source. “It’s a hot topic in Washington. Everyone is caught up in this.” ||||| 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 ||||| 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 ||||| Illustration: Lazaro Gamio/Axios
President Trump, using more anecdote than evidence, is doing unto Google, Facebook and Twitter what he helped do to mainstream media: persuade a big chunk of America they are biased — and fake.
What's new: "Fake social" and "fake search" are the new "fake news" in the mind of Trump’s inner circle.
"Fake social" and "fake search" are the new "fake news" in the mind of Trump’s inner circle. A new poll by Media Research Center/McLaughlin & Associates, reported first by Axios, showed the attacks are working: 65% of self-described conservatives believe that social media companies purposely censor the right.
A Trump operative tells me: "It's risen to the level of being an emotional or gut issue with conservatives, like guns/immigration. It's an issue that's here to stay."
Be smart: Conservatives charged bias and lies in mainstream news and then created right-wing alternatives. It should come as no surprise if they do the same two-step process to the modern form of distributing that news.
Donald Trump Jr., who has 3 million Twitter followers and 1.3 million Instagram followers, told me there is "exactly zero doubt in my mind" that tech bias is real: "I don't think [this issue] is going away, because I don't think it's changing."
The president's oldest son, reflecting Trumpworld's growing appetite for action against Big Tech, said the companies need to self-regulate better: "Many of these platforms get many benefits from the government."
🚨 Don Jr. tells Axios that if a Trump supporter in the tech world created a conservative, Facebook-like social network, he would urge Trump supporters to switch to it.
When I asked him if his father's 2020 campaign might build such a platform, Don Jr. said: "I'd love to do it. But what I would prefer is, take one of the two Silicon Valley conservatives and let them start it. And then I'd help promote the platform and be all over that."
him if his father's 2020 campaign might build such a platform, Don Jr. said: "I'd love to do it. But what I would prefer is, And then I'd help promote the platform and be all over that." Scary thought: Imagine tribal news delivered via tribal pipes. And, as one mischievous Trump adviser told us, imagine the president moving his Twitter show to that network.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the likely Speaker if the GOP keeps the House, has driven the tech-bias issue among conservatives for months, and pushed a #StopTheBias hashtag that the president tweeted yesterday.
McCarthy told me: "The companies cannot sit back and say nothing is happening. Algorithms are written by people. Everybody has some bias in them. Anyone claims they don't have bias, they're not human."
Why it matters: Top Republicans tell us this will be a major line of escalated attack at a congressional hearing next week with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. | – Article after article has made mention of the fact that Sen. John McCain's wishes were that President Trump not be invited to his funeral. Sarah Palin apparently didn't make the cut, either. People reports the Palin news by way of several unnamed sources and quotes family friend Carla Eudy, who had a hand in planning the memorial services, as confirming "invitations were not extended" to either the president or McCain's 2008 running mate—who, Axios notes, was featured in the New York Times' lead story exactly 10 years ago Thursday. The headline: "Alaskan Is McCain's Choice; First Woman on GOP Ticket." (Palin was named as his running mate the day prior, on Aug. 29, 2008.) NBC News White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell tweeted a sort of confirmation of the report, writing that Palin "is not expected to attend memorial. The McCain family has not commented on the invitation guest list." She went on to quote a Palin family source as saying, "Out of respect to Senator McCain and his family we have nothing to add at this point. The Palin family will always cherish their friendship with the McCains and hold those memories dear." Palin herself had this to say upon the announcement of McCain's death: "Today we lost an American original. Sen. John McCain was a maverick and a fighter, never afraid to stand for his beliefs. John never took the easy path in life—and through sacrifice and suffering he inspired others to serve something greater than self. John McCain was my friend. I will remember the good times." |
French President Emmanuel Macron walks pas Helmut Kohl's coffin during an homage ceremony for former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, Saturday July... (Associated Press)
French President Emmanuel Macron walks pas Helmut Kohl's coffin during an homage ceremony for former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, Saturday July... (Associated Press)
PARIS (AP) — French authorities say a man has been given preliminary terrorism charges for plotting a possible attack on President Emmanuel Macron or minority groups.
Paris prosecutor's office spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said Monday that the 23-year-old suspect's plans were vague and not yet finalized, and that he appeared to be acting alone.
She said the man was arrested in the Argenteuil suburb Thursday, and told police of a possible plan to attack Macron on Bastille Day on July 14 and expressed nationalist views. The man was given preliminary charges Saturday of individual terrorist activity.
Macron will oversee a military parade in Paris on Bastille Day alongside President Donald Trump. Macron then heads to Nice to mark the anniversary of the Islamic extremist truck attack that killed 86 people in the southeastern city. ||||| Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption Mr Macron was to be targeted on the Champs-Elysées avenue in Paris, investigators said
A suspected far-right extremist has been charged with plotting to kill French President Emmanuel Macron at the Bastille Day parade later this month.
The 23-year-old was arrested in a Paris suburb last Wednesday after police were alerted by users of a videogame chat room where he allegedly said he wanted to buy a gun.
He also said he wanted to attack minorities, a judicial source told AFP.
Mr Macron has been giving a state-of-the-nation-style address in Versailles.
He has been outlining his priorities in the speech, taking place during a special session of both houses of parliament at the Palace of Versailles.
However the French president is facing criticism over the address, with far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélénchon accusing him of behaving like a "pharoah".
'Muslims, Jews, blacks, homosexuals'
Investigators found three kitchen knives in the plot suspect's vehicle and analysis of his computer revealed he had conducted internet searches on possible targets.
After his arrest, he told police he wanted to attack "Muslims, Jews, blacks, homosexuals", AFP said.
The suspect was convicted last year of condoning terrorism after praising Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in July 2011.
He was jailed for three years with half the sentence suspended.
Image copyright EPA Image caption Mr Macron has been giving an address in the Palace of Versailles
Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption But some have accused him of acting like a "pharaoh"
The Bastille Day parade on 14 July commemorates the start of the French Revolution and takes place on the Champs-Elysées avenue in Paris.
In 2002, then-President Jacques Chirac was the subject of a Bastille Day assassination attempt when a man with far-right links took out a rifle and fired a shot before being overpowered.
This year the Champs-Elysées has seen two attacks on police.
Last month a man rammed a vehicle containing guns and gas canisters into a police van. In April a gunman shot dead police officer Xavier Jugelé using a Kalashnikov assault rifle. | – French authorities say a man has been hit with preliminary terrorism charges for plotting an attack on President Emmanuel Macron—at a time when President Trump would be visiting. A Paris prosecutor's office spokeswoman says that the 23-year-old suspect's plans were vague and that he appeared to be acting alone. She said the man was arrested in the Argenteuil suburb Thursday, and told police of a plan to attack Macron on Bastille Day on July 14. Macron will oversee a military parade in Paris that day alongside Trump, per the AP. It wasn't clear whether Trump's presence was a factor in the alleged plot. The suspect was given preliminary charges Saturday of individual terrorist activity. Police found three kitchen knives in his vehicle and said he'd been looking up potential targets on the internet. Police say he also expressed nationalist views, voicing a desire to attack "Muslims, Jews, blacks, homosexuals," per AFP. The man previously spent time in prison for condoning terrorism by praising the 2011 attack by Norwegian Anders Breivik that left 77 people dead. |
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, blamed politicians from the European Union and the United States for encouraging the fighting over the past three days. The situation in the city, he warned, was “getting out of control.”
“It seems someone is interested in this chaos,” Mr. Lavrov said Tuesday at a news conference in Moscow.
He noted that American diplomats had said in December at a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that the Ukrainian government should heed the opinion of the population and seek greater integration with Europe or risk instability. “What was this, prophecy or a prediction?” he said.
The European Union issued no official response to Mr. Lavrov, but its officials say it has never condoned or encouraged violence, as Mr. Lavrov seemed to suggest it had done by having an official mingle with the protesters when they first turned out two months ago.
At a meeting in Brussels on Monday, European foreign ministers released a final statement on Ukraine saying that “the E.U. remains committed to Ukraine’s political association and economic integration” with Europe “as soon as Ukraine is ready.”
Renewed Clashes in Kiev Trade Unions Building Independence Square Dynamo Stadium POLICE LINE Crowd on weekdays DOWNTOWN KIEV Parliament City Hall taken by protesters 1,000 FEET Recent clashes Protesters tried to march to Parliament on Sunday but were stopped by riot police. Clashes continued here through the week. It remains unclear where the protesters killed on Wednesday died. Young men captured Protesters detained men they said were pro-government provocateurs in this area on Tuesday and took them to the Trade Unions Building for questioning. Protest barricades Protesters barricaded this portion of the city in December and have remained since. The size of the crowd varies and is smaller on weekdays.
Protest leaders said the authorities seemed to be giving the more radical protesters free rein while going out of their way to frighten more moderate ones, particularly with the threatening text messages sent on Tuesday.
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The phrasing of the message, about participating in a “mass disturbance,” echoed language in a new law making it a crime to participate in a protest deemed violent. The law took effect on Tuesday. And protesters were concerned that the government seemed to be using cutting-edge technology from the advertising industry to pinpoint people for political profiling.
Three cellphone companies in Ukraine — Kyivstar, MTS and Life — denied that they had provided the location data to the government or had sent the text messages, the newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda reported. Kyivstar suggested that it was instead the work of a “pirate” cellphone tower set up in the area.
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The messages appeared to have little effect. Three hours after they were sent, riot police officers pushed past barricades of burned buses at that site and were met by a crowd of protesters in ski masks and bicycle helmets, carrying sticks and ready to fight.
The police fired plastic bullets and threw stun grenades. They pressed as far as a cobblestone-throwing catapult built by protesters the day before and dismantled it before retreating.
The opposition leaders who are members of parliamentary factions face a difficult choice over whether to embrace or denounce the more radical groups as the demonstrations grow more violent. So far, the politicians have condemned those fighting with the police as not representing the aspirations of the larger number of peaceful protesters who have gathered in Independence Square since November in support of closer economic integration with the European Union.
Photo
Some of those fighting the police, carrying baseball bats and throwing gasoline bombs say they are supporters of the European free-trade agreement whose rejection by Mr. Yanukovich set off the protests.
But other groups have also appeared in Kiev, adding to the sense of chaos. Young men carrying sticks wandered side streets near the central square threatening to beat protesters who walked alone. One group shattered a shop window.
The opposition leaders have said they believe that these people are soccer hooligans and unemployed men bused into Kiev by the government to provide a proxy force to intimidate protesters and darken the image of the movement by highlighting the violence.
“Disorders should not be allowed to happen,” Vitali Klitschko, a former boxing champion and the leader of the political party Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform, wrote on Twitter. “This is a plan of authorities to introduce a state of emergency.”
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Early Tuesday, opposition activists detained about a dozen of these rival young men and marched them to one of several buildings occupied by protesters, where several admitted in videotaped conversations that they had been promised 200 hryvnia, or about $25, to cause trouble. But they were not able to explain clearly who had hired them.
A civic activist who has been prominent in the movement, Ihor Lutsenko, was missing on Tuesday after men forced him into a car in the parking lot of a hospital, according to a Facebook post by his wife.
The protests, which peaked in December, had seemed to be fading, but were re-energized by opposition to the new laws against public assembly. ||||| MOSCOW/KIEV Russia told European governments on Tuesday to stop meddling in Ukraine's political crisis and said events could be spinning out of control in Kiev after violence that left vehicles burning in the streets.
Moscow, which sees its fellow former Soviet republic as part of its traditional sphere of influence, has watched nervously as protests against President Viktor Yanukovich's decision to shun a trade pact with the European Union have turned violent.
Scores of police and demonstrators have been hurt since Yanukovich, who received a multi-billion-dollar bailout package from Moscow after he spurned the EU deal, angered opponents by signing sweeping laws to curb public protests.
Criticizing "members of certain European governments" for visiting the protesters in Kiev, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: "We would prefer that some of our European colleagues refrained from acting unceremoniously over the Ukrainian crisis.
"It is just distasteful," he said, adding that such action had helped encourage the protests.
In December, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Guido Westerwelle, at the time Germany's foreign minister, visited the protesters.
EU ministers have also denounced the new laws curbing public protests as "anti-democratic".
Lavrov criticized the protesters for using "violence, attacks on police, arson, Molotov cocktails and explosive devices" and he called their behavior a "complete violation of all European standards of behavior".
Russian state television has been repeatedly showing footage of the clashes and what appears to be protesters smashing the windows of a bus, underlining the case for the tough legislation and police action to curb violence.
"OUT OF CONTROL"
"I personally think that these calls for prudence, which the leaders of the opposition and Vitaly Klitschko in particular are now making, show that the situation is spinning out of control," Lavrov said.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said in an interview with Russian state broadcaster Russia 24 the government would use force if clashes in Kiev do not cease.
"If the provocateurs do not stop, then the authorities will have no other choice but to use force under the law to protect our people," said Azarov.
One of Lavrov's deputies, Grigory Karasin, spoke by telephone with a Ukrainian deputy foreign minister on Tuesday and expressed "concern about provocative actions by radical opposition forces", the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
It said Russia supported a Ukrainian statement that promised the government would do all it can to resolve the situation peacefully through dialogue - a pledge some opposition protesters suspect was a bid to buy time.
"We are waiting to see what these talks produce, but there's little hope. Yanukovich is pretending he does not see us or hear us," said Vasyl Somkovych, 30, a protester from the region of Ivano-Frankivsk in largely pro-European western Ukraine.
In Kiev, a presidential aide ruled out the declaration of a state of emergency to quell the unrest.
Asked by a journalist if the presidency was considering such a step, Andriy Klyuev, secretary of the National Council of Security and Defense, said: "There will be no declaration of a state of emergency.
On Tuesday, 2,000-3,000 protesters faced about 1,000 police in central Kiev, where Reuters reporters saw nine burnt-out buses and trucks, smoke wafting from some of the tyres.
Cobblestones were strewn across a main street where violence erupted on Sunday. Priests were among people walking in an area between a police line and a protesters' barricade.
Police periodically beat their shields with truncheons and constantly boomed out warnings to protesters through megaphones.
"We will act according to the situation," said Sergei, 45, a protester from western Ukraine. "If the OMON (riot police) attack, we will respond with full force."
(Editing by Gareth Jones and Janet Lawrence) nL5N0KV115 ||||| KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych refused to meet Tuesday with an opposition leader who came to his office hoping for negotiations, dimming hopes for a resolution soon to the political crisis that has escalated into vicious street clashes between protesters and police.
Protesters burn car tires as they clash with police in central Kiev, Ukraine, early Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. After a night of vicious street battles, anti-government protesters and police clashed again... (Associated Press)
Opposition supporters, right, escort people believed to be government-hired thugs away from an opposition camp in central Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. About thirty young men believed to be hired... (Associated Press)
Protesters clad in improvised protective gear prepare for a clash with police in central Kiev, Ukraine, early Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. After a night of vicious street battles, anti-government protesters... (Associated Press)
Protesters react to tear gas as they clash with police, in central Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 20, 2014. After a night of vicious streets battles, anti-government protesters and police clashed anew Monday... (Associated Press)
Protesters clad in improvised protective gear prepare for a clash with police in central Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 20, 2014. After a night of vicious streets battles, anti-government protesters and... (Associated Press)
An opposition supporter, right, escorts people believed to be government-hired thugs away from an opposition camp in central Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. About thirty young men believed to be... (Associated Press)
Opposition supporters, left, and, second from left, escort people believed to be government-hired thugs away from an opposition camp in central Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. About thirty young... (Associated Press)
Protesters assist a wounded comrade, in central Kiev, Ukraine, early Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. After a night of vicious street battles, anti-government protesters and police clashed again Monday in Ukraine's... (Associated Press)
Protesters assist a wounded comrade, in central Kiev, Ukraine, early Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. After a night of vicious street battles, anti-government protesters and police clashed again Monday in Ukraine's... (Associated Press)
Protesters fire at police with fireworks, in central Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 20, 2014. After a night of vicious streets battles, anti-government protesters and police clashed anew Monday in the Ukrainian... (Associated Press)
A protester stands on top of a barricade during during clashes with police in central Kiev, Ukraine, early Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. After a night of vicious street battles, anti-government protesters and... (Associated Press)
Ukraine's two-month standoff shifted into a new phase after Yanukovych pushed through harsh anti-protest laws last week in an attempt to quash the demonstrations calling for his ouster. The mass protests in Kiev, the capital, erupted after Yanukovych spurned a pact with the European Union in favor of close ties with Russia, which offered him a $15 billion bailout.
Seeing the government ignore their demands and opposition leaders unable to present a coherent plan or even select a single leader, radical protesters have clashed with riot police in Kiev since Sunday, hurling stones and fire bombs at police and getting hit with tear gas and rubber bullets in return.
"A revolution is under way in Ukraine," said Petro Denkovets, 34, an entrepreneur. "What revolution takes place peacefully? Each side is showing its strengths. The government, its troops, and we, our fearlessness."
In a bid to ease the crisis, opposition leader Vitali Klitschko, who is a heavyweight boxing champion, went to Yanukovych's office for face-to-face talks on Tuesday, but was received only by his aides. The aides were part of a working group that Yanukovych told to hold negotiations with the opposition.
Yanukovych's office said the president was in a meeting at the time. But Klitschko held out hope that the leader would receive him later Tuesday.
"The center of the city of Kiev has been burning for two days," a disappointed Klitschko said. "The president sits two blocks away and does not hear it."
Despite heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures, several thousand protesters remained camped outside a government district in Kiev in front of rows of helmeted riot police who hid behind metal shields. Charred buses stood covered with ice, the ground was dotted with stones and the popular rock song "I will not give up without a fight" blared over the crowd.
The protesters had managed to hold their ground overnight, even as police moved in to dismantle some barricades. Fighting lulled on Tuesday morning, after Orthodox priests intervened and asked both sides for calm.
Still, nearly 1,500 activists sought medical help after the clashes, according to Oleh Musiy, who runs the protesters' medical team.
Opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who had previously condemned violent protests, said the situation has changed.
"People have received the right to switch from peaceful to non-peaceful protest because the deafness of the authorities and their disregard for the people," he said Tuesday.
His ally, the jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, also urged Ukrainians to go to the barricades.
"There is no other way for the people to deal with the mafia. Those standing on the front lines for Ukraine are heroes!" Tymoshenko said in a statement.
Heeding the call, young women worked Tuesday to clear the protest site of debris. Nearby, middle-aged men and women produced a drum beat of protest by hitting metal barrels and shields with sticks. In one dramatic scene, three black-robed Orthodox priests, holding crosses and icons, walked in between the police and the protesters, causing the fighting to stop.
During the clashes Monday night, Klitschko claimed that groups of young men had been hired by pro-government forces to smash shop windows and set cars ablaze in Kiev to create a pretext for the government to introduce martial law.
Protesters chased the men around, captured them and took them to be questioned. In a video broadcast by several Ukrainian media organizations, the activists showed a hammer and other tools used by the assailants. The protesters then marched the captives down the street and forced them to apologize.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, meanwhile, accused the West of instigating the protests and some EU politicians of joining them.
"We would prefer that our European colleagues, at least some of them, don't behave in such an unceremonious way in connection with the Ukrainian crisis," he said. "It's simply unseemly and this is what is heating up the situation." | – Scourge of the modern protester: Ukraine demonstrators this morning got this text on their cell phones: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance," reports the New York Times. The threat is clear enough, given that the government also made it a crime punishable by prison to take part in such demonstrations. But the attempt to scare away protesters didn't work—clashes with police continued in Kiev. Protesters have been taking to the streets for two months now, angry that President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a trade pact with the EU in favor of stronger ties with Russia. An opposition leader arrived at Yanukovych's office today but was rebuffed by the leader, reports AP. Russia, meanwhile, accused European nations of encouraging the protests and demanded that they stop "meddling," reports Reuters. "The situation is spinning out of control," says Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. |
UPDATED: Christopher “Big Black” Boykin, half of MTV’s “Rob & Big” duo, died on Tuesday, his rep confirmed to Variety. He was 45.
A cause of death has not yet been reported.
Boykin was skateboarder and entrepreneur Rob Dyrdek’s best friend and bodyguard, starring alongside him in “Rob & Big” for three seasons. The fan-favorite reality series showed the two in their day-to-day lives, filming such adventures as adopting a mini-horse and breaking Guinness world records.
The show premiered in 2006 and ended in 2008, after Boykin had a child and stopped living with Dyrdek. He would go on to appear in several episodes of Dyrdek’s follow-up to “Rob & Big,” “Fantasy Factory,” as well as three episodes of Dyrdek’s other MTV show, “Ridiculousness.”
“MTV is deeply saddened to learn the news of Christopher ‘Big Black’ Boykin’s passing,” MTV said in a statement. “He was a long time and beloved member of the MTV family and will be greatly missed. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends at this time.”
Before he was on television, Boykin served in the U.S. Navy. He also started a clothing line named after his catchphrase, “Do work,” in 2007.
Boykin last tweeted just a day before his death, on Monday. Chanel West Coast, who appeared with Boykin on “Fantasy Factory” and “Ridiculousness,” tweeted after news broke, “RIP Big Black. My heart is crushed. I’ll remember all the times you made me laugh and my prayers go out to your family.”
RIP @BigBlack. My heart is crushed. I'll remember all the times you made me laugh and my prayers go out to your family ❤️🙏🏼😢 — Chanel (@chanelwestcoast) May 10, 2017
He is survived by a nine-year-old daughter, Isis. ||||| 'Rob & Big' Star Big Black Dead at 45
Rob & Big Star Christopher 'Big Black' Boykin Dead at 45
EXCLUSIVE
Christopher 'Big Black' Boykin, who was the other half of Rob Dyrdek's hit MTV show "Rob & Big" -- has died ... TMZ has learned.
His rep tells us Chris died Tuesday morning. No official cause of death yet, but multiple people connected to Chris tell us they believe it was a heart attack.
He was Rob's best friend and bodyguard on their reality show, which ran from 2006 to 2008 -- and also later appeared on 'Fantasy Factory.'
The pals got into a bunch of random adventures -- like breaking Guinness World Records, exorcising their house, installing an ATM ... and, of course, catching people with their net gun.
Chris and Rob's relationship became strained while shooting their show. Rob talked about their falling out a couple of years ago.
They eventually patched things up. Not only did they work together on 'Fantasy Factory' ... but Chris recently posted a throwback pic of them from the show's heyday.
Before he was a TV star, Boykin served in the U.S. Navy. He's survived by his 9-year-old daughter.
'Big Black' was 45.
#RIP | – Christopher "Big Black" Boykin, star of MTV reality show Rob & Big, died Tuesday of an apparent heart attack at the age of 45, TMZ reports. “He was a long time and beloved member of the MTV family and will be greatly missed," Variety quotes MTV as saying in a statement. Rob & Big ran from 2006 to 2008 with Boykin appearing as best friend, bodyguard, and roommate to professional skateboarder Rob Dyrdek. The show chronicled various shenanigans, including adopting a mini horse, breaking Guinness World Records, and snaring people with net guns. "We truly were brothers that lived an unexpected unforgettable adventure," Dyrdek tweeted. "I just can't fathom that it would end so suddenly." Boykin, a veteran of the Navy, also started his own clothing line based on his catchphrase, "Do work." He's survived by a 9-year-old daughter. |
Allegations by Los Angeles police that "Shield" actor Michael Jace shot his wife to death at their Hyde Park home Monday night shocked longtime neighbors who described the couple as loving and friendly, but it isn't the first time he's faced accusations of domestic violence.
Law enforcement sources told the Los Angeles Times that Jace confessed to fatally shooting his wife, April, multiple times around 8:30 p.m. Monday at their home in the 5400 block of Brynhurst Avenue. April Jace, a well-liked financial aid employee at Biola University, had walked in the door just 10 to 15 minutes earlier after picking up the couple's sons from baseball practice.
Los Angeles police said in a statement that the motive for the shooting "is believed to be domestic violence" — an accusation levied against Michael Jace nearly two decades ago when he divorced his previous wife, Jennifer Bitterman.
In court documents she described one instance in which she said Michael Jace threatened to kill her if they went to “war” over his visitation rights of their son. In the divorce filing, Bitterman painted a portrait of her husband as temperamental and unreliable.
In another filing, a longtime friend of Bitterman's described a violent incident she said she witnessed between the couple.
The woman told the court she was in the room when Michael Jace “choked and hit” Bitterman and “slammed her against the wall while [her son] screamed in his crib next to her.” The child was 6 months old at the time.
"The Shield" actor Michael Jace remains in custody after the fatal shooting of his wife. "The Shield" actor Michael Jace remains in custody after the fatal shooting of his wife. SEE MORE VIDEOS
The friend added she saw at least three more incidents of violence in the eight months she lived with the couple between 1996 and when Michael Jace filed for divorce in 1997.
It was not the same picture painted by Jace's neighbors in Hyde Park, who on Tuesday said they never saw or suspected any violence in the home.
"All I heard coming out of that household were giggles," said Shirley Harding, who has lived next door for about 12 years.
She added that the couple always appeared to be in good spirits.
"They were always hugging and kissing each other," she said. "Both were great parents."
Law enforcement sources have told The Times that "The Shield" actor Michael Jace has confessed to shooting his wife to death. Law enforcement sources have told The Times that "The Shield" actor Michael Jace has confessed to shooting his wife to death. SEE MORE VIDEOS
That sentiment was shared by most neighbors, who said they often saw Jace walking his German Shephard named Max and his two children on the street.
"He's a very good dad who always played with his kids," said Brandon Cook, 35.
But behind the giggles and dog walks, Michael Jace, 51, was under financial stress.
The actor filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection in March 2011, when he listed his liabilities at more than $500,000 against assets of $325,000, according to federal court records.
At the time he was more than $22,000 in debt to the government, more than $16,000 in debt to credit card companies and still owed on two mortgages.
Cook said Michael Jace struggled to find steady work after "The Shield" stopped airing a few years ago, and he noticed that the family downgraded to less expensive cars.
"It was apparent," Cook said.
The actor appeared to have been keeping up with his payments until late last year, when one of his creditors filed a motion stating the actor had fallen behind by about $2,800, according to the federal court records.
On Monday, Harding said she saw Michael Jace quickly pull his gray van into the driveway, leaving his front door ajar.
Shortly after, as she was washing her car, she heard a popping noise.
"I wasn't sure if it was a gunshot, but then I heard two more popping noises and I ran into my house."
Other neighbors reported hearing the couple arguing just before the shots rang out, KNBC-TV reported.
Los Angeles police say the couple's two sons, both under 10, were home at the time of the shooting, but were physically unharmed.
Michael Jace was standing in the doorway unarmed when police arrived. His wife's body was found in a hallway inside the home, police said.
As police continued to investigate the pink stucco house Tuesday, neighbors were forced to confront two incredibly different narratives of the family they thought they knew.
"They were like the Huxtables on the block," Tonja Edwards, 42, said. That Michael Jace might have killed his wife "in cold blood like that, really leaves us all puzzled," she added.
The shooting also shocked Biola University, where April Jace was a well-liked financial aid worker.
University President Barry H. Corey issued a statement Tuesday saying the La Mirada campus was “obviously shocked and saddened by this terrible news, to lose a wonderful colleague, mother and friend.”
The couple's two sons were staying with family members as the investigation continued. In addition to the two sons she had with Michael Jace, April also had an older son from a previous relationship.
"I'm heartbroken," Cook said. "My prayers go out to the family and for those kids because they don't have their mom or their dad anymore." ||||| Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images Michael Jace (right) with his wife April. The actor is accused of shooting and killing his wife in front of their sons. AP April Jace, who, according to police, was shot multiple times by her husband, Michael Jace, after she returned home with their children on Monday. Previous Next
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Michael Jace was a father from hell.
“The Shield” actor’s first wife claims he had an “intimidation style of discipline,” spanking their young son Jordan “for crying or being afraid” and threatening the boy once for “failing to stand up to his stepbrother.”
Jace, who is now accused of gunning down his second wife, April, was so terrifying that Jordan would cry if had to spend any time alone with his dad, Jennifer Bitterman said in court papers.
“I would make every effort to encourage Jordan to be brave and reassure him that (Jace) loves him and that he is safe with him,” Bitterman said in records from the 2004 custody case.
The acid appraisal of Jace’s parenting came as the 51-year-old actor remained jailed on suspicion of murder and the Los Angeles medical examiner’s office prepared to do an autopsy on his dead wife.
Police said there was no history of domestic violence in the Jace household and the actor had no prior arrests.
Bitterman, in the papers, said Jace was a mostly absent dad for the first five years of Jordan’s life and “all but abandoned him during this time.”
“Financial support was infrequent as well,” she complained.
But when Jordan was 6, Jace began seeing April and got religion.
Brentt/AP Michael Jace (right) was detained by police after the shooting on Monday night.
“His attitude seemed to have changed about fatherhood with the help of his new involvement in Christianity,” Bitterman said.
Jace began asking for overnight visits with Jordan. But they did not go well.
Once, Bitterman said, Jordan called her and was “inconsolably sobbing.” She said Jace refused to drive him home.
Bitterman could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Neither could her now-grown son.
“He’s a really good kid,” neighbor Tony Wren, 70, said. “He’s going to college. I think he was looking at Columbia. This is a lot of weight for him to be carrying.”
Wren also called Bitterman “a very good mom.”
“I'm glad she got out of that situation,” he said, referring to her sad marriage to Jace. “It could have been her.”
Jace’s two sons with April were home when he gunned down their mother Monday and then called 911, police said. Both boys are younger than age 10.
Dwight Flowers/AP The body of April Jace is removed from the couple’s home. Valerie Macon/Getty Images A police officer removes police tape from actor Michael Jace's home on Tuesday. Previous Next
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The actor’s 18-year-old stepson, Savoy Brown, was not home at the time, his grandmother said.
“It’s lucky he wasn’t there,” Naomi Brown said. “He probably would have tried to defend her.”
Brown, who is 74 and lives in Rhode Island, said she met Jace at her grandson's graduation party last year and did not get the sense he might be dangerous.
“He was very attentive to his two little boys when I met him,” she said. “We all had a really good time.”
Best known for playing a sexually conflicted cop on the long-running FX series, Jace is deep in debt and police suspect he and his wife of 10 years were fighting over money.
When she was still Jace’s fiancée, April defended the actor during the custody fight, calling him a good dad and provider. She also called Bitterman a bad mom.
This was after Jace allegedly threatened to kill Bitterman if she “went to war” over visitation — and after a friend of the first wife described in divorce records how the actor slammed Bitterman against a wall as then-6-month-old Jordan screamed in his nearby crib.
ndillon@nydailynews.com | – The Shield actor accused of murdering his wife was a pretty terrifying father, according to his ex-wife. During a 2004 custody case, Jennifer Bitterman said Michael Jace used an "intimidation style of discipline" on their young son, Jordan, according to court records obtained by the New York Daily News. Jace spanked him "for crying or being afraid," and once threatened him for "failing to stand up to his stepbrother," Bitterman said, adding that Jordan was afraid to be alone with his father and once called her "inconsolably sobbing" because Jace refused to take him home from an overnight visit. The court documents also reveal that, according to Bitterman, Jace threatened to kill her if she "went to war" over visitation with Jordan. And, the Los Angeles Times reports, another filing shows that one of Bitterman's friends testified that she saw at least four violent incidents between the couple before they divorced, including one in which Jace "choked and hit" Bitterman and then "slammed her against the wall"—as Jordan, then 6 months old, cried in his crib nearby. Jordan is now grown, but Jace's two young sons with April Jace were home when he allegedly killed their mother. Money problems may have been behind their fight. |
Riled Robin: Russell Crowe storms out of Radio 4 interview after being accused of giving hero an Irish accent
It was the equivalent of waving a red flag in front of a bull.
Russell Crowe - already smarting over the critics' reaction to his portrayal of Robin Hood - stood accused of making the hero of Sherwood Forest sound a little Irish.
Interviewer Mark Lawson should have known what was coming.
There was a simmering denial, an expletive or two and a rather sudden end to the conversation.
SCROLL DOWN TO LISTEN TO AUDIO (WARNING: CONTAINS BAD LANGUAGE)
Gladiators, ready! Russell Crowe became riled when Mark Lawson queried his accent on Radio 4 arts show Front Row
Crowe, who has a prickly reputation, had been talking to Lawson about his new film Robin Hood for BBC Radio 4's Front Row programme.
Things went wrong when Lawson started dissecting Crowe's accent in the movie.
He suggested there were 'hints' of Irish in the supposedly English accent.
Outburst: Hollywood star Russell Crowe walked out on a BBC Radio 4 interview after being riled by accusations he had made Robin Hood sound Irish
The 46-year-old New Zealandborn star, who lives in Australia, was having none of it.
'You've got dead ears, mate,' he said ominously.
'You've seriously got dead ears if you think that's an Irish accent.'
HOW THE TESTY EXCHANGE UNFOLDED Mark Lawson: 'The accent that you've given him, there are hints to me of Irish, but what... were you thinking in those terms?' Russell Crowe: 'You've got dead ears mate, you've seriously got dead ears, if you think that's an Irish accent.'
Lawson: 'Hints of, I thought...'
Crowe (interrupting): 'B*******.' (Crowe then talks about his portrayal of Robin Hood before coming back to the accent issue)
Crowe: 'I'm a little dumbfounded you could possibly find any Irish in that character, that's kind of ridiculous anyway, but it's your show.'
Lawson: 'So you're... well, I am just asking... so you're going for northern English?'
Crowe: 'No, I was going for an Italian, yeah, missed it? (Laughs) F*** me! (The actor then refuses to answer a question about whether he had not wanted to deliver some of his most famous lines in Gladiator)
Crowe: 'I don't get the Irish thing by the way. I don't get it at all.' (He finishes the interview, waving his cigarette and walking out). Crowe went on to talk about the character but the accusation had clearly hit a raw nerve. 'I'm a little dumbfounded that you could possibly find any Irish in that character - that's kind of ridiculous, but it's your show,' he said. Lawson, who was interviewing Crowe at the Dorchester Hotel in London, did his best to smooth things over. But there was no turning back.
Crowe then refused to answer questions about whether he had not wanted to deliver some of his most famous lines in the blockbuster Gladiator. He is said to have then waved his cigarette and walked off. Voice coaches working on Robin Hood, which like Gladiator-was directed by Ridley Scott, have said they wanted their hero to have an accent closer to the natives of Rutland, which is south east of Nottingham in the East Midlands. But one critic has claimed Crowe's accent 'sounds like an Australian doing an impression of Jim Bowen off Bullseye', while another suggested he had 15 different accents. Last week, Crowe revealed how he had worked on his English accent by listening to tapes of Michael Parkinson.
'If you look at the early ballads about Robin Hood he's connected to Barnsdale and historians argue Yorkshire and Nottingham are the two places he could have come from,' he said.
'So yes, I listened to a lot of Parky - that was a great help.' Crowe's bad temper has led to a number of run-ins over the years.
In 2005, he was charged with second-degree assault after throwing a telephone at a worker at the Mercer Hotel in New York. ||||| Broadcast on: BBC Radio 4, 7:15pm Wednesday 12th May 2010 Duration: 30 minutes Available until: 12:00am Thursday 1st January 2099 Categories: Factual,
Arts, Culture & the Media
Russell Crowe talks to Mark Lawson about playing Robin Hood in Ridley Scott's new prequel.Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, discusses 400 years of the library of his official residence, Lambeth Palace.Ashes to Ashes writers Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham on winding up the final series.And Love the Sinner, a new play at the National Theatre, which focuses on the tensions around the ordination of homosexual priests in the Anglican church.Producer Nicki Paxman. | – He didn't throw anything, but Russell Crowe is making headlines again for his temper. The Robin Hood star walked out on a BBC interviewer who pushed him a bit too far with questions about the legendary outlaw's accent—and some stale gossip about Gladiator. "Front Row" host Mark Lawson said he detected some Irish in the accent the native New Zealander adopted for Robin Hood, and Crowe responded, "Bollocks," reports the Daily Mail. The interview proceeded, and Crowe eventually returned to the matter of the accent, saying, "I'm a little dumbfounded you could possibly find any Irish in that character—that's kind of ridiculous, but it's your show." He was a lot less forgiving when Lawson brought up a recent book that claims Crowe didn't want to do the climactic scene in Gladiator—the actor got up and left. Listen to the interview here; it gets contentious at around 5:50 and ends shortly after the 10-minute mark. |
Pierce Brosnan, the former James Bond actor, has been stopped by airport security as he tried to board a plane in America with a large knife.
The star had the 10-inch hunting blade confiscated from his hand luggage after it showed up during screening at Burlington International Airport, in Vermont.
Brosnan, 62, was reportedly left embarassed and angry when the knife was taken away by US Transportation Security Administration agents.
A ban on knives was introduced following the September 11 terror attacks and rules state that sharp objects must be placed in checked luggage. All knives - apart from rounded or plastic butter knives - are banned in plane cabins.
Pierce Brosnan was stopped by officials at Burlington International Airport (Rex)
Brosnan, who appeared as 007 in four of the double agent films including GoldenEye and Die Another Day, was stopped by airport officials on Sunday.
Lieutenant Shawn Burke, from the Burlington Police Department, said airport authorities told him about Brosnan's encounter with Transportation Security Administration officials.
He said the Irish actor "was encountered by TSA at one of their checkpoints" and was allowed to continue his journey after the issue was resolved.
In images showing the incident, Brosnan is seen removing his belt in the security area and speaking to staff.
The Mrs Doubtfire actor visited Ireland last month and wrote in an Instagram post: "Good bye my sweet home of Ireland that I can call you now after all these years abroad a wandering."
It just needs a good thatch roof and It will be right as rain .... Fair thee well, till we meet again ...Dalkey days for ever in my heart A photo posted by Pierce Brosnan (@piercebrosnanofficial) on Aug 3, 2015 at 6:26am PDT
He also posted a series of messages on Twitter:
It just needs a good thatch roof and It will be right as rain .... Fair thee well, till we meet again? https://t.co/XM5oQaUuSp — Pierce Brosnan (@PierceBrosnan) August 3, 2015
Soon now soon to long the days with out you soon now soon https://t.co/S24Q5quLet — Pierce Brosnan (@PierceBrosnan) August 3, 2015
The Associated Press said Brosnan's publicist has not returned messages seeking comment. ||||| Pierce Brosnan Stopped by TSA ... Tried to Board Plane With a Knife
Exclusive Details
Pierce Brosnan tried to board a plane Sunday afternoon with a knife in his bag, but 007 couldn't slip it by TSA agents ... who called him out on it.
A TSA official from the Burlington International Airport in Vermont tells TMZ ... it is unclear if Brosnan knew the knife was in his carry-on bag, but once they saw the weapon ... they pulled the bag aside and called over Brosnan.
The official says they gave Brosnan the option to surrender the knife, or put it in his checked baggage. He took door #2, and went on his way.
No arrest. No citation. | – Let's just say this wouldn’t have happened to the real James Bond. Pierce Brosnan, who played the iconic 007 agent in four flicks, was stopped at Vermont’s Burlington International Airport on Sunday attempting to carry a 10-inch hunting knife on board a flight, police say. TSA agents found the bone-handled blade stashed in his carry-on luggage and seized it, apparently to Brosnan's chagrin and anger, reports the Telegraph. A source says Brosnan—traveling with his 14-year-old son, Paris—had to remove his belt for a pat-down, then was screened in a private area. He apparently told his son, "I can't believe they're doing this." TMZ reports officials asked Brosnan to surrender the knife or put it in his checked luggage; he chose the latter. The Burlington Police Department says officials then let the actor board a flight. Or as the Mail puts it, they chose to "live and let fly." |
Ricky Gervais and Mel Gibson came face-to-face during the Golden Globes leading to quite the awkward moment.
“I blame NBC for this terrible situation,” Gervais said before bringing Gibson up. “Mel blames…well, we know who Mel blames.”
The comedian also joked about Gibson’s alcohol problem, but said he’d rather have a drink with Gibson than Bill Cosby.
After coming out, Gibson responded, “I love seeing Ricky every three years because it reminds me to get a colonoscopy,” which prompted Gervais to return to the stage, making for one of the strangest moments in Globes history.
Gervais, with drink in hand, then put his arm around Gibson and said he had one question.
Bleeped out for audiences at home, Gervais inquired,”What the f— does sugar—s mean?” to awkward laughter from the audience.
Gervais is referencing Gibson’s run-in with the law in 2006. While being arrested for a DUI, Gibson asked a female police officer “what do you think you’re looking at, sugar t–s?”
Gervais didn’t just call out Gibson though during his time hosting the award show. His monologue included jabs at Sean Penn, Caitlyn Jenner and “The Martian” being included as a comedy film. ||||| When Ricky Gervais hosted the Golden Globe awards in 2010 he said "It's OK folks, I won't be doing this again" on more than one occasion. His acerbic remarks stunned Hollywood stars more accustomed to flattery and pandering from awards hosts.
But Gervais did do it again. And the second year he hosted the ceremony the jokes were even more painful. The third time was tamer. Now, as Gervais is set to host once more, we round-up some of his best, funniest, and most offensive Golden Globes barbs.
2010
The Los Angeles elite had no idea what was about to hit them. “Looking at all the wonderful faces here today reminds me of the great work that’s been done this year… by cosmetic surgeons,” he said, opening to a smattering of embarrassed titters.
“I’ve had some work done, too. I’ve had a penis reduction. Just got the one now. And it is very tiny. But then so are my hands, so when I’m holding it it looks pretty big. ”
“Actors aren’t just loved here in Hollywood, they are loved the world over. You could be in the third world and get a glimpse of a Hollywood star and it could make you feel a little bit better. You could be a little Asian child with no possessions and no money. But you could see a picture of Angelina Jolie and you’d think, ‘Mummy!’”
“This next category is a bit of a downer. It’s for writing. We all know writers get too much credit in Hollywood, when actors mention them. I don’t mean to keep going on about actors, but they’re the most important ones, OK? It’s not the words you say, it’s how good you look when you’re saying them.”
“I hope I haven’t offended anyone. It’s not my fault [points at his drink]. I like a drink as much as the next man. Unless the next man is Mel Gibson."
2011
It did not take Gervais long to provoke the A-list audience at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles. By the time he wound up his four-minute opening, he had managed to insult Johnny Depp, Charlie Sheen, Cher, all the stars of Sex and the City 2, Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Hugh Hefner.
Bruce Willis appeared to be upset when he was later introduced as "Ashton Kutcher's dad", but still not content with his night's work, Gervais went on to insult Robert Downey Jr and Tim Allen. Downey Jr summed up the feeling in the auditorium. After the wisecracking host suggested the actor was best known for his time in prison and rehabilitation centres, the Iron Man star said: "Aside from the fact that it's been hugely mean-spirited with mildly sinister undertones, I'd say the vibe of the show is pretty good so far."
"It's going to be a night of partying and heavy drinking – or as Charlie Sheen calls it: breakfast."
Golden Globes - Leonardo Di Caprio receives standing ovation
"Everything this year was three-dimensional, except the characters in The Tourist. I feel bad about that joke. I'm jumping on the bandwagon, because I haven't even seen that movie. Who has?"
“Also not nominated, I Love You Phillip Morris. Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor, two heterosexual actors pretending to be gay. So the complete opposite of some famous Scientologists, then. My lawyers helped with that joke.”
"Next up, Eva Longoria has the daunting task of introducing the President of the Hollywood Foreign Press. That's nothing, I just had to help him off the toilet and pop his teeth in.”
"Talking of the walking dead, congratulations to Hugh Hefner, who is getting married at age 84 to 24-year-old beauty Crystal Harris. When asked why she was marrying him, she said, 'He lied about his age. He told me he was 94'. Just don't look at it when you touch it."
2012
Despite having toned thing down considerably, he directed what some saw as a homophobic gag at Jodie Foster, the lesbian actress, who co-starred with Mel Gibson in the film The Beaver. “Jodie Foster’s Beaver,” he remarked, “I haven't seen it myself. I've spoken to a lot of guys here, they haven't seen it either”.
Later, he became involved in a minor dispute with Madonna, who won Best Original Song, after suggesting that the title of her famous song “Like A Virgin” is at odds with her colourful romantic life. The singer responded: “Ricky, if I am just like a virgin why don’t you come over here and do something about it?”
His final gift to broadcasters, who air the programme in primetime on America’s notoriously-sensitive public airwaves, was to swear while discussing the Spanish-speaking Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas. His comment (“I don't know because I can't understand a f**king word they're saying“) was bleeped out. ||||| To Hollywood, California, where the fatted calf is advised to complete its bucket list inside the next 48 hours. By way of consolation, the cause in which it is to be slain could scarcely be more noble: the welcome home of cinema’s Mel Gibson.
Sunday night sees the Golden Globes ceremony take place, and organisers have completed the most uplifting of story arcs by deciding that Mel should be on stage to present an award. We don’t know which award, we don’t know if he has any new material. If I were Mel, I would open with an ice-breaker. Maybe walk to the mic, take a long pause, then arch an eyebrow and shrug: “And they say the Jews run Hollywood …”
But, you know, up to Mel.
It must be said that returning Globes host Ricky Gervais has greeted the news of Mel’s involvement with the words: “Thank you, Jesus.” So you may care to cast any interaction between the two men as a battle between Ricky’s mischievous atheism and Mel’s ultra-conservative Catholicism. Ricky always has all the best lines, but Mel has a $70m private church compound in the Malibu hills. You get the feeling that if they met in the wilderness, Mel would smite him.
Whichever way you shake it, though, it all caps a stunning – and stunningly predictable – return to the Hollywood firmament for Mel. He’s back. Lord knows there was a time when you would have remarked that Mel couldn’t get arrested in Hollywood, except for the fact that arrested was pretty much all he could get.
Mel Gibson to present an award at the Golden Globes Read more
DUI, domestic violence battery: in many ways, Mel was the last great charge-sheet all-rounder, as at home playing a sexist antisemite as he was bringing life to taped recordings featuring threats of homicide, admissions of assault in front of an infant, and deathless observations such as the one that he “deserve[s] to be blown fast” or arson may ensue. You can never really read anyone else’s relationship, but in Mel’s case there was always the audiobook.
As for how he returned to the fold, there will be a load of theories. But Lost in Showbiz has compiled a personal highlights reel of milestones on the road to industry redemption.
It was cold out there for a few years, despite two starring roles: one in an Edge of Darkness remake, and one in The Beaver, a domestic drama flop about an alcoholic in crisis – yup – directed by his friend Jodie Foster. But in 2011, Mel was thrown a high-profile lifeline back to system compliance by drearissimo franchise bore Robert Downey Jr, whose money-shitting turn as Iron Man appears endlessly satisfying to this once-interesting actor. When he was honoured for lifetime achievement at the American Cinematheque Awards, Robert chose Mel to be the one to hand the gong over to him, telling the audience: “I humbly ask that you join me, unless you are completely without sin, and in which case you picked the wrong fucking industry, in forgiving my friend of his trespasses and offering him the same clean slate that you have me and allowing him to continue his great and ongoing contribution to our collective art without shame.”
Their collective art duly moved to allow it, resulting in Gibson starring in the world cinema classic Expendables 3 – overlooked by the Academy, yes, but still an incredibly moving look at steroid abuse in the senior citizen community.
Mel Gibson has taken on Jesus and Jews. Now for the second world war Read more
The next step involved Mel going back to beginnings and becoming temporarily Australian again, choosing Sydney as the base for his directorial return. Hacksaw Ridge is a second world war movie, which tells the story of a misunderstood religious loner who declines to fight Hitler (yes, I know), but ends up being honoured in the end. Anyway, Australia. For a country that had rather washed its hands of Mel back around the time of the DUI arrest, the move was a bit of a litmus test. But this phase of the road back was judged to be complete when the New South Wales premier himself tweeted: “Welcome back Mel Gibson. New movie Hacksaw Ridge to be filmed in NSW bringing 720 jobs and $26 million.”
Running in tandem to all these penitential acts, of course, has been Gibson’s assiduous purchase of indulgences. Look, it may be his own, aforementioned church (last recorded congregation: 70) to which Mel keeps donating millions of tax-free dollars. But until some reforming entertainer nails 95 theses to the door of Malibu’s heavily fortified Church of the Holy Family, it all counts on the great penance abacus in the sky, OK?
And, ultimately, there was the drawing of lines under stuff. In 2014, Mel used an interview to declare how over he was apologising to the Jews and whatnot. “It’s an eight-year-old story,” he said of The Unpleasantness on the hard shoulder of a Malibu coastal highway. “It keeps coming up like a rerun. All the necessary mea culpas have been made copious times,” he ruled. “So for this question to keep coming up, it’s kind of like … I’m sorry they feel that way, but I’ve done what I need to do.”
Quite so. The stage is now set for the final chapter in this quasi-redemptive story, in which Mel wins next year’s best actor Golden Globe – and is presented with it by none other than highway patrol officers Jew and Sugartits. | – Mel Gibson has been persona non grata for some time in Hollywood, following a string of headline-making infractions, including DUI troubles and accusations of anti-Semitism and domestic violence. As the Guardian puts it, "There was a time when you would have remarked that Mel couldn't get arrested in Hollywood, except for the fact that arrested was pretty much all he could get." But Gibson showed up on the Golden Globes stage tonight, and that put host Ricky Gervais—who had poked fun of Gibson at the 2010 awards—on the spot. "I like a drink as much as the next man—unless the next man is Mel Gibson," Gervais said six years ago, and he chastised the Globes' network Sunday night for making him face his target, saying, "I blame NBC for this terrible situation" and adding, "Mel blames ... well, we know who Mel blames," Variety reports. Still, he noted, "I'd rather have a drink with him in his hotel room tonight than with Bill Cosby." Gibson, for his part, played the straight man and just introduced clips from Mad Max: Fury Road—though he did say, "I love seeing Ricky every three years because it reminds me to get a colonoscopy." |
ESO/Tom Ruen/nagualdesign
Scientists are searching for an unseen planet hiding somewhere in our solar system, but not one set to seemingly appear from nowhere to collide or nearly collide with Earth, ushering in an age of apocalypse.
Over the past several weeks, you may have come across one of those wacky predictions that a planet called "Nibiru" or "Planet X" is lurking "behind the sun" or somewhere else out of view in our solar system but threatening an imminent existential catastrophe nonetheless.
As with much of the fake news and online rumor-mongering that now spreads far and wide in a flash over social media, there is a grain of truth to the story that is then twisted, exaggerated, taken out of context or conflated with others.
The kernel of reality in the 2017 version of the Nibiru cataclysm prophecy, which represents at least the third time the planet has failed to show itself as predicted, is that astronomers increasingly see evidence of an invisible ninth planet in our solar system.
"There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet Nine," CalTech planetary astrophysicist Konstantin Batygin, said Wednesday in a release.
Batygin and his mentor-turned-colleague, Caltech professor Mike Brown, originally hoped to debunk the idea of a hidden planet a few years back. But they have instead discovered more indications that there is something out there, stretching the orbits of distant objects and perhaps even tilting the entire solar system to one side.
"If you were to remove this explanation and imagine Planet Nine does not exist, then you generate more problems than you solve. All of a sudden, you have five different puzzles, and you must come up with five different theories to explain them," Batygin explains.
What Brown and Batygin haven't found, however, is evidence that a ninth planet is anywhere near or will come remotely close to Earth anytime soon. And its aforementioned influence on the entire solar system takes place subtly and over a very long timescale
"Over long periods of time, Planet Nine will make the entire solar-system plane precess or wobble, just like a top on a table," Batygin said.
A world that is unseen, but has a gravitational impact that can be detected through its interaction with other bodies in our outer solar system, is unsurprisingly believed to be significantly massive and very, very far away. Brown and Batygin have estimated the mysterious cosmic neighbor to be perhaps 10 times the mass of Earth and 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune.
So now Batygin and Brown are trying to locate the hidden planet they once tried to disprove using the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. They call it the "best tool" for finding distant, dim objects hiding in the broad, black sky.
As for spotting Nibiru or Planet X on a collision course with Earth, you could do that by looking up at the sky with your naked eye, where it would easily be visible. Don't see it? That's because it doesn't exist and also, it hasn't been hiding behind the sun for years, because that idea goes against simple geometry.
So carry on and don't worry about unseen colliding planets. Asteroids, though, are another matter...
Technically Literate: Original works of short fiction with unique perspectives on tech, exclusively on CNET.
Crowd Control: A crowdsourced science fiction novel written by CNET readers. ||||| It might be lingering bashfully on the icy outer edges of our solar system, hiding in the dark, but subtly pulling strings behind the scenes: stretching out the orbits of distant bodies, perhaps even tilting the entire solar system to one side.
If a planet is there, it's extremely distant and will stay that way (with no chance -- in case you're wondering -- of ever colliding with Earth, or bringing "days of darkness").It is a possible "Planet Nine" -- a world perhaps 10 times the mass of Earth and 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune. The signs so far are indirect, mainly its gravitational footprints, but that adds up to a compelling case nonetheless.
One of its most dedicated trackers, in fact, says it is now harder to imagine our solar system without a Planet Nine than with one.
"There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet Nine," said Konstantin Batygin, a planetary astrophysicist at Caltech in Pasadena, California, whose team may be closing in. "If you were to remove this explanation and imagine Planet Nine does not exist, then you generate more problems than you solve. All of a sudden, you have five different puzzles, and you must come up with five different theories to explain them."
Batygin and his co-author, Caltech astronomer Mike Brown, described the first three breadcrumbs on Planet Nine's trail in a January 2016 paper, published in the Astronomical Journal. Six known objects in the distant Kuiper Belt, a region of icy bodies stretching from Neptune outward toward interstellar space, all have elliptical orbits pointing in the same direction. That would be unlikely -- and suspicious -- enough. But these orbits also are tilted the same way, about 30 degrees "downward" compared to the pancake-like plane within which the planets orbit the sun.
Breadcrumb number three: Computer simulations of the solar system with Planet Nine included show there should be more objects tilted with respect to the solar plane. In fact, the tilt would be on the order of 90 degrees, as if the plane of the solar system and these objects formed an "X" when viewed edge-on. Sure enough, Brown realized that five such objects already known to astronomers fill the bill.
Two more clues emerged after the original paper. A second article from the team, this time led by Batygin's graduate student, Elizabeth Bailey, showed that Planet Nine could have tilted the planets of our solar system during the last 4.5 billion years. This could explain a longstanding mystery: Why is the plane in which the planets orbit tilted about 6 degrees compared to the sun's equator?
"Over long periods of time, Planet Nine will make the entire solar-system plane precess or wobble, just like a top on a table," Batygin said.
The last telltale sign of Planet Nine's presence involves the solar system's contrarians: objects from the Kuiper Belt that orbit in the opposite direction from everything else in the solar system. Planet Nine's orbital influence would explain why these bodies from the distant Kuiper Belt end up "polluting" the inner Kuiper Belt.
"No other model can explain the weirdness of these high-inclination orbits," Batygin said. "It turns out that Planet Nine provides a natural avenue for their generation. These things have been twisted out of the solar system plane with help from Planet Nine and then scattered inward by Neptune."
The remaining step is to find Planet Nine itself. Batygin and Brown are using the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii to try to do just that. The instrument is the "best tool" for picking out dim, extremely distant objects lost in huge swaths of sky, Batygin said.
But where did Planet Nine come from? Batygin says he spends little time ruminating on its origin -- whether it is a fugitive from our own solar system or, just maybe, a wandering rogue planet captured by the sun's gravity.
"I think Planet Nine's detection will tell us something about its origin," he said.
Other scientists offer a different possible explanation for the Planet Nine evidence cited by Batygin. A recent analysis based on a sky mapping project called the Outer Solar System Origins Survey, which discovered more than 800 new "trans-Neptunian objects," suggests that the evidence also could be consistent with a random distribution of such objects. Still, the analysis, from a team led by Cory Shankman of the University of Victoria, could not rule out Planet Nine.
If Planet Nine is found, it will be a homecoming of sorts, or at least a family reunion. Over the past 20 years, surveys of planets around other stars in our galaxy have found the most common types to be "super Earths" and their somewhat larger cousins -- bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune.
Yet these common, garden-variety planets are conspicuously absent from our solar system. Weighing in at roughly 10 times Earth's mass, the proposed Planet Nine would make a good fit.
Planet Nine could turn out to be our missing super Earth.
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Written by Pat BrennanElizabeth LandauJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-354-6425elizabeth.landau@jpl.nasa.gov2017-259 ||||| A possible "Planet Nine" in Earth's solar system would orbit far beyond Neptune's orbit (visible as a bright ring around the sun in this artist's illustration).
Planet Nine is out there, and astronomers are determined to find it, according to a new statement from NASA. In fact, mounting evidence suggests it's hard to imagine our solar system without the unseen world.
The hypothetical planet is believed to be about 10 times more massive than Earth and located in the dark, outer reaches of the solar system, approximately 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune is. While the mysterious world still has yet to be found, astronomers have discovered a number of strange features of our solar system that are best explained by the presence of a ninth planet, according to the NASA statement.
"There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet Nine," Konstantin Batygin, a planetary astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, said in the statement. "If you were to remove this explanation and imagine Planet Nine does not exist, then you generate more problems than you solve. All of a sudden, you have five different puzzles, and you must come up with five different theories to explain them." [The Evidence for 'Planet Nine' in Our Solar System (Gallery)]
Researchers say an anomaly in the orbits of distant Kuiper Belt objects points to the existence of an unknown planet orbiting the sun. Here's what we know of this potential "Planet Nine." Credit: by Karl Tate, Infographics artist
In 2016, Batygin and co-author Mike Brown, an astronomer at Caltech, published a study that examined the elliptical orbits of six known objects in the Kuiper Belt, a distant region of icy bodies stretching from Neptune outward toward interstellar space. Their findings revealed that all of those Kuiper Belt objects have elliptical orbits that point in the same direction and are tilted about 30 degrees "downward" compared to the plane in which the eight official planets circle the sun, according to the statement.
Using computer simulations of the solar system with a Planet Nine, Batygin and Brown also showed that there should be even more objects tilted a whopping 90 degrees with respect to the solar plane. Further investigation revealed that five such objects were already known to fit these parameters, the researchers said.
Since then, the astronomers have found new evidence that further supports the existence of Planet Nine. With help from Elizabeth Bailey, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at Caltech, the team showed that Planet Nine's influence might have tilted the planets of our solar system, which would explain why the zone in which the eight major planets orbit the sun is tilted by about 6 degrees compared to the sun's equator.
"Over long periods of time, Planet Nine will make the entire solar-system plane precess, or wobble, just like a top on a table," Batygin said in the statement.
Finally, the researchers demonstrate how Planet Nine's presence could explain why some Kuiper Belt objects orbit in the opposite direction from everything else in the solar system.
"No other model can explain the weirdness of these high-inclination orbits," Batygin said in the statement. "It turns out that Planet Nine provides a natural avenue for their generation. These things have been twisted out of the solar system plane with help from Planet Nine and then scattered inward by Neptune."
Going forward, the researchers plan to use the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii to find Planet Nine, and then deduce where the mysterious world came from.
The most common type of planets discovered around other stars in our galaxy has been what astronomers call "super Earths" — rocky worlds that are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. However, no such planet has yet been discovered in our solar system, meaning that Planet Nine could be our missing "super Earth," the researchers said.
Editor's Note: This article has been updated to clarify that some Kuiper Belt objects unexpectedly orbit in the opposite direction to the rest of the Solar System, not all of them.
Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. | – Astronomically inclined conspiracy theorists have long been predicting the Earth's demise in a collision with a rogue planet called "Niburu" or "Planet X" biding its time out of sight somewhere in the solar system, CNET reports. In fact, Niburu was "supposed" to crash into Earth just last month. And while death-by-planet remains unlikely, the existence of an undiscovered planet in our solar system is now almost a certainty, according to NASA. Planetary astrophysicist Konstantin Batygin and professor Mike Brown set out to disprove the existence of a hidden planet a few years ago and, ironically, ended up finding convincing evidence for the existence of what they call "Planet Nine." The main evidence for Planet Nine comes from its "gravitational footprint," but it's convincing enough that Batygin says the solar system makes a lot more sense with the hidden planet than without it, Space.com reports. Planet Nine is believed to be 10 times more massive than Earth and located about 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune. From its position in the far reaches of the solar system, it has tilted and reversed the orbits of objects in the Kuiper Belt, according to Batygin and Brown. It also may be the reason the orbits of the planets are slightly off from the sun's equator. Finally, Planet Nine could be the "super Earth" frequently found orbiting other stars but "conspicuously absent" around ours. Oh, and NASA wants conspiracy theorists to know Planet Nine, if it exists, is staying far away from Earth. (Scientists just found the smallest possible star.) |
The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Tue Dec 3, 2013 10:48 PM
Two skydivers were killed and one was injured following a mid-air collision late Tuesday afternoon in Eloy, officials said.
The collision occurred about 200 feet from the ground and caused the skydivers’ parachutes to collapse as they fell, according to Eloy Police Sgt. Brian Jerome.
One person died at the scene and another died at a nearby hospital. A third was flown to Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix for treatment.
Jerome said the deceased were not American, but he declined to name their countries of origin.
Investigators are still trying to determine how the collision occurred and plan to interview witnesses throughout the night, Jerome added.
Officials said the skydivers had been part of a 200-member group participating in a week-long event at Skydive Arizona, which operates near Eloy Municipal Airport.
The group had been working to create “as many new ‘official’ world sequential records as we can” by Friday, according to a website promoting Square1 World Sequential Series ‘13.
Eloy is about 15 miles southeast of Casa Grande. ||||| ELOY, AZ - Two skydivers were killed Tuesday night after colliding in the air over Eloy.
Eloy police Sgt. Brian Jerome said the accident happened around 4:51 p.m.at Skydive Arizona.
Jerome said one person was dead when authorities arrived on scene and a second died at a local hospital.
According to Jerome, witnesses told investigators that both skydivers had open canopies when they ran into each other about 200 to 300 feet above the ground. After they collided, their canopies collapsed and they fell to the ground.
A third skydiver was injured but police say that skydiver was not involved in the collision and the injuries are not believed to be serious.
The cause of the collision is under investigation. Police have not yet released names of any of the people involved.
The collision occurred at Skydive Arizona, a training facility that operates out of the Eloy Municipal Airport, about 60 miles south of Phoenix. Its website says it's the largest drop zone in the world, for skydivers of all skill levels.
Dozens of women gathered at the site Saturday to break the world record for an all-female mass-formation jump.
Stay with ABC15 for updates. | – Two skydivers were killed and another injured last night in a midair collision involving members of a group trying to smash formation skydiving records in Arizona. Witnesses say the skydivers were 200 to 300 feet above the ground when they collided, causing them to fall to the ground as their canopies collapsed, a police spokesman tells ABC15. Officials say the two people killed were not American but they have not disclosed their nationalities. The skydivers were part of a 200- to 250-member group taking part in a week-long effort to break as many records as possible, reports the Arizona Republic. The collision happened at the Skydive Arizona facility where the world record for an all-female mass-formation jump was broken just a few days ago. |
CARMEL, Ind.– Scott Jones, founder of ChaCha and inventor of voicemail, will hold an estate sale at his 27,000 square-foot Carmel estate in September.
Jones has resided in Hawaii for the last few years and has decided to open the doors to his mansion and invite the public to peruse a lifetime of collections and household furnishings.
The sale will run from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. on Sept. 14-17. The house is located at 1150 West 116th St, Carmel, IN 46032.
“This sale will undoubtedly be one of the best estate sales ever conducted – not only in the state of Indiana, but the entire country,” said Aether Estate Sales Co.
The Carmel home is built in the style of an English country manor. It cost $20 million and took seven years to build. The mansion’s features include a 33-foot high great room, an indoor tree house, a circular mahogany slide, a 25-foot long saltwater aquarium and an indoor basketball court. It also has many automation features.
The estate has been on shows like HGTV’s Mega Mansions and MTV Cribs. It has served as an incubator for members of the tech scene over the years.
Jones has amassed a collection of eclectic possessions, including:
T-Rex skull cast
High-end, original art
Museum-quality, priceless antiques
Custom-built furniture
Kubota tractors
Incredible clock collection
Conversation pieces
Home accents
For more information, visit Aether Estate Sales Co. online here or call (317) 567-2319. ||||| Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE Entrepreneur and coder Scott Jones opens his Carmel home up to Airbnb. Take a video tour. (August 2017) Mykal McEldowney/IndyStar
Buy Photo The home of Scott Jones, now on the market for $4,995,000. (Photo: Mykal McEldowney/IndyStar)Buy Photo
Scott Jones is simplifying.
The tech maven with the big house on 116th Street — the one with the indoor tree house, the 25-foot saltwater aquarium, the spiral slide made of the finest mahogany — is selling his stuff.
Jones has been living mostly in Hawaii for the past two years and has decided that the Carmel house's furnishings must go, all of them.
This would include his Tyrannosaurus rex skull replica, for which he'll take $10,000, and his Steinway grand piano, $100,000. The sale runs Sept. 14-17, at the house, 1150 W. 116th St.
It's not an auction; it's a sale. People can walk through the house and check out the merchandise as if the house were a store.
"Everything will be bar coded," said Lee Parson of Fishers-based Aether Estate Sales Co., who's managing the sale.
Jones' house — seven bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, 24,000 square feet — is for sale, too. The asking price is $4,995,000.
You don't have to be Steinway-rich to file through the house next month and acquire a piece of Jones' legacy. Parson said everyday household items will be sold alongside the good stuff, including "half-opened bottles of Windex that'll be 50 cents."
Jones, 56, has a second home in Honolulu, and a couple years ago, he began spending most of his time there. He kept his Carmel house occupied by running a computer coding school out of the great room and the theater and renting bedrooms on Airbnb.
► More on rich people liquidating: The job once fell to Earl Cornwell
► More: The dispersal of the vast (and often untouched) treasures of Nancy Irsay
He moved to Indianapolis as a teenager and graduated from North Central High School and later Indiana University. At 25, while living in Boston, he invented the technology that made voicemail practical. He sold it for $50 million then started several other businesses.
Jones returned to his hometown in the 1990s and, as a 30-something multimillionaire tech titan, quickly became a major player. He was one of the key voices lobbying for Indiana's move to daylight-saving time, a surprisingly hotly contested transition that he and other business leaders considered critical to aligning Indiana with business interests on the coasts.
He gave money away, most notably $3 million to The Children's Museum for its "Dinosphere," a dinosaur exhibit.
Along the way, Jones collected a wide variety of stuff from all over the world: antiques, artwork, a suit of armor, a model of the sailing ship that's the size of a fourth-grader, and a telescope so huge that it takes three people to move.
Parson predicted dispensing it would be "the best estate sale ever held in Indiana."
"Everything must go," said Jones' publicist, John Ross. "This will be a nice opportunity for people to see how the other half lives."
Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE Have you ever wanted to peek inside the Carmel, Ind., mansion of tech guru Scott Jones? Now you can — and you might be able to walk away with a memento, too. Jones is selling all of his possessions from the Hamilton County home. Dwight Adams/IndyStar
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Contact Star reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043. Follow him on Twitter @WillRHiggins.
Read or Share this story: http://indy.st/2wT9QwI | – Tech titan Scott Jones, best known for inventing voicemail and founding the search engine ChaCha, is moving on. The Indiana native has spent most of the past two years in Hawaii, and now he's decided to sell the Indiana house, which he has been renting out on Airbnb, for nearly $5 million and throw one of the country's "best estate sales ever conducted" per the company managing the sale, Aether Estate Sales Co. Fox59 reports that the Carmel home took seven years and $20 million to build in the tradition of an English country manor. It also boasts a 25-foot saltwater aquarium, circular mahogany slide, indoor tree house, and more. But what's for sale inside the 27,000-square-foot, 7-bedroom, 14-bathroom mega mansion is arguably more intriguing. That's because Jones, who is 56, is a collector with eclectic interests. Want a T. rex skull replica? That'll cost $10,000. A Steinway grand piano? That's a cool $100,000. He's also got "high-end, original art" and "museum-quality, priceless antiques," but because everything must go, there are even price tags on half-empty bottles of Windex (50 cents), reports IndyStar. The sale runs Sept. 14 through 17 and is open to the public; buyers can wander through the house to check out the wares as they would at any other estate sale. (Estate sales can turn up stolen masterpieces.) |
Earlier this week, we introduced a set of updates to our privacy policy and terms of service to help our users better understand our service. In the days since, it became clear that we failed to fulfill what I consider one of our most important responsibilities – to communicate our intentions clearly. I am sorry for that, and I am focused on making it right.
The concerns we heard about from you the most focused on advertising, and what our changes might mean for you and your photos. There was confusion and real concern about what our possible advertising products could look like and how they would work.
Because of the feedback we have heard from you, we are reverting this advertising section to the original version that has been in effect since we launched the service in October 2010. You can see the updated terms here.
Going forward, rather than obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed, we are going to take the time to complete our plans, and then come back to our users and explain how we would like for our advertising business to work.
You also had deep concerns about whether under our new terms, Instagram had any plans to sell your content. I want to be really clear: Instagram has no intention of selling your photos, and we never did. We don’t own your photos – you do.
Finally, there was also confusion about how widely shared and distributed your photos are through our service. The distribution of your content and photos is governed by our privacy policy, and always has been. We have made a small change to our terms to make that as clear as possible.
You can view the current terms and privacy policy, as well as review the updated terms and privacy policy that will take effect on January 19, 2013.
I’m proud that Instagram has a community that feels so strongly about a product we all love. I’m even more proud that you feel empowered to be vocal and approach us with constructive feedback to help us build a better product. Thank you for your feedback, and I look forward to all that Instagram has to bring in the New Year.
Thank you,
Kevin Systrom co-founder, Instagram ||||| Eric Piermont/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
SAN FRANCISCO — In the aftermath of the uproar over changes to Instagram’s privacy policy and terms of service earlier this week, the company did an about-face late Thursday.
In a blog post on the company’s site, Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s co-founder, said that where advertising was concerned, the company would revert to its previous terms of service, which have been in effect since October 2010.
“Rather than obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed,” he wrote, “we are going to take the time to complete our plans, and then come back to our users and explain how we would like for our advertising business to work.” Users had been particularly concerned by a clause in Instagram’s policy introduced on Monday that suggested Instagram would share users’ data — like their favorite places, bands, restaurants and hobbies — with Facebook and its advertisers to better target ads.
They also took issue with an update to the company’s terms of service that suggested users’ photos could be used in advertisements, without compensation and even without their knowledge.
The terms of that user agreement said, “You agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your user name, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata) and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.”
Following a reaction that included customers defecting to other services, Mr. Systrom told Instagram users on Tuesday that the new policy had been misinterpreted. “It is our mistake that this language is confusing,” he wrote, and he promised an updated agreement.
That statement apparently was not enough. With more people leaving the service, the company, which Facebook bought for $735 million this year, reacted again by returning to the old rules.
Acknowledging those concerns late Thursday, Mr. Systrom wrote: “I want to be really clear: Instagram has no intention of selling your photos, and we never did. We don’t own your photos — you do.”
Mr. Systrom said the company would still be tweaking its privacy policy to quell users’ fears that their photos might pop-up on third-party sites without their consent.
But Mr. Systrom did not clarify how Instagram planned to monetize its service in the future. Facebook is under pressure to make Instagram earn income.
“It’s a free service — they have to monetize somewhere,” said John Casasanta, a principal at Tap Tap Tap, the maker of Camera+, a photo-filter app that has shunned advertising and instead charges users for premium features. “The days of the simple banner ads are gone. Their user data is too valuable.”
It was unclear whether reverting its terms of service would be enough to satisfy high-profile users like National Geographic, which stopped using its Instagram account in light of the moves, or other users who have aired their grievances on Twitter and Facebook.
The controversy has driven traffic and new users to several other photo-sharing applications.
Pheed, an Instagram-like app that gives users the option to monetize their own content by charging followers to see their posts, gained more users than any other app in the United States on Thursday. By Thursday morning, Pheed had jumped to the ninth most downloaded social-networking app in Apple’s iTunes store, just ahead of LinkedIn.
O. D. Kobo, Pheed’s chief executive, said Thursday morning that subscriptions to the service had quadrupled this week and that in the last 24 hours users had uploaded 300,000 new files to the service — more uploads than any other 24-hour-period since Pheed made its debut six weeks ago.
Another runaway success was Flickr, Yahoo’s photo-sharing service, which redesigned its app last week to make it easier to share photos on Twitter. In a stroke of good fortune, it released the app to positive reviews just as Instagram announced it would no longer sync with Twitter, a Facebook rival.
The day before Instagram announced changes to its terms of service, Flickr’s mobile app was ranked at around 175 in Apple’s overall iTunes app charts. Since that day, the application skyrocketed to the high 20s.
Of course, most of these services are still tiny compared to Instagram, which claims to have more than 100 million members who have uploaded upward of 5 billion photos using its service. And it was unclear if the services’ newfound members had also deleted their Instagram accounts or were merely dabbling in other offerings. But the migration, whether temporary or permanent, was a reminder of the volatility of success and that the fall to bottom can sometimes be as swift as the rise to the top.
Facebook and Instagram declined to say whether they had seen any significant number of account deletions or if they were concerned about losing ground in the photo-sharing market to rivals. Some photo apps took direct aim at Instagram. Camera+ even went so far as to include a snide, holiday-themed reference to Instagram’s stumbles in an app update on Wednesday.
“We’ll never do shady things with your shared pics, because it just isn’t right,” the update noted. “On that note, happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!” | – After a furor over changes to its ad terms of service, Instagram tried to clear things up; now, it's simply dropping the changes, the New York Times reports. The company is returning to its old advertising terms from 2010, co-founder Kevin Systrom wrote in a blog post. "Rather than obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed, we are going to take the time to complete our plans, and then come back to our users and explain how we would like for our advertising business to work." "I want to be really clear," he added. "Instagram has no intention of selling your photos, and we never did. We don’t own your photos—you do." Still, the move may have come too late for some users: Similar services like Pheed saw more new users yesterday than any other app in the US, while Flickr's app jumped in popularity from 175 to somewhere in the 20s among iTunes rankings. The question remains, then, how the free service will monetize, notes the Times. |
Wait! Does Mindy Kaling know something we don't know? As the Internet went crazy on Wednesday, May 6 after news that her show, The Mindy Project, was to be axed from the Fox Network after just three seasons, the 35-year-old comedienne was looking happy as she admired the views in Montana.
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Hours after the announcement was made, and fans had jumped online to express their devastation at the show's cancellation, Kaling shared a video with her followers which was both cryptic, and more than a little hopeful!
Posting the video onto her Instagram account, Kaling referred to the hoopla surrounding Fox's announcement with a typically tongue-in-cheek comment. "Hey guys, I'm in Montana, is anything happening in LA? #themindyproject," she wrote.
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Clearly, there was a lot happening in L.A., but judging by the video, she's not letting any of it get her down.
Hey guys, I'm in Montana, is anything happening in LA? #themindyproject A video posted by Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling) on May 6, 2015 at 8:25pm PDT
The film clip shows a panoramic scan of the stunning Montana scenery at twilight, where Kaling is currently vacationing with three friends. At the end of the clip, the camera pans round so her face comes into view. The actress, writer and producer beams a huge smile at the lens, and then winks mischievously at fans.
We're just hoping Kaling's cryptic message is a hint that all is not lost! Shortly after Fox's announcement, another report surfaced, this time from Variety, that Hulu was in talks to save the much-loved show.
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"Hulu is in talks with Universal TV to move the Fox comedy over to the streaming service for multiple seasons," the industry mag reported.
Tell Us: What do you think Mindy's message means? ||||| 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. | – Fans of The Mindy Project were upset yesterday that Fox is canceling Mindy Kaling's sitcom after three seasons, but could it be saved? Kaling posted a video to Instagram shortly after news broke, Us reports: "Hey guys, I'm in Montana, is anything happening in LA? #themindyproject," reads the caption; the video pans to show the scenery, then Kaling's face—and it ends with her winking. After she posted it, Variety ran a story claiming that the studio behind the show, Universal Television, is in talks to move the series over to Hulu for at least two more seasons, though neither Universal, nor Fox, nor Hulu would comment on that. (Click to read about the next book Kaling has coming out.) |
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The United States Customs and Border Protection said Monday that agriculture specialists at Los Angeles International Airport intercepted 67 invasive snails in an air cargo shipment, officials said.
According to authorities, CBP received notice of the shipment of snails on July 7, which contained two plastic packages in total weighing just over 35 pounds. The cargo arrived from Lagos, Nigeria, and was to be delivered to the San Dimas area, with paperwork stating they were ‘Achatina Fulica’ and were meant for human consumption, officials stated in a news release.
“The significant interception of giant African snails is the first time this pest has been encountered in such large quantity and as a consumption entry by CBP in Los Angeles,” said Todd C. Owen, CBP Director of Field Operations.
CBP officials stated that they submitted an urgent sample to the United States Department of Agriculture plant protection and quarantine entomologists, where a specialist in Washington, D.C., identified them as giant African snails.
According to USDA officials, these snails are native to Africa and can grow to about 8 inches long, 5 inches wide and live to be 10 years old. They are commonly referred to as giant African land snail, banana rasp snail, margie, West African snail and West African land snail, authorities said.
Agriculture specialists described these snails as a very serious threat to the natural ecosystem, public health and economy. They are carriers of several parasites that are harmful to humans, one of which can lead to meningitis.
Due to the nature of damaging effect this snail species may cause, the shipment was transferred from CBP officials to the local plant inspection station for final precautionary steps, USDA officials said.
“It exemplifies how CBP agriculture specialists protect our nation’s agriculture from the introduction of threatening foreign pests, plants and diseases,” Owens said.
Being one of the world’s largest land snails, USDA officials said, these pests can consumer over 500 types of plants, and will even eat the stucco and paint off houses.
CBP officials reported that they took preventative measures to quarantine the snails, preventing them from further spreading. ||||| LOS ANGELES, July 14 (Reuters) - U.S. customs inspectors at Los Angeles International Airport seized a shipment of several dozen live giant African snails, considered a delicacy in Nigeria but also voracious pests that can eat paint and stucco off houses, officials said on Monday.
Weighing nearly 2 pounds (0.9 kg) each, including their shells, and measuring about 6 inches (15 cm) in length, the 67 snails arrived from Lagos, Nigeria, in two plastic baskets with paperwork describing them as being for human consumption, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said.
The mollusks appeared to be packaged as a personal shipment and were marked as destined for an address in San Dimas, California, about 30 miles (48 km) east of Los Angeles, agency spokeswoman Lee Harty said.
No attempt was made to conceal or smuggle the snails, the largest such shipment ever seized at LAX, she said. But the creatures are prohibited from entry because they are deemed a highly invasive pest that pose a serious threat to U.S. agriculture, the environment and public health, the agency said.
According to Customs and Border Protection, the giant snails can consume more than 500 types of plants, and will even munch on the exterior of homes if fruits and vegetables are not available. They also can carry several parasites harmful to humans, including one that can lead to meningitis, Harty said.
After they were intercepted by customs officials at the airport on July 1, specimens were sent to a local U.S. Department of Agriculture lab and then on to USDA mollusk specialists in Washington for further examination.
Experts identified the creatures as belonging to the giant African snail species, known by the scientific name Archachatina marginata. They also are commonly referred to as giant African land snails, West African snails, West African land snails or banana rasp snails.
Each of the mollusks, with striated brownish-orange shells, can easily fill the palm of a person's hand. They can grow up to 8 inches (20 cm) in length and may live up to 10 years in the wild, experts say.
The entire collection confiscated at the airport was eventually turned over to the USDA, which disposed of the snails through incineration, although no garlic or butter was used, Harty said. (Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Peter Cooney) | – A slow-moving Nigerian delicacy was stopped at Los Angeles International Airport when 67 giant land snails were discovered packed in picnic baskets, authorities said yesterday. The live African snails—which can grow to be 8 inches long, 5 inches wide, and live to be 10 years old—arrived with paperwork stating they were for human consumption, but federal authorities say they are a damaging, invasive species, reports CBS. "The significant interception of giant African snails is the first time this pest has been encountered in such large quantity and as a consumption entry" in Los Angeles, a Customs and Border Protection official says. The snails, which carry a parasite that can give humans meningitis, are known to consume more than 500 kinds of plants and USDA officials say they will even eat the paint and stucco off houses when there's no other food around, the Los Angeles Times notes. The snails are generally fried as a snack but the shipment seized at LAX was turned over to the USDA and then incinerated, reports Reuters. Florida has been battling an infestation of the snails for years and has caught more than 100,000 of them. |
Loose tweets destroy fleets. Keeping quiet about operational information is vital to ensure military members stay safe on a daily basis.
Social media can be a useful tool to stay connected to friends, family, and quick entertainment. However, there is sometimes a fine line between letting your friends see what you’re up to and providing an adversary critical information about your connection to the military and its mission.
“As social media keeps evolving and there’s more and more avenues to let your friends and family know what you are up to, those same avenues can be used by ISIS sympathizers, ‘lone wolves,’ to track down and hurt our military members outside the safety of the base,” said Capt. Jonathan McDonald, AFCENT Force Protection chief. “So not only is it important to not post vital mission related information, but it’s also important to not post detailed personal information to keep yourself and your loved ones safe.
“It’s vital to check your security settings in your social media accounts to make sure that just your friends are able to see what you post and remember to be smart about what you post and share,” McDonald added.
Operations Security is the process of keeping sensitive information away from the enemy. Information is identified and controlled by various security measures to minimize violations.
“Without OPSEC, our adversaries would be able to freely and easily gather information of our activities and operations; putting missions, resources and members at risk, said Master Sgt. Aaron Miller, AFCENT Information security program manager. “Ultimately this could impact a campaign or mission and be detrimental to national strategic and foreign policies.”
With OPSEC violation consequences so high, it’s important to ensure OPSEC procedures are followed through.
“The best way to keep OPSEC is to look over the Critical Information List and be sure to protect the information on that list and destroy it accordingly,” said Senior Airman Anthony Bolton, 609th Air Operations Center OPSEC manager. “Another way to keep OPSEC is to go secure whenever possible, use a secure phone line , encrypt your email and make sure that you are shredding all paper including any notes on post its.”
The public affairs office coordinates all media interviews, media queries and media access to the base. If approached by the media, Airmen should refer all media to their local public affairs office.
Each unit employs an OPSEC manager to whom anybody may report suspected OPSEC incidents. For more information regarding OPSEC, refer to Air Force Instruction 10-701, Operations Security OPSEC) on the Air Force e-Publishing website or contact your unit OPSEC manager.
||||| F-16 Fighting Falcons taxi down the flight line at Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, on Dec. 14, 2012. The U.S. Air Force is using the photo to promote careful use of social media, with the message: "Loose Tweets Destroy Fleets." The phrase is a modern-day twist of the words from a famous World War II propaganda poster, "Loose Lips Sink Ships."
“Loose Tweets Destroy Fleets” — the Air Force’s twist on the famous World War II slogan, “Loose Lips Sink Ships” — is meant to remind servicemembers to guard what they share on social media, particularly given recent threats by Islamic State sympathizers.
U.S. Air Forces Central Command’s online message last week from Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, included a photo of a fleet of F-16 fighter jets parked on a runway. It was accompanied by a story reminding airmen “there is sometimes a fine line between letting your friends see what you’re up to and providing an adversary critical information about your connection to the military and its mission.”
The AFCENT article speaks directly to the threat posed by Islamic State supporters, who on at least two occasions have acquired and posted online personal data of military personnel, urging followers to attack Americans in the States and overseas in retaliation for the air strikes.
“As social media keeps evolving and there’s more and more avenues to let your friends and family know what you are up to, those same avenues can be used by ISIS sympathizers, ‘lone wolves’, to track down and hurt our military members outside the safety of the base,” AFCENT’s Force Protection chief, Capt. Jonathan McDonald, was quoted as saying. He used an acronym for the Islamic State.
Most recently, a group calling itself the “Islamic State hacking division,” posted the names and identifying information such as email addresses and phone numbers of some 1,400 former or current military and diplomatic personnel who worked in the United Kingdom, according to London’s Sunday Times. Most of them were Americans, though much of the information was believed to be outdated.
Air Force tips to post smartly include the use of appropriate privacy settings and checking with a supervisor before posting anything work-related; also encrypting email about work missions, using a secure phone line and shredding important documents.
The “loose tweets” catchphrase is not new, having been adopted earlier by the Navy and Army.
Before the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt deployed earlier this year to support airstrike operations in Iraq and Syria, the ship reminded sailors on Facebook to “Remember: Loose Tweets Sink Fleets.” Sailors were told to be aware of what they’re posting, what hashtags they’re using and what security settings are enabled. The Army used the phrase even sooner. In December 2013, U.S. Central Command tweeted the same message, linking to a U.S. Army online story about social media usage titled: “Loose lips still sink ships, loose tweets sink fleets.”
But the Air Force’s twist on the message has been garnering attention from news organizations as diverse as Popular Mechanics and Russia News.Net and has been getting mixed reviews on social media.
“’Loose lips sink ships’ has evolved,” said one commenter on the John Q. Public Facebook site. “Probably more relevant now than in the 1940s.”
Another commenter quipped: “Hey Air Force. The Navy called, they want their slogan back.”
svan.jennifer@stripes.com | – Just as soldiers were warned "loose lips sink ships" during World War II, modern airmen are being warned "loose tweets destroy fleets" in the social-media age. ABC News reports US Air Forces Central Command sent out a security notice last week warning personnel of the "fine line" between sharing activities with friends and family and providing harmful information to enemies. The military is getting increasingly concerned about tech-savvy terrorist groups. In the notice, one official specifically worried about "ISIS sympathizers" and "lone wolves" using social media to find and harm military personnel and their families. For instance, a group calling itself the Islamic State Hacking Division released a "kill list" of 100 military members and their families seemingly compiled using information readily available on social media in March. In the release, the Air Force warns airmen not to post information about their mission or too many personal details while keeping their social media accounts "friends only." The Navy and Army also are hammering home the "loose tweets" message, notes Stars and Stripes. |
Hard-line Iranian students stormed the British diplomatic compounds in Tehran on Tuesday, bringing down the Union Jack flag and throwing documents from windows in scenes reminiscent of the anger against Western powers after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iranian cleric lawmakers talk in an open session of the parliament in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011. Iran's parliament has approved a bill to reduce Tehran's diplomatic relations with London and... (Associated Press)
The mob surged past riot police into the British Embassy compound _ which they pelted with petrol bombs and stones _ two days after Iran's parliament approved a bill that reduces diplomatic relations with Britain following London's support of recently upgraded Western sanctions on Tehran over its disputed nuclear program.
Less than two hours later, police appeared to regain control of the site. But the official IRNA news agency said about 300 protesters entered the British ambassador's residence in another part of the city and replaced British flags with Iranian ones. The British Foreign Office harshly denounced the melee and said Iran has a "clear duty" under international law to protect diplomats and offices.
"We are outraged by this," said the statement. "It is utterly unacceptable and we condemn it."
It said a "significant number" of protesters entered the compound and caused vandalism, but gave no other details on damage or whether diplomatic staff was inside the embassy, although the storming occurred after business hours.
The semiofficial Mehr news agency said embassy staff had left the compound before the mobs entered, but it also said those who occupied the area had taken six staff as hostages. It did not give their nationalities and the report could not immediately be confirmed.
The protesters broke through after clashing with anti-riot police and chanting for its takeover. "Death to England," some cried in the first significant assault of a foreign diplomatic area in Iran in years. More protesters poured into the compound as police tried to clear the site.
Smoke rose from some areas of the embassy grounds and the British flag was replaced with a banner in the name of 7th century Shiite saint, Imam Hussein. Occupiers also tore down picture of Queen Elizabeth II.
The occupier called for the closure of the embassy calling it a "spy den" _ the same phrase used after militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 hostages for 444 days. In the early moments of the siege, protesters tossed out papers from the compound and hauled down the U.S. flag. Washington and Tehran have no diplomatic relations since then.
The rally outside the British Embassy _ on a main street in Tehran downtown _ included protesters carrying photographs of nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari, who was killed last year in an attack that Iran blamed on Israeli and British spy services.
Outside the embassy, students from some universities and seminaries burned British flags on fire as clashing with police.
State TV reported that another group of hard-line students gathered at the gate of British ambassador's residence in northern Tehran, at the same time.
Britain's Foreign Office said it was in contact with embassy officials. Officials were still checking on the well-being of workers and diplomats, a spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity in line with standing policy.
Tensions with Britain date back to the 19th century when the Persian monarchy gave huge industrial concessions to London, which later included significant control over Iran's oil industry.
But they have become increasingly strained as the West accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons _ a charge Tehran denies.
In recent years, Iran was angered by Britain's decision in 2007 honor author Salman Rushdie with a knighthood.
Rushdie went into hiding after Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a 1989 fatwa, or religious edict, ordering Muslims to kill the author because his novel "The Satanic Verses" allegedly insulted Islam.
The decision shortly after Iran detained 15 British sailors and marines in March 2007 for allegedly entering the country's territorial waters in the Gulf _ a claim Britain denies. The 15 were released after nearly two weeks in captivity.
In 2006, angry mobs burned the Danish flag and attacked Danish and other Western embassies in Tehran in protest to the reprinting of a cartoon deemed insulting of the Prophet Muhammad in the Nordic country's newspapers.
___
Associated Press writer David Stringer in London contributed to this report. ||||| TEHRAN Iranian protesters stormed two British diplomatic compounds in Tehran on Tuesday, smashing windows, torching a car and burning the British flag in protest against new sanctions imposed by London.
Britain said it was outraged and warned of "serious consequences." The U.N. Security Council condemned the attacks "in the strongest terms." U.S. President Barack Obama said he was disturbed by the incident and called on Iran to hold those responsible to account.
The attacks come at a time of rising diplomatic tension between Iran and Western nations who last week imposed fresh sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program, which they believe is aimed at achieving the capability of making an atomic bomb.
Iran, the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, says it only wants nuclear plants to generate electricity.
The embassy storming is also a sign of deepening political infighting within Iran's ruling hardline elites, with the conservative-led parliament attempting to force the hand of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and expel the British ambassador.
"Radicals in Iran and in the West are always in favor of crisis ... Such radical hardliners in Iran will use the crisis to unite people and also to blame the crisis for the fading economy," said political analyst Hasan Sedghi.
Several dozen protesters broke away from a crowd of a few hundred outside the main British embassy compound in downtown Tehran, scaled the gates, broke the locks and went inside.
Protesters pulled down the British flag, burned it, and put up the Iranian flag, Iranian news agencies and news pictures showed. Inside, the demonstrators smashed windows of office and residential quarters and set a car ablaze, news pictures showed.
One took a framed picture of Queen Elizabeth, state TV showed. Others carried the royal crest out through the embassy gate as police stood by, pictures carried by the semi-official Fars news agency showed.
All embassy personnel were accounted for, a British diplomat told Reuters in Washington, saying Britain did not believe that any sensitive materials had been seized.
Demonstrators waved flags symbolizing martyrdom and held aloft portraits of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has the final say on matters of state in Iran.
Another group of protesters broke into a second British compound at Qolhak in north Tehran, the IRNA state news agency said. Once the embassy's summer quarters, the sprawling, tree-lined compound is now used to house diplomatic staff.
An Iranian report said six British embassy staff had been briefly held by the protesters. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the situation had been "confusing" and that he would not have called them "hostages."
"Police freed the six people working for the British embassy in Qolhak garden," Iran's Fars news agency said.
A German school next to the Qolhak compound was also damaged, the German government said.
BRITAIN OUTRAGED
Police appeared to have cleared the demonstrators in front of the main downtown embassy compound, but later clashed with protesters and fired tear gas to try to disperse them, Fars said. Protesters nevertheless entered the compound a second time, before once again leaving, it said.
British Prime Minister David Cameron chaired a meeting of the government crisis committee to discuss the attacks which he said were "outrageous and indefensible."
"The failure of the Iranian government to defend British staff and property was a disgrace," he said in a statement.
"The Iranian government must recognize that there will be serious consequences for failing to protect our staff. We will consider what these measures should be in the coming days."
The United States, alongside the European Union and many of its member states also strongly condemned the attacks.
There have been regular protests outside the British embassy over the years since the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah, but never have any been so violent.
The attacks and hostage-taking were a reminder of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran carried out by radical students who held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The United States cut diplomatic ties with Iran after the hostage-taking.
All British embassy personnel were accounted for and safe, a British diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters in Washington.
The diplomat said the attack likely flowed from Britain's November 21 decision to impose new sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear program, including a ban on British financial institutions dealing with their Iranian counterparts.
"It's impossible, really, not to reach that conclusion," the diplomat said, suggesting that the protests may have been sparked by the Iranian authorities.
"In the past we have certainly had demonstrations that have ... been sanctioned, if not encouraged, by the government. I don't know about this one. I don't think we'd put it past them," said the diplomat.
"It's hard to imagine, in a place like Iran, that these were some kind of spontaneous (event)," said a State Department official who declined to be identified.
INFIGHTING
The demonstrations appeared to be a bid by conservatives who control parliament to press home their demand, passed in parliament last week and quickly endorsed by the Guardian Council on Tuesday, for the government to expel the British ambassador in retaliation for the sanctions.
A lawmaker had warned on Sunday that angry Iranians could storm the British embassy.
"Parliament officially notified the president over a bill regarding degrading the ties with Britain, obliging the government to implement it within five days," Fars news agency quoted speaker Ali Larijani as saying.
Ahmadinejad's government has shown no willingness to compromise on its refusal to halt its nuclear work, but has sought to keep channels of negotiation open in an effort to limit the worst effects of sanctions.
An Iranian official told Reuters the storming of the British compounds was not planned by the government.
"It was not an organized measure. The establishment had no role in it. It was not planned," said the official, who declined to be identified. Iran's Foreign Ministry said it regretted the attacks and was committed to ensuring the safety of diplomats.
Police arrested 12 people who had entered the north Tehran compound, Fars said, quoting a police chief as saying they would be handed over to the judiciary.
Protesters said they planned to stage a sit-in at the gates of the north Tehran compound and would not move until they were told to do so by Iran's religious leaders.
Britain, along with the United States and Canada, imposed new unilateral sanctions on Iran last week, while the EU, France and Italy have all said financial measures against Tehran should be strengthened.
(Additional reporting by Hossein Jaseb and Hashem Kalantari in Tehran, Parisa Hafezi in Istanbul, William Maclean and Adrian Croft in London and Arshad Mohammed in Washington. Writing by Jon Hemming, editing by Andrew Roche and Christopher Wilson) | – Hard-line Iranian students stormed the British embassy in Tehran today, surging past riot police, scaling the compound’s walls, and pelting the buildings inside with rocks and petrol bombs. They then pulled down the British flag, burned it, and replaced it with an Iranian one, the semi-official Mehr News Agency reported. Security forces “appeared to do little to stop them,” according to Reuters, though within less than two hours they had restored order. It’s unclear what happened to the embassy staff—Mehr said they’d fled “by the back door,” but it also at one point said students had taken six staffers hostage, according to the AP. The state-run IRNA news agency also reported roughly 300 protesters breaking into the British ambassador’s residence elsewhere in the city, and again bringing down the Union Jack flying there. The episode comes two days after Iran downgraded diplomatic relations with Britain over its endorsement of tougher Western sanctions. |
WASHINGTON -- Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann has requested withdrawal of her Swiss citizenship after news that she and her children had recently applied for Swiss papers caused a stir.Referring to the Swiss citizenship as an “automatic” designation conferred upon her when she married her husband, Marcus Bachmann, the son of Swiss immigrants, Bachmann said she was withdrawing the citizenship to make clear her allegiance to the U.S.“Today I sent a letter to the Swiss Consulate requesting withdrawal of my dual Swiss citizenship, which was conferred upon me by operation of Swiss law when I married my husband in 1978,” Bachmann said in a statement. “I took this action because I want to make it perfectly clear: I was born in America and I am a proud American citizen.”"I am, and always have been, 100% committed to our United States Constitution and the United States of America," the statement continued. "As the daughter of an Air Force veteran, stepdaughter of an Army veteran and sister of a Navy veteran, I am proud of my allegiance to the greatest nation the world has ever known."The former Republican presidential candidate who has often criticized President Obama for his “socialist” policies, had seemed the most unlikely American politician to have dual citizenship with a European country that is ruled in part by the Social Democratic Party The statement also said that “under Swiss law, Bachmann automatically received dual citizenship when she married her husband, a dual American and Swiss citizen, in 1978.”But that contradicts earlier statements by Bachmann and her spokeswoman, Becky Rogness, who said the Bachmann family had sought the citizenship."Congresswoman Bachmann's husband is of Swiss descent so she has been eligible for dual citizenship since they got married in 1978," Rogness said. "However, recently some of their children wanted to exercise their eligibility for dual citizenship so they went through the process as a family."Bachmann had initially tried to downplay the citizenship, calling it a “non-story” and saying the family had “just recently updated our documents.”kim.geiger@latimes.com ||||| Bachmann moves to withdraw Swiss citizenship
Posted at 2:37 PM on May 10, 2012 by Mark Zdechlik (13 Comments)
Filed under: Campaign 2008: MN Legislature, Michele Bachmann
Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is no longer interested in having dual US-Swiss citizenship.
Two days after a Swiss TV news crew broke the story that Bachmann sought in February to have her Swiss citizenship registered by Swiss authorities, Bachmann issued the following statement:
"Today I sent a letter to the Swiss Consulate requesting withdrawal of my dual Swiss citizenship, which was conferred upon me by operation of Swiss law when I married my husband in 1978."
"I took this action because I want to make it perfectly clear: I was born in America and I am a proud American citizen. I am, and always have been, 100 percent committed to our United States Constitution and the United States of America. As the daughter of an Air Force veteran, stepdaughter of an Army veteran and sister of a Navy veteran, I am proud of my allegiance to the greatest nation the world has ever known."
Yesterday Bachmann's DFL challenger Jim Graves called news that Bachmann had sought to register her Swiss citizen a "distraction." Graves also noted in a news release that he and his family were "proud to be Americans."
Comments (13)
Could this be that her security clearance might be in jeopardy due to her dual citizenship, or just that fact that this makes her look like she's not a "Real 'Merkin??"
Go back to Switzerland, commie! Your kind ain't welcome in the USA!
Members of Congress aren't actually subject to the rules on "foreign preference" that apply to federal employees and contractors (or congressional staffers) seeking a formal security clearance -- they just have to swear an oath promising not to reveal national secrets. (This disparity was raised a few years ago, during the Randy 'Duke' Cunningham trial.)
Still, you can't imagine it sitting comfortably with Bachmann's membership on the House Intelligence Committee. Her statement yesterday used language that implied an attempt to talk her way out of the problem; my guess is that it wasn't sufficient for her colleagues and the intelligence agencies, and once again raises questions about her judgement.
She was probably just confused and meant to become a citizen of Sweden. Or Swaziland.
Many people find benefits from dual citizenship and having it doesn't make them any less American. It might have given her more access to travel internationally (if she wished to go someplace that didn't welcome U.S. citizens, but did welcome Swiss). Once again, the press has taken something Michele has done and blown it entirely out of promotion.
How could she not know that the USA does not acknowledge dual citizenship?
Flip flop. :)
It is possible to have US citizenship along with citizenship in another country, methods are usually automatic and can include marrying a foreign national, which is the case with Bachmann. IIRC some of her children were interested in Swiss citizenship, her husband's home country. One can also become a dual national by being born in a country that automatically grants citizenship to those born in the country. This happens more often to children of foreign nationals born in the US, but could also happen to US parents in Canada on vacation.
However, swearing an oath of allegiance to a country in a context similar to the way an immigrant becoming a US citizen, will cause one to give up their US citizenship. Then again, this is true of the reverse as well. After taking the required classes and tests and then swearing an oath of allegiance and becoming a US citizen, one implicitly renouncing any citizenship they may have previously held.
(My terminology may be a bit off in places.)
So obtaining citizenship in six countries might sound like a fun challenge, but would actually be difficult/impossible. In any case, the State Department recommends against holding dual citizenship for various reasons.
Oops, looks like she found out the government subsidy for foster kids is actually lower in socialist Switzerland.
Who cares? What's the big deal. Does it really make any difference? She's a US Citizen, lives in the US so again who cares?
There is still hope. Remember when she was running for president. She is from Iowa ! Minnesota was never mentioned. Go and take some of your husbands business government money with you.
Cliff said: "Who cares? What's the big deal."
The issue isn't really about what Bachmann did. It's about her constant questioning of Democrats' loyalty to this country and the way she harped on President Obama's birth certificate for years after the matter was settled, the questioning of his loyalty, the insinuations that he was really a Muslim, etc., etc.
It's the sheer hypocrisy, political opportunism and gamesmanship that rankles. Her tactics of total nuclear war on her opponents, her questioning of their very loyalty to this country that's the issue.
This exposes the sham of her stance. She obviously doesn't believe a word of any of the nonsense she's been spouting about the president for the last four years, because she turned around and voluntarily did something that puts her loyalty to the county under question, whereas all the president did was be born as an American citizen from an American mother and raised under circumstances completely out of his control.
She just figured out Switzerland isn't in the U.S.A. | – If you were concerned that Michele Bachmann's Swiss citizenship meant she'd given up on America, worry no longer: She's getting rid of it. "Today I sent a letter to the Swiss Consulate requesting withdrawal of my dual Swiss citizenship, which was conferred upon me by operation of Swiss law when I married my husband in 1978," she said in a statement, according to Minnesota Public Radio. "I took this action because I want to make it perfectly clear: I was born in America and I am a proud American citizen." Bachmann hopes to put an end to the story that surfaced earlier this week. At the time, her spokeswoman described the situation this way, notes the LA Times: "Congresswoman Bachmann's husband is of Swiss descent so she has been eligible for dual citizenship since they got married in 1978. However, recently some of their children wanted to exercise their eligibility for dual citizenship so they went through the process as a family." Her opponent in November, Jim Graves of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, has called the Swiss story a "distraction." He has confirmed that he and his family are also "proud to be Americans." |
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. ||||| Contains archived websites, blogs, editorials and other materials posted online by, or on behalf of, 17 Russian political and cultural figures who have expressed some opposition to foreign and domestic policy in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The archive also captures eight websites that chronicle a range of contemporary political and human rights positions and events that reflect the prevailing climate. The political and cultural figures whose websites and/or blogs have been captured include: Rustem Adagamov, widely-read Russian blogger; Sergei Aleksashenko, economist, businessman; Konstantin Borovoi, entrepreneur and opposition politician; Leonid Gozman, opposition politician; Il’ia Iashin, opposition politician, co-founder of Russian “Solidarity” party; Oleg Kashin, political journalist and author; Oleg Kozyrev, author, screenwriter, blogger and journalist, leader of youth movement “Democratic Alternative”; Andrei Makarevich, founder of classic rock group Mashina Vremeni [Time Machine]), who Russian state media condemned as a “traitor” for performing a charity concert for Ukrainian children displaced by the war; Andrei Mal’gin, journalist, literary scholar and critic, publisher, and political activist well known for his blogging; Aleksei Naval’nyi, Russian political and social activist, lawyer, and popular blogger; Boris Nemtsov, prominent Russian opposition leader gunned down in Moscow on February 27, 2015; Valeriia Novodvorskaia (d. July 2014), a political activist, dissident, human rights advocate, independent journalist, and founder of liberal political parties; Dmitrii Oreshkin, political scientist and activist; Sergei Parkhomenko, publisher, journalist, political observer; Irina Prokhorova, literary scholar, editor, television personality, opposition political figure; Artemii Troitskii, rock journalist, music critic who emigrated to Estonia in 2014 because of the worsening political climate; Nikolai Uskov, historian, journalist and publishing executive. This archive also includes captures of the following sites: Civil Platform, founded in 2012, with the aims of establishing civil society in Russia, upholding of the rights of the individual, and economic reform. Human Rights in Russia, a website dedicated to raising awareness of threats to human rights in Russia, funded by the MacArthur Foundation and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. Nashi, a pro-Kremlin youth organization. Politkom.Ru, web platform of the Center for Political Technology, which purports to be an independent source of news and analysis and an open forum for exchange of opinions between politicians, analysts and journalists. Putin. Itogi publishes “independent, expert” reports on Putin’s leadership, among them reports written by Boris Nemtsov. Solidarnost’ is a “united democratic movement” founded in 2008 as a coalition of opposition organizations against authoritarianism. Bolotnaya Square Case is a website devoted to documenting the consequences for dozens of protesters after their participation in an opposition rally in Moscow in May of 2012. Traitor.net is a website that singles out political and cultural figures for their expression of disagreement with Russian incursions into Ukraine. ||||| Matthew Dunn news.com.au
IT turns out Vladimir Putin was seen invading the skies of New York City last week.
OK, that might be a stretch, but if you believe an 11-second YouTube clip, the Russian president was definitely there in spirit.
Sheryl Gilbert was on board a tourist bus when she captured footage of a flock of birds swarming around the New York skyline.
What made the clip impressive was the fact the birds flew into a formation that resembled a human face.
And it is not just any face, but the face of Putin.
Since being uploaded to YouTube, the video has gained a lot of attention and has been viewed more than a million times.
While many are quick to condemn the video as a fake, a number of Russian YouTube users think the event is a message.
“This is a hint: imagine what we can do during the war, if we can now make your birds fly resembling the face of our president,” commented one user.
“It’s a warning to the US that they shouldn’t start a war with Russia,” wrote another.
Check out the video below and let us know your thoughts in the comments section or tweet us @newscomauHQ ||||| NEW YORK, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- A video showing the "strange behavior" of birds in New York is going viral after a Russian news station spotted the shape of Vladimir Putin's face in the flock.
The video, posted to YouTube by Sheryl Gilbert, purports to show the "strange behavior of birds" flying in a flock near the Brooklyn Bridge.
The video went viral in Russia after news station Zvezda aired the footage and reporters said a shape seen in a close-up of the birds appears to be the face of President Vladimir Putin.
The station, owned by the Russian Defense Ministry, cautioned the video could have been faked, but Gregory West, who identified himself as Gilbert's husband, said on Twitter the footage was real and shot from a tour bus during a recent visit to New York.
"Saw it several days ago during a trip and that's amazing! Can you see the face? Who is it?" West tweeted. |||||
Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Mikhail Klimentyev/ Presidential Press Service/RIA-Novosti/AP)
In Russia, Vladimir Putin's face is a common sight on television, newspapers, T-shirts, book covers and patriotic graffiti. So it was no wonder that a Russian TV channel, Zvezda ("Star"), claimed that Putin's face could be seen in the outlines of a swarm of birds flying above New York. Zvezda is known for its strictly patriotic views and is owned by the Russian Defense Ministry.
The TV channel pointed to a YouTube video posted by someone named Sheryl Gilbert. The video was uploaded Tuesday and generated lots of comments in Russian on Wednesday after the Russian channel picked it up. "It's a warning to the U.S. that they shouldn't start a war with Russia," one user wrote. "Putin bribed American birds," commented another in Ukrainian. Someone else suggested that the outlines did not resemble Putin's face as much as that of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. But there wasn't much support for that view.
Gregory West, who claims to be the husband of Sheryl Gilbert, posted a link to the video on Twitter on Tuesday. "Saw it several days ago during a trip and that's amazing! Can you see the face? Who is it?"
Some suggested that it was Steve Jobs, Robin Williams or Jerry Mouse. But some think the video is a fake. Zvezda also warned that it cannot guarantee the authenticity of the video. ||||| Add a location to your Tweets
When you tweet with a location, Twitter stores that location. You can switch location on/off before each Tweet and always have the option to delete your location history. Learn more | – Is Russia's leader glowering over America? A YouTube video purporting to show Vladimir Putin's face forming in a flock of birds above New York City has gotten a lot of online attention—especially in Russia, UPI reports. Posted under the name Sheryl Gilbert, it was aired last week by Russia's state-owned and "strictly patriotic" Zvezda news station, notes the Washington Post. Russian users quickly weighed in, posting comments like "It's a warning to the US that they shouldn't start a war with Russia" and, from a Ukrainian, "Putin bribed American birds." Many say the 11-second video is fake, Australia's News Network reports, but no one has described the alleged fakery in detail. Gregory West, whose Twitter account describes him as a "Patriot," "Conservative," "Political Blogger" and "Proud Husband of @ _SherylGilbert," tweeted, "Saw it several days ago during a trip and that's amazing! Can you see the face? Who is it?" |
Police officers walk towards to the main entrance of Moscow Regional Court is seen in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2017. Five defendants at the Moscow courthouse attacked their guards in a bungled... (Associated Press)
MOSCOW (AP) — The Latest on the shooting at a courthouse in a Moscow suburb (all times local):
3:50 p.m.
Russian officials say three people have been killed and four injured in a shootout at a courthouse in a Moscow suburb.
Russia's Investigative Committee, the country's chief investigative body, said in a statement on Tuesday the incident took place when five handcuffed defendants tried to escape as they were escorted by two guards at the Moscow Regional Court. The body said one of the defendants tried to strangle one of the guards, and the defendants managed to escape and seized the guards' weapons.
A shootout with the court's guards ensued, and three of the defendants were killed. Two guards were injured.
Authorities said the incident took place before a hearing in a case of a gang of nine people who are suspected of killing more than a dozen of motorists.
Russia media dubbed the accused "the Grand Theft Auto gang" after the violent video game. The men on trial are accused of terrorizing Moscow motorists for months in 2014. Prosecutors said the gang members were placing spikes on roads, forcing the motorists out of their vehicles and shooting them dead.
The nine men, all from Central Asia, are charged with 17 murders and two attempted murders.
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3:30 p.m.
Russian news agencies are reporting that two people have been injured in a shooting inside a courthouse in a Moscow suburb.
The agencies on Tuesday quoted a lawyer who was at the courthouse and saw a guard and a court official injured.
According to the Tass agency, Nataly Osipova, spokeswoman for the Moscow Regional Court, said the incident took place at a hearing in a case of a gang of nine people who have terrorized Moscow roads, killing more than a dozen of motorists.
No other details were immediately available. ||||| MOSCOW (Reuters) - Three people being taken to trial in a Moscow court for robbery and murder were shot dead after they grabbed side-arms from court security officers in an attempt to escape, Russian law enforcement officials said on Tuesday.
Five defendants were in a lift in the Moscow regional court building when they seized the weapons from the two officers escorting them, the Investigative Committee, the state body which handles serious crimes, said in a statement.
When the lift stopped on the third floor of the building and the doors opened, three of the defendants tried to escape but were shot dead by Russian national guard officers. The two others defendants were seriously wounded, the statement said.
Three law enforcement officers were hurt, one of them with a gunshot wound. Two of the three were taken to hospital.
The defendants are accused of being members of a group, dubbed in Russian media the Grand Theft Auto Gang after the computer game. Prosecutors allege the group was responsible for a series of vehicle thefts that in several cases involved killing the cars’ owners.
The group, made up of people originally from ex-Soviet Central Asia, is accused of committing 17 murders, banditry and other grave crimes, the Investigative Committee said.
One of the group had fought for Islamic State in Syria before coming to Russia, official TV channel Rossiya 24 said on Tuesday, citing a source in law-enforcement bodies. | – It was a dramatic stunt straight out of a movie, but it ended disastrously for members of Russia's notorious Grand Theft Auto Gang. Three of them are dead and two others wounded after a failed escape attempt from a courthouse in Moscow, reports Reuters. In addition to the gang members, one law-enforcement officer was shot and two others suffered lesser injuries, though the details were still firming up. The drama began when the five handcuffed men were being escorted to their courtroom in an elevator by two guards. They managed to overpower the guards and take their weapons, but all five were subsequently shot as they attempted to escape the building. The men were among nine being held on robbery and murder charges over a spate of fatal carjackings in 2014. Authorities say they would place spikes on roads, then kill drivers who got out of their cars to investigate. More than a dozen motorists were killed in that fashion, and Russian media dubbed the assailants the Grand Theft Auto Gang after the video game, reports the AP. |
Viewers who luxuriated in a good cry after “The Fault in Our Stars” may be gratified to know that it’s not time to stop sobbing. The perfect bookend to a tear-stained summer, “If I Stay” has arrived in theaters with the same good taste, modest cool factor and shameless tear-jerking that made its predecessor such a multi-hankie hit.
“If I Stay,” which was adapted by R.J. Cutler (“A Perfect Candidate,” “The September Issue”) from Gayle Forman’s novel, hews largely to the same formula as “The Fault in Our Stars”: An attractive young couple grapples with first love and looming mortality against a scenic backdrop, the mechanics of sexual awakenings safely couched in soft-focus ellipses (“Adam, I’ve never . . . ”). As in “The Fault in Our Stars,” this story is told from the point of view of an exceptionally self-aware young woman staring down impending death. Here, though, she’s anxiously watching over herself as she lies in a coma, trying to decide whether life is still worth living after nearly losing it and everything else in a horrifying car crash.
It’s a maudlin, potentially mawkish setup, but first-time feature director Cutler and his screenwriter, Shauna Cross, put an amber glow on even the toughest aspects of a story in which everything is just about perfect (until it most decidedly isn’t). Chloe Grace Moretz plays Mia Hall, a 17-year-old cello prodigy whose happy, laid-back life with her former punk-rocker parents is upended when she meets a handsome guitarist named Adam (Jamie Blackley). Their mildly piquant romance — she idolizes Yo-Yo Ma, he’s more of a Ramones guy — is of the classic opposites-attract variety, spiced by dashes of O. Henry’s lyrical irony. At a Halloween party, eager to please each other, she dons a platinum wig as Debbie Harry and he comes dressed as Beethoven.
It’s all played for minimum dramatic tension and maximum aestheticized wish fulfillment, heightened by Cutler’s tendency to film everything slightly out of focus and Cross’s to write fuzzy-wuzzy dialogue like “Adam, that song was great.” Even more idealized is Mia’s family, headed by a mom and dad who clearly trained at the Pitchfork School for Cool Hipster Parenting. Played with warmth and easy understatement by Mireille Enos and Joshua Leonard, Mia’s ’rents casually name-check Iggy Pop and Kim Gordon as they roam around their brightly painted Portland bungalow, bedecked with the requisite number of cred-signifying posters and musical detritus. It’s all too flawless to be believed — we never see Mia argue with her parents, much less with her Alice Cooper-quoting little brother — but the colorful, cozy domestic portrait makes it that much more unsettling when, on a snowy road one day, it all comes to a shatteringly violent end.
“If I Stay” toggles between two worlds: Mia’s desperate, barefooted sojourn at the hospital and flashbacks to the life she may or may not decide to leave behind. Although the emotionalism begins to drag the narrative down as her anguished vigil goes on and on and on, Cutler smoothly navigates Mia’s double-sided experience, albeit in a way that recalls the “Nashville” episodes he has directed more than the ethereal otherworldliness of, say, “The Lovely Bones.”
Moretz, best known for her spiky, moodily effective turns in such tough films as “Kick-Ass” and “Let Me In,” submerges her most interesting contours in service to a blandly edge-free character. Blackley is slightly more convincing as the sweaty, discreetly pierced frontman of an on-the-rise, safely pseudo hard-rockin’ band.
Granted, the group isn’t channeling Joey Ramone as much as Clear Channel’s pop heartthrob du jour. But the musical sequences — including an impromptu Smashing Pumpkins jam in Mia’s back yard — bring some welcome verve to talky scenes of soulful heart-to-hearts and teary hand-wringing. Rest assured, there’s plenty of that, too, in “If I Stay.” But even at its most wrenchingly painful, the film readily delivers generous dollops of pleasure.
★ ★ ½
PG-13. At area theaters. Contains thematic elements, some sexual material and mild profanity. 106 minutes. ||||| Watch a clip from the film "If I Stay," starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Mireille Enos, and Jamie Blackley. Photo/Video: Warner Bros.
The dairy industry doesn't have a monopoly on milking machines. "If I Stay" tries to squeeze every last drop of feeling from the plight of its teenage heroine. A gifted musician with nurturing parents, Mia (Chloë Grace Moretz) finds herself caught in limbo between life and death after surviving, although barely, a terrible crash on a snow-covered Oregon highway during a family outing. Surveying the accident scene as an ethereal wraith, she can see the loved ones she has lost. She can also see her own shattered body, first by the side of the road and then in a coma in the intensive-care unit of a Portland hospital. What she must decide now, in the face of her loss, is whether to stay among the living. What young audiences will decide soon is whether the movie's many moments of genuine sweetness and affecting tenderness can survive the persistent silliness of Mia's out-of-body excursions.
She is a busybody wraith, chasing around the hospital to keep tabs on herself, her friends and her extended family while the narrative suffers frequent, spasmodic flashbacks to the life she may be leaving. The supernatural element came straight from the book, the popular young-adult novel of the same name by Gayle Forman, and disembodied heroes or heroines have figured in successful screen entertainments from "Topper" through "Beetlejuice" to "Ghost." But serious drama is trickier, as witness the unlovely fate of Peter Jackson's "The Lovely Bones." What works for readers, left free to produce their own versions of fantasy devices, can be gigglesome for audiences confronted with a film's prefab literalism.
At its best, "If I Stay" evokes the primacy of friendship, the warmth of family—Mireille Enos and Joshua Leonard play Mia's lively ex-hippie parents—and the urgency of adolescent love: Jamie Blackley as Adam, Mia's boyfriend, has some of the film's stronger scenes. (The strongest may be a heartfelt speech by that old pro Stacy Keach, who plays Mia's grandfather.) But the production as a whole is awfully clumsy, and Ms. Moretz, who is only 17, needs more help than she gets from the first-time feature director, R.J. Cutler. So does Mia stay or go? Let's just say that she's a child of her generation, with an unshakable sense of empowerment. Never mind what God or random chance may have in store for her. "I'm running the show," she declares toward the end. Deathless words from a near-death decider.
Rewind DVD //Streaming //Download
'Spirited Away' (2001)
Hayao Miyazaki's animated masterpiece certainly qualifies as a ghost story, but it's also a coming-of-age story in which a girl takes refuge in her fantasies and emerges from them a stronger person. The 10-year-old heroine, Chihiro, finds herself alone after her parents make memorable pigs of themselves at an abandoned restaurant, and forges a new life for herself in a glittering, steaming hot-springs resort where spirits of every shape, disposition and composition—good and evil, opaque and transparent—come to refresh themselves. A must-see for film lovers of all ages. ||||| 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. | – If I Stay tells the story of a teen girl with a big future who's nearly killed in a car crash. Informed by out-of-body experiences, she must decide whether to stick around on Earth or head to Heaven. It'll make you cry, but it doesn't offer much otherwise, critics say. (Audiences, however, seem to disagree: 80% like it at Rotten Tomatoes, twice the figure for critics). Some examples: It's up to audiences "whether the movie's many moments of genuine sweetness and affecting tenderness can survive the persistent silliness of Mia's out-of-body excursions," writes Joe Morgenstern at the Wall Street Journal. "At its best, If I Stay evokes the primacy of friendship, the warmth of family … and the urgency of adolescent love. But the production as a whole is awfully clumsy." "Full disclosure: I went through half a pack of Kleenex watching If I Stay," writes Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News. "But know this: Those tears are no more honestly earned than if director RJ Cutler had merely been chopping onions in front of me. … The movie is designed not to explore the experience of illness, or first love, or adolescence, but merely to make us swoon, sigh, and sob." The movie "hews largely to the same formula as The Fault in Our Stars," another book-based film dealing with teens facing death, notes Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post. But If I Stay offers "the perfect bookend to a tear-stained summer": "Even at its most wrenchingly painful, the film readily delivers generous dollops of pleasure." In the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan calls the film "a flat-out, all-in fantasy romance, an unashamed tear-jerker that is unafraid of glossy emotions." Sure, "every moment in If I Stay is not all that it might be"—but when its leads "are looking into each other's eyes, you are not going to care." |
Mayor Rahm? 'I would like to run'
WASHINGTON -- White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who in January tried to quash stories about a future Chicago mayoral bid, on Monday put his interest in City Hall on the record: "One day I would like to run for mayor of the city of Chicago."
Emanuel made his comment on the ''Charlie Rose'' show, taped in Manhattan.
After damping talk about a mayoral run in January, Rose resurrected the issue when he asked Emanuel what other government jobs he would be interested in if he left the White House.
"I hope Mayor Daley seeks re-election. I will work and support him if he seeks re-election," said Emanuel, 50. "But if Mayor Daley doesn't, one day I would like to run for mayor of the City of Chicago. That's always been an aspiration of mine even when I was in the House of Representatives."
Mayor Daley -- who will be 68 on Saturday, in his 20th year overseeing City Hall -- has not yet made an announcement about running for another term. The mayoral election is next February, and Daley is expected to seek re-election.
Emanuel is trying to set the stage as his logical successor. Though he would have tremendous fund-raising ability, Emanuel would also have some competition.
"That makes him one of many who aspire to the same goal. It is a laudable aspiration," Daley spokeswoman Jackie Heard said Monday.
Emanuel has pledged to serve as President Obama's chief of staff to the end of the year, and has signaled that could be extended if Obama asked him. Emanuel moved his family -- wife Amy and three children -- to Washington last year and enrolled his kids in local schools.
Emanuel gave up a safe House seat -- and a path to one day possibly being House speaker -- when Obama tapped him for chief of staff.
Gossip about Emanuel's future was first triggered Jan. 5 when Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn wrote that "Emanuel is said to have told people that the chief-of-staff role is an 18-month job and that he is considering a run for mayor of Chicago." ||||| View more news videos at: http://www.nbcchicago.com/video.
Charlie Rose: Is there any other job in government you'd like to have?
Rahm Emanuel: In government?
Charlie Rose: In government.
Rahm Emanuel: Yeah.
Charlie Rose: What?
Rahm Emanuel: Well, I mean, it's no secret --
Charlie Rose: That you want to be speaker of the house.
Rahm Emanuel: Well, that's over. No, I would one day -- first of all, let me say it this way, I hope Mayor Daley seeks reelection. I will work and support him if he seeks reelection. But if Mayor Daley doesn't, one day I would like to run for mayor of the City of Chicago. That's always been an aspiration of mine even when I was in the House of Representatives.
Charlie Rose: Mayor of Chicago.
Rahm Emanuel: Yeah, fact I said the one thing if you ask me what I miss, I miss the contact with constituents. You know, I miss being in the -- when you were running the office, that touch with people. I used to do as you know I developed this thing called Congress on Your Corner where I used to stand in the grocery stores with a table of constituent service, and just greet people. And you learned a lot. And one of the best pieces of legislation I introduced was the Elderly Justice Act, came from a lady who talked to me at a grocery store about what happened to her father in a nursing home, and the way I found out that the law on the books was no real federal bill that dealt with seniors. And that's a -- you know, not all stories are like that. I helped a small business get a loan that expanded a tubing company. I miss that. I mean, I love what I'm doing. I find great passion in it because I work for a great president with a breadth of issues that has -- if you're in public policy at a period of time in history that's important, one day I'll go back to elected office and say I've enjoyed it, I enjoyed that process.
Charlie Rose: So rather than being a member of the Cabinet, if you left the chief of staff job you'd more likely want to go -- | – Rahm Emanuel sounds like he wants out of the Obama administration—and Washington altogether. In an interview with Charlie Rose last night, Emanuel confirmed the rumor that he's considering running for mayor of Chicago in 2011. “I hope Mayor Daley seeks reelection. I will work and support him” if he does,” he said. “But if Mayor Daley doesn't, one day I would like to run for mayor … that's always been an aspiration of mine.” “I want to run for office again,” he said, saying he'd missed the contact he'd had with constituents in the House. But Chicago isn't exactly rolling out the welcome mat. “That makes him one of many who aspire to the same goal,” a Richard Daley spokesman tells the Chicago Sun-Times. But hizzoner's brother, William Daley, was more blunt last month, saying Emanuel would have to “get in line.” You can read a transcript of Emanuel's remarks at the Huffington Post. |
Image copyright Win McNamee/Getty Images Image caption Ms Trump reportedly stopped using her personal email for official work after being told the rules
Ivanka Trump used a personal email account to send hundreds of messages discussing official White House business last year, officials confirm.
A review into her emails revealed she had used her private address to contact government officials.
Ms Trump sent the emails before she was briefed on the rules, her lawyer says.
In 2016, her father Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of putting the US "in danger" over her use of a private email while secretary of state.
On Monday, the Washington Post reported that while Ms Trump's emails contained mostly logistical and personal information, some may still have been in violation of federal records rules.
How serious is this?
A Trump administration official told CBS News that Ms Trump's emails did not contain classified information, and what had occurred was basically a lack of understanding of the rules.
Ms Trump stopped using her personal address for government correspondence after she was informed that she should not be doing so, the official said.
However, Austin Evers, from a group called American Oversight, which submitted the freedom of information request that led to the discovery of Ms Trump's use of personal email last year, said the "president's family is not above the law".
"There are serious questions that Congress should immediately investigate," Mr Evers said in a statement.
"Did Ivanka Trump turn over all of her emails for preservation as required by law? Was she sending classified information over a private system?" he added.
Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Ms Trump's counsel Abbe Lowell, said in a statement to US media: "Ms Trump sometimes used her private account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family."
He added that Ms Trump did not create a private server and never transmitted any classified information.
"The account was never transferred or housed at Trump Organization, no emails were ever deleted, and the emails have been retained in the official account in conformity with records preservation laws and rules."
What did Trump say about Clinton's emails?
During his presidential campaign in 2016, Donald Trump said that Mrs Clinton's use of a private server to send official emails while in her post as secretary of state in 2009 was a scandal "bigger than Watergate".
He repeatedly criticised her conduct, calling her actions "illegal" and a threat to the security of the US.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption President Trump insists Ivanka's emails are 'not like Hillary's'
At the time of his campaign, Mr Trump frequently encouraged crowds at rallies to chant "lock her up" and threatened to imprison Mrs Clinton over the saga.
He also called on Russia to help locate some 30,000 emails that Mrs Clinton had not turned over to investigators after she, or her lawyers, determined it was unnecessary as they were personal messages.
What was the Clinton email saga all about?
Before becoming secretary of state, Mrs Clinton set up an email server at her home in Chappaqua, New York, that she used for all work and personal emails during her four years in office.
She did not use, or even activate, a state.gov email account, which would have been hosted on servers owned and managed by the US government.
She said it was for convenience.
An FBI investigation concluded that Mrs Clinton should not face charges, but said she and her aides had been "extremely careless" in their handling of classified information.
Are private emails illegal?
It is not illegal for White House officials to use personal email accounts for government business.
However, under the Presidential Records Act and Federal Records Act, government officials must forward any official correspondence to a work account within 20 days for preservation.
If this is not done reliably, the use of private accounts can put official records beyond the reach of journalists, lawmakers and others who seek publicly available information.
There are also rules against sharing classified or privileged information on personal email accounts. ||||| Ivanka Trump sent hundreds of emails last year to White House aides, Cabinet officials and her assistants using a personal account, many of them in violation of federal records rules, according to people familiar with a White House examination of her correspondence.
White House ethics officials learned of Trump’s repeated use of personal email when reviewing emails gathered last fall by five Cabinet agencies to respond to a public records lawsuit. That review revealed that throughout much of 2017, she often discussed or relayed official White House business using a private email account with a domain that she shares with her husband, Jared Kushner.
The discovery alarmed some advisers to President Trump, who feared that his daughter’s practices bore similarities to the personal email use of Hillary Clinton, an issue he made a focus of his 2016 campaign. He attacked his Democratic challenger as untrustworthy and dubbed her “Crooked Hillary” for using a personal email account as secretary of state.
Some aides were startled by the volume of Ivanka Trump’s personal emails — and taken aback by her response when questioned about the practice. She said she was not familiar with some details of the rules, according to people with knowledge of her reaction.
The White House referred requests for comment to Ivanka Trump’s attorney and ethics counsel, Abbe Lowell.
In a statement, Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Lowell, acknowledged that the president’s daughter occasionally used her private email before she was briefed on the rules, but he said none of her messages contained classified information.
“While transitioning into government, after she was given an official account but until the White House provided her the same guidance they had given others who started before she did, Ms. Trump sometimes used her personal account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family,” he said in a statement.
Mirijanian said Ivanka Trump turned over all her government-related emails months ago so they could be stored permanently with other White House records.
And he stressed that her email use was different from that of Clinton, who had a private email server in the basement of her Chappaqua, N.Y., home. At one point, an archive of thousands of Clinton’s emails was deleted by a computer specialist amid a congressional investigation.
“Ms. Trump did not create a private server in her house or office, no classified information was ever included, the account was never transferred at Trump Organization, and no emails were ever deleted,” Mirijanian said.
Like Trump, Clinton also said she was unaware of or misunderstood the rules. However, Clinton relied solely on a private email system as secretary of state, bypassing government servers entirely.
Ivanka Trump often discussed or relayed official White House business last year using a private email account with a domain that she shares with her husband, Jared Kushner. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Both Trump and Clinton relied on their personal attorneys to review their private emails and determine which messages should be retained as government records.
Clinton originally said none of the messages she sent or received were “marked classified.” The FBI later determined that 110 emails contained classified information at the time they were sent or received.
[Inspector general blasts Comey and says others at FBI showed ‘willingness to take official action’ to hurt Trump]
Austin Evers, executive director of the liberal watchdog group American Oversight, whose record requests sparked the White House discovery, said it strained credulity that Trump’s daughter did not know that government officials should not use private emails for official business.
“There’s the obvious hypocrisy that her father ran on the misuse of personal email as a central tenet of his campaign,” Evers said. “There is no reasonable suggestion that she didn’t know better. Clearly everyone joining the Trump administration should have been on high alert about personal email use.”
Ivanka Trump and her husband set up personal emails with the domain “ijkfamily.com” through a Microsoft system in December 2016, as they were preparing to move to Washington so Kushner could join the White House, according to people familiar with the arrangement.
The couple’s emails are prescreened by the Trump Organization for security problems such as viruses but are stored by Microsoft, the people said.
Trump used her personal account to discuss government policies and official business fewer than 100 times — often replying to other administration officials who contacted her through her private email, according to people familiar with the review.
Another category of less-substantive emails may have also violated the records law: hundreds of messages related to her official work schedule and travel details that she sent herself and personal assistants who cared for her children and house, they said.
People close to Ivanka Trump said she never intended to use her private email to shroud her government work. After she told White House lawyers she was unaware that she was breaking any email rules, they discovered that she had not been receiving White House updates and reminders to all staffers about prohibited use of private email, according to people familiar with the situation.
Using personal emails for government business could violate the Presidential Records Act, which requires that all official White House communications and records be preserved as a permanent archive of each administration. It can also increase the risk that sensitive government information could be mishandled or hacked, revealing government secrets and risking harm to diplomatic relations and secret operations.
Revelations about Clinton’s personal email system led to an FBI investigation of whether she had mishandled classified information. The scandal shadowed Clinton throughout the 2016 White House race, culminating in then-FBI Director James B. Comey’s controversial decision to hold a news conference a few months before the election to announce his conclusion that she had been reckless with government secrets but that there was not sufficient evidence she had intended to skirt the law.
During the campaign, Donald Trump said the Democratic nominee’s “corruption is on a scale we have never seen before” and called her personal email use “bigger than Watergate.”
Trump supporters still chant “Lock her up!” at his rallies, and the president, nearly two years into his administration, continues to tweet about Clinton’s emails.
“Big story out that the FBI ignored tens of thousands of Crooked Hillary Emails, many of which are REALLY BAD,” he tweeted in August, referring to a Fox News story about claims that the bureau did not scrutinize all her emails. “Also gave false election info. I feel sure that we will soon be getting to the bottom of all of this corruption. At some point I may have to get involved!”
Ivanka Trump first used her personal email to contact Cabinet officials in early 2017, before she joined the White House as an unpaid senior adviser, according to emails obtained by American Oversight and first reported by Newsweek.
[Ivanka Trump shuts down her namesake clothing brand]
In late February 2017, she used her personal email to contact Small Business Administration chief Linda McMahon and propose they meet to explore “opportunities to collaborate.” The following month, she emailed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, suggesting that their staffers meet to discuss ways to collaborate on “locational/workforce development and k-12 STEM education.”
While her messages were largely about government work, Trump was not then subject to White House records rules.
When she joined the White House on March 30, Trump pledged to comply “with all ethics rules,” responding to complaints that her voluntary role gave her all of the access and perks of the White House — but none of the legal responsibilities or constraints.
“Throughout this process I have been working closely and in good faith with the White House counsel and my personal counsel to address the unprecedented nature of my role,” she said in a statement at the time.
But Trump continued to occasionally use her personal email in her official capacity, according to people familiar with the review.
Her husband’s use of personal email for government work drew intense scrutiny when it was first reported by Politico last fall. The revelation prompted demands from congressional investigators that Kushner preserve his records, which his attorney said he had. At the time, administration officials acknowledged to news organizations, including the New York Times and Politico, that Ivanka Trump had occasionally used a private account when she joined the White House.
[Kushner used private email account for some White House business]
But Trump had used her personal email for official business far more frequently than known, according to people familiar with the administration’s review — a fact that remained a closely held secret inside the White House.
“She was the worst offender in the White House,” said a former senior U.S. government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal dynamics.
After discovering the extent of her email use in September 2017, White House lawyers relied on Lowell, Ivanka Trump’s attorney, to help review her personal emails to determine which were personal and which were official business, according to the people.
The White House Counsel’s Office did not have access to her personal account and could not review it without invading her privacy and possibly violating privileged communications with her attorneys, people familiar with the review said.
After his review, Lowell forwarded emails that he had determined were related to official business to Ivanka Trump’s government account, a move he viewed as rectifying any violations of the records law, they said.
Lowell’s review found fewer than 1,000 personal emails in which Trump shared her official schedule and travel plans with herself and her personal assistants, according to two people familiar with the review.
Separately, there were fewer than 100 emails in which Trump used her personal account to discuss official business with other administration officials.
The scope of her personal email use had not emerged in response to American Oversight’s records request, which sought Trump’s correspondence with Cabinet agencies in early 2017. Most internal White House communications are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
“I’m disappointed — although not entirely surprised — that this administration disregarded clear laws that they more than anyone should have been aware of,” Evers said.
In many cases, government officials contacted Ivanka Trump first at her personal email address. That was the case with a note she received in April 2017 from Treasury Department official Dan Kowalski, who was seeking to set up a meeting between the president and the secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international economic group of which the United States is a member.
“I apologize for reaching out to you on your personal email for this, but it is the only email I have for you,” he wrote, according to an email obtained by American Oversight.
“For future reference my WH email is [redacted],” Ivanka Trump replied. “Thanks for reaching out and making this introduction.”
But other times, Trump used her private email to initiate official business.
In April 2017, she used her personal email to write to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s chief of staff, Eli Miller, suggesting that he connect with her chief of staff, Julie Radford. The email chain, obtained by American Oversight, was copied to Radford’s government account.
“It would be great if you both could connect next week to discuss [redacted],” she wrote. “We would love your feedback and input as we structure.” | – Ivanka Trump might not have been paying attention at the numerous rallies where her father denounced Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server for government use. Officials have confirmed that the president's daughter used a personal email account to send hundreds of emails relating to government business last year, the Washington Post reports. The emails to White House aides and Cabinet officials were sent from a private domain she shares with husband Jared Kushner. Sources tell the Post that aides were shocked at the extent of her use of private email, some of which violated federal records rules—but when she was asked about it, she said she wasn't familiar with the rules. Administration officials say Ivanka Trump's correspondence did not contain classified information and she stopped using the account for government business after the rules were explained to her, the BBC reports. They say that unlike Clinton, Trump never deleted any emails. The American Oversight watchdog group says its freedom of information requests uncovered the scale of private email use. "We expected to find the president’s daughter had an unusual role in the White House, but we didn’t anticipate this kind of extensive use of a personal email server," says Austin Evers, the group's executive director. The New York Times reports that Democratic lawmakers are expected to look into the email issue when they take control of the House next year. (The White House ordered an investigation of private email use last year.) |
Super Cats, A Nature Miniseries premieres nationwide Wednesdays, October 24-November 7 at 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Each episode will be available to stream the following day at pbs.org/nature and on PBS apps.
Stalking in the shadows, prowling almost every continent, cats are one of the world’s most diverse and successful predators. But there is far more to these charismatic and misunderstood animals than most people recognize. Filmed over 600 days in 14 countries and featuring 31 species of cat, this groundbreaking three-part miniseries narrated by F. Murray Abraham uncovers the secret lives of big cats and introduces behaviors captured on film for the first time, using the latest camera technology and scientific research.
From the solitary bachelor snow leopard in the Himalayas to the elusive swamp tiger of South Asia, to a remarkably efficient Californian bobcat that is blind in one eye, Super Cats, A Nature Miniseries reveals how cats survive and thrive in all four corners of the globe. Nature uncovers their social sides, their complex communication, devoted parental care, courtship rituals, hunting patterns and more.
Advances in technology allowed for several on-camera firsts, including the nocturnal pursuits of a tiny but deadly black-footed cat in South Africa who hunts more in one night than a leopard does in six months. Remote cameras capture exclusive intimate moments between a mother Pallas’ cat and her kittens. Low-light technology exposes a true rarity: a puma preying on Magellanic penguins, one of the few successful hunts ever caught on film. A swamp tiger takes a bath in the sea — a phenomenon previously unseen on television.
Production Credits: Episode 3 - Science and Secrets Print Narrated by
F. MURRAY ABRAHAM Produced & Directed by
GAVIN BOYLAND Photography
STUART DUNN Sound
ZUBIN SAROSH Additional Photography
SIMON ENDERBY
SUE GIBSON
DAVID LOUGEDO
JOSÉ LUIS ROUCO FERNANDEZ
KALYAN VARMA
VISUAL AIR PRODUCTIONS Additional Sound
NICK ALLINSON
ELLIE WILLIAMS Film Editor
NICK CARLINE Edit Producer
GILLIAN TAYLOR Assistant Film Editor
JACK ROBERTS Post Production
DOGHOUSE POST PRODUCTION
WOUNDED BUFFALO Graphic Design
BDH CREATIVE Sound Editor
JONNY CREW Dubbing Mixer
BEN PEACE Colorist
FRED TAY Online Editor
MICHAEL LANSDELL Original Music
BLEEDING FINGERS Score Producers
MONICA SONAND
RUSSELL EMANUEL Scientific Consultants
Dr ALEXANDER SLIWA
Dr LUKE HUNTER Special Thanks
TATJANA HUBEL
SABAH PARKS DEPARTMENT
LE PARC DES FÉLINS
UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH, PALANGKA RAYA Archive
BORNEO NATURE FOUNDATION
SHANSHUI/PANTHERA/SLT/SEEF/GZC Wildlife Permits Provided by
JUNTA DE ANDALUCÍA
JUNTA DE EXTRAMEDURA
MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT AND FORESTS, INDIA Director
SARA DOUGLAS Researchers
ANNA PLACE
HARRIET LAWRENCE
LEAH ARNOLD-REDMAN Production Coordinators
JO ARMSTRONG DAVIS
SUSANNA PROUSE Production Team
ARPANA PATERSON
JANE ATKINS
GEORGE PILAS
SOPHIE EDWARDS
BECKY PAYNE
ESHIKA FYZEE
NATHALIE GALVE
ELLIE KYNASTON Production Manager
STELLA STYLIANOS Unit Manager
KATE GORST Commissioning Editor
TOM MCDONALD Series Producer
GAVIN BOYLAND Executive Producer
MICHAEL GUNTON For NATURE Series Editor
JANET HESS Senior Producer
LAURA METZGER LYNCH Coordinating Producer
JAYNE JUN Associate Producer
JAMES F. BURKE Legal Counsel
BLANCHE ROBERTSON Digital Producer
HEATHER TONER Social Media Editor
KAREN HO Audience Engagement
CHELSEY SAATKAMP Budget Controller
JAYNE LISI Online Editor
STACEY DOUGLASS MOVERLEY Re-Recording Mixer
ED CAMPBELL Original Funding Provided in Part by
The Arnhold Family In Memory Of Clarisse Arnhold
Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III
Kate W. Cassidy Foundation
Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust
Kathy Chiao and Ken Hao
Anderson Family Fund
Filomen M. D’Agostino Foundation
Rosalind P. Walter
The Halmi Family in memory of Robert Halmi, Sr.
Sandra Atlas Bass
The Arlene and Milton D. Berkman Philanthropic Fund
Anne Ray foundation
Corporation for Public Broadcasting Series Producer
BILL MURPHY Executive Producer
FRED KAUFMAN A BBC Studios Production for PBS and BBC with THIRTEEN Productions LLC, co-produced by France Télévisions This program was produced by THIRTEEN Productions LLC, which is solely responsible for its content © 2018 BBC
SUPER CATS ADDITIONAL MATERIALS © 2018 PBS AND
© 2018 THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Production Credits: Episode 2 - Cats In Every Corner Print Narrated by
F. MURRAY ABRAHAM Produced & Directed by
PAUL WILLIAMS Photography
SUE GIBSON
LUKE BARNETT
HOWARD BOURNE
LIANNE STEENKAMP
KALYAN VARMA
KENNAN WARD Additional Photography
NEIL ANDERSON
DOUGLAS PARKER
ALONSO SANCHEZ ESPINOZA
WILL STEENKAMP Film Editor
SAM ROGERS Assistant Film Editor
JACK ROBERTS Post Production
DOGHOUSE POST PRODUCTION
WOUNDED BUFFALO Graphic Design
BDH CREATIVE Sound Editor
TIM OWENS Dubbing Mixer
BEN PEACE Colorist
FRED TAY Online Editor
MICHAEL LANSDELL Original Music
BLEEDING FINGERS Score Producers
MONICA SONAND
RUSSELL EMANUEL Scientific Consultants
Dr ALEXANDER SLIWA
Dr LUKE HUNTER Special Thanks:
EVIE ADAMS
JANE ATKINS
MATT RICHARDS
SERGIO ESCOBAR-LASSO
BLACK-FOOTED CAT WORKING GROUP
GOINGWILD LLP
SECUNDA SYNFUELS OPERATIONS / SASOL LTD. Logistics Support
DR BARIUSHAA MUNKHTSOG
RICHARD FOSTER
BIOCENOSIS MARINA LIMITADA
THE BELIZE ZOO AND TROPICAL EDUCATION CENTER Wildlife Permits Provided by
MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT AND FORESTS, INDIA
WILDLIFE TRUST OF INDIA Directors
SARA DOUGLAS
ANNA PLACE Researcher
HARRIET LAWRENCE Production Coordinators
JO ARMSTRONG DAVIS
ELLIE WILLIAMS Production Management Assistant
SUSANNA PROUSE Production Manager
STELLA STYLIANOS Unit Manager
KATE GORST Commissioning Editor
TOM MCDONALD Series Producer
GAVIN BOYLAND Executive Producer
MICHAEL GUNTON For NATURE Series Editor
JANET HESS Senior Producer
LAURA METZGER LYNCH Coordinating Producer
JAYNE JUN Associate Producer
JAMES F. BURKE Legal Counsel
BLANCHE ROBERTSON Digital Producer
HEATHER TONER Social Media Editor
WHITNEY MCGOWAN Audience Engagement
CHELSEY SAATKAMP Budget Controller
JAYNE LISI Online Editor
STACEY DOUGLASS MOVERLEY Re-Recording Mixer
ED CAMPBELL Original Funding Provided in Part by
The Arnhold Family In Memory Of Clarisse Arnhold
Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III
Kate W. Cassidy Foundation
Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust
Kathy Chiao and Ken Hao
Anderson Family Fund
Filomen M. D’Agostino Foundation
Rosalind P. Walter
The Halmi Family in memory of Robert Halmi, Sr.
Sandra Atlas Bass
The Arlene and Milton D. Berkman Philanthropic Fund
Anne Ray foundation
Corporation for Public Broadcasting Series Producer
BILL MURPHY Executive Producer
FRED KAUFMAN A BBC Studios Production for PBS and BBC with THIRTEEN Productions LLC, co-produced by France Télévisions This program was produced by THIRTEEN Productions LLC, which is solely responsible for its content © 2018 BBC
SUPER CATS ADDITIONAL MATERIALS © 2018 PBS AND
© 2018 THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ||||| The black-footed cat ( Felis nigripes ) hunts amongst the short desert scrub in the Karoo of South Africa.
The deadliest cat on Earth isn't a shaggy-maned lion, a sleek leopard or a stealthy tiger. It's a wee cat that you've probably never heard of: Africa's smallest feline, the black-footed cat.
Native to the grasslands of southern Africa, the black-footed cat has an endearingly round face and a light brown, black-spotted body that is small even compared to domestic cats. The wild feline measures only 14 to 20 inches (36 to 52 centimeters) long, stands about 8 inches (20 cm) tall and weighs about 2 to 6 lbs. (1 to 3 kilograms), according to the International Society for Endangered Cats (black-footed cats are listed as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature).
Admittedly, those measurements don't sound very impressive when compared to the sizable big cats that are among the world's most fearsome predators. But despite its small size, the black-footed cat hunts and brings down more prey in a single night than a leopard does in six months, according to the PBS Nature miniseries "Super Cats." [Meet the Rare and Fabulous Felines of 'Super Cats' (Photos)]
The second episode in the miniseries aired on PBS last night (Oct. 31). It featured an unprecedented glimpse of the black-footed cat, along with views of other fascinating and elusive wild felines, such as a pregnant jaguar in Costa Rica, a rare swamp tiger in India and a family of fishing cats — the only semiaquatic cats — in the wetlands of Asia.
For the latest episode, titled "Cats in Every Corner," filmmakers captured never-before-seen views of black-footed cats by collaborating with researcher Alexander Sliwa, a curator at the Cologne Zoo in Germany who has studied the black-footed cat since the 1990s. Through Sliwa, the series' makers gained access to several small cats that had already been fitted with radio collars at a study site in South Africa, "Super Cats" producer Gavin Boyland told Live Science.
Filming the tiny cats proved unusually challenging, Boyland said. Because the black-footed cats are so small, they're harder to track through tall grasses than big cats are. Since the little cats hunt mostly at night, the production crew needed to use a special light-sensitive camera to detect the felines at all, recording footage of hunting behavior that had never been captured before, Boyland explained.
And when it comes to hunting, as the filmmakers saw, the black-footed cat is extraordinarily efficient — "a real powerhouse," said Luke Hunter, Chief Conservation Officer at Panthera, a global wildcat-conservation organization.
Hunter, who served as a scientific consultant for "Super Cats," explained that small predators like the black-footed cat have accelerated metabolisms, which they need to keep fueled all the time, "so they're constantly hunting," he said.
Black-footed cats are found only in three countries: Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Credit: Copyright Alexander Sliwa
Black-footed cats use three very different techniques to nab their prey. One method is known as "fast hunting," in which the cats bound quickly and "almost randomly" through the tall grass, flushing out small prey such as birds or rodents, Hunter said. Another of their methods takes them on a slower course through their habitat, with the cats weaving quietly and carefully to sneak up on potential prey.
Finally, they use a sit-and-wait approach near rodents' burrows, a technique called still hunting, Hunter said.
"They wait for up to 2 hours, [staying] absolutely immobile, just silently waiting at the burrow for a rodent to appear. And then they nab it," Hunter told Live Science.
In one night, a black-footed cat kills between 10 and 14 rodents or small birds, averaging a kill about every 50 minutes, according to Hunter. With a 60 percent success rate, black-footed cats are about three times as successful as lions, which average a successful kill about 20 to 25 percent of the time, Hunter said.
"If you're a gazelle or a wildebeest, a black-footed cat isn't at all deadly. But those success rates make them the deadliest little cat on Earth," he said.
Livestock grazing reduces the habitats of black-footed cats, which hunt birds, rodents and even insects that inhabit grassland ecosystems. Credit: Copyright Alexander Sliwa
Black-footed cats represent but one species in a highly diverse feline family, many of which are difficult to observe in the wild and are not well-understood. And though most of the felines that appear in "Super Cats" face serious threats of habitat loss and destruction from human activity, conservation efforts can yet preserve vulnerable populations, Hunter said.
"I believe it's mostly not doom and gloom. But if we don't actively conserve these species, if we don't work to reduce those threats, then we could lose some of these animals," he added.
Episode 2 of "Super Cats" is available to stream beginning today (Nov. 1). You can also watch Episode 1 — "Extreme Lives" — and learn more about the miniseries on the PBS Nature website and on PBS apps. Episode 3, "Science and Secrets," premieres Wednesday, Nov. 7, at 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings).
Originally published on Live Science. | – The world's deadliest cat is no leopard or tiger—in fact, it's the size of a house cat and appears just as cuddly. But the black-footed cat of southern Africa can hunt the grasslands like no other, Live Science reports. The PBS series Super Cats follows them on nightly forays, showing how they hunt and explaining why they kill more prey in a night than a leopard does in half a year. German zoo curator Luke Hunter helped by fitting several black-footed cats with radio collars, enabling the crew to track them in tall grasses. "If you're a gazelle or a wildebeest, a black-footed cat isn't at all deadly," says Hunter, who has studied the cats since the 1990s. "But those success rates make them the deadliest little cat on Earth." And the black-footed cat has tricks. It can hunt by bounding randomly through grass, sneaking up on prey in a weaving pattern, or waiting patiently by burrows for a meal to emerge. They can "wait for up to 2 hours, absolutely immobile, just silently waiting at the burrow for a rodent to appear," Hunter says. "And then they nab it." They kill 10 to 14 small birds and rodents nightly, or about one every 50 minutes—a constant hunt necessary to supply their active metabolisms. Like most felines in the series, the black-footed cat is endangered, but Hunter accentuates the positive: "I believe it's mostly not doom and gloom," he says, but "if we don't work to reduce those threats, then we could lose some of these animals." See the episode at PBS. (Or see why a judge has halted grizzly bear hunts around Yellowstone National Park.) |
Image copyright Family photo Image caption Rachel and Steven Park's triplets spent the first few months of their lives in hospital
Tributes are being paid to a mother of triplets who died after spending her first Christmas at home with her children.
Poppie, Mollie and Evelyn Park were born prematurely in March and spent several months in hospital in Newcastle and Whitehaven.
Their mother Rachel, 39, died at the family home in Bransty, Whitehaven, on Tuesday.
Police described her death as "unexplained but not suspicious".
Online appeals have been launched to help Mrs Park's husband Steven care for the youngsters who were born 14 weeks early.
More than £4,500 has been donated towards a £5,000 target on Go Fund Me while £4,900 has been raised through Paypal.
Family friend Lucy Dawson told BBC Cumbria: "Rachel had the girls back in March this year and I fell pregnant with triplets just after.
Image copyright Family photo Image caption The Parks said they had been looking forward to celebrating the triplets' first Christmas at home
"I got in touch with Rachel online and she supported me through every step because she knew what I was going through. I wouldn't be where I am without her support.
"She was a good friend to me and a good support to other ladies who had triplets in the area and across the UK as well."
Julie Hodgson, who also helped set up the appeals, said on her Facebook page its aim was to give Mrs Park's "beautiful family the support they need now and in the coming months".
Dozens of tributes have been posted with one describing her death as "totally tragic and heartbreaking".
The Parks spoke last week of their joy at having the children home for Christmas and told the BBC they were "three little bundles of miracles".
Mrs Park said their combined weight was less than two bags of sugar, adding: "They were really tiny. You were terrified to touch them in case they snapped or they broke." ||||| Tiny triplets who spent months in hospital are home in time for Christmas
Weighing a combined weight of two bags of sugar at birth, miracle triplets Poppie, Mollie and Evelyn Park faced a fight for their lives.
Born at 26 weeks, the sisters spent 111 days in hospital as their parents Steven and Rachel were “told to prepare for the worst”.
Issues over their prematurity meant the Bransty couple were scared their girls wouldn’t make it this far.
But now the triplets have made great strides and the parents can’t wait to spend Christmas at home with their three special gifts.
“They each took a turn at being quite poorly,” said mum Rachel. “It was touch and go with all three at some point but they’re all out of hospital and fine now.
“We were told to prepare for the worst. They’ve had quite a tough journey but they’re growing now and doing well. We’re looking forward to Christmas – there are toys everywhere!”
Born on March 11, the triplets spent over three months in Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary.
Throughout the babies’ treatment at the infirmary, Steven, 37, and Rachel, 39, were supported by The Sick Children’s Trust, which provided free ‘home from home’ accommodation at its Crawford House site.
Rachel said: “Crawford House meant we were only a phone call away, and could be there in five minutes if they were poorly – which happened a few times.
“The Sick Children’s Trust has been an absolute lifeline on more than one occasion; without Crawford House we would have had the financial burden of hotel stays, or over a two-hour journey home to Whitehaven each day.”
After leaving Newcastle, the girls were admitted to West Cumberland Hospital as they still had feeding issues. But now Poppie, who weighed 1.9lb, Mollie, who weighed 1.75lb, and Evelyn, who weighed 1.6lb, are home and weighing “roughly 14 pounds each”.
Steven said: “When we look back on how poorly the girls were and where they are now – they’ve come so far and we’re just full of pride.
“They do have blips, but nothing life-threatening and they’re heading in the right direction.
“They’re happy, smiling and starting to show their emotions and exploring everything the world’s got to offer.
“Our girls have been on a huge journey so far and because of that we’re going to make sure their first Christmas will be extra special. We were so scared that they may not make it this far, and will therefore be really celebrating the festive season.” ||||| GoFundMe has verified that the funds raised will go directly to the intended recipient.
What does verified mean? ||||| Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
The mum of tiny triplets has died suddenly at home after spending her first Christmas with her children.
Rachel Park 39, and her husband had hailed their children as Christmas miracles after they were allowed home for the first time in ten months after they were born prematurely.
But it has emerged today that Rachel died suddenly at home in Bransty, Whitehaven, on Tuesday, says after talking about how excited she was for Christmas.
A Facebook appeal has now been set up to help her husband Steven look after his young family.
Police have described Rachel's death as "unexplained but not suspicious", the BBC reported.
Steven wept tonight as he said: “She idolised those little girls, they were her world.”
He was too upset to say any more, as local mums rallied around to help.
Julie Hodgson, of Dearham, wrote on Facebook: “We have set up a PayPal account to try and raise money and give her beautiful family the support they need now, and in the coming months.
“We understand that it is an expensive time of year for everybody, but every little helps in this situation, please feel free to donate via PayPal to Parktriplets@gmail.com.”
The combined birthweight of the triplets was just 5lb 2oz – three tiny sisters weighing together as much as one small newborn alone.
Born 14 weeks early, triplets Poppie, Mollie and Evelyn fought for their lives in hospital for the first two months.
(Image: Collect Unknown)
Their terrified parents told the Daily Mirror before Christmas how they never heard the doctors say: ‘When your girls come home’.
Day after day, it was always ‘if’.
Rachel, 39, said one week before Christmas: “I remember the consultant telling us: ‘All we have is time. It is up to them, and how much of a fighter they are’.”
She also told the News and Star last week how the family was “ looking forward to Christmas, there’s toys everywhere!”
Following the news of Rachel's death, tributes have now been paid to the mum.
(Image: CHRIS NEILL/MAVERICK PHOTOGRAPHY)
Lucy Dawson told BBC Cumbria: "Rachel had the girls back in March this year and I fell pregnant with triplets just after.
"I got in touch with Rachel online and she supported me through every step because she knew what I was going through. I wouldn't be where I am without her support.
"She was a good friend to me and a good support to other ladies who had triplets in the area and across the UK as well."
For Steven and Rachel, their triplets were much longed for first babies, conceived on the fourth cycle of IVF .
They imagined this first Christmas over and over as the fun family occasion they had always dreamt of.
(Image: CHRIS NEILL/MAVERICK PHOTOGRAPHY)
But when their girls arrived unexpectedly early on March 11 at just 26 weeks and five days it seemed highly unlikely all three, if any, would make it.
Admin manager Rachel and Steven, a chef, married in 2009 and tried for six years to start a family.
They had three failed rounds of IVF on the NHS before a fourth done privately proved successful last summer.
“At six weeks I found out I was pregnant at last,” said Rachel. “At first they only found two heartbeats, so we were over the moon to be expecting twins.”
Two weeks later came the shock news the ‘twins’ were non-identical triplets. “We felt kind of numb,” Rachel admitted.
“It was disbelief, shock,” adds Steven. The triplets appeared healthy at every scan and the couple were excited at the thought of their ready made family.
“We could see them all on the scans, hear all three heartbeats,” says Rachel.
(Image: MDM)
“Last Christmas we began buying things for them – a pram for three, three Moses baskets.”
The triplets were due on June 12, but at 22 weeks Type 1 diabetes sufferer Rachel began to show signs of high blood pressure caused by potentially fatal pre-eclampsia. Her kidneys and liver were failing.
By 24 weeks the mum-to-be of Whitehaven, Cumbria, was sent to Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle nearly 100 miles away for specialist care where she suffered a serious bleed.
“They stopped it but after two days I had another,” she recalls. “
They found a problem with blood flow from the placenta too. They told me my babies would be safer out than in.”
Rachel was taken for an emergency caesarean . “It was a blur,” she said. “I just wanted them out and to know they were OK.”
Due to heavy sedation and an infection, the new mum – who needed three transfusions – didn’t see her daughters for three days.
It is Steven who recalls their birth.
“There were so many people in that room, about 26,” he says.
“They lifted the babies up one by one and a team was allocated to each one. They let me touch Poppie. I kissed her on the head.
"But it was so frantic. I heard another cry, that was number two, Mollie. It was very emotional, the reality sunk in as they were rushed to the special baby unit.”
Poppie, Hollie and Evelyn weighed 1lb 9oz, 1lb 7oz and 1lb 6oz respectively and were put in incubators and on ventilators as their lungs were so tiny.
Speaking before Christmas, Rachel recalled her first sight of them.
“They wheeled me down. I met Evelyn first. I put my hand in to hold hers. It was so hard not to be able to give them cuddles, to have the glass between you. I read them nursery stories.”
An online fundraising page has now been set up to help her baby girls. | – A UK mother who made the news for having extremely premature triplet girls who all survived has herself died unexpectedly. Rachel Park, who died at age 39 just days after taking her 9-month-old babies home from the hospital for Christmas, became pregnant after six years of trying with her husband, Steven, and on her fourth round of IVF. "She idolized those little girls," her husband said. "They were her world." The cause of death is still unknown, but police say the circumstances are not suspicious, reports the BBC. During the pregnancy, Park, a Type 1 diabetic, developed pre-eclampsia, and her blood pressure got so high that her kidneys and liver began to fail. At just 24 weeks' pregnant, she was sent to a hospital in Newcastle 100 miles from her home, where she suffered what the Mirror calls "a serious bleed." Doctors found a problem with blood flowing to the placenta, and performed an emergency C-section when the triplets were 26 weeks and five days along. Due June 12, the girls were put on ventilators upon their birth on March 11 and, weighing 5 pounds combined, spent two months fighting for their lives. "It was touch and go with all three at some point," Rachel told the News & Star just a week ago. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Steven and his daughters Poppie, Mollie, and Evelyn. (Just days before the Park triplets were born in the UK, a mother of newborn triplets died in Kansas.) |
Also featured in an upcoming 'Dateline' special are Kris Jenner, Denise Brown, Fred Goldman, Alan Dershowitz and Kato Kaelin, among numerous others connected to the case.
Marcia Clark, the former Los Angeles County prosecutor who was the lead attorney on the O.J. Simpson murder case, says she blames herself for the controversial outcome of the case.
Sitting down for a Dateline NBC interview set to air Sunday, Clark shed some more light on the inner workings of the case which captivated the world more than two decades ago.
A preview of the pre-taped interview was released Tuesday; Clark sitting down with Josh Mankiewicz talks about not wanting Simpson to try on the gloves during the trial and how she felt when the jury foreman read "Not guilty."
"It was physically painful," Clark says of the verdict. "And I thought of Ron [Goldman] and Nicole [Brown], and I thought, 'This is wrong.'"
The double homicide has once again become a main topic of conversation following the recently launched FX series The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.
So far, four episodes of the nine part series have aired.
The two-hour Dateline special will also feature interviews with Kris Jenner, Denise Brown, Fred Goldman, Alan Dershowitz and Kato Kaelin, among numerous others connected to the case.
In the preview for the special, Clark — played by Sarah Paulson in the FX series — says she blames herself for Simpson going free.
"But at the end of the day, we really ... there was no way to reach that jury," she tells Mankiewicz. "There was no way to make them believe. There really wasn't."
Clark also says she was against Simpson trying on the gloves, which police said the killer left behind, during the trial. That iconic moment, when the glove appeared to not fit, was a massive blow to the prosecution.
"That was not my call. That was not my call," she tells Mankiewicz. "I did not want him to try on the evidence gloves. I never did."
That idea came from co-counsel Christopher Darden, played by Sterling K. Brown in the FX series. Darden apologized to Clark for the massive blunder, she says.
"And I said, 'It’s okay," says Clark. "If that lost the case for us, we were never going to win anyway'.” ||||| Dateline is NBC’s signature newsmagazine, bringing viewers storytelling at its best. Our stories range from compelling mysteries to powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. When major news breaks, we go to the scene, putting the pieces together to bring you the full picture. And in every story we tell, we help the real people who lived the events share their journeys with you. On the air since 1992, Dateline is the longest-running prime-time program on NBC. Our work has been honored time and again with broadcast journalism’s highest awards. Lester Holt is the principal anchor, joined by correspondents Andrea Canning, Josh Mankiewicz, Keith Morrison and Dennis Murphy.
For more, visit the main Dateline site. | – The former Los Angeles County prosecutor who failed to convict OJ Simpson of murder in 1995 says she would probably fail to convict now, for the same reason: Jurors who didn't care whether he was guilty or not. In an interview for an NBC Dateline special, Marcia Clark says some of the nine black jurors "came in for the purpose of payback" amid a similar climate of "racial mistrust" of the police as exists today. "They didn't care whether he was guilty or innocent," Clark says. "They were going to use this case for payback." There was plenty of evidence pointing to Simpson's guilt, but it "didn't wind up mattering because there was a fundamental large issue standing in the way of seeing the evidence," she says. "You had this enormous mistrust of everything LAPD, everything officer related." "There was no way to reach that jury. There was no way to make them believe. There really wasn't," Clark says, per the Hollywood Reporter, which notes that interest in the case has surged during the airing of the FX series The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story. Clark says the infamous decision to have Simpson try on a glove found near the murder scene wasn't hers. She says co-counsel Christopher Darden came up with the idea and apologized after it backfired. She says she told him it was OK. "If that lost the case for us, we were never going to win anyway," she says. (A knife allegedly found nearly two decades ago on Simpson's former estate is now being tested by the LAPD.) |
Reaction to an NBC10 exclusive report, releasing the final words of the inspector who killed himself following a deadly building collapse. NBC10's Nefertiti Jaquez has the details. (Published Saturday, June 15, 2013)
In a final message before taking his life, the lead building inspector responsible for a Center City building that collapsed last week said he was to blame for the deadly disaster.
"It was my fault. I should have looked at those guys working, and I didn't," Ronald Wagenhoffer said in a video recorded on his cell phone.
NBC10 Philadelphia has learned the 52-year-old veteran Philadelphia Licenses & Inspections staffer recorded the one-minute long message for his family.
Wagenhoffer was found dead around 9:30 Wednesday night of an apparent suicide, city officials confirmed at a press conference Thursday.
Reaction to Final Words of Inspector Before Suicide
We have reaction to an NBC10 exclusive report, detailing the final words of an L & I inspector who killed himself following last week's deadly building collapse. Only NBC10 has confirmed that the inspector admitted he never set foot on the construction site before signing off on the project. NBC10's Harry Hairston reports. (Published Friday, June 14, 2013)
Law enforcement sources say Wagenhoffer shot himself once in the chest inside his pickup truck along a wooded section of the 100 block of Shawmont Avenue in the Roxborough neighborhood of Philadelphia. That's less than a mile from his home.
In the video, Wagenhoffer says he couldn't sleep and blamed himself for the building collapse at 2136 Market Streets that killed six and injured 13 when the building collapsed onto a store on June 5.
He admitted he never truly inspected an adjacent work site after a citizen complained about safety concerns, although he reported there were no violations found.
"When I saw it was too late. I should have parked my truck and went over there but I didn't. I'm sorry," Wagenhoffer said in the message.
City officials said Wagenhoffer was sent to the demolition site of 2134 Market Street on May 14 -- that's adjacent to the building that collapsed at 2136 Market Street.
The inspection was set to take place after Center City resident Stephen Field complained to the city's 311 call center about a lack of safety equipment on workers and adequate protection of the sidewalk. The city has been saying for a week that no issues were found.
Building Inspector Admits Fault
The man responsible for inspecting the building that collapsed last week in Center City, admits he was at fault in a cellphone video he left for his family. Ronald Wagenhoffer apparently committed suicide last night. NBC10's Nefertiti Jaquez uncovers new information in the case. (Published Thursday, June 13, 2013)
Last Wednesday, the four-story outer wall of 2136 Market Street crumbled onto the Salvation Army Thrift Store next door. Six people were killed in the collapse -- three employees and three patrons. The wall also buried 13 others who were in different areas throughout the store, including the basement. They were eventually rescued by citizens and first responders.
Excavator operator Kane R. Robert, also known as Sean Benschop, stands charged in the collapse. Investigators with the District Attorney's homicide unit say he tested positive for the pain killer Percocet and marijuana on the day of the collapse. They allege he was in no condition to operate heavy machinery. A grand jury has been convened to investigate the circumstances surrounding the collapse.
L&I records also show Wagenhoffer completed and passed an initial inspection at 2136 Market Street on Feb. 25.
City officials said that fellow employees and L&I Commissioner Carlton Williams reached out to Wagenhoffer in the days after the collapse.
"This man did nothing wrong," Deputy Mayor Everett Gillison said at a press conference Thursday. "The department did what it was supposed to do under the code that existed at the time."
In a tweet posted Friday afternoon, Mayor Nutter's Press Secretary Mark McDonald refuted NBC10's reporting of the video message.
"NBC10 falsely stated that L&I inspector said of collapse -- "It was my fault." That is a total lie," he wrote.
NBC10 Vice President of News Anzio Williams said, "We have seen the video. We are standing behind our journalism." In a phone conversation with Williams, McDonald maintained his belief that the report was inaccurate.
A source close to the investigation who did not want to be named because they aren't authorized to speak publicly about the case, said Wagenhoffer had been grieving for days. They said Wagenhoffer did not take any time off after the collapse because he thought sticking to his work routine might help him deal with the tragedy.
On Thursday, Nutter, who is in Chicago, was asked if Wagenhoffer should have been placed on leave after the building collapse.
"Each of us deals with our grief and sorrow and any sense of responsibility in a different way. I'm not going to second guess his judgment to keep working," Nutter responded. He said Wagenhoffer had been in constant contact with his supervisor and was offered time off, but declined.
Mayor Nutter Responds to Inspector's Suicide
The lead inspector of a Center City building that collapsed last week commits suicide. Ronald Wagenhofferr was the last inspector to examine the building that collapsed, but city officials say he did nothing wrong. NBC10's Daralene Jones caught up with the mayor and asked why the inspector was still working after such a tragedy. (Published Thursday, June 13, 2013)
"I think what you have here is a 16-year-employee who cared very deeply about his job," said Nutter. "We don't know all the things that may have been going through his mind."
Commissioner Williams called Wagenhoffer an outstanding employee.
“He was a dedicated civil servant who did his job," he said. "He started in the Department of Public Property and moved his way up through the ranks as one of our top code officials in the Department of Licenses & Inspections."
Nutter said the city is also encouraging other employees to get emotional support if they need it.
"Obviously I don't know why this happened, but we've tried to send a message out certainly to all of our public employees who are deeply affected by this, especially those who worked with Ron," Nutter said.
Wagenhoffer leaves behind a wife, Michele and a son.
Mayor Nutter Astounded Over Inspector's Suicide
Mayor Michael Nutter said Ron Wagenhoffer was a man who cared deeply about his job and had a great love for the city of Philadelphia. Wagenhoffer shot himself to death last night. He was the lead inspector on the building that was under demolition when it collapsed last week onto a Salvation Army thrift store, killing six people and injuring 13 others. (Published Thursday, June 13, 2013)
Deputy Mayor Gillison added there are five investigations underway regarding the collapse and that the city is "proud" of L&I's work.
Griffin Campbell was the contractor overseeing the demolition. In a statement released by his attorney Kenneth Edelin, he said "heartfelt condolences go to the family of the inspector."
"We also continue to pray for the families of those that were lost, and for the health and speedy recovery of those that were injured," the statement continued. ||||| A worker at a Salvation Army store adjacent to a building in the process of being torn down was sorting clothes when she heard rumbling and was suddenly buried, a lawyer for her said Friday as a shopper joined the woman in her lawsuit against the demolition contractor.
A reporter makes a photograph of a makeshift memorial for Kimberly J. Finnegan near the scene of a building collapse, Thursday, June 6, 2013, in Philadelphia. Wednesday a building under demolition collapsed... (Associated Press)
AP10ThingsToSee - A dust cloud rises as people run from the scene of a building collapse on the edge of downtown Philadelphia on Wednesday, June 5, 2013. At least six people were killed and 14 inured... (Associated Press)
In this photo provided by Jordan McLaughlin, a dust cloud rises as people run from the scene of a building collapse on the edge of downtown Philadelphia on Wednesday, June 5, 2013. Buoyed by the discovery... (Associated Press)
Firefighters view the aftermath of a building collapse, Thursday, June 6, 2013, in Philadelphia. Wednesday a building under demolition collapsed onto a neighboring thrift store, killing six people and... (Associated Press)
Mayor Michael Nutter speaks during a news conference in the aftermath of a building collapse, Thursday, June 6, 2013, in Philadelphia. On Wednesday, the building under demolition collapsed onto a neighboring... (Associated Press)
Firefighters view the scene of a building collapse, Thursday, June 6, 2013, in Philadelphia. On Wednesday, the building under demolition collapsed onto a neighboring thrift store, killing six people and... (Associated Press)
Workmen work by hand at the scene of a building collapse, Thursday, June 6, 2013, in Philadelphia. Wednesday a building under demolition collapsed onto a neighboring thrift store, killing six people and... (Associated Press)
Nadine White, a 54-year-old mother of three, had worked at the thrift store for about eight months. She was in the back of the store when she "heard a rumble and a wall collapsed on her," attorney Larry Bendesky said.
A second plaintiff, Linda Bell, joined the lawsuit. Bell, a 50-year-old mother of three, was shopping when the collapse happened. She fell into the basement and was covered by rubble for more than an hour.
"She's pretty shook up, in a lot of pain," her attorney Joseph Marrone said.
Their lawsuit against demolition contractor Griffin Campbell gained speed as the rescue operation from Wednesday's collapse wound down.
Robert Mongeluzzi, another of White's attorneys, said Campbell violated several federal safety regulations, while building owner Richard Basciano should have picked a more qualified and competent contractor to do the work.
"This is the most egregious construction accident I think I've ever been involved in," said Mongeluzzi, who has represented hundreds of plaintiffs in construction accidents and is considered a top lawyer in the field.
The lawyers received permission Friday from a judge to bring in experts to videotape and photograph the continuing demolition work by the city from a safe distance. Common Pleas Court Judge Ellen Ceisler ruled that once the site is deemed safe, experts for all parties can inspect the remaining debris.
"From what we can understand, given (Campbell's) checkered past, and what appears to be a total lack of experience and know-how, we believe that was a grossly negligent selection," Mongeluzzi said Thursday.
A man who answered the phone Friday at Campbell's home said he was not home, and Campbell's cellphone voicemail box was full. Peter Greiner, attorney for Basciano, was in a meeting Friday and did not immediately return a call.
Campbell has previously been arrested on charges involving drugs, assault and insurance fraud and has had two bankruptcy filings. His daughter, Dominique Lee, who answered the door at his home, said Thursday that he wasn't there but was "mourning the loss of those people just like everyone else."
The four-story building toppled onto the thrift store on Philadelphia's busy Market Street, six people, including a woman working her first day at the store. Thirteen people were injured.
The collapse has brought swift and mounting fallout in a city where demolition contractors are lightly regulated. Officials have begun inspecting hundreds of demolition sites citywide, and a city councilman charged that dangerous, under-the-radar tear-downs are taking place throughout Philadelphia.
The Department of Licenses and Inspections said it had 300 open demolition permits throughout the city; inspectors had visited about 30 of the sites by Thursday afternoon and planned to get to the rest by next week.
The spot inspections included all four construction and demolition sites connected to Campbell. The city found violations at two of the Campbell sites and ordered a halt to the work.
Councilman James Kenney, among others, called for a review of the demolition application and inspection process and demanded a stricter process for demolition companies.
"This is happening all over the city," he said. "I need to know who the workers are who are there, what they know, what they don't know, how they've been trained."
The city does check the condition of buildings to be torn down before demolition can begin _ and inspects them again after the tear-down is finished _ but does not require an inspection during demolition. A pre-demolition inspection at the site on May 14 turned up no issues, said Carlton Williams, head of the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections.
Pennsylvania does not license demolition contractors, nor does the city. Williams said the city code does not require demolition contractors to show any proficiency in tearing down buildings.
"Buildings get demolished all the time in the city of Philadelphia with active buildings right next to them. ... They're done safely in this city all the time," Mayor Michael Nutter said Thursday. "Something obviously went wrong here yesterday and possibly in the days leading up to it. That's what the investigation is for."
Nutter said he was unaware of any complaints about the demolition work done by Campbell in the days before the tragedy. But the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it had gotten a complaint May 15 that workers at the site were at risk of falling. The complaint was still open at the time of the disaster, U.S. Labor Department spokeswoman Leni Uddyback-Fortson said.
OSHA regulates the demolition industry and enforces standards meant to ensure worker safety. Among other things, its regulations forbid any wall section exceeding one story to stand alone without bracing, unless the wall was designed that way. Witnesses have said they saw a 30-foot section of unbraced wall before the collapse.
A video of the demolition taken the Sunday before the collapse showed bricks raining down on the sidewalk as a worker used a backhoe and claw to remove a second-story front wall.
The sidewalk and the staircase leading up from a subway stop appeared open to pedestrians despite the falling bricks. Cars and trucks could also be seen going past, just a few feet away.
___
Rubinkam reported from northeastern Pennsylvania. Associated Press writers JoAnn Loviglio, Kevin Begos and Keith Collins contributed to this story, along with AP's News and Information Research Center. | – The man who inspected a Philadelphia building three weeks before it collapsed last week, killing six and injuring 13, has died in an apparent suicide. The 52-year-old, whose name has not been released, inspected the building several times and ruled it safe after a complaint was lodged last month, reports NBC. He apparently shot himself in the chest while parked in his pickup truck in an isolated area about a mile from his home, where his wife found him. His suicide note had been a text to her. Meanwhile, a crane operator awaits trial in the collapse, while victims are suing the demolition contractor. |
When Carla Harris left her boyfriend Sunday night, she said she told him not to drink. They needed to drive later that night to pick up their daughter and a friend at the Waterworks Mall.
Pittsburgh police said Richard Benton, 53, of Wilkinsburg did not heed Ms. Harris' advice. When Ms. Harris, 52, of East Liberty returned home, she said Mr. Benton, who she did not realize had been drinking, volunteered to drive.
They got in a black Ford Explorer to pick up Shamera Harris and drop off one of her friends at a home on Schenley Manor Drive in Stanton Heights.
When they arrived at the friend's house, Ms. Harris said, Mr. Benton asked their daughter to get out of the car so he could take a picture because she looked beautiful. Mr. Benton fiddled with the gearshift and got out of the car, she said.
The car "just took off at full speed," dragging their 12-year-old daughter and slamming into a tree.
"I just panicked and I asked him, 'What did you do?' "
Ms. Harris said she tried to stop the car but could not.
"I ran to pull her out and gave her CPR and she was already gone. I tried. I prayed over her."
Shamera died at the scene about 8:30 p.m. Sunday. When Pittsburgh police arrived, Mr. Benton smelled of alcohol, slurred his speech, was "unsteady" on his feet and had "glassy and watery eyes," according to a criminal complaint.
Mr. Benton, who was released Monday morning on nonmonetary bond, could not be reached for comment.
Police wrote in the complaint that he refused a breath test and refused to comply with field sobriety tests.
Police handcuffed Mr. Benton at the scene and took him to a station for further tests. He again refused tests, saying he wanted to contact an attorney, according to the complaint.
After consulting with the Allegheny County district attorney's office, police charged Mr. Benton with driving under the influence and took him to UPMC Mercy for treatment of minor injuries before he went to the Allegheny County Jail.
The Allegheny County medical examiner's office found during an autopsy that Shamera died of blunt force trauma and ruled her death an accident. The police investigation continues.
Ms. Harris said she did not realize Mr. Benton had been drinking and that she would not have gotten in the car -- let alone permitted children to ride in it -- if she had suspected he was drunk.
"This is a horrible death. She didn't deserve that," Ms. Harris said. Friends and family visited Ms. Harris at her Highland Park home Monday to offer condolences.
Shamera made the honor roll at Pittsburgh Dilworth PreK-5, her mother said. In her few months at Pittsburgh Obama 6-12, where she enjoyed swimming, she earned a reputation as a "pleasant young lady, who always followed the rules in every one of her classrooms," according to a statement from the school district.
The school was closed Monday due to a power outage. School support staff are expected to be available to talk to students today.
Shamera enjoyed using the computer and making plans with friends on Facebook -- like the ones she made Sunday night to see a new Kevin Hart movie at the Waterworks Mall with a group of friends.
"She was just my gift from God," her mother said.
Ms. Harris said she had been told that she would never have children, then at age 40, she had Shamera, her only child.
She said Mr. Benton called her after he was released from jail Monday. "I can't talk to him right now. I just can't. He has other children. I have none." ||||| By Megan Harris and Margaret Harding
Carla Harris saw blood on her daughter's blue jacket before paramedics arrived, and she knew Shamera was dead.
On Monday, no sunlight permeated the East Liberty home where family members and friends invited the Tribune-Review to talk about the life of Shamera Harris, 12, who died the night before when her father's Ford Explorer rolled backward, dragging the girl into a tree while her mother tried frantically to crawl into the driver's seat and put the SUV in park, she said.
The girl's father, Richard Benton, 53, slurred his speech and smelled of alcohol at the scene of the crash on Schenley Manor Drive, according to the criminal complaint police filed when charging him with drunken driving.
Carla Harris said Benton “seemed normal” when he dropped by late Sunday and offered to pick up Shamera and a friend from The Waterworks mall.
“If I had known he was drinking, I never would've let him (drive),” she said.
On their way to the other child's home on Schenley Manor Drive, Benton pulled over to snap a picture. Benton was “messing around with the gear shifter” just before Shamera stepped out of the car, police said Harris told them.
Officials weren't sure how the SUV caught the girl or how quickly the car rolled back. Collision investigators will inspect the vehicle, Lt. Daniel Herrmann said. He called the incident a “terrible accident.”
“If there's reason to believe (Benton) is responsible for this girl's death, then there will be charges,” Herrmann said.
Teachers at Pittsburgh Obama 6-12 School said through Pittsburgh Public Schools spokeswoman Ebony Pugh that Shamera was “a quiet, pleasant young lady who always followed the rules in every one of her classrooms.” The school was closed because of a power outage, but counselors will be available on Tuesday, Pugh said.
Funeral arrangements through Cleft of the Rock Ministries were not finalized.
Shamera is the second in her family to die suddenly, the family said.
One relative, Jacquet Bazemore, 63, of Highland Park, pointed to a pair of fading photographs on top of the family's television. Shamera, age 8 or 9, grins in pastels beneath long, dark braids. Shakkeem Harris, then a toddler, laughs with his father, Shawn. Two years ago, officers found Shakkeem, at age 22, face-down and shot in Morningside's Joe Natoli Field.
“We've endured so much tragedy,” said Joyce Harris, their grandmother. “Now both our babies are gone.”
It's hard to reconcile senseless mistakes, Shawn Harris said.
Carla Harris, 51, a longtime crossing guard at Dilworth School in Highland Park, called Shamera her miracle baby and best friend.
“I wasn't supposed to have children, but God blessed me with her at 40. We did everything together,” she said. “She walked to my post at 4:30 (p.m.) every day, her and all her girlfriends. Now I'll see them cross and not my baby girl.”
Officers said Benton refused field and chemical sobriety tests. He was released from Allegheny County Jail midday under conditions that he report to court at 10 a.m. Tuesday and participate in a substance-abuse treatment program.
Court records indicate Benton, whom Harris said is a school bus driver, pleaded guilty to driving under the influence in Georgia in 1996 and to simple harassment in 2012. Allegheny County records don't indicate whom Benton harassed.
Megan Harris and Margaret Harding are Trib Total Media staff writers. Reach Harris at 412-388-5815 or mharris@tribweb.com. Reach Harding at 412-398-7543 or mharding@tribweb.com. | – A 12-year-old Pittsburgh girl died on her first date last night when her father's car dragged her about 50 feet and slammed into a tree, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports. The girl, Shamera Harris, got out of her father's SUV so her parents could snap a photo of her and her date, but the vehicle began rolling backwards. Shamera's dad, 53-year-old Richard Benton, was "messing around with the gear shifter" before exiting the vehicle, according to the girl's mom, Carla Harris. "He thought the vehicle was in park," said a police sergeant. "In fact, it must have been out of gear and went over her, dragging her down the hill and then crashing into a yard." Shamera's parents had picked up her and her date at Waterworks Mall and drove them back to the boy's place when tragedy struck. Paramedics arrived and tried to resuscitate the girl but she "wasn't moving," a neighbor told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Police say Benton, who was charged with a DUI, smelled of booze and had "slurred speech and glassy, watery eyes." He refused a field sobriety test on the scene and a chemical test of his breath while in custody, and asked to see an attorney. "If there's reason to believe he's responsible for this girl's death, then there will be charges," said a lieutenant. "It's one of those things where you have to wait and see." |
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Earlier this year, Mitt Romney nearly landed in a politically perilous controversy when the Huffington Post reported that in 1999 the GOP presidential candidate had been part of an investment group that invested $75 million in Stericycle, a medical-waste disposal firm that has been attacked by anti-abortion groups for disposing aborted fetuses collected from family planning clinics. Coming during the heat of the GOP primaries, as Romney tried to sell South Carolina Republicans on his pro-life bona fides, the revelation had the potential to damage the candidate’s reputation among values voters already suspicious of his shifting position on abortion.
But Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded, tamped down the controversy. The company said Romney left the firm in February 1999 to run the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and likely had nothing to with the deal. The matter never became a campaign issue. But documents filed by Bain and Stericycle with the Securities and Exchange Commission—and obtained by Mother Jones—list Romney as an active participant in the investment. And this deal helped Stericycle, a company with a poor safety record, grow, while yielding tens of millions of dollars in profits for Romney and his partners. The documents—one of which was signed by Romney—also contradict the official account of Romney’s exit from Bain.
The Stericycle deal—the abortion connection aside—is relevant because of questions regarding the timing of Romney’s departure from the private equity firm he founded. Responding to a recent Washington Post story reporting that Bain-acquired companies outsourced jobs, the Romney campaign insisted that Romney exited Bain in February 1999, a month or more before Bain took over two of the companies named in the Post‘s article. The SEC documents undercut that defense, indicating that Romney still played a role in Bain investments until at least the end of 1999.
Here’s what happened with Stericycle. In November 1999, Bain Capital and Madison Dearborn Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm, filed with the SEC a Schedule 13D, which lists owners of publicly traded companies, noting that they had jointly purchased $75 million worth of shares in Stericycle, a fast-growing player in the medical-waste industry. (That April, Stericycle had announced plans to buy the medical-waste businesses of Browning Ferris Industries and Allied Waste Industries.) The SEC filing lists assorted Bain-related entities that were part of the deal, including Bain Capital (BCI), Bain Capital Partners VI (BCP VI), Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors (a Bermuda-based Bain affiliate), and Brookside Capital Investors (a Bain offshoot). And it notes that Romney was the “sole shareholder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of BCI, BCP VI Inc., Brookside Inc. and Sankaty Ltd.”
The document also states that Romney “may be deemed to share voting and dispositive power with respect to” 2,116,588 shares of common stock in Stericycle “in his capacity as sole shareholder” of the Bain entities that invested in the company. That was about 11 percent of the outstanding shares of common stock. (The whole $75 million investment won Bain, Romney, and their partners 22.64 percent of the firm’s stock—the largest bloc among the firm’s owners.) The original copy of the filing was signed by Romney.
Another SEC document filed November 30, 1999, by Stericycle also names Romney as an individual who holds “voting and dispositive power” with respect to the stock owned by Bain. If Romney had fully retired from the private equity firm he founded, why would he be the only Bain executive named as the person in control of this large amount of Stericycle stock?
The documents—one of which was signed by Romney—also call into question the account of Romney’s exit from Bain that the company and the Romney campaign have provided.
Stericycle was a lucrative investment for Romney and Bain. The company had entered the medical-waste business a decade earlier, when it took over a food irradiation plant in Arkansas and began zapping medical waste, rather than strawberries, with radiation. The company subsequently replaced irradiation with a technology that used low-frequency radio waves to sterilize medical waste—gowns, masks, gloves, and other medical equipment—before it was transported to an incinerator. By mid-1997, Stericycle was the second-largest medical-waste disposal business in the nation. Two years later, it was the largest. With 240,000 customers, its operations spanned the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Fortune ranked it No. 10 on its list of the 100 fastest growing companies in the nation.
But the company had its woes, accumulating a troubling safety record along the way. In 1991, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited its Arkansas operation for 11 workplace safety violations. The facility had not provided employees with sufficient protective gear, and it had kept body parts, fetuses, and dead experimental animals in unmarked storage containers, placing workers at risk. In 1995, Stericycle was fined $3.3 million—later decreased to $800,000—by Rhode Island for knowingly exposing workers to life-threatening diseases at its medical-waste treatment facility in Woonsocket. Two years later, workers at another of its medical-waste processing plants in Morton, Washington, were exposed to tuberculosis. In 2002 and 2003—after Bain and its partners had bought their major interest in the firm—Stericycle reached settlements with the attorneys general in Arizona and Utah after it was accused of violating antitrust laws. It paid Arizona $320,000 in civil penalties and lawyers’ fees, and paid Utah $580,000.
Despite the firm’s regulatory run-ins, the deal worked out well for Bain. In 2001, the Bain-Madison Dearborn partnership that had invested in the company sold 40 percent of its holdings in Stericycle for about $88 million—marking a hefty profit on its original investment of $75 million. The Bain-related group sold the rest of its holdings by 2004. By that point it had earned $49.5 million. It was not until six years later that anti-abortion activists would target Stericycle for collecting medical waste at abortion clinics. This campaign has compared Stericycle to German firms that provided assistance to the Nazis during the Holocaust. A Stericycle official told Huffington Post that its abortion clinics business constitutes a “small” portion of its total operations. (Stericycle declined a request for comment from Mother Jones.)
In 1995, Stericycle was fined by Rhode Island for knowingly exposing workers to life-threatening diseases at its medical-waste treatment facility.
In response to questions from Mother Jones, a spokeswoman for Bain maintained that Romney was not involved in the Stericycle deal in 1999, saying that he had “resigned” months before the stock purchase was negotiated. The spokeswoman noted that following his resignation Romney remained only “a signatory on certain documents,” until his separation agreement with Bain was finalized in 2002. And Bain issued this statement: “Mitt Romney retired from Bain Capital in February 1999. He has had no involvement in the management or investment activities of Bain Capital, or with any of its portfolio companies since that time.” (The Romney presidential campaign did not respond to requests for comment.)
But the document Romney signed related to the Stericycle deal did identify him as a participant in that particular deal and the person in charge of several Bain entities. (Did Bain and Romney file a document with the SEC that was not accurate?) Moreover, in 1999, Bain and Romney both described his departure from Bain not as a resignation and far from absolute. On February 12, 1999, the Boston Herald reported, “Romney said he will stay on as a part-timer with Bain, providing input on investment and key personnel decisions.” And a Bain press release issued on July 19, 1999, noted that Romney was “currently on a part-time leave of absence”—and quoted Romney speaking for Bain Capital. In 2001 and 2002, Romney filed Massachusetts state disclosure forms noting he was the 100 percent owner of Bain Capital NY, Inc.—a Bain outfit that was incorporated in Delaware on April 13, 1999—two months after Romney’s supposed retirement from the firm. A May 2001 filing with the SEC identified Romney as “a member of the Management Committee” of two Bain entities. And in 2007, the Washington Post reported that R. Bradford Malt, a Bain lawyer, said Romney took a “leave of absence” when he assumed the Olympics post and retained sole ownership of the firm for two more years.
All of this undermines Bain’s contention that Romney, though he maintained an ownership interest in the firm and its funds, had nothing to do with the firm’s activities after February 1999. The Stericycle deal may raise red flags for anti-abortion activists. But it also raises questions about the true timing of Romney’s departure from Bain and casts doubt on claims by the company and the Romney campaign that he had nothing to do with Bain business after February 1999. ||||| WASHINGTON -- One of the highest performing companies in which the private equity firm founded by Mitt Romney invested is now a top target of the most vehement anti-abortion groups in the nation.
Stericycle, a massive medical waste disposal service company, received a $75 million investment from Bain Capital in 1999 and soon became an industry leader. Today, it has more than 485,000 customers worldwide. Its clients include hospitals, blood banks, and pharmaceutical manufacturers. But it has also helped dispose of medical waste from Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics -- waste that included aborted fetuses -- and that has attracted the ire of the pro-life community and establishment Republicans.
Romney's relationship to the company, which was flagged by the Democratic opposition research group American Bridge and further examined through an independent review of documents, is tangential. By the time Bain Capital had made the investment in Stericycle, he had left the firm to run the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. He maintained ownership in Bain and kept holdings in its private equity funds, which included Stericycle stock, but he had no say in the managerial or strategic decisions at the firm, according to Bain officials.
But at a time when Romney is attempting to sell South Carolina voters on his pro-life record -- running values-themed radio ads and defending himself from attacks that say he governed as pro-abortion lawmaker -- the link between Stericycle and Bain could still cause him problems.
"It is pretty significant. A lot of these companies, unfortunately, don't know what is going on," said Michael Marcavage, director of the Campaign to Stop Stericycle, an offshoot of the evangelistic organization Repent America. "You need to put morality before money and a lot of these companies need to look at who they are investing with ... Just imagine if the company was involved in discrimination against blacks? Who would want to be involved in that?"
"If they knew that was going on and still looked at it as a business venture we would certainly speak heavily against it," Marcavage added.
Stericycle's work with abortion clinics constitutes a "small" portion of its overall operations, an official with the company told The Huffington Post (the official declined to confirm whether or not Planned Parenthood specifically is still a client). And anti-abortion activists' decision to target it seems misdirected; what would those clinics be left to do without the services provided by Stericycle and companies like it?
There is no publicly available data showing that either Romney or other officials at Bain knew of Stericycle's work with Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics before the investment. Nor would it be unreasonable if they knew about it and found it irrelevant. Bain, after all, is not a religious outfit, unless the religion is money-making.
The Romney campaign did not return a request for comment.
Bain's $75 million investment in the company was announced in August and finalized in November of 1999. An official with the firm told The Huffington Post that such deals are usually planned three or four months before the announcement date, which means it was likely conceived of after February 1999, when Romney left for the Olympics. The first reported documentation of Stericycle servicing an abortion clinic came in 2003, one year before Bain sold its stake in the company.
Repent America itself only became aware of the issue in 2010, when it was reported that Stericycle had picked up “biohazardous waste” at an abortion clinic in Richmond, Virginia. The group subsequently put pressure on Penske and Ryder, the truck-leasing companies that Stericycle had hired, to stop working with the medical waste disposal company.
More than suggesting Bain's indifference to the abortion debate, the story the firm's involvement with Stericycle illustrates how the private equity chapter of Romney's career has complicated his political ambitions. Every company Bain has invested in has a story of its own, whether it's the use of generous tax breaks and government subsidies to build a steel company in Indiana or the rapid growth of Staples.
With Stericycle, that story is as much about leveraging money to make more as the politics of abortion.
The company was only a decade old when Bain began contemplating an investment. What the private equity firm found alluring was that Stericycle had a straightforward, fairly fail-safe strategy for growth. The waste and recycling behemoth Allied Waste Industries had spent $10 billion to acquire Browning-Ferris Industries in 1999 and was looking to sell its medical waste department in order to pay off the debt from that acquisition. Stericycle decided it would buy that division, which was, at the time, the country's largest. The company just needed help with funding. In stepped Bain and another private equity firm, Madison Dearborn Partners.
On paper, it was a win-win situation. By consuming its number one competitor, Stericycle became the largest company in the industry. It added 200,000 new customers, saw a reported 266 percent increase in revenue within a year and was named the tenth-fastest growing company in the country by Fortune magazine. According to SEC data, it would go on to make more than $900 million in profits during the Bain years, from 1999 to 2004, and employment would increase by 1,200 -- owed largely to the company taking on workers from Browning-Ferris Industries.
The deal was good for Bain too. According to an investment prospectus from December 2003, the return rate that Bain received on its investment in Stericycle was approximately 66 percent, or 49.5 million dollars.
Romney had become governor of Massachusetts by then. But according to financial disclosure reports flagged by American Bridge and a review of SEC data, both he and his wife maintained investments in Bain Capital funds, including ones that had the Stericycle stock.
Also on HuffPost: | – Another Bain Capital controversy for Mitt Romney: He may have still been involved with the private-equity firm when it invested $75 million in Stericycle, a medical-waste disposal company that disposes of aborted fetuses, thus making it a target of anti-abortion activists. The Huffington Post first revealed the Romney-Stericycle connection, but Bain kept it from blowing up into a controversy by claiming that Romney left the firm in February 1999, before the deal was made. But SEC documents obtained by Mother Jones list Romney as "sole shareholder, Chairman, CEO, and President" of Bain and as a definite participant in the deal—a deal that made him and his partners millions; one document even includes his signature. The documents are relevant not only because of the abortion controversy, but because of Romney's departure from Bain. He has used the official account of the timing of his exit to defend himself—not just with regard to the Stericycle deal, but also with regard to the recent article about Bain's connections to major job outsourcing. In that case, the Romney campaign noted that his February 1999 exit came at least a month before Bain acquired two of the companies that outsourced jobs. But these documents indicate Romney was still playing a role at the company until the end of that year. Mother Jones has a detailed look at the documents—as well as Stericycle's troubled safety record. |
SOCHI, RUSSIA -- Three points from Portugal and Spain's remarkable 3-3 draw at Fisht Stadium in which Cristiano Ronaldo scored a sublime hat-trick.
1. Ronaldo's three goals earn Portugal a point
For a guy whose deeds are so often defined by numbers, whether it's the fact that he has more goals than games for Real Madrid or the fact that nobody has more Ballon d'Or awards stashed away in his trophy cabinet, there was one that seemed out of sync before this World Cup began: three, as in the number of goals that Cristiano Ronaldo had scored in the World Cup to date.
Yet he remedied that perceived dearth against Spain Friday, nabbing a hat-trick in a 3-3 draw to open their World Cup campaign. The first was a penalty he won himself, his nifty stopover prompting Nacho to dangle a leg over which Ronaldo gleefully fell. The second was a gift from David De Gea, who pushed his edge-of-the-box snap shot over the goal line, though again, there's something to be said for Ronaldo's alertness on the break that he was there to capitalize on Goncalo Guedes' layoff following Pepe's defensive clearance. The third was a magisterial free kick that disappeared into the top corner, leaving De Gea flat-footed.
Ronaldo joins Miroslav Klose, Uwe Seeler and Pele as the only players who have scored in four World Cups. He also becomes the oldest player to score a hat-trick in World Cup history, at 33 years and 131 days. And he equals the legendary Ferenc Puskas, the most prolific European-born international goalscorer in history and the second most-prolific overall. (Iran's Ali Daei, at 109, may not be entirely out of his reach either.)
He has broad shoulders, this one, which is a good thing, as a nation is riding on his back.
Cristiano Ronaldo has a whole host of records for Real Madrid and Portugal. ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images)
2. Diego Costa's heroics stand out for Spain
He has, at times, looked like a foreign object in a Spain shirt. Even as Julen Lopetegui's side romped through qualification to the World Cup, Diego Costa managed just nine appearances, lasting 90 minutes on just three occasions. But against Portugal he showed just how much value there is in him being so different.
The first goal was vintage Costa: the angry forearm clear-out on Pepe, the deceptively quick legs to send Jose Fonte the wrong way, the threaded smash between two opponents. The second carried his hallmark too, as he used his physicality and hunger to get to the ball first and nudge it past Rui Patricio. The rest was selflessness, sacrifice and running battles with Pepe and Fonte, but always on the right side of VAR.
Just what Spain needed.
3. A fair result for both teams
The table shows Iran leading the group following their late 1-0 win against Morocco. But beyond the drama of a see-saw game -- one of the best group openers we've seen in a long time -- and the fact that they are two points off the top, there are positive takeaways for both teams.
Spain ultimately controlled much of the game and can chalk up two of the goals conceded to uncharacteristic individual errors. There's some tweaking to be done but the post-Lopetegui meltdown simply didn't materialize.
As for Portugal, it was always going to be a dog-fight of a group. But a point against Spain is a massive boost ahead of their next game, coming against a Morocco side already with their backs to the wall. ||||| Media playback is not supported on this device World Cup 2018: Portugal 3-3 Spain - watch all six goals in under a minute
"The night was about Cristiano. He is relentless in his pursuit of greatness. What he is doing on the world stage is ridiculous."
Match of the Day pundit Rio Ferdinand said he "couldn't breathe" as former Manchester United team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick, including an 88th-minute equaliser, as Portugal drew 3-3 with Spain in a classic World Cup encounter.
Ronaldo, as he so often does, had the last word in a match full of drama, as Spain came within minutes of securing a happy ending to a turbulent week in which they sacked their manager a day before the start of the tournament.
So just how good was this Ronaldo display? Well, his was the star turn in a match that is sure to be remembered for years to come.
"I'm going to get a flight back tomorrow because I won't see a better game," joked former England winger Chris Waddle.
What did Ronaldo do?
It took just over three minutes for Portugal's captain to make his mark on the game in Sochi, drawing Nacho into a foul in the area and converting the penalty with trademark cool.
Diego Costa equalised brilliantly but Ronaldo struck a second time, David de Gea's uncharacteristic fumble into the net a gift to the Real Madrid man.
Costa scored again to make it 2-2 before Nacho made amends with a sublime strike to put Spain 3-2 up.
But then came that free-kick...
A one-in-45 shot
Media playback is not supported on this device Ronaldo scores 'sensational' free-kick to complete hat-trick
Standing over the ball as De Gea set his wall and with just two minutes remaining, there was no doubt it would be Ronaldo who would take the set piece. And yet history suggested a team-mate - any team-mate - might have been better placed..
This, remarkably, was Ronaldo's first goal from a direct free-kick in 45 attempts at major championships.
"One or two will ask why I said at half-time Ronaldo needs to work on free-kicks. Well it's because it took him 45 attempts, but he did it," said former England captain Alan Shearer.
"It's a brilliant free-kick and it is technically so difficult to do," added former England midfielder Danny Murphy. "He went over and around the wall and it had all sorts of bend and dip on it."
Speaking on Russia Today, Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho offered a reminder that Ronaldo's free-kick record has worsened since his days at Old Trafford and early years at Real, but added that "this one was the critical one".
"There are players for some matches, there are players for every match and there are players for special matches. The players for special matches are the ones," the Portuguese added.
Over to you, Lionel...
Media playback is not supported on this device World Cup Catch-Up: Ronaldo the showman lights up biggest stage
Lionel Messi is another of those ones. Ronaldo's pursuit of greatness has been inextricably linked with that of the Argentina forward, who starts his campaign against Iceland on Saturday.
"A little sub-plot to it is now the pressure is mounted on Messi's shoulders after watching Cristiano here," said Ferdinand.
"He'll deliver," came the reply from Cesc Fabregas on Match of the Day. Fabregas, of course, played with Messi at Barcelona between 2011 and 2014.
Former Scotland winger Pat Nevin said Ronaldo would have "hated" the discussions before the tournament about whether this will be Messi's World Cup.
"Cristiano has raised the bar so Iceland could be in trouble," he added.
Level with Puskas - greatness in numbers
This was Ronaldo's 51st hat-trick for club and country, a "personal best" according to the man himself.
It comprised his 82nd, 83rd and 84th international goals, putting him joint-second on the all-time list alongside Hungary legend Ferenc Puskas, now trailing only Iran's Ali Daei on 109.
Will he surpass that mark? Or is it a case of when?
Ronaldo also became the first man in history to score in eight consecutive major tournaments with his early penalty against Spain. Where will that streak end?
"Cristiano is the best in the world and I hope in Qatar once again he is going to score in a World Cup," said Portugal coach Fernando Santos, feeling his side's 33-year-old talisman can extend his international career until 2022.
Despite the brilliance of his performance, Ronaldo was quick to try to make his team the focus at the full-time whistle.
"The most important thing is to highlight what the team has done," said Ronaldo. "The game was about to end and we managed to equalise so we are happy.
"We are not the favourites so we will try to do our best. The team is doing very well and we are going to do well for sure."
Portugal's next Group B game is against Morocco on Wednesday at 13:00 BST, while Spain face Iran at 19:00, no doubt happy to see the back of Ronaldo, for now at least.
"When you are playing a player like Ronaldo these things can happen," said Spain coach Fernando Hierro.
"It is extremely fortunate for whichever team has him, but I certainly would not change him for any of the players in my squad."
Where does it rank?
Ronaldo's hat-trick is likely to become one of the most memorable World Cup moments and this match one of the best in the competition's history.
"It was one of the best World Cup games I've seen - especially in a group stage. It augurs well for the rest of the World Cup," said Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker.
But where does Ronaldo's performance rank? Here are some of the best individual displays in World Cup history...
Oleg Salenko - Russia 6-1 Cameroon (USA 1994) - Salenko remains the first and only player to score five goals in a single World Cup game. It was enough for him to earn a share of the Golden Boot, even though Russia went out in the first round.
Media playback is not supported on this device Archive: Salenko bags five
Sandor Kocsis - Hungary 8-3 West Germany (Switzerland 1954) - Kocsis followed a hat-trick against South Korea with four in Hungary's group-stage demolition of West Germany. The great Hungarian side seemed destined to be world champions, only to be stunned by the Germans in the final.
Zinedine Zidane - France 3-0 Brazil (France 1998) - Zidane bossed the 1998 final, taking France to the world title on home soil. He scored twice and dismantled defending champions Brazil.
Eusebio - Portugal 5-3 North Korea (England 1966) - North Korea were heading for perhaps the biggest shock of all time when they led Portugal 3-0. Enter Eusebio, who scored four unanswered goals, including two from the spot.
Sir Geoff Hurst - England 4-2 West Germany (England 1966) - To this day still the only hat-trick in a World Cup final, one that carried England to the greatest day in their footballing history and earned Hurst a knighthood.
Media playback is not supported on this device 50 Great World Cup moments: England win the World Cup - 1966
'With the God Ronaldo, miracles are possible' - how Portuguese and Spanish media reacted
A young Portugal fan with a poster of his hero
Correio da Manha (Portugal): "It is not enough to call him king. This Ronaldo of Russia reaches the dimension of God. A giant among small creatures fearful of their gifts, powers and moods. This game with Spain puts Ronaldo on the highest altar of this global religion. Ronaldo achieved immortality."
Diario de Noticias (Portugal): Like Eusebio against North Korea in 1966, Pele against France in 1958 or Maradona against England in 1986, CR7's display against Spain in the 2018 World Cup will be for eternity."
Publico (Spain): "Spain has talent but does not have the best in the world. Without a doubt, Spain is a better team than the Portuguese team collectively and individually. But there is no Cristiano Ronaldo. And that made all the difference in this match."
El Mundo (Spain): "Spain survives Cristiano Ronaldo. When there is a huge player in front, the draw is not a bad solution." ||||| On Friday morning, meanwhile, only a few hours before the game, it emerged in Spanish news media reports that Ronaldo himself had agreed to pay the Spanish authorities $21.8 million in unpaid taxes. He has also been given a two-year suspended jail sentence, the papers said. It would be hard to believe that these developments did not faze him as the game approached.
Still, it was Ronaldo who gave Portugal the lead, winning and converting a penalty after just four minutes of play. And it was Ronaldo who restored the lead, his shot squirming under David De Gea, the Spanish goalkeeper, as the first half drew to a close. And it was Ronaldo who, with just a few minutes remaining in the second half, lined up a free kick a little outside the Spanish penalty area with Portugal now trailing, 3-2.
He had taken 44 free kicks in previous World Cups. He had scored on none of them. Still, you know what they say: the 45th time’s a charm.
It is true that Ronaldo, at 33, is not the player he was. He is still perfectly sculpted, of course, a Men’s Health magazine cover made flesh, but the electric pace has fizzled a little; he does not cover quite as much ground (only one player, the Portuguese defender José Fonte, ran less than Ronaldo in a first half in which one of them scored twice).
But it is equally true to say that Ronaldo, even in his twilight, shines brighter than almost any player with whom he comes into contact. He has not so much faded as a player as evolved into something different. It is misleading to suggest that he has transformed into a striker, a penalty- area predator, because he is not really restricted by such mortal concepts as geography.
Instead, he has attained a level of such devastating efficiency that he now does not really require something so mundane as the ball. He does not need to be involved. He looks, often, like he is doing nothing, or something quite close to it — as if he is a mere passenger. It is an illusion. He is always in the cockpit.
Isco, his Real Madrid teammate, was the dominant player on the field here, the one who was most involved, who prompted and probed and prodded, and he was wearing a Spain jersey. Ronaldo has moved beyond needing to dictate games. He concerns himself only with defining them.
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His free kick, needless to say, curled artfully, effortlessly, past De Gea and into the corner of Spain’s goal, as Ronaldo — despite all historical evidence to the contrary — must have known it would.
Portugal, which is now best thought of as a nation established in 1128 so that it might one day produce Cristiano Ronaldo, would have its draw. More important, the 2018 World Cup had its spark. The afterglow of a game like this can last for a couple of weeks, at least; on this stage, it can resonate around the world.
Spain would have been forgiven for feeling like a victim. It had been the better team in this game, had more of the ball, created more opportunities, played the slicker, smoother soccer.
It had looked every inch a contender for a World Cup title and nothing like a side still reeling from Lopetegui’s departure, shaken to its core by a dispute between its players and their ultimate bosses at the country’s federation, having to adjust to life under a new coach who, until now, had only managed one second-division team.
That Spain’s players did not let all this deter them on Friday only served to emphasize the scale of Ronaldo’s performance and the overall quality of the match.
And when the final whistle blew, the stadium stood: not just the clusters of Portuguese fans, not just the neutrals and the Russians, but the Spanish fans, too, in those blood-red jerseys. They applauded their own team, of course; there was enough encouragement there to see the bigger picture, to believe that the tumult of the last few days may not be fatal to their hopes.
But when Spain’s players had left the field, and Portugal’s stood in the center circle, the Spanish fans remained standing, and they kept clapping, as every single Portuguese player sought out Ronaldo, to clasp his hand, to ruffle his hair, as though just to touch him was to brush against something holy.
They do not mind that he attracts — demands, really — all of the attention. They do not mind being in the supporting cast, just as those Spanish fans did not mind providing the audience for the three acts of his one-man show. Sometimes, it is a pleasure simply to be there; sometimes, it is a pleasure just to sit back and watch. And at the end, sometimes there is nothing to do but applaud.
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■ Here’s how it happened:
Full Time: Spain 3, Ronaldo 3
Ronaldo has produced one of the most remarkable individual performances you could possibly hope to see, and illuminated what will take some beating as the best game of the tournament. Portugal hasn’t been discussed much as a contender for the World Cup, despite being European champion. This may have been an oversight.
90 + 2’: Portugal Almost Pulls Away
Quaresa almost wins it! He walks the ball through the Spanish defense, into the penalty area, around two defenders. But the third arrives in the nick of time to smother his shot. What a winner that might have been. I think we all — players, coaches, fans, viewers — need a whistle, a beer and a shower at this point.
88’: GOAL! Ronaldo Equalizes
Oh woooooowwwwwwww! Ronaldo completes his hat trick with a stunning free kick, curled around the wall’s right edge. De Gea never had a chance. It’s 3-3. Message from the office in New York: “Can they just keep playing, please?”
86’: Sloppy Spain
Now it’s Spain that gives away a silly free kick, as Piqué, who had Ronaldo corralled with his back to goal, shoves him down.
84’: A Clasico Moment
A little Barcelona-Real Madrid spice as Ronaldo throws the ball to Jordi Alba, who was coming to take it for a throw-in. You can take the boys out of the Clasico, but you can’t take the Clasico out of the boys.
82’: Just When You Think Spain Is Sitting Back ...
Isco adds some rare excitement at the other end, squeezing off a low shot that Rui Patricio handles with ease.
79’: Danger in the Area
A long, bounding ball from Portugal’s end results in a collision of Ronaldo, De Gea and Piqué, who appears to take the brunt of a collision with a goalkeeper and a bronze statue in full sprint. The ball, most important if you’re Spanish, winds up cleared in the interaction, and a handball by Quaresma trying to collect it allows everyone to exhale.
That ball seemed to catch everyone but Ronaldo by surprise, and he nearly made Spain pay for their momentary confusion.
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76’: Spain Puts on the Clamps
It’s easy to get lulled into this thriller, but Spain has quietly settled into two banks of four defensively. For a team that knows how to pick a lock on offense, they also know how to clamp down when it counts.
70’: Portugal Makes Changes
Joao Mario and Ricardo Quaresma come on for Portugal, now seeking fresh legs and, most important, a goal with 20 minutes left. Spain brings on Bayern Munich’s Thiago Alcántara for Iniesta — young legs for aging ones.
64’: Spain-Portugal Delivers
This would have been a super World Cup final: tense, dramatic, goal-filled. A terrific game. Though, to be fair, awarding the trophy tonight before 24 teams kicked a ball might cause problems at the next FIFA Congress.
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58’ GOAL! Nacho Gives Spain the Lead
Nacho steps into a failed clearance, puts his laces into the ball and pings both posts with a shot through traffic. A rocket and, for the moment, a potential winner.
55’: GOAL! Diego Costa Makes Portugal Pay
And that’s what happens when you give away free kicks easily. GOAL! Free kick is rolled into play, lofted to Busquets at the right post, and he nods it into the path of Costa. He’s got two now, just like Ronaldo, and we’ve got a game again. Spain: 2, Portugal: 2, All of us: happy.
Rory Smith: Diego Costa has been Spain’s great conundrum in the last few years: he offers a threat the rest of the team simply doesn’t possess, but he’s always struggled to be himself in a context that is so alien, and a style so unfamiliar. If Fernando Hierro has solved that in two days, maybe he should have got the Real Madrid job.
53’: Spain’s Strategy ...
Spain’s back to playing keepaway. Their possession can lull defenses to sleep and they know it. Enough of it, and an opponent without focus can be coaxed into bad positions, bad decisions, bad fouls out of frustration. That was one right there, and now, just like that, Spain has a dangerous free kick from 30 yards.
46’: More Entertainment on the Way?
The teams are back and here we go. Let’s hope the second half is even half as good as that first 45 was.
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Was just wondering how many goals Ronaldo would have by now if he’d been fined, say, $50 million this morning by the Spanish tax man.
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Halftime: Two Ronaldo Goals Give Portugal the Lead
Cristiano Ronaldo scores early — a fourth-minute penalty — and late — on a 44th-minute blunder by Spain’s goalkeeper — and Portugal leads the Iberian Derby in Sochi, 2-1 at the break. Spain was solid except for the two times it wasn’t, and Ronaldo — an assassin of a forward who seems to get better with age — was there each time to pounce.
44’: GOAL! Ronaldo Does it Again
A howler from De Gea and Portugal leads 2-1. Ronaldo gets the ball near the top of the area, and wangles a hard low shot at De Gea. Eminently savable, he instead lets it skip off him and in. That’s a terrible mistake from an outstanding goalkeeper, and it’s cost his team badly here in the closing second of the half.
Rory Smith: This will be no solace for David De Gea — who really does not make mistakes like that — but this is the game the World Cup needed. Spain has been breathtaking at times, but there’s a resilience to Portugal, a nous, that makes them a threat. And they have this guy upfront: tall, tan, who looks to have quite the career ahead of him.
42’: Pepe’s Not Really Sorry
One of the eternal truths of world soccer is that when Pepe fouls a guy from behind and then helps him up and says “sorry,” he’s probably not. The same truism applies to Sergio Ramos and probably a dozen other players you can think of off the top of your head.
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40’: This Is the Real World Cup
And we close in on halftime, let’s all acknowledge and say thanks that this game is far, far better than both Egypt-Uruguay and Iran-Morocco were.
35’: Iniesta Comes Oh So Close
Andres Iniesta turns in the area and rolls a low shot toward the far post through a teammate’s legs. But he’s got the angle fractionally wrong, and while Rui Patricio dives to make it look good in the photos, the ball was always going wide.
The contrast in attacking styles tonight is remarkable: Spain attacks like a molasses spill — slowly and steadily creeping forward, ever forward, inch by inch — applying more and more pressure, hoping something finally cracks, and they’re in. Portugal, on the other hand, waits and waits and then breaks out like a stolen Ferrari on the counterattack.
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30’: VAR Does its Job
They finally show the replay of the Spanish shot off the bar, and it wasn’t close to crossing the line when it came down. Goal line technology, introduced at the World Cup in 2014, does its job. I’ve never seen it fall to be honest.
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Fernando Hierro, by the way, is prowling the Spain coaching box in shirt sleeves like he wants to check in to the game. Gesturing, clapping, stalking.
29’: Silva Hits the Wall
Silva stands over the free kick with Koke as the referee sets the wall. Silva right, Koke left. But the shot finds the wall like a magnet.
26’: Spain Almost Scores Again
Was that in?? We’ll review. A Spanish shot rockets off the crossbar and down off the line — Georff Hurst-style — but a second look says no, it didn’t go in. And again play moves on.
24’: GOAL! Diego Costa Levels for Spain
Diego Costa gets behind the defense and dances around two defenders until he can get a look at the goal. Spotting it, he buries a shot past Rui Patricio.
Rory Smith: Spain’s reputation for delicacy is well-earned, but occasionally a little bit of brute force is required: Diego Costa bulldozes (just about fairly) through Pepe, twists and turns until he sees a glimmer of goal, and then arrows a shot past Rui Patricio. This is better than Iran against Morocco.
21’: Spain Threatens, but Misses
We’re spending a bit more time in Portugal’s end here as Spain probes the Portuguese defense at its leisure. Now Iniesta spots a crease and dashes into on the left. He takes the ball to the end line and cuts it back for Silva, but his shot goes wide.
17’: Free Kick for Ronaldo
Sergio Busquets loses a ball on the left side and, compounding his mistake, picks up a yellow. Ronaldo stands over the free kick.
Ronaldo slams it into the wall, half of Portugal’s team calls for a handball, but the referee, Italy’s Gianluca Rocchi, isn’t having it. He points the other way, and Spain is playing keepaway again.
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16’: Spain Tries to Find Comfort Zone
A little more possession for Spain here, which is their comfort zone. Quick one touch stuff: here you have it, oh no you take it back, no you, really, no you, OK, I’ll look over here, oh never mind here’s the ball back. But it might settle them a bit.
14’: Ronaldo in Charge
The crowd roars audibly literally every time Ronaldo touches the ball. He’s the star here, a spotlight that as we all know he doesn’t like. (I’m totally kidding; he looooooooves it.)
11’: Clock Games
Ruo Patricio almost seems like he’s time-wasting after collecting a deep ball, picking it up, dropping it, picking it up again. Which would be the funniest thing ever considering it’s THE ELEVENTH MINUTE.
Spain is wearing white today, btw, and Portugal is in Spain’s traditional red shirts. It’s a little disconcerting.
10’: Spain Tries to Recover
The ball falls to David Silva after a hopeful cross into the penalty area, and he slashes at it with his right foot and skies it over the bar.
The look on his face after that miss surely matches all of Spain’s, a nation trying to figure out how such a hopeful summer could go so wrong so far.
3’: Goal! Ronaldo Makes Spain Pay
Well, we said there would be drama, and that’s it from the start. A foul, a whistle and a penalty for Ronaldo! He converts, and just like that Spain’s World Cup somehow manages to get even worse.
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Rory Smith: Four minutes in, Portugal leads, through what looked, at first glance, like something of a soft penalty. Cristiano Ronaldo’s dancing feet enticed Nacho — his Real Madrid teammate — into what was definitely a foolish tackle; the forward threw himself to the floor after what was probably fairly minimal contact, and then dusted himself down to convert the spot-kick. His celebration — stroking his chin — may have been a G.O.A.T. reference. More on that as we get it.
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The First Heavyweight Match of the World Cup
There’s a buoyant atmosphere in Sochi ahead of the first really heavyweight meeting of the 2018 World Cup — an Iberian derby between Spain and Portugal. It’s been easy to miss the European fans in Russia so far — the Latin American contingents are more numerous and, if we’re honest, louder — but there are plenty from both countries in the baking heat of Sochi, on the lip of the Black Sea. The stadium is pretty much full, too, which is kind of a relief, after both of today’s other games were pockmarked by empty seats. — Rory Smith
Spain’s New Coach Deals With Drama
Spain’s new coach, Fernando Hierro, has stepped into a bit of a mess before this game, but he told reporters this week that Spain had no time to dwell on it.
“We’ve come to fight for the World Cup,” he said. “We have a great opportunity and that should be the focus.”
Hierro understands the stage; he made four World Cup teams and played in three for Spain. He said this week that he took over the team in its time of crisis out of a sense of duty. “When the president told me the possibility, I had three choices: to say no, another was to go and the third was to stay, to take a step forward for the Spanish federation and for Spanish soccer,” he said. “I couldn’t say no because I would not forgive myself.”
Spain vs. Portugal Starting Lineups
The lineups are out in Sochi, and both include household names:
For Spain: De Gea; Nacho, Piqué, Ramos, Alba; Busquets, Koke, Iniesta; Isco, Silva; Diego Costa.
One player who may have been lost in all the drama is Spain goalkeeper David De Gea. He’s among the best in the world at his position, and he just signed a new five-year deal to stay at Manchester United. So that should clear his head just in time to face Ronaldo.
For Portugal: Patricio, Soares, Fonte, Pepe, Guerreiro, B Silva, Carvalho, Moutinho, Fernandes, Guedes, Ronaldo
They’ll have a lot to live up to: the day’s first two games both ended with dramatic late winners. The soccer, however, should be a bit smoother from these two. For the sake of everyone, let’s hope it’s Ronaldo and Iniesta and David Silva and Bernardo Silva we’re talking about later, and not something Pepe or Sergio Ramos has done. ||||| Published on Jun 15, 2018
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FOX Sports' Goal of the Day: Cristiano Ronaldo completes the hat trick | 2018 FIFA World Cup™
https://youtu.be/ur0aHcsABIA
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https://www.youtube.com/user/Foxsoccer | – Cristiano Ronaldo is considered one of the best soccer players ever, and he proved why on Friday. He scored three times, including one with about 2 minutes left in regulation, to lift Portugal into a 3-3 tie with Spain in their World Cup opener. The feat makes him, at age 33 years and 131 days, the oldest player to notch a World Cup hat trick, notes ESPN. He's also only the fourth player ever to score in four World Cups. Ronaldo's first two goals weren't perhaps of the write-home-about-it variety, including one that went in with help from Spain's goalie, but the third one was incredible, per the BBC. It came on a free kick, and you can watch it here. The New York Times' headline on all this refers to a "draw for the ages, starring a player for all time." |
Remember that movie with Nic Cage where he had to steal 50 cars but only ended up with "49 and an 'alf?" Well it turns out real life isn't like the 2000 film Gone in 60 Seconds where exotic cars are the most stolen vehicles. In real life, it's more like sedans and pick-ups.
According to a new report by worldwide tracking and recovery system company LoJack, the Honda Accord ranks as the most stolen and recovered vehicle for the fifth year in a row.
Of the cars equipped with LoJack, $121 million in stolen vehicles were recovered in 2013. The most expensive vehicle recovered was a 2011 Porsche Panamera valued at $103,400.
The 2013 LoJack Vehicle Theft Recovery Report is gathered from data provided by 27 states via The International Justice And Public Safety Network as well as California law enforcement, and is specific to stolen cars, trucks and SUVs equipped with the LoJack Stolen Vehicle Recovery System that were recovered between January and December 2013. ||||| Why is the Honda Accord the most stolen vehicle in the country, year after year?
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According to tracking and recovery company LoJack and the National Insurance Crime Bureau, an organization supported by insurance companies, the Honda Accord has topped the list of most popular with thieves for the last several years.
LoJack recently released a list of the top 10 most stolen and recovered LoJack-equipped vehicle models in 2013, which was topped by the Honda Accord for the fifth year in a row.
The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) released a similar report last August analyzing stolen cars, insured or not, in 2012 through the National Crime Information Center, the country's central database for reported crimes. That report also indicated the Honda Accord was the most stolen car for the fifth year in a row.
In NICB's list, the 1996 Accord was the most stolen make and model, with 8,637 thefts.
Frank Scafidi, director of public affairs for the NICB, said the organization's list and that of LoJack were like comparing "peaches and grapes," but he was not surprised at LoJack's stolen car rankings.
Honda Accords "are very popular cars. Those things tend to be stolen anyway," Scafidi said, adding that it's unclear how many Honda Accords are on the road.
Read More: GM Recalls 500 Pickups, SUVs for Air Bag Controls
"Year after year, the Honda Accord continues to be a top seller at car dealerships throughout the United States for a variety of reasons, including their reliability," said Patrick Clancy, the vice president of law enforcement for LoJack Corporation. "That means year after year there are more Accords on the road, getting into car accidents or needing parts for repair."
Because car parts are often interchangeable over multiple model years, thieves can get up to three times the value of the vehicle if they sell it for parts, Clancy said.
"All of these factors result in an increased demand for parts to service Accords, which makes stealing this make and model a very lucrative business for the professional thief," he said.
Read More: 3 Ways to Be a Better Car Buyer
Chris Naughton, a spokesman for Honda, said in a statement, "While we cannot completely account for criminal behavior, it is important to note that the Accord has been one of the most popular vehicles in the U.S. for over 30 years, and in 2013 it was the best-selling new car to individual American buyers. Quality, reliability and durability are hallmarks of the Honda brand, and more Honda vehicles sold in the last 25 years are still on the road than any other brand."
Naughton from Honda said it is not clear how many total units are on the road, but the company has built over 10 million Accords in Marysville, Ohio, over the last 30 years.
In Photos: The Coolest, Most Expensive or Rare Cars
Naughton added that the company continues to equip its new vehicles with the "latest security devices," including the Immobilizer Theft-Deterrent System, which prevents a car's engine from starting without a properly encoded key.
Here's LoJack's list of most stolen cars that have its security system:
1. Honda Accord
2. Honda Civic
3. Toyota Camry
4. Toyota Corolla
5. Chevy Silverado
6. Acura Integra
7. Cadillac Escalade
8. Ford F350
9. Nissan Altima
10. Chevy Tahoe | – Different types of cars rotate in and out of various best-of categories every year, except for one long-time champ: Honda Accord in the odd field of most-stolen vehicle. A new list by car-security company LoJack has the Accord at No. 1 for the fifth straight year, reports NBC News. And it's no statistical fluke on the part of the company: An annual list put out by the National Insurance Crime Bureau also has had the Accord in the top spot for five years' running. So is the Accord particularly vulnerable to break-ins? Not so much. As a LoJack VP explains to ABC News, this is more about supply and demand—for parts. The model has been a longtime favorite with buyers, and "that means year after year there are more Accords on the road, getting into car accidents or needing parts for repair." The upshot is that car thieves can steal an Accord, sell it for parts, and make three times the value of the vehicle, says Patrick Clancy. The top 10 most stolen: Honda Accord Honda Civic Toyota Camry Toyota Corolla Chevy Silverado Acura Integra Cadillac Escalade Ford F350 Nissan Altima Chevy Tahoe |
An orca named J35 has finally dropped her dead calf, which she'd been pushing with her head for at least 17 days and 1,000 miles off the Pacific Northwest coast, in an unprecedented show of mourning that drew international attention.
The sad spectacle was a prime example, and confirmation, of the complex emotional lives of these sophisticated cetaceans, experts say.
Other orcas, and similar animals like dolphins, have been seen apparently mourning their dead, but this is by far the longest recorded example of such behavior.
J35, nicknamed Tahlequah, is a 20-year-old member of the long-studied J Pod of Southern Resident Killer Whales. These orcas, along with their endangered extended family—K and L pods—inhabit a huge territory that includes waters off Seattle, Vancouver, and Victoria, British Columbia.
Researchers worried that this "tour of grief" might seriously endanger the health of J35, but luckily, she appears to have made it through physically unharmed. "Telephoto digital images taken from shore show that this mother whale appears to be in good physical condition," the Center for Whale Research noted in an update, "following her record-setting ordeal.
As J35’s sojourn continued, some experts wondered why she was so attached to the calf. Was it because the calf lived for about 30 minutes after it was born? Jenny Atkinson, executive director of The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, British Columbi, thinks the grief Tahlequah is feeling is deeper because after 17 months of gestation, she then had the chance to form an emotional connection with her baby before it died.
“I think that’s quite possible,” says John Ford, an orca researcher at the University of British Columbia. “The whales have a very strong drive to look after their offspring and this evidently extends to neonates that die at birth.”
The death of another calf is a significant blow to J Pod, which hasn’t seen a successful birth in three years. Combined, the three pods have 75 members, and time is running out to maintain its viability. Ken Balcomb, founder and principal investigator at the Center for Whale Research, gives it five years.
“We’ve got at most five more years of reproductive life in this population to make it happen”—meaning, to have viable offspring—"but if we don’t do it in those five years it isn’t going to happen,” he writes.
View Images J35 carried her calf for at least 17 days and 1,000 miles, and researchers had worried she'd endangered herself by expending so much effort. But now she appears in good health. Photograph courtesy Center for Whale Research (Permit #21238)
Balcomb points to a lack of food as the culprit. “We have long demonstrated that these fish-eating whales are getting skinnier and skinnier, and the death rate is increasing,” he writes on the center’s website.
“Whales in this endangered population are dependent upon Chinook salmon for their primary food source. Unfortunately, Chinook salmon are also endangered,” he adds.
Experts expressed relief that J35 survived. As a 20-year-old in her prime, the pod needs her to reproduce.
“Even without this death, this is a population in crisis,” Atkinson says. “They need our stewardship and support if they are to survive.” ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video
FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash. -- A southern resident orca mother carried her dead calf in the waters off Washington's coast for a 10th straight day Thursday, in what researchers are calling a "tour of grief."
Affiliates of the Center for Whale Research spotted J35 - known as Tahlequah - carrying her dead calf in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, according to Taylor Shedd of Soundwatch. She trailed slightly behind the main J-Pod, but was accompanied by her immediate family.
The whales appeared to be headed west to open waters.
J35 was first spotted July 24 carrying the calf on her nose and in her mouth. The calf was only seen alive briefly. By the time biologists from the Center for Whale Research arrived at her side, the calf was dead.
On Wednesday, the calf was seen decomposing and had lots its rigidity.
Shedd told Q13 News he asked whale watching vessels to keep their distance from J35 and J50, a 4-year-old orca that was seen earlier this month severely emaciated.
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Michael Weiss, a field biologist with the Center for Whale Research, said whale watching boats were mostly voluntarily keeping their distance from the grieving orca.
Researchers across the field said J35's actions are unprecedented. The traumatic scene unfolding day after day has weighed on scientists who watch the mammals closely.
"As it's gone on, it's become less shocking," Weiss said. "It's no less sad and I think we're all just tired. Everyone who is on the water with her hopes that she will let it go soon."
J35 is in OK shape, and her breathing has grown less labored as the days go on. She is being fed with the help of her close family, Weiss said. And her son, J47, hasn't moved far from her side.
"I find it very interesting to watch," Weiss said of the close relationship between J35 and J47.
An audio recording of what appeared to be J35 making "mournful and prominent" calls was given to Q13 News by Michael Harris, a well known marine expert and conservationist.
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Q13 News will update this story at 4 and 5 p.m. ||||| As an orca mother shoulders her dead calf through the coastal waters of British Columbia and Washington state for a ninth day, government officials, scientists and volunteers are warning off vessels approaching the grieving whale and her pod.
"We've had enforcement folks out every day to ensure that where there may be boating behaviour that's not appropriate,” Department of Fisheries and Oceans marine mammal co-ordinator Paul Cottrell told CTV News. “[Boaters] are being educated and also dealt with."
The sight of the whale, labeled J35, has generated international interest with the poignant photos of the orca gently raising her calf above the water’s surface. This type of grieving ritual is well-documented, but J35 has carried it out much longer than scientists have observed before.
J-pod, the group of 75 related Southern Resident killer whales, has followed J35 through the Salish Sea during the grieving ritual. Scientists believe they’re feeding the mourning mother from their own salmon catch as she remains fixated on the calf. But officials are increasingly concerned she’s exhausting herself by continuing the funereal tour through local waters.
“[It’s a matter of] the sheer amount of effort J35 is expending with maintaining the calf in tow and also diving down as it sinks to pick it back up," explains Cottrell.
J35 gave birth off Victoria’s Clover Point on July 24. Officials still aren’t sure if the female calf was stillborn or died shortly after and are counting on a necropsy to determine when she died and why.
A sprawling joint effort between Canadian and American volunteers and federal officials is tracking the pod as they criss-cross through the Gulf and San Juan Islands and even approach populated areas. On Monday, Taylor Shedd documented J35 shepherding the dead calf in the waters near Deltaport with the piles of coal and cranes visible in the background.
Officials aren’t revealing the exact location of the pod at this point out of concern more boaters will want to see the grieving whale for themselves, only saying J35 and her pod are in Canadian waters and under the jurisdiction of DFO.
While the agency is warning mariners to stay away from J-pod, they ask anyone who sees a whale in distress from the water or shore to immediately report it to their incident line at 1-800-465-4335. A quick response could mean the difference between successful intervention and a long, drawn-out search for an injured mammal.
Not only has the calf’s brief life tugged at international heartstrings, it’s triggered more concern among the scientific community. Despite a baby boom three years ago, none of the orca calves born to the resident killer whale group since the start of 2016 has survived and their preferred food source of fatty chinook salmon continues to dwindle.
Researchers such as Victoria marine zoologist Dr. Anna Hall say the salmon will ultimately be their key to survival.
“All of the actions that have taken place to date are terrific and we need to keep moving forward,” she told CTV News last week. “One of the important messages is continuing to make sure there are sufficient salmon particularly chinook salmon for the killer whales.”
There are only 75 whales in J-pod, and a four year-old whale known as J-50 is cause for concern as the youngster looks underfed to trained observers tracking the group. Researchers plan to use photogrammetry from a distance in the coming days to see how she’s faring.
That won’t happen until J35 gives up her dead calf and moves on.
“It’s a sad situation,” says Cottrell, who’s urging long weekend mariners to steer clear.
“We want people to respect the rules and the regulations put in place to ensure [the whales] are protected and they're not disturbed and they can do what they need to do. We want this population to thrive and recover." ||||| Members of a pod of endangered killer whales now appear to be taking turns floating the body of a newborn calf that died more than week ago.
As It Happens reported on Friday about J-35, a mother orca from B.C.'s endangered killer whale population that has been balancing her dead calf on her nose near San Juan Island, Wash.
It's now been more than a week and the mother whale is still carrying the calf's remains — sparking concerns among researchers that she'll tire herself out.
"We do know her family is sharing the responsibility of caring for this calf, that she's not always the one carrying it, that they seem to take turns," Jenny Atkinson, director of the Whale Museum on San Juan Island, told As It Happens guest host Piya Chattopadhyay.
"While we don't have photos of the other whales carrying it, because we've seen her so many times without the calf, we know that somebody else has it."
New audio released
The Whale Museum released an audio recording on Monday of the mother communicating with her pod.
"You're hearing them communicate with one another. They're using a series of calls and whistles to communicate. And then you'll hear a clicking noise. That's echo-location," Atkinson said.
"They use it to pick up their food source as well as map their underwater environment."
The Whale Museum recorded the sound of the killer whale pod communicating to each other off San Juan Island, using geo-location to alert each other to potential obstacles and food sources. 0:20
She said it's possible the sounds are related to their mourning of the calf — but researchers can't know for sure.
"We picked up some calls earlier in the week and we hear things that sounded more like a very urgent call," she said. "If you think of going to a wake for a family, things can go on for multiple days and the grief is still deep, but the emotions kind of soften."
A whale funeral
That's exactly what Atkinson believes the whales are doing with the calf — holding their own version of a wake or a funeral.
"Ceremonies can go on for days to honour and mourn the loss of a loved one," she said. "I think that what you're seeing is the depth of importance of this calf and the grief of the mother and the family."
This July 25 photo shows the orca mother, J35, balancing her dead baby on her nose trying to keep it afloat. (Ken Balcomb/Centre for Whale Research)
Anthropologist Barbara King, who studies animal emotion, agrees the whale's behaviour is likely a display of grief.
There is a body of evidence that shows whales and dolphins mark the passing of their dead, King told CBC's On The Coast.
Sometimes they will surround dead companions, showing curiosity or exploration, King said. Other times, it goes further: they keep vigils around the bodies of dead podmates or keep them afloat.
"It's not anthropomorphic to use this label for them," King said. "Grief and love are not human qualities. They're things we share with some other animals."
Population in crisis
The southern resident killer whale population consists of three orca pods that live around the coast of Oregon, Washington and Vancouver Island.
Their numbers are dwindling and they haven't have a successful birth since 2015.
After the death of a 23-year-old orca June, the total number of southern resident killer whales is down to 75, the lowest it's been since the early '80s. The population has dropped by eight since 2016.
This orca mother has been holding her dead calf afloat for more than a week in a "heartbreaking" ritual.<br><br>Read more at <a href="https://t.co/LPrUsQCzDj">https://t.co/LPrUsQCzDj</a> <a href="https://t.co/FgsHnWrgTw">pic.twitter.com/FgsHnWrgTw</a> —@CBCNews
Their decline is attributed largely to a lack of available chinook salmon, their primary food source.
Researchers are already worried that another young whale in the pod — J-50 — could be the next to die. The four-year-old is becoming increasingly emaciated.
"I don't see how she can survive," Dave Ellifrit of the Center for Whale Research, told the Seattle Times.
In May, Canada's federal government announced plans to cut the allowable catch of chinook by 25 to 35 per cent.
In June, it announced further measures to help the endangered population, including reducing underwater vessel noise and better monitoring of pollution.
Human empathy
Atkinson said it's not hard to see why people have had such visceral reactions to images of J-35 and her calf.
"Watching what she's going through, most people have been through some level of grief and have had some situation that this touches, because they can understand losing a child, losing a calf, and how heart-wrenching that is," she said.
"And then not to be able to do anything when humans like to take action. We like to be able to do stuff. Sometimes the hardest thing is just to sit back and give respect and be a witness to a situation."
Written by Sheena Goodyear. Interview with Jenny Atkinson produced by Samantha Lui. | – An orca who spent more than a week carrying her calf following its July 24 death now has some help. Other orcas in the pod swimming through Pacific Northwest waters near the US-Canada border are taking turns carrying the corpse after the effort caused the 20-year-old mother known as J35 to fall behind with labored breathing. Trailing the main pod with improved breathing, J35 was seen with the now-decomposing corpse Thursday in the Strait of Juan de Fuca alongside immediate family members who are keeping her fed, per KCPQ. But "because we've seen her so many times without the calf, we know that somebody else has it," Jenny Atkinson of San Juan Island's Whale Museum tells the CBC. The same pod held a similar display 15 years ago, but this is the longest period of orca mourning on record, per National Geographic. Audio recordings indeed suggest the pod is using calls and whistles perhaps related to mourning. They sound "more like a very urgent call," says Atkinson. "I think that what you're seeing is the depth of importance of this calf and the grief of the mother and the family." It's a tight-knit one: There are just 75 orcas in three pods in the southern resident population around Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver Island, down from 83 in 2016. None have seen a successful birth since 2015. Amid indications a 4-year-old orca might be starving, an expert describes "at most five more years" in which to try to birth viable offspring. Declines in Chinook salmon have hit the population hard, per Nat Geo. Canada hopes to lend a hand by limiting catches of the fish, while experts hope a necropsy will reveal how J35's calf died, per CTV News. Of course, it must be abandoned first. |
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor (AP)
Vice President Biden has chosen Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to swear him in later this month, making her the fourth woman and first Hispanic to administer the presidential or vice-presidential oath.
President Obama will stick with tradition and be sworn in by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. The two stumbled through the ceremony four years ago, and had to take a do-over later to make sure constitutional standards were met.
The Presidential Inaugural Committee made the announcement Friday morning. The justices will administer the oaths to Obama and Biden twice, at the "private" swearing-in on the constitutionally mandated date of Sunday, Jan. 20, and again during the public ceremony on Monday, Jan. 21.
The committee said three women have previously sworn in presidents and vice presidents: Judge Sarah T. Hughes swore in President Johnson in 1963; Justice Sandra Day O’Connor swore in Vice President Dan Quayle in 1989; and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg swore-in Vice President Al Gore in 1997.
"It's an incredible honor to have Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor swear me in,” Vice President Biden said. “I believed strongly that she would make a great Justice, and it was one of the greatest pleasures of my career to be involved in her selection to the Court. From the first time I met her, I was impressed by Justice Sotomayor’s commitment to justice and opportunity for all Americans, and she continues to exemplify those values today. Above all, I’m happy for the chance to be sworn in by a friend – and someone I know will continue to do great things.” ||||| FILE - In this Jan. 20, 2009, file photo, Barack Obama, left, takes the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts, not seen, as his wife Michelle, holds the Lincoln Bible and daughters Sasha, right... (Associated Press)
Formally embarking on his second term, President Barack Obama will take the oath of office Sunday surrounded by family in an intimate inauguration at the White House, 24 hours before re-enacting the ceremony before an excited crowd of hundreds of thousands outdoors at the Capitol.
The subdued swearing-in is a function of the calendar and the Constitution, which says presidents automatically begin their new terms at noon on Jan. 20. Because that date fell this year on a Sunday _ a day on which inaugural ceremonies historically are not held _ organizers scheduled a second, public swearing-in for Monday.
A crowd of up to 800,000 people is expected to gather on the National Mall to witness that event, which will take place on the Capitol's red, white and blue bunting-draped west front. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who famously flubbed the oath of office that Obama took in 2009, will swear the president in both days.
Vice President Joe Biden will also be sworn in Sunday in a small, early morning ceremony at the Naval Observatory, his official residence. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was appointed by Obama during his first term, will administer the oath of office to the vice president.
Once the celebrations are over, Obama will plunge into a second-term agenda still dominated by the economy, which slowly churned out of recession during his first four years in office. The president will also seek to cement his legacy with sweeping domestic changes, pledging to achieve both an immigration overhaul and stricter gun laws despite opposition from a divided Congress.
But for one weekend at least, Washington was putting politics aside. Obama called the nation's inaugural traditions "a symbol of how our democracy works and how we peacefully transfer power."
"But it should also be an affirmation that we're all in this together," he said Saturday, as he opened a weekend of inaugural activities at a Washington elementary school.
Only a small group of family members is expected to attend Obama's Sunday swearing-in, including first lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha. A small group of reporters will also be in the room to witness the event.
Roberts will administer the oath of office shortly before noon in the White House Blue Room, an oval space with majestic views of the South Lawn and the Washington Monument. Named for the color of the drapes, upholstery and carpet, the Blue Room is not typically used for ceremonies and instead has primarily been a reception room as well as the site of the only presidential wedding held in the White House, between then-President Grover Cleveland and Frances Folsum in 1886.
Later Sunday, Obama and Biden will speak at an inaugural reception attended by supporters.
But the president will save his most expansive remarks for Monday, when he delivers his second inaugural address to the crowd gathered on the Mall and millions more watching across the country and the world. Obama started working on the speech in early December and was still tinkering with it into the weekend, aides said.
The president's address will set the stage for the policy objectives he seeks to achieve in his second term, including speeding up the economic recovery, passing comprehensive immigration and gun control measures and ending the war in Afghanistan. However, aides said Obama would save the specifics of those agenda items for his Feb. 12 State of the Union address.
The president launched a weekend of inaugural activities Saturday by heading up a National Day of Service. Along with his family, Obama helped hundreds of volunteers spruce up a Washington area elementary school.
His shirt sleeves rolled up, Obama donned a pair of rubber gloves, picked up a paint brush and helped volunteers stain a bookshelf.
Obama added the service event to the inaugural schedule in 2009 and is hoping it becomes a tradition followed for future presidents.
Mrs. Obama, speaking to volunteers Sunday, espoused the importance of giving back in the midst of the weekend of pomp, circumstance and celebration.
"The reason why we're here, why we're standing here, why we're able to celebrate this weekend is because a lot of people worked hard and supported us, and we've got a job to do and this is a symbol of the kind of work that we need to be doing the next four years," Michelle Obama said at Burrville Elementary.
___
Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC ||||| Barack Obama and John Roberts were all smiles when the chief justice swore in the president on Sunday — a cordial performance they’ll likely repeat during the public swearing-in on Monday.
But the serene tableau obscures the tumultuous relationship between the two since their first awkward public interaction during the botched oath of office four years ago.
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reset Inauguration 2013: Obama official swearing-in
On Sunday, Roberts read the oath from a piece of paper — and both men seemed relieved when it was over. They exchanged congratulations and thanks, and then Obama turned to his daughter Sasha. “I did it,” he told her. “You didn’t mess up,” she replied.
(See also: Complete coverage of the Inauguration 2013)
The historical fates of Obama and Roberts are more intertwined than those of any chief justice and president in recent decades. For much of Obama’s first four years in office, the pair seemed to be at loggerheads — particularly after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision upheld corporations’ right to spend money on elections. Obama trashed the ruling at his State of the Union Address with Roberts and six other justices sitting right in front of him.
The tension lifted briefly and dramatically last June, when Roberts joined with Democrats on the court to uphold a pivotal part of Obama’s signature health care reform law, the individual mandate. But experts predict the Roberts-led court will continue to challenge the president’s policies in areas that will shape the future of the nation, including affirmative action, immigration and the environment.
(PHOTOS: Obama’s first term)
And that means the two men, each with a keen sense of his place in history, are likely to clash again during Obama’s second term.
“When you have a president and a chief justice of distinctly opposing philosophies, that’s a recipe for conflict, and it has been one, and it will be one,” said Jeffrey Toobin, an author of several books on the court and a legal analyst for CNN. “I don’t think there has been a level of ideological conflict between the president and the chief justice like this since the ’30s.”
Other analysts say it’s still too early to say whether the Obama-Roberts rivalry is destined for the history books.
“The Obama and Roberts differences are real and meaningful and will probably find expression in a number of other important cases over the next four years,” said Jeff Shesol, author of “Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. The Supreme Court.” “Whether it rises to the level of other kinds of presidential-judicial rivalries is something we’ll probably have to judge in retrospect.”
Obama and Roberts’s relationship got off to a famously rocky start during the 2009 Inauguration, when Obama jumped in prematurely to recite the oath and the chief justice then mangled the wording. Both men reportedly apologized for the episode, which Roberts may have exacerbated by trying to recite the oath by memory. The White House summoned him to the Map Room for a do-over the next day, just to make sure Obama was officially the president.
(PHOTOS: 10 inaugural controversies from history)
The first big flash point came about a year later, when the Supreme Court handed down the Citizens United decision. Obama immediately denounced it as “a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics” and “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.” | – Washington is still putting the finishing touches on tomorrow's every-four-years inauguration party, but it'll be a day late: President Obama will quietly be sworn in for a second term today, due to a Constitutional quirk that mandates that the commander in chief be sworn in at noon on January 20. Because that fell on a Sunday, when inaugurations aren't held, Obama will take the oath at the White House today and tomorrow's ceremony is essentially a re-enactment, reports the AP. Chief Justice John Roberts—who famously flubbed the oath four years ago—will swear the president in both times, notes Politico in a look at the at-times tempestuous relationship between the two men. Joe Biden was also sworn in this morning in a small ceremony at the Naval Observatory, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor administering the oath. Roll Call notes that he used a 5-inch-thick Bible that had been in his family since 1893; Sotomayor is the first Hispanic justice to swear in a president or vice president, reports the Washington Post. "Above all, I’m happy for the chance to be sworn in by a friend—and someone I know will continue to do great things," said Biden. |
As testimony in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing trial continues past its first week, New...
As testimony in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing trial continues past its first week, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie faces a new problem: a citizen's criminal complaint filed against him in Fort Lee Municipal Court. Brian Thompson reports. (Published Thursday, Sep 29, 2016)
As testimony in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing trial continues past its first week, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie faces a new problem: a citizen's criminal complaint filed against him in Fort Lee Municipal Court. Brian Thompson reports. (Published Thursday, Sep 29, 2016)
What to Know David Wildstein has pleaded guilty in the scheme to tie up traffic at the bridge
Ex-Christie staffers Bridget Kelly and Bill Baroni face fraud, conspiracy and civil rights charges in the case
Christie has repeatedly denied knowing anything about the scheme until long after it was carried out
As testimony in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing trial continues past its first week, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie faces a new problem: a citizen's criminal complaint filed against him in Fort Lee Municipal Court.
Bergen County activist Bill Brennan told NBC 4 New York that he filed the complaint of official misconduct in the second degree on Wednesday. A court official confirmed the filing.
Brennan said the case has cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars and added of the main players in the case: "When listening to the nonchalant manner in which these people are discussing, the magnitude of the pettiness, is just absurd."
Brennan said his criminal complaint of the governor was over the government's star witness David Wildstein's accusation that the governor knew by midweek about the lane shutdowns for political retaliation against Fort Lee's mayor, as well as the governor's subsequent failure to seek criminal prosecution of his staffers once he found out.
Witness: Christie Knew About GWB Lane Closures
A former official at the Port Authority says Governor Christie knew the GWB lane closures were happening. Brian Thompson reports. (Published Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016)
The governor is on record repeatedly, and as late as Tuesday, denying he was told about the closures the week of the shutdown.
The citizen's complaint was sent to the Superior Court in Hackensack, per state law, according to the court official in Fort Lee.
According to a legal expert, if a superior court judge determines a probable cause, the case would go to a county prosecutor, and then if that office moves forward, to a grand jury.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC New York ||||| The Fort Lee lane closure scandal, also known as the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal or Bridgegate,[1][2] is a U.S. political scandal in which a staff member and political appointees of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, colluded to create traffic jams in Fort Lee, New Jersey, by closing lanes at the main toll plaza[3][4] for the upper level of the George Washington Bridge.[5]
The problems began on Monday, September 9, 2013, when two of three toll lanes for a local street entrance were closed during morning rush hour. Local officials, emergency services, and the public were not notified of the lane closures, which Fort Lee declared a threat to public safety.[6] The resulting back-ups and gridlock on local streets ended only when the two lanes were reopened on Friday, September 13, 2013, by an order from Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye. He said that the "hasty and ill-informed decision" could have endangered lives and violated federal and state laws.[7]
It was later suggested that the lanes had been closed to intentionally cause the massive traffic problem for political reasons, and especially theorized that they were a retribution attack against Fort Lee's Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat who had not supported Christie as a candidate in the 2013 New Jersey gubernatorial election. The ensuing investigations centered on several of Christie's appointees and staff, including[8] David Wildstein, who ordered the lanes closed,[10] and Bill Baroni, who had told the New Jersey Assembly Transportation Committee that the closures were for a traffic study.[11]
The United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey Paul J. Fishman launched a massive federal investigation,[12] resulting in a sweeping nine-count indictment against Bridget Anne Kelly, the deputy chief of staff, Baroni and Wildstein.[13] Wildstein entered a guilty plea, and testified against Baroni and Kelly, who were found guilty on all counts in November 2016.[14] David Samson pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy in July 2016, for acts unrelated to the lane closures but unearthed by the federal Bridgegate investigation.[15]
Governor Chris Christie's political standing was badly damaged by the scandal.[16][17][18][19][20] Once considered a leading contender for the 2016 Republican nomination for President, Christie dropped out of the presidential race after a poor showing in the New Hampshire primary. The scandal was widely cited as a major factor in the early demise of Christie's 2016 presidential ambitions.[21][22][23][24][25] Christie called Bridgegate "a factor" in why he was bypassed by Donald Trump as the vice presidential nominee.[26][27] In September 2016, both the prosecution and the defense in the trial of two of Christie's former aides argued that Christie knew of his close associates' involvement in a plan to shut down lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge as it was happening, and that the closings were to punish Sokolich for declining to support Christie's reelection bid.[28] This was the first time Christie had been officially accused of contemporaneous knowledge of the plot.[29]
Background [ edit ]
"Bridgegate" entrance, customary three rush-hour toll lanes (20, 22, 24)
The George Washington Bridge, a double-decked toll bridge, is the busiest motor-vehicle bridge in the world,[30][31] with a toll charge for traffic from New Jersey to New York.[32] At the time, there were 29 operating toll lanes,[33] spread among three toll plazas.[34][35][36] At the main toll plaza for the upper level, there were twelve toll lanes and a Fort Lee entrance at Martha Washington Way (also called Park Avenue).[3] During rush hours, for the previous 30 years or longer,[37](p86) the three lanes located furthest to the right (the south end of the toll plaza) were ordinarily reserved for local traffic entering from Fort Lee and the surrounding communities.[4] This local traffic was segregated by movable traffic cones from the heavier traffic of the major highways.[38] There were other Fort Lee street entrances, which did not have dedicated toll lanes, to the lower and upper levels of the bridge.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ or simply the PA), the owner of the bridge, was overseen by a Board of Commissioners. Under an informal power-sharing agreement, the Governor of New Jersey chose the chairman of the board and the deputy executive director, while the Governor of New York chose the vice-chairman and executive director.[39][40]
Chris Christie, a Republican, was first elected Governor of New Jersey in November 2009 and re-elected in November 2013. During his first term, he appointed Bill Baroni as deputy executive director of the PA.[41] David Wildstein, a local politician and political blogger who had known Christie during high school, was hired by Baroni based on Christie's referral and recommendation in May 2010.[42][43] As director of interstate capital projects, Wildstein was New Jersey's second highest executive at the Port Authority,[44] and often substituted for Baroni at major meetings.[42]
Events [ edit ]
During the week of August 4, 2013, Christie met with David Samson, Christie's appointed chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Port Authority. The deputy speaker of the New Jersey Assembly, John Wisniewski, who, as chair of the Assembly Transportation Committee had been leading the Assembly's investigation into the closures, alleged that David Wildstein, the Christie appointee who ordered the closures, must have believed the meeting was related to the lane closures, because a reference to the meeting was included in the subpoenaed documents Wildstein submitted in which all information not pertaining to the Fort Lee lane closures had been redacted.[45]
On August 13, Bridget Anne Kelly, deputy chief of staff in Christie's office, sent an eight-word e-mail to David Wildstein that read, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."[46] Wildstein responded to Kelly's e-mail: "Got it."[47]
On September 6, Wildstein instructed George Washington Bridge manager Robert Durando not to tell anyone in Fort Lee about the upcoming closure, not even the police. When Durando questioned the order, which he thought was "odd" since he had never been instructed in his 35-year career not to tell host town officials about an event that would disrupt traffic, Wildstein told him "it would impact the study" if people knew and Wildstein "wanted to see what would naturally happen".[48]
Wildstein sent an e-mail the same day to Kelly informing her that Christie had approved $60,000 to fund a traffic study for Springfield in Union County. The Democratic mayor, David Amlen, did not endorse Christie for re-election and was not informed of the approval of their requested traffic study until after Christie won re-election.[49]
Closure [ edit ]
On Monday, September 9, 2013, prior to the morning rush hour on the first day of the school year,[50] two of the three dedicated toll lanes at one of the Fort Lee entrances[3][4] to the upper level of the GW Bridge were closed to local use, and were reallocated to the main highway traffic, on orders from Wildstein without notification to Fort Lee government and police officials. In an area that normally experiences a great deal of traffic, the lane closings caused a significant increase in traffic congestion. This led to major delays for school transportation and police and emergency responses within Fort Lee, both during and after the peak hours of travel.[4][50]
According to the Fort Lee emergency medical services coordinator, traffic jams delayed paramedic response times, including a 9-1-1 call for Florence Genova, who subsequently died of cardiac arrest.[51][52] In January 2014, her daughter told The New York Times that she "wants to stay out of it. It's not political". She noted her mother's advanced age (91) and opined that "it was just her time".[53]
In at least one instance, emergency medical workers were forced to leave their ambulance and respond on foot because traffic congestion was so heavy. Emergency responders were delayed nearly one hour in rendering assistance to a man experiencing chest pains.[55]
Within hours of the closure, various Port Authority officials were being told that the traffic delays posed a threat to public safety. At 9:29 a.m., Matthew Bell, a special assistant to Bill Baroni, e-mailed Baroni regarding "urgent matter of public safety in Fort Lee". Fort Lee Borough Administrator Peggy Thomas e-mailed the PA's director of government and community relations, Tina Lado, with her concerns, noting that police and emergency departments received no advance notice of the closures.[56] At 11:24 a.m., Lado e-mailed both Wildstein and Baroni informing them that due to the closures, police and ambulances were having difficulty responding to emergencies. That e-mail noted two specific incidents: a missing child (later found) and a cardiac arrest.[57][58] These safety warnings were reportedly ignored.[56]
At the federal trial of Baroni and Kelly, Fort Lee Police Chief Keith Bendul testified that he had reached Durando on that Monday, who asked for a meeting not at the PA office, but in a nearby municipal parking lot. "I thought it was cloak and dagger." Durando spoke of the traffic study, and Bendul demanded its ending, citing the various safety problems. "I told [Durando] bluntly that if anybody dies, I'm going to tell those people to sue him and everybody at the Port Authority." A nervous Durando told Bendul that Sokolich should contact Baroni, and added that "if anybody asked if this meeting occurred, he [Durando] would deny it," Bendul testified.[59]
Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Kelly e-mailed Wildstein and asked about his response, if any, to Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich. Wildstein responded: "Radio silence. His name comes right after Mayor Fulop [of Jersey City]."[60]
PAPD Lieutenant Thomas "Chip" Michaels, a Christie childhood friend,[61] ordered his subordinates not to touch the cones,[62] and chauffeured Wildstein around the Fort Lee area on an observation tour,[61] and updated Wildstein on traffic conditions throughout the week, via text messages.[61]
On Tuesday, September 10, Sokolich texted Baroni: "Presently we have four very busy traffic lanes merging into only one toll booth ... bigger problem is getting kids to school. Help please. It's maddening."[41] Kelly's text message exchange with Wildstein referred to the mayor's message. Kelly asked, "Is it wrong that I am smiling?" Wildstein replied, "No." Kelly then wrote, "I feel badly about the kids. I guess." Wildstein responded, "They are the children of Buono voters," referring to Barbara Buono, Christie's Democratic opponent in the November election.[61][63][64]
Twelve-year veteran PAPD Officer Steve Pisciotta was stationed near the affected entrance, and reported over his radio about hazardous conditions created by the severe traffic. PAPD Deputy Inspector Darcy Licorish radioed back, "Shut up," and that there should be no over-the-air discussion of the closure. Lt. Michaels and PAPD Sgt. Nadine Rhem later visited Pisciotta in person, warning that his communication was inappropriate.[65]
On Wednesday, September 11, Robert Durando said in a Port Authority e-mail that if the automated toll lanes were closed permanently in favor of one manned lane for local traffic, it would be "very expensive" since annual toll-collector costs would increase approximately $600,000. This would have covered overtime, as well as stationing reserve employees when a scheduled toll collector was not able to work. He said there would be additional, but still to be determined costs, for PA police due to their coverage of traffic for a greatly extended rush hour.[66][67]
Christie, Wildstein, Samson and Baroni were photographed together at the site of the World Trade Center during a commemoration of the 12th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.[10] On that occasion, Wildstein later testified, Baroni sarcastically told Christie, "Governor, there is a tremendous amount of traffic in Fort Lee, please know Mayor Sokolich is frustrated he can't get his calls returned," to which Christie was said to have responded, "I imagine they wouldn't be getting their calls returned." According to Wildstein, Baroni then told Christie that Wildstein would monitor the traffic, and Christie responded, "Well, I'm sure Mr. Edge wouldn't be involved in anything political," and laughed.[68][69] ("Wally Edge" was the pseudonymous persona used by Wildstein in his earlier highly political blog.)[42]
On Thursday, September 12, PA engineers said that reported delays for local traffic greatly exceeded any time savings for the major highway traffic based on reported information for vehicle travel times on Interstate 95 and local traffic counts from that week. In an internal PowerPoint presentation, it was estimated that the extra daily morning rush hour time, 2,800 vehicle-hours, endured by local traffic on a typical day greatly outweighed time savings, 966 vehicle-hours, for the I-95 traffic.[70]
Sokolich wrote to Baroni that "many members of the public have informed me that the PA police officers are advising commuters ... that this recent traffic debacle is the result of a decision that I, as the Mayor, recently made."[71]
According to his later testimony, John Ma (the chief of staff to the Port Authority's executive director, Patrick Foye), with Foye's knowledge beforehand, tipped off John Cichowski, the "Road Warrior" columnist for The Record. "I told him, off the record, that to my knowledge there was no traffic study and that the lane closures had been ordered by David Wildstein."[72] Cichowski contacted the PA to ask about the delays, and this contact appeared on that evening's internal PA report of media contacts, getting the attention of Foye.[73]
Re-opening and immediate aftermath [ edit ]
On Friday morning, September 13, 2013, Patrick Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority and an appointee of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, ordered that the lanes be reopened in a strongly worded 7:44 AM e-mail to senior PA officials and staff, including Bill Baroni and David Samson. In the e-mail, Foye called the decision to close the lanes "hasty and ill-advised", said that the decision violated policy and long-standing custom at the PA, and that he believed that closing the lanes "violates Federal Law and the laws of both States." Foye asked his spokesman to get the word out. Upon learning this, Baroni attempted to prevent any disclosure in order to keep the public in the dark.[74][75] Additionally, Baroni forwarded the e-mail to Regina Egea, Christie's Director of the authorities unit overseeing the PA, three hours after it was sent by Foye.[67][76]
Foye would later testify that Baroni met with him two times on that Friday, pressing for reinstatement of the closure, saying it was "important to Trenton," or else "Trenton" would call, which Foye understood to mean Christie's office. "I said they should call," Foye testified. "I opened [the lanes], I was not closing them." However, Foye did approve a press release that he knew falsely cited a "traffic study."[77]
During and after the lane closures, "hundreds of pages of e-mails and internal documents" showed "how Christie loyalists inside the PA worked to orchestrate a cover-up after traffic mayhem" in Fort Lee. In September, as more reporters began asking about the GW Bridge problems, officials conferred on how to respond.[78] On September 13, The Record reported the outrage commuters were expressing toward the PA following days of long, inbound delays, and Fort Lee officials' unsuccessful efforts to get an explanation.[79] Then on September 16, a Wall Street Journal reporter asked PA spokesman Coleman about what had occurred after some Journal editors had been in traffic the previous week. "Coleman passed the query up the chain of command" and Wildstein forwarded it to Baroni, commenting "I call bullshit on this." Further inquiries were directed by Coleman to Baroni and Wildstein, asking how they wanted the PA to respond, and Wildstein forwarded one of these inquiries to Christie's press secretary and chief spokesman, Michael Drewniak. Coleman also wrote to Baroni and Wildstein, "I will not respond unless instructed to do so."[78]
On September 17, Wildstein informed Baroni that he had received a call from Wall Street Journal reporter Tedd Mann. "Jesus", Baroni replied, "Call Drewniak".[11]
The e-mails showed efforts by Christie appointees in the PA and his office in Trenton to respond to the aftermath and media inquiries for the toll lane closures. The participants included Baroni, Wildstein, and PA Chairman Samson, as well as Drewniak and Maria Comella, Communications Director. In a September 18 e-mail, Samson warned that Foye is "playing in traffic, made a big mistake" in response to a leak to The Wall Street Journal for their September 17 story citing unnamed PA officials as saying the decision to close the toll lanes had caused tensions within the bi-state agency.[8][80]
In other communications, officials used an ethnic pejorative to refer to the Fort Lee mayor. In an e-mail from Wildstein responding to Bill Stepien, he said "It will be a tough November for this little Serbian", derogatorily referring to Sokolich, who is Croatian-American.[81] Baroni referred to "Serbia" in text messages in another apparent reference to Mayor Sokolich.[82][83] Sokolich told The Huffington Post: "That slight is offensive to me, and it's offensive to me of everyone of Serbian background. If I were Serbian, I would be absolutely, positively appalled by it."[84] The Serbian remarks received the attention of Serbian and Croatian media, and was commented upon by the Serbian government's Office for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region.[84]
On October 9, Philippe Danielides, a senior adviser to Samson, e-mailed Wildstein a daily news summary and asked "Has any thought been given to writing an op-ed or providing a statement about the GWB study? Or is the plan just to hunker down and grit our way through it?" Wildstein replied "Yes and yes" and forwarded these e-mails to Baroni.[78] Wildstein sought advice from Drewniak, with the two meeting in person on December 4.[85] On December 6, Wildstein announced he would resign at the end of the year, saying the response to the traffic lanes closure had become "a distraction". At a December 13 press conference, Christie announced the immediate resignations of Baroni and Wildstein.[11]
David Samson allegations [ edit ]
In the wake of the lane closings, the Port Authority's chairman David Samson was the subject of media reports alleging ethical violations and conflicts of interest. It was alleged that Samson's law firm and their clients profited from dealings with the Port Authority and from projects involving New Jersey government financing or tax incentives. It was also reported that Christie benefited politically and his allies benefited financially during Samson's term as chairman.[86] Patrick Foye, the Port Authority's executive director, asserted that Samson lacked the moral authority to run the agency.[87]
Calls for Samson's resignation or removal came from New Jersey officials and media sources, including The Star-Ledger,[88] The Daily News (New York),[89] The Record,[90] and The New York Times.[91] On March 4, the freeholders in Bergen County, where Fort Lee is located, called for the resignation of Samson and the other five New Jersey appointed commissioners, with the commissioners faulted for failure to exercise proper oversight.[92]
In February 2014, Christie stood firmly behind his support of Samson as PA chairman.[93]
On March 28, 2014, Christie announced that Samson had offered his resignation from the Port Authority, effective immediately. They both agreed with the recommended Port Authority reforms in the March 26 report commissioned by the governor's office for an investigation of Bridgegate allegations. The report did not mention any involvement by Samson (who had refused to be interviewed) in any Bridgegate events, or any of the other allegations during his role as PA chairman.[94][95] On April 29, 2014, Christie nominated John J. Degnan, a former state attorney general, as Samson's replacement, later confirmed by the New Jersey state senate.[96][97]
On July 14, 2016, Samson pleaded guilty to a felony for conspiring to impede an airplane hangar project that was important to United Airlines in order to force the airline to reinstate a discontinued flight from Newark Airport to Columbia, South Carolina. U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman declined to say whether Samson would be cooperating in the Bridgegate case.[15][98]
Possible motives [ edit ]
The May 2015 indictments of Wildstein, Baroni and Kelly contend that the lane closures were political retribution against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, for not supporting Christie in the 2013 New Jersey gubernatorial election.[99] Sokolich initially claimed that he was asked for an endorsement once, in the spring of 2013, months before the August "time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" e-mail by Bridget Kelly to David Wildstein.[41][100] Although the two men are from different parties and an endorsement would normally not be expected, Christie ran on a platform of bipartisanship and had secured the endorsement of many other Democratic officials.[41]
In an interview on February 6, 2014, with The Record, Sokolich said that the Christie administration had courted his endorsement over a period of time going back to around 2010, when Christie invited Sokolich and a handful of other mayors, including Hoboken's Dawn Zimmer, to have lunch at the governor's mansion in Princeton. Christie was shown in a picture talking with local mayors in a lineup, including Sokolich, after a news conference in Teaneck on December 8, 2011. In 2012, Sokolich and his cousins were given a personal tour of the 9/11 Memorial Plaza by Wildstein, who repeatedly told Sokolich, "I've been told to be nice to you." Matt Mowers, regional political director for Christie's re-election campaign, who had previously worked in the governor's intergovernmental affairs office, met with Sokolich regularly in 2013 and told him about other Democrats who endorsed Christie for governor. On at least three occasions, Sokolich noted that Mowers brought up the subject of Sokolich's possible endorsement. Sokolich eventually supported Barbara Buono, Christie's Democratic opponent in the 2013 election.[101] Christie said at his January 9, 2014, press conference that Sokolich was "never on my radar screen" and that he would not "have been able to pick him [Sokolich] out of a lineup."[102]
E-mails indicated that Wildstein and Baroni were aware the closures would harm Sokolich. In an e-mail from Wildstein responding to Bill Stepien,[74] Wildstein wrote "It will be a tough November for this little Serbian", derogatorily referring to Sokolich, who is Croatian-American.[81] Baroni referred to "Serbia" in text messages in another apparent reference to mayor Sokolich.[82][83]
The May 2015 indictment, citing text messages between Wildstein, Baroni and Kelly, contended that the lane closures were designed to have maximum impact upon motorists and the city of Fort Lee. The closures targeted the first day of school, and deliberately steered cars to the cash lane, so as to maximize traffic disruption in the surrounding areas. The New York Times reported that "the three plotting like petulant and juvenile pranksters, using government resources, time and personnel to punish a public official whose sole offense was failing to endorse their political patron. The three were in constant contact, brazenly using government e-mails, their tone sometimes almost giddy. They even gave the increasingly desperate mayor of Fort Lee their own version of the silent treatment."[99]
Another theory had claimed that the closures were intended to affect Sokolich's promotion of Hudson Lights,[103] a $1 billion redevelopment project that was underway at the Fort Lee bridge access point.[104][105][106] It has been noted that "the Hudson Lights project is a billion-dollar project because it offers unparalleled access to the George Washington Bridge. But take away that access and it's no longer a billion-dollar project."[107] In a September 12, 2013, e-mail to Bill Baroni, during the time when the closure was still on-going, Mayor Sokolich raised concerns about the redevelopment project, asking "What do I do when our billion-dollar development is put on line at the end of next year?"[108]
Another theory was that the retaliation was for Sokolich's opposition to the PA's recent toll hike.[73][79]
On January 9, 2014, Steven Fulop, Mayor of Jersey City, alleged that he was also targeted for political reprisals by the Christie administration for declining to endorse Christie in the 2013 governor election.[109] His claim may be supported by a September 9, 2013, e-mail by David Wildstein after Bridget Kelly asked about his response to Fort Lee Mayor Sokolich about the toll lane closures. Wildstein responded: "Radio silence. His name comes right after Mayor Fulop."[60]
Investigations [ edit ]
According to The New York Times, the e-mails discussing the lane closure "could represent evidence that government resources were used for political purposes, a potential crime".[41] According to legal experts, federal prosecutors also could "examine whether the obstruction of interstate commerce on the bridge between New Jersey and New York" violated federal law, and either federal or state prosecutors also might "build a cover-up case, rather than one based on the traffic tie-ups themselves".[110]
On January 17, 2014, Alan Zegas, Wildstein's attorney, said that his client would offer to shed light on the scandal on the condition that he was given immunity from prosecution from the relevant federal and state law enforcement agencies. There had not been any offer of immunity from the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey.[111]
A joint legislative committee, New Jersey Legislative Select Committee on Investigation, was created on January 27, 2014, to take over the original investigation by the Assembly Transportation Committee.[112]
Assembly Transportation Committee investigation [ edit ]
On October 2, 2013, Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), said that he would open an investigation with the Assembly Transportation Committee to determine whether or not the lane closures were politically motivated.
The first hearing was held on November 25, 2013, for which Bill Baroni attended on behalf of the PA. Baroni, who was not sworn in to testify under oath, said that David Wildstein had ordered a study to determine if closing two of the Fort Lee toll lanes, and assigning them to mainline traffic, would shorten delays for commuters from other parts of New Jersey. Baroni argued that it was unfair that Fort Lee drivers occupied three out of the 12 lanes on the upper level, despite being only 4.5% of all traffic. Committee members pointed out that 4.5% was based on the number of E-ZPass users from Fort Lee that use all approaches to the bridge, and that vehicles from many other towns, besides Fort Lee, use that Fort Lee entrance. He admitted the actual percentage of vehicles, which utilize that Fort Lee entrance, could be higher than 4.5% of overall traffic, and also failed to mention that there are actually 29 operating toll lanes for the bridge when comparing the three dedicated toll lanes for this entrance.[113][114]
Wildstein turned over heavily redacted documents in response to the subpoena.
Baroni said that with the reduction in Fort Lee toll lanes, traffic data showed that the mainline traffic travel times in the express lanes' approach to the bridge were about four minutes faster on two days. He apologized for what he acknowledged was the agency's failure to properly communicate with local officials and the public in advance of this project.[113][115] Following the hearing, Wisniewski called the closures at best "clumsy and ham-handed" and at worst "political mischief by a political appointee and another political appointee that they did not make available for testimony", referring to Wildstein's non-attendance.[116]
Immediately after Baroni made his presentation, a text exchange occurred, according to subpoenaed documents from Wildstein. Wildstein said "you did great" and said that the "Trenton feedback" was good.[117][118]
Sen. Kevin O'Toole released a statement that day to the media, echoing various talking points from Baroni's presentation. All of this suggested that O'Toole had prior communications with Wildstein and possibly Baroni.[119]
Wisniewski subpoenaed Foye and career PA staffers to give sworn testimony on December 9, 2013, about the lane closures.[120][121] The committee had gotten subpoena power only because the PA had been stonewalling the delivery of documents in an unrelated investigation of a controversial toll hike. "Had the Port Authority simply complied with the requests, there probably wouldn't have been a rationale for the committee to get subpoena power," Wisniewski later said.[122]
Robert Durando, George Washington Bridge manager, said that he feared retaliation if he did not follow Wildstein's orders to close two toll lanes to local traffic and not notify local officials or the public about these changes. Durando and Cedrick Fulton, director of tunnels, bridges, and terminals, both said that they were personally told by Wildstein that he would notify Foye of the change.[48][123] Foye said that he was unaware of any traffic study until he ordered its termination on September 13, 2013, and blamed Wildstein for the toll lane changes, while believing Baroni was involved in the planning.[37][124] When Wildstein called Fulton on September 6, 2013, to inform him that the lane closures would begin on September 9, Fulton explained that he thought that was unusual since planning for traffic disruptions on major facilities typically starts years in advance. He said that he told Wildstein, "This will not end well", due to expected traffic problems.[48]
Redacted documents were turned over under a subpoena to investigators of the committee and those documents were turned over to The New York Times and other news media.[41][125] On January 8, 2014, The Star-Ledger, The Record, The New York Times, and other news media published e-mails and text messages tying Bridget Kelly, deputy chief of staff in Christie's office, to the closure. The content of the released communications said that the lane closures were ordered with the knowledge that they would cause a massive traffic jam.[126][127] Christie released a statement later that day denying knowledge of the scandal, rebuking Kelly for her role in the lane closure event, and vowing that "people will be held responsible for their actions" in the affair.[128]
A Republican member of the Assembly committee complained that the Republican members had not been given sufficient time to review the subpoenaed documents in advance of hearing testimony: "Allowing Republican committee members less than 24 hours to review more than 900 pages of information is a disservice to the bipartisan committee process ... As chairman, he [Wisniewski] should be impartial and provide committee members, regardless of their political affiliation, a reasonable opportunity to review documents he has had access to for weeks".[129]
On January 9, 2014, David Wildstein, who appeared with his attorney, Alan Zegas, refused to testify before the committee, invoking the right against self-incrimination in the federal and New Jersey constitutions. The committee voted to hold Wildstein in contempt, asserting that the right against self-incrimination did not apply in such a hearing.[130][131]
Wisniewski said "I do think laws have been broken. Public resources—the bridge, police officers—all were used for a political purpose, for some type of retribution, and that violates the law".[132] He called it "unbelievable"[133] that Christie did not know anything about his aides' plans, stating: "It's hard to really accept the governor's statement that he knew nothing until the other morning". He also raised the issue of the potential for Christie's impeachment if Christie was aware of his aides' actions.[134]
Special legislative investigative committees [ edit ]
On January 16, 2014, the New Jersey Assembly and Senate each created committees to take over the investigation from the Assembly Transportation Committee. The Assembly committee hired Reid Schar as special counsel, who would assist in the investigation. He is a former assistant U.S. attorney from Illinois who assisted in the prosecution of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.[135][136]
The New Jersey Assembly re-authorized the legislative subpoena powers, which were immediately used to subpoena two organizations and 18 individuals in Christie's administration, the governor's office, his 2013 election campaign, and the Port Authority, but not Christie himself. Those receiving subpoenas were instructed to submit by February 3, 2014, all documents and communications, going back to September 1, 2012, related to the reassignment of the two toll lanes during the week of September 9, 2013, and any attempts to conceal the activities or reasons related to that incident.[137]
New Jersey Legislative Select Committee on Investigation [ edit ]
On January 21, 2014, Assemblyman Wisniewski and State Senate majority leader Loretta Weinberg, whose district includes Fort Lee, announced that the Senate and Assembly committees were being merged into a bi-partisan joint investigative committee of 12 members, and that they would co-chair the New Jersey Legislative Select Committee on Investigation. While the committee initially focused on the Bridgegate scandal, it had the power to investigate other allegations against the Christie administration.[112][138]
On January 24, 2014, the members of the bi-partisan committee were announced, consisting of eight Assembly representatives (five Democrats and three Republicans), and four Senators (three Democrats and one Republican). At the time, 40% of the members of the New Jersey Legislature were Republican. Besides the two Democratic co-chairs, members included Assemblywoman Marlene Caride (D-Bergen), Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R-Morris), Senator Nia Gill (D-Essex), Senator Linda Greenstein (D-Middlesex), Assembly Majority Leader Louis Greenwald (D-Camden), Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R-Monmouth), Assemblywoman Valerie Huttle (D-Bergen), Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi (R-Bergen), Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Mercer), and an unnamed Republican Senator.[139] On January 27, both houses voted unanimously to combine the investigations, maintaining the partisan balance, and announced Senator Kevin O'Toole's (R-Essex) to fill the last spot,[140] despite his mention in a December 5 e-mail from Wildstein to Michael Drewniak.[141]
As a precautionary move, the new investigative committee re-issued subpoenas that had been sent earlier, with the requested records still due on the original deadline, February 3.[142]
In a January 31, 2014, letter to Reid Schar, general counsel for the legislative committee, Kevin Marino, the attorney for Stepien, said that he would not submit anything in response to their subpoena and requested its withdrawal, citing his client's Fifth Amendment right and New Jersey common law privileges against self-incrimination, with regard to the criminal inquiry underway by the U.S. Attorney, and Fourth Amendment and New Jersey Constitution (Article I, paragraph 7) rights against unreasonable search and seizure. Wisniewski said the subpoena was perfectly sound, and that Schar would review the attorney's objections and consider the committee's legal options.[143][144] Michael Critchley, the attorney for Kelly, submitted a letter that his client would not comply with the subpoena based on similar claims.[145]
On February 3, 2014, Wisniewski and Weinberg issued a statement, without details, that some responses to subpoenas had been received and that extensions for submissions had been granted to others. Mark Sheridan, an attorney for Christie's campaign organization, said it had been granted an extension while it awaited an opinion from the state Election Law Enforcement Commission, which on February 11 allowed the campaign to use existing funds and raise funds to pay its legal bills in response to the NJ Legislature and federal subpoenas for general evidence. It could not use those funds in response to any criminal investigations.[146][147]
On February 10, 2014, the committee voted to reject the objections raised by the lawyers of Stepien and Kelly to not comply with the subpoenas for their records, and to compel Stepien and Kelly to produce all related documents, instructing special counsel Reid Schar to "take all necessary steps" to enforce the subpoenas. All four Republicans abstained in the vote. They claimed that they did not have enough time to review the legal arguments, including Fifth Amendment rights, presented in Schar's legal brief countering the lawyers' objections.[148][149]
On the same day, the committee announced it was issuing 18 new subpoenas to individuals within the governor's office and the Port Authority that also included new recipients, as well as the governor's office itself and Christie's 2013 re-election campaign. The new recipients included assistants to Foye, Wildstein, Baroni, and Kelly. Other new PA recipients included Christie referral, Philip Kwon, deputy general counsel, Christie appointee William "Pat" Schuber, a commissioner, who had served in a variety of local, county, and state elected positions in New Jersey, and Steve Coleman, deputy director of media relations.[150][151] One of the subpoenas was sent to the New Jersey State Police aviation unit for flight information records when Christie used a state helicopter during the toll lane closings. An agency spokesperson said that Christie had not used one to fly over the Fort Lee area during the lane closings.[152] The subpoenas also sought information related to any dossiers[153] compiled by Christie's re-election campaign and his governor's office on Fort Lee Mayor Sokolich.[154]
The subpoenas sought information for records from staff at the PA and the governor's office related to preparations for Baroni's presentation to the Assembly Transportation Committee's November 25, 2013, hearing.[154] Wildstein's attorney had claimed that Wildstein was present during some of the times when Kwon, who attended the committee hearing, helped prepare Baroni over several days for his presentation about a traffic study and other issues related to the local toll lane closures. A PA spokesman said: "Meeting with a witness prior to testimony is a routine function of any lawyer and any attempt to assign ulterior motives to this general practice is unwarranted." Kwon served as first assistant attorney general during Christie's first term as governor and previously worked for him in the U.S. Attorney General's office in New Jersey. He was also Christie's 2012 Supreme Court justice nominee, who was blocked by Democratic state legislative members.[155]
One of the subpoenas sought documents from the PANYNJ related to toll increases for the tunnels and bridges and Christie's 2010 decision to cancel the Access to the Region's Core project, specifically with regard to projected cost overruns. It also requested the names of job candidates sent by Christie's office to the agency.[154]
On February 19, 2014, it was reported that the co-chairs said that the committee would need to question Senator O'Toole about what he knew, including any communications with Baroni and/or Wildstein, prior to Baroni's November 25 presentation to the Assembly Transportation Committee. A previously redacted November 25 text message from Wildstein to Baroni said that O'Toole was ready with a statement, which was issued to the media, that echoed talking points from Baroni's same day presentation and attacked the Democrats investigating these issues. O'Toole followed up with an editorial in The Record that elaborated on these talking points and attacks. It raised further questions on whether O'Toole should continue to serve on the committee.[118][119]
On February 28, 2014, Bonnie Watson Coleman withdrew from the committee, a day after she called on Christie to resign as governor due to the culture of bullying she says was fostered under him.[156] On March 21, 2014, Assembly Speaker Vincent Pietro named Assemblyman Paul Moriarty (D-Camden) to fill that vacancy.[157]
On March 31, 2014, Wisniewski announced the intention to subpoena notes, records, and interviews from the inquiry conducted for the governor's office by Randy Mastro of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, since they had not been made available to the committee. Wisniewski said that there would be questions about the objectivity and independence of that investigation if subpoenaed items were withheld. In response, Mastro released a statement saying that the governor's office did not release interview transcripts because of its cooperation with the U.S. Attorney's Office's investigation and would respond to any subpoena request, when received. These matters could go to court if the governor's office tried to exercise any rights not to provide subpoenaed items.[158][159] On April 11, 2014, the committee received the list of 75 persons interviewed by Mastro's team.[160][161] Wisniewski said that he expected all existing interview materials in "whatever form", or the committee would issue a subpoena.[161] The interview notes, marked "privileged and confidential attorney opinion work product", were turned over to the legislative committee and U.S. Attorney's Office, and publicly released online on April 14, without a subpoena. Wisniewski and Weinberg said in a joint statement that the committee reserved the right to request or subpoena further information, if required.[162]
On April 9, 2014, the committee's investigation was dealt a setback when New Jersey Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson ruled that Stepien and Kelly do not have to hand over subpoenaed documents since the subpoenas were written too broadly, like a "fishing expedition".[163][164] The judge also said that the subpoenas, as written, "clearly violate" federal and state protections against self-incrimination and unlawful search and seizure.[164] The ruling said that Kelly and Stepien could assert their Fifth Amendment rights because of the investigation by the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, and these documents could provide a "link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute the claimant for a federal crime".[165] The judge suggested that the committee could consider reissuing subpoenas with more limited document requests that could be acceptable. Legal experts agreed with that approach, and also suggested that electronic copies of the original subpoenaed documents could be obtained through subpoenas of system servers that store those documents since individuals do not have any personal right to bar the subpoena of a server.[163]
The judge also expressed reservations about having jurisdictional powers to compel the turnover of subpoenaed documents since "the committee has the power to enforce its own subpoenas through orders to compel and grant immunity in return." The lawyers for Stepien and Kelly have contended that the committee could grant their clients immunity from criminal prosecution in exchange for the documents. Reid Schar said that the committee had no such powers.[166]
Wisniewski forecast that "north of ten" people would be subpoenaed for testimony.[167] On April 22, 2014, he announced the joint committee's first subpoenas for oral testimony, initially calling four witnesses to testify: Christina Genovese Renna (former director of intergovernmental affairs), William "Pat" Schuber (a PA commissioner), Patrick Foye, and Michael Drewniak.[168] All four agreed to testify.[167] After a subpoena on April 29 calling Matt Mowers (former campaign staffer who reportedly asked Sokolich for an endorsement, and who has been cooperating with the committee),[167] and some schedule adjustments, testimony was set for May 6 (Renna), May 13 (Drewniak), May 20 (Mowers), and June 3 (Foye and Schuber).[169] However, the committee later postponed Foye's testimony, at the request of the US Attorney.[170] Kevin O'Dowd (chief of staff and nominee for attorney general) was subpoenaed to testify on June 9.[171][172] The committee was considering issuing a second set of more narrowly focused subpoenas to Bridget Kelly and Bill Stepien. Christie would not be subpoenaed.[173]
On May 7, 2014, the committee announced a subpoena for documents and records from Michael DuHaime (Christie's chief political strategist).[174][175] According to the Gibson Dunn memo on the DuHaime interview, he told Christie "on or about" December 11, 2013, that Wildstein, Stepien, and Kelly had knowledge of the "traffic study" beforehand. During Christie's December 13 news conference, he denied involvement by anyone in his office.[176]
Committee work slowed in July 2014, and they postponed or skipped some witnesses' testimony, in deference to the federal investigation.[177][178] On July 17, it heard testimony from Regina Egea, Christie's Chief of Staff, who had learned of the lane closures on September 13, 2013, after their reversal[179] and who had later assisted Bill Baroni prepare for his testimony, but she was not accused of wrongdoing.[180]
Port Authority investigation [ edit ]
On October 16, 2013, the Port Authority announced that it would conduct an internal review.[181] Its inspector general opened an investigation on December 10.[182] On February 16, 2014, Executive Director Pat Foye ordered the inspector general and PA Police Chief Louis Koumoutsos to examine PA Police Lieutenant Thomas "Chip" Michaels for his role in chauffeuring Wildstein on an observation tour on the first day of the closures and allegations of PA Police officers telling frustrated motorists to direct their ire at Mayor Sokolich. Michaels had at least one day's advance knowledge of the closure.[183][184] Lt. Michaels and his brother Jeffrey Michaels (a GOP lobbyist in Trenton) are childhood friends of Christie.[61]
The PA investigation reportedly interviewed only 3 people (Wildstein not among them), and was finished within a few weeks, although PA officials still continued to claim "ongoing investigation" a month later, when deflecting reporters' questions.[185]
U.S. Attorney investigation [ edit ]
On January 9, 2014, Paul J. Fishman, the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, opened a preliminary federal inquiry into matters related to the toll lane closures. Fishman's office has jurisdiction because the Port Authority was created via an interstate compact between New York and New Jersey.[186] Rebekah Carmichael, public affairs officer for the U.S. attorney's office, said in a statement: "The Port Authority Office of Inspector General has referred the matter to us, and our office is reviewing it to determine whether a federal law was implicated."[187]
The U.S. Attorney, whose office did not identify who was being served, began an official investigation and issued grand jury subpoenas for documents related to the Bridgegate scandal to various people and entities. Mark Sheridan, a partner with Patton Boggs, which had been retained to represent Christie's 2013 re-election campaign organization and the New Jersey Republican State Committee in connection with investigations into this scandal, said on January 23, 2014, that both organizations had received subpoenas.[188][189] On February 3, Christie said that his governor's office received a subpoena. The Federal Bureau of Investigation assisted the U.S. Attorney in its investigation.[190][191]
Prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney's Office met with Mayor Sokolich on February 21[192] and Governor Christie's press secretary, Michael Drewniak, as a "fact witness", on February 27.[61] Drewniak, who had been subpoenaed by the legislative committee, was referenced in several previously subpoenaed documents released by the committee from others.[193]
The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in Manhattan, issued a subpoena to PA Chairman David Samson on March 7, 2014, but then rescinded it on March 10, because of overlap with the Fishman investigation based in New Jersey.[194][195]
As part of the criminal investigation, Drewniak testified on April 4, 2014, in Newark before the grand jury investigating the scandal. His lawyer, Anthony Iacullo, said he was not a target of the investigation. ABC News reported that this was the first confirmation of a convened grand jury, which can meet for up to 18 months (with further extensions possible), for interviewing witnesses. It has the power to indict, subpoena, and interview witnesses without their attorneys being present.[196] The New York Times reported that it was the same grand jury that had reviewed subpoenaed documents.[197]
On April 7, 2014, it was reported that David Wildstein met with federal prosecutors in Newark for several days during the week of March 31 and Charlie McKenna met with investigators in mid-January in Fishman's office.[198]
On April 25, 2014, it was reported that Fishman had subpoenaed the New Jersey Legislative Select Committee on Investigation for "any and all records" they have gathered, with delivery due on May 2.[199] Committee co-chairs Weinberg and Wisniewski said that they will comply, and that the request "reaffirms" their progress.[200]
On May 1, 2014, it was reported that the federal grand jury had subpoenaed PA attorney Phillip Kwon, who had reportedly assisted preparing Bill Baroni's unsworn November 25, 2013, "traffic study" testimony to the Assembly Transportation Committee, and that Kwon had asked the PA to cover his legal fees.[201]
On September 18, 2014, WNBC-TV4 (New York) reported that unnamed federal investigators told them that thus far no evidence that Christie knew in advance of the closures or had directed them was found, but cautioned that the investigation is ongoing and that no final determination has been made.[202] That evening's NBC report by Brian Williams, "federal [Bridgegate] charges are now ruled out for Chris Christie", was retracted.[203]
In January 2015, it was reported that Christie was interviewed by federal prosecutors and FBI agents in December 2014. He reportedly met with investigators voluntarily to give his side of the story. The meeting lasted two hours and was described as "professional, collegial and courteous."[204][205]
The federal investigation led to Wildstein's guilty plea and the prosecution of Baroni and Kelly.
U.S. Senate inquiry [ edit ]
The United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation had opened its own inquiry into the closure. Committee chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) had written Samson and Vice Chairman Scott Rechler in December 2013 to demand answers about how the Port Authority handled the closure and its aftermath. According to his letter, Rockefeller, who has long been critical about shortcomings in the PA's operations, was concerned about what seemed to be evidence of "political appointees abusing their power to hamper interstate commerce and safety without public notice." It also said that based on a review of recent testimony before the New Jersey Assembly Transportation Committee, it appeared that there was no traffic study underway.[206][207] Rockefeller also asked the United States Department of Transportation to conduct its own review of the incident.[208]
The PA's written response to Rockefeller's questions, signed by board secretary Karen Eastman, restated and summarized the December 9, 2013, testimony by Foye and two other PA managers before the Assembly Transportation Committee. It said that the closures had been ordered by Wildstein on September 6, 2013, despite various PA engineers expressing their concerns, particularly about more traffic congestion on local streets and no advance notice to Fort Lee officials. Wildstein, the letter said, had ordered bridge officials not to notify Foye of the closures. It also revealed that the PA's board had not approved Baroni's November 25 presentation before that committee, that the closures were part of a traffic study. It showed that PA's procedures for planning and internal notifications for any traffic study were not followed. However, the letter did not reveal any reason why the closures were ordered. It characterized the incident as "aberrational".[209][210] Rockefeller declared that based on the PA's response, there was "zero evidence" that a "legitimate" traffic study had been planned. He also said that the letter revealed the PA had not followed its own procedures for lane closures.[211]
Other closure-related probes [ edit ]
The lane-closure scandal also sparked inquiries by the Manhattan District Attorney's office and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC and Manhattan DA probes are focusing on the Pulaski Skyway, an elevated highway linking Newark and Jersey City. On June 23, 2014, The New York Times reported that the inquiries are focusing on possible securities law violations caused by Christie's use of Port Authority funds to pay for repairs to the Skyway in 2010 and 2011, using money that was to be used on a new Hudson River rail tunnel that Christie canceled in October 2010.[212]
Indictments and trial of Baroni and Kelly [ edit ]
On May 1, 2015, the U.S. Attorney unsealed indictments, charging Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly with nine counts of conspiracy, fraud and related charges. These included conspiracy to commit fraud by "knowingly converting and intentionally misapplying property of an organization receiving federal benefits". That same day, prosecutors released David Wildstein's plea bargain. He had agreed in January to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy against civil rights.[213] Wildstein, whose sentencing was delayed until after the trial, agreed to testify against Baroni and Kelly.[214]
The indictments charge that the lane closures were retribution against Sokolich for not endorsing Christie. Fishman said that Wildstein had corroborated the allegations in the indictments,[213] and said that the three officials "agreed to and did use public resources to carry out a vendetta and exact retribution," and that they "callously victimized the people of Fort Lee."[215] Kelly vigorously denied wrongdoing.[216] Baroni argued that his indictment was improperly based on the unsworn testimony and documents he had provided to the legislative committee in 2014, but prosecutors countered that he had not been offered immunity at that time.[217]
The trial for Baroni and Kelly, originally scheduled to begin July 7, 2015, was repeatedly rescheduled, first to November 16, 2015, to allow more time for the defense to review the large volume of documents provided by the prosecutors,[218][219] then to May 16, 2016, and then to September 12, 2016.[220]
Prosecutors asked the court that those documents, about 1.5 million pages, be kept from public view in order to protect the privacy of unindicted co-conspirators, but the defense teams opposed that proposal as overly broad, and preventing collaboration with anyone who could assist but would not be a witness.[221] U.S. District Court Judge Susan Wigenton ruled on July 7 in favor of the prosecutors, writing, "The Confidential Discovery Materials shall not be disclosed by defense counsel to anyone other than the defendants and any agent working at the direction of defense counsel in this matter."[222] thereby preventing public access to certain items presented as evidence in the criminal case.[223] Media outlets—including The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Star-Ledger, and The Record—requested a hearing with Wigenton to ask that the ban be lifted or modified arguing for the First Amendment right of access to criminal court records.[223][224]
Those news organizations together asked the court to release the prosecution's list of unindicted co-conspirators. On February 17, 2016, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman's office filed a brief to Wigenton requesting that the Bridgegate records remain sealed so that the list of uncharged third-party co-conspirators not be made public. Coconspirators refers to "individuals the government believes may have known about the plot to abruptly shut down access lanes to the bridge to cause massive traffic disruptions, but were not charged."[224] Fishman claimed that it was a policy of the United States Department of Justice "to avoid unnecessary public references to wrongdoing" by unindicted co-conspirator because they have no "evidentiary value" in the criminal matter. If the names were made public, then public employees or appointed officials, who were said to be involved in the lane closures, would not have the "opportunity to challenge that information in court."[223] Their names would be revealed if they were relevant at a future trial or if the Government "moves for the admission of an out-of-court statement made in furtherance of the conspiracy by an unindicted coconspirator."[223]
On May 10, 2016, Judge Wigenton ruled for the list's release, which she said named individuals "whom the government has sufficient evidence to designate as having joined the conspiracy."[225] Christie predicted that he would not appear on the list.[226] One of the men on the list filed an emergency motion, as John Doe, and the release was delayed.[227] On September 7, 2016, a federal appellate court ruled that the list, and the identity of John Doe, would remain secret for the time being, but that "the time may come, perhaps at trial."[228]
The media also asked for a separate existing list, which Kelly's attorney characterized as individuals "who were not unindicted co-conspirators, but whom the government believed were aware of the alleged criminal conspiracy charged in this case but did not join the conspiracy."[229]
The jury of seven women and five men, plus four alternates, was seated on September 14, 2016.[230][231] RNC member and former law partner Bill Palatucci, described as Christie's closest counselor,[232] may be called to testify.[233]
In its opening statement on September 19, 2016, the prosecution said that at the World Trade Center site on the third day of the closure, "the evidence will show that [Wildstein and Baroni] bragged [to Christie] about the fact that there were traffic problems in Fort Lee, and that Mayor Sokolich was not getting his calls returned," and that Wildstein would testify and "admit that he was the one who came up with that idea."[234]
Over the course of a month, prosecutors presented their case. David Wildstein appeared in week two, giving over eight days of testimony. After Wildstein left, prosecutors moved to secondary witnesses. On October 13, 2016, prosecutors concluded their arguments, having spent nearly four weeks laying an argument. The case moves to the defense to make an argument.[235][236]
Over the next two weeks, the jury heard arguments from the defense, with Bridget Anne Kelly on the spotlight, saying it was "crude humor". Bill Baroni maintained the argument that the traffic jams were part of a legitimate study to determine "whether congestion on the main approaches to the toll plaza could be reduced if the lanes earmarked for Fort Lee were eliminated." The case on October 26 concluded with the defense resting.[237][237]
Convictions [ edit ]
On November 4, 2016, after deliberating the testimony of 35 witnesses (including the defendants) and other evidence over the course of five days, the jury found Baroni and Kelly guilty on all counts.[14][238]
On March 29, 2017, Baroni was sentenced to 24 months in prison, and Kelly was sentenced to 18 months. Appeals are expected.[239]
On July 12, 2017, Wildstein received a sentence of three years' probation and 500 hours of community service.[240]
Appeals [ edit ]
Baroni and Kelly filed formal arguments with the 3rd District Court of Appeals on Friday, August 25, 2017.[241]
Official misconduct case against Christie [ edit ]
Private citizen, activist, and retired Teaneck firefighter William J. Brennan, who had attended Seton Hall Law School but is not a member of the New Jersey Bar,[242] filed a complaint in September 2016 in the Fort Lee municipal court, alleging official misconduct by Christie. The complaint specifically said that Christie had failed to stop the closure then in progress when, according to Wildstein's sworn testimony, Christie heard about it from Baroni and Wildstein on Wednesday, September 11, 2013, the third day of the closure. The complaint alleged that Fort Lee and its mayor "were deprived the benefit and enjoyment of their community as a consequence of this intentional evil minded act."[243][244]
On October 13, 2016, Judge Roy F. McGeady, the presiding judge for the municipal courts in Bergen County, accepted jurisdiction based on the events having occurred in Fort Lee. Christie was represented by the law firm of Alston & Bird at the Hackensack hearing. McGready ruled, "I'm satisfied that there's probable cause to believe that an event of official misconduct was caused by Governor Christie. I'm going to issue the summons." The audience in the courtroom applauded.[245]
That summons put the case into the hands of the Bergen County prosecutor's office, which must decide whether to bring an indictment against Christie. Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal was appointed by Christie, and so was expected to recuse himself.[245]
The charge carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.[246]
Brian Murray, speaking for Christie, said the governor would appeal the ruling immediately, adding, "this is a dishonorable complaint filed by a known serial complainant and political activist with a history of abusing the judicial system," and reiterating the governor's denial of knowledge before or during the closure.[244]
A hearing on November 30, 2016, was to address[needs update] the appointment of a special prosecutor, for which Brennan has called, saying he cannot trust the objectivity of state prosecutors or the Attorney General's office.[242]
In January 2017, despite request for dismissal the case was remanded to a lower court,[247][248] but prosecutors later decided not to pursue charges against Christie.[249][250] While prosecutors chose not to pursue the case, the judge ruled that it was not dismissed as had been claimed.[251]
On February 17, 2017, the judge ruled that the case could proceed, saying "The court is satisfied that [Christie] had knowledge of the traffic problems in Fort Lee",[252]
Gibson Dunn report [ edit ]
On January 16, 2014, the governor's office announced the hiring of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher to assist with an internal review and cooperate with the U.S. Attorney's investigation.[253][254] The firm also agreed to assist "with document retention and production in connection with the United States Attorney inquiry, and other appropriate inquires and requests for information" and review the governor's office operations and information flow.[255] The lead attorney was Randy Mastro, a long time associate of Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York City and former United States Attorney. Mastro served under Giuliani as Deputy Mayor of New York City and Assistant US Attorney.[135]
In February, Mastro requested interviews about the toll lane closures with Wildstein and with Sokolich and Kelly, who all declined and were not interviewed.[256][257]
The report, released on March 27, 2014, found that Christie had no advance knowledge of the bridge "lane realignment," and didn't know why it happened. It blamed Bridget Kelly and David Wildstein for orchestrating the toll lane closures. The report revealed that Wildstein said that he informed Christie of the ongoing lane closures during a September 11, 2013, memorial event, but asserted that Christie did not recall that exchange.[258][259] It noted that Michael Drewniak said Wildstein appeared "anxious" during a dinner with him on December 4, 2013, and that Wildstein "had mentioned the Fort Lee traffic study to the Governor" while the lane closures were taking place. Drewniak said Wildstein told him that the plan to shut the lanes and attribute it to a "traffic study" were Wildstein's idea, and that Kelly and Bill Stepien had "some knowledge."[260] The report also found "no evidence" that Stepien or Baroni knew of the improper motives for the lane closures, although they were aware that the lanes were to be closed and that traffic patterns were to be changed as a result.[258]
After the report was released, Christie said he was shocked by the actions of his former aides and that "Sometimes, people do inexplicably stupid things."[261]
The report said the lane closures were political retribution against Sokolich but did not identify the specific motive. However, it noted the day before her infamous "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" message, Kelly confirmed that Sokolich would not endorse Christie. It said she was "irate" and "on fire" when a Christie aide met with Sokolich several days later.[258]
The report relied on documents provided by the governor's office and interviews with 75 witnesses,[161] including Christie and others from his administration, but no one interviewed had been at the Port Authority at the time of the lane closings.[262] The interviews were not under oath.[263] The report also was based on more than 250,000 documents, many of them e-mails and text messages.[262] Transcripts of the interviews and the names of the interviewees were not released at the time the report was made public.[159] It was estimated that the taxpayer-funded report cost more than $1 million.[263] A separate section of the report rejected allegations by Hoboken's Mayor Dawn Zimmer that Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno and Richard Constable, director of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, had linked release of Hurricane Sandy relief funds to approval of a project represented by David Samson's law firm.[264]
In April 2014, U.S. Internal Revenue Service filings disclosed that Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher donated $10,000 to the Republican Governors Association, of which Christie was then chairman. The contribution was made on March 18, 2014, nine days before release of the Mastro report. The firm donated $55,000 to the association from 2009 to 2012, when Christie was not its leader. It made no donations to the Democratic Governors Association from 2012 to 2014.[265][266]
After Assemblyman Wisniewski gave a deadline of April 11, 2014, for providing the interview records, which were part of the basis of the report, or they would be subpoenaed, Gibson Dunn turned over on that date a list of 75 persons interviewed for the report. On April 14, the interview notes were turned over to the committee and U.S. Attorney's office, and publicly released.[161][162] Gibson Dunn lawyers said that there were no recordings or verbatim transcripts of the interviews, prompting Wisniewski to characterize the conclusions from these interviews as "hearsay".[267] There were nearly 370 instances in which the persons interviewed could not recall details about events they were asked to address.[162]
The interview notes contained information that was downplayed or omitted from the original Mastro report, showing a governor's office in which government and political operations were deeply connected. They showed how the governor's office worked to secure Democratic endorsements and coordinated with Christie's election campaign to penalize mayors who did not endorse Christie in his re-election.[162]
In July 2015, a federal court ruling ordered that materials used to prepare the report be made available to legal defense teams of those indicted.[268]
Reaction to report [ edit ]
Critics attacked the report as a whitewash, which they claimed read more like a legal defense than an objective investigation.[94][269][270] They noted investigators could not interview any of the most important figures in the scandal, and contended that Mastro had a conflict of interest since his firm was politically tied to Christie.[271][272] Wisniewski and Weinberg, co-chairs of the legislature investigative committee, criticized the report as incomplete and potentially biased since it was prepared by lawyers hired by the Christie administration, and the lawyers did not interview key figures in the scandal. Baroni, Kelly, Samson, Stepien, and Wildstein declined to be interviewed.[260][261]
Newspaper editorials noted that one of the lawyers on the investigation team was a close friend of Christie.[94] The report was also criticized for "sexism" for its treatment of Christie aide Bridget Kelly.[273][274][275]
A Monmouth University Polling Institute poll, released on April 2, 2014, found that 52% of New Jersey residents believed the report was conducted to help Christie's reputation.[276] At about that time, a Quinnipiac University poll found that 56% of New Jersey registered voters viewed it as a "whitewash", while 36% said it was a "legitimate investigation".[277]
In May 2014, a lawyer for Bill Stepien demanded a retraction of the report's contention that Stepien lied to Christie.[278]
On December 16, 2015, a United States District Court Judge issued an opinion criticizing the Gibson firm and its investigation for intentionally failing to preserve notes of interviews conducted by attorneys.[279] Judge Susan Davis Wigenton, presiding in the criminal trial of Kelly and Baroni, wrote: "The taxpayers of the State of New Jersey paid [Gibson Dunn] millions of dollars to conduct a transparent and thorough investigation. What they got instead was opacity and gamesmanship. They deserve better."[279]
Christie's responses [ edit ]
On December 2, 2013, Christie said at a press conference that Democrats were just playing politics by holding hearings into lane closures. "Just because [Rep.] John Wisniewski is obsessed with this, and [Sen.] Loretta Weinberg, it just shows that they really have nothing to do," Christie said.[280] Christie later credited the e-mail documents subpoenaed by the hearings as the first information he had that his staff was involved.[102] When reporter Matt Katz asked, "Governor, did you have anything to do with these lane closures in September outside the GW Bridge? Have you spoken to--"[281] Christie dismissively joked "I worked the cones, actually, Matt. Unbeknownst to everybody I was actually the guy out there. I was in overalls and a hat. You really are not serious with that question."[282][283][284]
Christie questioned the policy of allowing three dedicated lanes, saying "I didn't know Fort Lee got three dedicated lanes until all this stuff happened, and I think we should review that entire policy. Because I don't know why Fort Lee needs three dedicated lanes to tell you the truth," and "the fact that one town has three lanes dedicated to it? That kind of gets me sauced [upset]."[285] However, members of the New Jersey Assembly Transportation Committee said at a November 25, 2013, hearing that the Fort Lee entrance has been used by an even greater number of commuters from the surrounding Bergen County towns. PA officials, including Patrick Foye, confirmed that assessment in their sworn testimony at the committee hearing on December 9, 2013.[37][113]
Christie has denied involvement, saying that his staff acted without his knowledge regarding to the planning for the lane closures. He said at an April 2014 town hall meeting: "if anybody told me they were going to do this, I would have stopped it".[286]
On December 12, 2013, The Wall Street Journal reported[287] that Christie was said to have called New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to complain about Patrick Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority and a Cuomo appointee, in an apparent attempt to shut down Foye's investigation of the lane closures.[288] On December 13, 2013, Christie denied such a call, saying, "The story is categorically wrong. I did not have that conversation with Governor Cuomo in any way, shape or form."[290] In his January 9, 2014, press conference, he also denied any such conversation.[102] Heather Haddon of The Wall Street Journal still stood by the report on February 19,[291] and Matt Katz said that he had independently confirmed it.[292] During the federal trial of Baroni and Kelly, PA Commissioner Scott Rechler (appointed by Cuomo as vice-chairman under Samson) testified that Cuomo had told him that "Governor Christie mentioned to [Cuomo] that David Samson was once again complaining about Pat Foye interfering, getting involved in politics."[293]
At a press conference on December 13, Christie announced the immediate resignations of Baroni and Wildstein.[11][294] Nevertheless, Christie said the closure was "absolutely, unequivocally not" political retribution.[295]
Christie added: "I've made it very clear to everybody on my senior staff that if anyone had any knowledge about this, they needed to come forward to me and tell me about it. And they've all assured me that they don't."[296] Christie said: "The chief of staff and chief counsel assured me they feel comfortable that we have all the information we need to have."[11]
At that point during the December 13 press conference, Christina Genovese Renna texted to Pete Sheridan, "Are you listening? He [Christie] just flat out lied about senior staff and [Bill] Stepien not being involved," and "He lied. And if e-mails are found with the subpoena or [campaign] e-mails are uncovered in discovery if it come to that it could be bad." The texts from Renna (an employee of Kelly) to Sheridan (who had worked on the re-election campaign) came to light in court filings by Baroni's attorneys on August 10, 2016, to which Christie responded, "I absolutely dispute it. It's ridiculous. It's nothing new."[297][298] At the federal trial, Renna walked back her comments, testifying, "I had no knowledge of whether the governor was lying or not. But it seemed to contradict what I had been told."[299]
In a nearly two-hour press conference on January 9, 2014, Christie apologized for the toll lane closures and said that he was "embarrassed and humiliated" by the behavior of his staff. Christie claimed he first learned of his staff's involvement via news media reports on January 8. The governor announced that he had fired Bridget Kelly, calling her "deceitful", claiming her lack of disclosure about her actions and e-mails caused him to mislead the public.[102][300] Christie admonished his two-time campaign manager Bill Stepien and said he had asked Stepien to withdraw his name from the Republican State Party Chairman race, and to cease his consulting role for the Republican Governors Association.[301] Christie promised that he and his staff would cooperate with any government investigations, including those by the New Jersey Legislature. When asked what he would do if subpoenaed to testify on the matter, Christie said, "I'm not going to speculate on that".[102]
Christie said "I have had no contact with David Wildstein in a long time, a long time, well before the election." Christie was re-elected Governor on November 5, 2013.[302] On September 11, 2013, during the third day of the closures, Christie, Wildstein, Samson and Baroni were photographed together at the site of the World Trade Center during a commemoration of the 12th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.[10]
In the press conference, Christie described his earlier efforts to determine his staff's involvement, saying: "I brought my senior staff together I think about four weeks ago tomorrow. And I put to all of them one simple challenge: If there is any information that you know about the decision to close these lanes in Fort Lee, you have one hour to tell either my chief of staff, Kevin O'Dowd, or my chief counsel, Charlie McKenna."[303]
The governor's office issued a statement on January 31, 2014, that denied the allegations about Christie that were contained in a January 31 letter from Alan Zegas (Wildstein's attorney) to the PA, which had been made public. The letter questioned the accuracy of various statements made by Christie about his client, without providing any specific references, and claimed that there is evidence of Christie being aware of the toll lane closures at the time that they were closed. The governor's office said that Christie stood by his position that he "first learned lanes were closed when it was reported by the press".[304][305] Christie previously said in his December 13 press conference that this was well after the toll lanes for local traffic were reopened.[306]
During his monthly talk radio broadcast on February 3, Christie said he was cooperating with subpoenas from the state legislative committee and the U.S. Attorney to his governor's office, which began turning over documents to the legislative committee earlier in the day and would continue to do so as the requested items were located.[307]
On April 17, Christie enacted two recommendations of the Mastro report. He eliminated the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, which had been headed by Bridget Kelly. He named Patrick E. Hobbs, dean of Seton Hall University School of Law, Christie's alma mater, as a part-time ombudsman to address complaints about misconduct, enhance ethics training and accountability, and improve electronic communications in the governor's office. Critics noted that Christie's staff and others had used personal e-mails to avoid public scrutiny.[308]
Hobbs retained his Seton Hall post.[308][309] Hobbs asserted that Christie had given him "full authority and independence" and would leave the job if he felt impeded. The United States Ombudsman Association recommends, however, that ombudsmen be appointed by entities outside of their jurisdiction, preferably by a legislature, to avoid any questions about independence.[309] In 2006, as U.S. Attorney, Christie approved Bristol-Myers Squibb's endowment of an ethics chair at Seton Hall's law school in a controversial prosecution settlement.[309][310] After a controversy arose over this agreement, Hobbs wrote a letter in 2006 to the editor of The Wall Street Journal praising Christie. Hobbs said he has had a 15-year professional relationship with Christie, and denied the Bristol-Meyers-Squibb arrangement would compromise his role as ombudsman.[310]
On April 24, Christie denied creating a "culture of divisiveness" or that perceptions about his attitude may have led others to plan and allow the lane closures to occur as retaliation. "If in fact I created a culture where people were going after each other, then how did we do all these things together with Republicans and Democrats?" Christie asked during a Brick, New Jersey town hall meeting.[286][311] The Star-Ledger editorial board answered that Richard Nixon had cut deals with Democrats, but had still abused power; and that despite Christie's early bipartisanship, he has thrown himself into several partisan standoffs; and that his personal style had always been "vindictive and aggressive"; and concluded that Christie "created the culture that inspired" the lane closures.[312]
After the May 2015 indictment of Baroni and Kelly and the Wildstein guilty plea, Christie said that the outcome of the federal investigation was a vindictation. He said on Twitter "Today's charges make clear that what I've said from day one is true," and "I had no knowledge or involvement in the planning or execution of this act."[16]
Political impact [ edit ]
New Jersey Democratic political leaders lambasted Christie and the lane closings. Sokolich called them "a petty political vendetta,"[313] while Barbara Buono contended that a culture of intimidation and retribution engendered by Christie and his staff hampered funding of a challenger even though the state was mostly Democratic.[314] The Democratic National Committee released a video in December 2013 that raised questions if "Christie's political payback" was behind the toll lane closures.[315] It released a satirical video, timed to coincide with the January Assembly hearing, about what questions still needed to be answered.[316] At the beginning of February, it released an online video ad with a Super Bowl 48-inspired, football game theme.[317][318] It was followed soon after by a video that parodied Facebook's popular "Look Back" videos.[319]
Rudy Giuliani said that if Christie was "not telling the truth, he's ruined." While Giuliani claimed that he was not acting as a surrogate for Christie, many of the media inquiries for interviews with Giuliani had gone to the governor's office and were forwarded to Giuliani by Maria Comella, Christie's Communications Director.[137][320]
Former Republican New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, a longtime mentor and supporter of Christie, said in January 2014 that he believed Christie when he said he did not know his aides were involved in the lane closures until incriminating e-mails were revealed on January 8. Kean said that there were still unanswered questions about the atmosphere in the governor's office and "whether or not there are more than two or three people involved."[321] In an April 2014 interview with The New Yorker, Kean questioned whether Christie "created an atmosphere in which some of those people thought they were doing his will because they were getting back at people." Kean said he had reconsidered his support of Christie as a potential presidential candidate, and that if Christie was not telling the truth, "then he's finished. As governor, too."[322]
Christie was not named in the May 2015 indictment, and the U.S. Attorney, Paul Fishman, refused to speak on the possible culpability of persons other than the three persons charged.[323] According to The New York Times, the indictment would have a negative political impact on Christie's possible presidential ambitions.[16] Iowa GOP donor Gary Kirke said that Christie's delay to announce a possible presidential campaign until after being cleared of wrongdoing, greatly reduced his chances of winning the 2016 Iowa caucuses. GOP operatives said that the scandal itself had not been an issue leading up to Iowa, nor to New Hampshire, where the first presidential primary would be held.[324]
Public opinion [ edit ]
National polls [ edit ]
In January 2014, there was a wide range of opinion about the long-term impact of this scandal on a potential Christie 2016 presidential bid for the 2016 election.[19][325][326] By early February, national polling[17][18] showed a substantial erosion in his political standing and 2016 presidential campaign prospects.[20][327]
A Quinnipiac poll, published January 21, showed him trailing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the leading potential Democratic contender, 46% to 38%, which was a downturn from two previous polls that showed Christie and Clinton about even, after Christie had gained considerably in the polls against her since March 2013. Peoples' view of his presidential capabilities went down with 35% agreeing and 36% disagreeing that he would make a good president. This was down from 49% agreeing to 31% disagreeing in a November poll. For those who had heard of the Bridgegate scandal, 50% said this scandal would hurt Christie's presidential hopes, and made 34% of those polled less likely to vote for him. His favorability rating declined to only 33% viewing him generally as favorable with 30% unfavorable. This was down from his highest rating of 47% favorable to 23% unfavorable in December 2013. The poll showed that he had gone from the leading potential Republican candidate in December to a statistical tie with three others.[328]
New Jersey polls [ edit ]
A Rasmussen poll of New Jersey residents, published January 10, 2014, showed that 56% believe Christie should resign "if it is proven that he approved of retaliation against an elected official who refused to support him." Only 29% disagreed. A majority believed it was at least somewhat likely that Christie was aware that the September toll lane closures were retaliation for the mayor of Fort Lee's refusal to support his re-election.[329]
A Rutgers-Eagleton poll, published January 24, 2014, showed that the Fort Lee scandal had hurt his standings among New Jersey residents. Christie's favorability rating, as governor, was shown to be 46%, down 22 points from just before his landslide re-election victory in November 2013, with 43% having an unfavorable view. While the majority of residents still approved his overall performance as governor, his 53% job approval was down 15 points from November. A majority, 56%, said that it was "very unlikely" or "somewhat unlikely" that Christie's top aides acted without his knowledge in the Fort Lee scandal. Only 20% said they fully believed Christie's explanation about this topic, while 42% did not believe his version at all and 33% only partially believed him.[330]
A Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press poll, published February 24, 2014, showed Christie's job approval ratings in New Jersey at 50%, which was down 9% since January and 20% from 12 months prior. Other results showed 61% believed the governor was not completely honest about what he knew about the toll lane closures, and 50% (up from 34% in January) thought Christie was personally involved in the decision to close the toll lanes.[331][332] A similar poll, released on April 2, showed his approval ratings to be about the same, remaining 14 points lower than December, before the Bridgegate scandal broke. It reported that 62% said that Bridgegate and Hoboken's Sandy relief aid issues hurt his presidential prospects for 2016, up from 51% in January.[276]
Media coverage [ edit ]
The lane closure controversy has received substantial attention from the New York area and national media. The first story in the media about the lane closures, and the first to bring politics into the mix, was reported by The Record's John Cichowski in his Road Warrior column on September 13, 2013, that there was speculation that Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich was targeted "either for failing to endorse Governor Christie's election bid or for pushing through a $500 million, 47-story high-rise housing development near the bridge, or for failing to support the Port's last toll hike."[73][79]
On September 17, 2013, Ted Mann of The Wall Street Journal wrote a story about what could have possibly prompted the Port Authority to close toll lanes to local traffic without public notifications. Citing anonymous sources, he reported that "the decision to close the traffic lanes caused tension" since "the lane closures came as a surprise to some high-ranking officials at the bi-state agency." He said that the toll lanes were reopened to local traffic based on an order from Executive Director Patrick Foye, "who argued that the abrupt shift in traffic patterns caused a threat to public safety and should have been advertised to the public ahead of time."[333]
A subsequent newspaper report by Mann, published on October 1, 2013, was the first to address the contents and quote some of the text from Foye's September 13, 2013, e-mail to PA officials. Foye's e-mail ordered the toll lanes to be reopened, while denouncing the closures as an "abusive decision" and pledging to investigate "how PA process was wrongfully subverted and the public interest damaged" without Foye's knowledge. The e-mail said that there were potential violations of state and federal laws. PA insiders disputed that there was a traffic study. All of this reinforced the reported rumors that the toll lanes might have been closed by political surrogates of Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, as an alleged act of political retribution against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, for not endorsing Christie in his 2013 re-election campaign.[334] The Record, The Wall Street Journal, and other news media continued to investigate the matter in comprehensive reporting over the next few months, using sources and requests for public records.
The New York Times covered the lane closure story on December 8, 2013.[335]
The scandal broke in full on January 8, 2014, with an online story by Shawn Boburg of The Record[336][337] that Christie's deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly was involved in the planning of the toll lane closures. That revelation catapulted the story into a national political event. The Record continued with details of the dialogues in the troves of e-mails and texts supplied to the New Jersey Assembly Transportation Committee by David Wildstein. The Record described "vindictive lane closures" that were intended to cause massive traffic jams in Fort Lee. Related news with quotes from the e-mails and texts were subsequently published the same day in other news media.[41][126] During his January 9, 2014, press conference about the scandal, Governor Christie cited The Record as breaking the pivotal story on January 8.[102]
MSNBC gave substantial coverage to the Bridgegate scandal, and the network's ratings reached their highest point since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings when it covered Chris Christie's apologetic press conference on January 9, 2014.[338] MSNBC's intensive coverage was criticized by Christie, who was formerly close to MSNBC, calling it a "partisan network" that is "almost gleeful in their efforts attacking" him.[339] In February 2014, comedian Bill Maher also criticized MSNBC for its overextended coverage.[340] In response to Christie's criticisms of the intensive coverage by MSNBC and other media, Steve Kornacki noted in 2015 that coverage by the media primarily focused on the causes and effects of the bridge toll lane closures and the involvement of members of Christie's administration and his Port Authority appointees, David Wildstein and Bill Baroni, rather than Christie himself. Observing that Christie had ridiculed the media in 2013 for trying to implicate Wildstein and Baroni, Kornacki noted that by 2015, Wildstein had pleaded guilty to federal charges and Baroni was facing a federal indictment in connection with the scandal.[341]
In a decision on July 2, 2014, Superior Court Judge P. J. Innes ruled in favor of the North Jersey Media Group, publisher of the newspaper The Record, that the state must partially comply with open records request and turn over some information it had previously refused to release regarding current and former state employees' written requests for the state to appoint them attorneys or pay their legal fees resulting from parallel criminal and legislative investigations into the lane closures, though not the names of the employees. The state must pay the media group's legal fees. The media group plans to appeal, to gain fuller disclosure of the documents.[342]
The scandal and subsequent events have been extensively covered in Wikipedia.[343]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Coordinates: ||||| Enough probable cause exists for a citizen's official misconduct complaint against Gov. Chris Christie to move forward in connection with the governor's alleged failure to stop politically-motivated lane closures at the George Washington Bridge in 2013, a judge in Bergen County ruled Thursday.
The complaint by Bill Brennan, a retired Teaneck firefighter and citizen activist, alleges that Christie knew of the closures while they were happening and should have halted them. He alleges that the governor's inaction constitutes second-degree official misconduct, a charge punishable by five to 10 years in prison.
The lane closures caused significant traffic problems over a four-day span in Fort Lee and sparked a 16-month investigation that resulted in charges against two former members of Christie's inner circle, who are currently on trial in federal court in Newark. The trial is in its third week.
"I'm satisfied that there's probable cause to believe that an event of official misconduct was caused by Gov. Christie," Municipal Presiding Judge Roy McGeady said. "I'm going to issue the summons."
The governor's office vowed to "immediately appeal" the ruling. Christie's first appearance was scheduled for 9 a.m. on Oct. 24.
"This is a dishonorable complaint filed by a known serial complainant and political activist with a history of abusing the judicial system," Christie spokesman Brian Murray said. "The simple fact is the governor had no knowledge of the lane realignments either before they happened or while they were happening. This matter has already been thoroughly investigated by three separate independent investigations."
Brennan said he based the complaint on testimony from David Wildstein, a Christie appointee at the Port Authority who pleaded guilty to his role in the scandal. Wildstein is the government's key witness in its conspiracy and fraud case against William Baroni, who served as deputy executive director of the Port Authority, and Bridget Anne Kelly, who was the governor's deputy chief of staff.
The latest on the Bridgegate trial
Though Christie was never charged in connection with the lane closures, the scandal is seen as contributing to his failed bid for the Republican nomination for President.
Wildstein has said in his testimony that he discussed the plot with multiple members of Christie's senior staff before and during the lane closures, which he said was political retribution against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich for not endorsing the governor in his reelection campaign.
Wildstein also testified that Christie was told about the gridlock at a 9/11 memorial service, as the lanes remained closed in Fort Lee. Brennan says Christie had a legal obligation to stop the lane closures at that point.
McGeady asked Brennan why he filed in Bergen County, not Mercer County, where the governor's office is located. Brennan said that it was because the lane closures took place in Fort Lee, which McGeady said was a satisfactory answer.
"It's been dumped in this court's lap so this court is going to deal with it," McGeady said.
Craig Carpenito, an attorney at the law firm Alston & Bird who appeared on behalf of the governor, told McGeady that Brennan's claim was "intentionally misleading" and that the governor's knowledge of the lane closures had already been thoroughly investigated.
The audience in McGeady's courtroom, mostly there for minor criminal violations, applauded after he ruled.
"Anything short of probable cause today would have been official misconduct on the part of the judge," said Brennan, a graduate of the Seton Hall University School of Law. "The standard is low, the evidence is heavy."
McGeady said the case would now go to the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, which would decide whether to bring an indictment against Christie. The prosecutor, Gurbir S. Grewal, a Christie appointee, would likely recuse himself, McGeady said.
The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office declined to comment.
In New Jersey's criminal code, a charge of official misconduct pertains mostly to public officials.
"You're someone who either exercised their official function, knowing that it's unauthorized," explained James Pomaco, a former prosecutor in Passaic County who's now a criminal defense attorney. "Or you're someone who knowingly 'refrained from performing a duty which is imposed upon him by law or is clearly inherent in the nature of his office'."
Pomaco said that "from a prima facie standpoint, there's enough for a charge" of official misconduct based on Wildstein's testimony that Christie was informed of the lane closures as they were occurring on Sept. 11, 2013.
At the start of the Bridgegate scandal, some experts argued that state was better suited to prosecute the case overall because violations of state law were more apparent.
Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), who along with state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), co-chaired the legislative committee that looked into Bridgegate, said "it was a very interesting development, certainly not something that I expected today."
"It is a black eye for the state of New Jersey to have a judge find probable cause that the governor's actions were malfeasance in office," Wisniewski said. "Look, the testimony of David Wildstein corroborated a lot of the suspicions that the committee had during our process, that lot of people have statewide. It remains to be seen exactly what happens now that a finding of probable cause has been reached, because we know that the prosecutor has a discretion to act on that. We don't know exactly what they'll do."
Weinberg said the Bridgegate panel may have to reconvene.
"I believe that there are people who came before the joint committee under oath and were not exactly forthcoming, which is the kindest way I can describe. There were texts apparently that they never told us about, there were meetings that they never offered," she said.
Brennan unsuccessfully sued the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office in 2014 in an effort to reveal the names of bidders at an auction for baseball memorabilia seized in a drug arrest. He has filed numerous suits against public officials in Bergen County over the years.
Staff Writers Craig McCarthy, Claude Brodesser-Akner and Samantha Marcus contributed to this story.
Myles Ma may be reached at mma@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MylesMaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. ||||| An ex-Teaneck firefighter with a law degree decided that if the feds weren’t going to take Chris Christie to court over Bridgegate — he’d do it himself.
And on Thursday, a Hackensack municipal judge allowed his complaint to proceed — meaning the New Jersey governor could face criminal charges over the four-day closure of lanes feeding the George Washington Bridge from Fort Lee in 2013.
Prompting applause from a courtroom full of low-level criminal defendants, Judge Roy McGeady approved the citizen’s summons filed two weeks ago by William Brennan.
The gadfly’s efforts were sparked by recent trial testimony, in which the star prosecution witness told Newark federal jurors that Christie knew about the politically-vindictive lane closings and did nothing to stop them.
The feds declined to prosecute Christie and instead put two of his former cronies on trial — ex-Port Authority exec Bill Baroni and ex-Christie deputy Bridget Anne Kelly. Prosecutors, as well as both defense attorneys, have made a point of showing at trial that Christie approved of the closures.
Brennan alleges that Christie’s failure to end the closures constitutes second-degree official misconduct, a charge punishable by five to 10 years in prison.
Thursday’s ruling now forwards Brennan’s summons — which calls Bridgegate an “intentional evil minded act” — to Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal, who will decide whether to charge the governor.
But Grewal is a Christie appointee, and may wind up recusing himself in favor of an independent prosecutor.
“There’s something wrong with a government that turns its power against its citizens,” Brennan told The Post, explaining the summons he originally filed in a Fort Lee municipal court.
Christie spokesman Brian Murray dismissed the complaint and the ruling as “dishonorable” and “filed by a known serial complainant and political activist.”
Meanwhile, in the federal trial, the government rested its case after 15 days and 18 witnesses.
The government’s final witness Thursday was FBI agent Michelle Pickels, who testified that she was unable to recover some of Kelly’s emails, including the infamous “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” from Kelly’s Yahoo account, suggesting they were deleted.
Baroni then began presenting his defense.
His first witness was Christie’s former general counsel Charlie McKenna, who doubled down on the notion that he believed the lane closures were part of a traffic study until emails suggesting otherwise emerged in Jan. 2014.
McKenna claimed he didn’t find it odd that New Jersey residents were kept in the dark about the lane closures, which slowed emergency vehicles in Fort Lee, because it was all done for the sake of science.
“It would strike me from a common sense standpoint that if you gave notice to people that you are going to shift lanes they would act differently, and that would skew the results,” McKenna said.
McKenna was called to the stand because he participated in a conference call with Baroni in preparation for Baroni’s Nov. 2013 testimony before a NJ legislative committee about the lane closures, which were drawing scrutiny.
McKenna said that throughout the 10-minute call, Baroni referred to the closures as part of a traffic study — a since-debunked cover story.
When asked whether the governor ever asked him to look into allegations surrounding the lane closures, he said yes.
“The governor at one point asked me, ‘What’s going on with this situation,’” McKenna. “I reported back to him that they were doing a traffic study and that I talked to Bill Baroni.”
He confirmed that he told Bridgegate mastermind David Wildstein that he was still a “part of the team” after he fired him in Dec. 2013 because he still believed it was all a traffic study gone awry.
“He was afraid he was going to be ostracized from the Christie administration. I said this is a bad situation. You are going to have to resign but you are still on the team.”
“I meant the bigger Christie team. The governor wasn’t upset with him — the people around the governor were,” he said.
“I believed it was a traffic study so there’s nothing nefarious about a traffic study,” McKenna said when asked why he didn’t question Wildstein when he fired them in December 2013 over the lane closures.
Asked outside of court whether his job as a public official was to ensure residents’ safety or treat them as lab rats, McKenna said he was instructed by the judge not to comment.
McKenna’s testimony continues Friday, followed by a string of Baroni character witnesses, including Jose Rivera, a traffic engineer for the Port Authority. | – A citizen's official misconduct complaint against New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie can move forward, a judge in the state ruled Thursday. Bill Brennan, whom the Star-Ledger describes as a "citizen activist" and Christie's office describes as "a known serial complainant and political activist with a history of abusing the judicial system," filed the complaint last month over the 2013 BridgeGate scandal. Per Brennan's complaint, Christie knew lane closures were happening and could have put a stop to the whole thing. The complaint is based on testimony from the trial against former Christie aide Bridget Anne Kelly and former Port Authority executive Bill Baroni. During the trial, a man Christie appointed to Port Authority testified that both he and Baroni told Christie about the lane closures during a 9/11 ceremony (the lanes were closed from Sept. 9 to Sept. 13, 2013). Now that the judge has ruled the complaint can move forward, it will go to the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office so a decision can be made as to whether Christie should be indicted. Christie's office, which insists the governor had no knowledge of the lane closures while they were ongoing, said it would appeal the judge's ruling. The Star-Ledger reports that the courtroom audience, "mostly there for minor criminal violations," applauded the judge's ruling. The judge issued a criminal summons for Christie, the New York Post reports. |
Family: Nightmare Nanny Agrees to Leave
ABC
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It was the story that made every parent wince. Ralph and Marcella Bracamonte hired Diane Stretton as a live-in nanny to watch their children, ages 11, 4 and 16 months. When things didn't work out, they let her go. But, according to the Bracamontes, the 64-year-old nanny refused to leave their home in Upland, California.Since the story became national news on Friday, Stretton, who has refused to speak to media, hasn't returned to the house. She has been spotted driving past the house by the assembled media and her belongings remain in her room.But now, the Bracamontes say that Stretton has agreed to move out by July 4, under certain conditions. "She wrote a [email] stating what she wants to do," Marcella Bracamonte tells PEOPLE. "She would like to move out but because of the hot weather that's going to happen soon." The only hitch: the Bracamontes were scheduled to go out of town for a family wedding on July 2. "I feel like it's a trap," says Bracamonte, adding that the couple will have other family members house-sitting while they're out of town. "I feel like she knows that I'm going to be gone and that she wants to lock me out of my home."While Stretton and the Bracamontes come up with a solution, the case raises some burning questions. Speaking to PEOPLE inside their home, the Bracamontes answered some of them.The family had posted an ad on Craigslist, and Stretton seemed like a promising candidate. But did they do a criminal background check before hiring her? "Of course I did," Marcella Bracamonte tells PEOPLE. "I'm a mom. My family is the most important thing, so of course I did. I called references. I didn't do a credit check, because I wasn't accepting money from her. I just didn't think it was necessary. I was too trusting."According to the Bracamontes, they were initially pleased with Stretton's work – until the third week. "She began slowing down," says Bracamonte. "I thought maybe it was because she was a little older, but then things got worse the next week. And the next week." Adds Ralph Bracamonte: "She didn't want to pick up anything anymore. She didn't want to help out."Because the employment agreement included a place to live, the family must go through the proper legal channels to evict her. "The eviction process is a civil action and, in some cases, can take months to complete," says Cindy Bachman, a spokesperson for the San Bernardino County Sheriff. "Once the process is complete, a deputy will remove the tenant and lock them out. If the tenant refuses to leave, they could face arrest for trespassing and/or violation of a court order."If they interfere with the nanny's room, the Bracamontes could face legal repercussions. "She came in as a nanny in exchange for services," says the Bracamontes' attorney, Marc Cohen. (The laws regarding the housing agreement are different than those governing the employment arrangement.) "She was given a room. She has a legal right to that room. I don't think there is a legal obligation to feed her. There would be a legal obligation to ensure that she has lights, running water, things like that."Under landlord/tenant laws, the Bracamontes cannot become the roommates from hell. When Stretton felt that the Bracamontes had their television up too loud, she called police. "We could be fined up to $1,000 for disrupting our tenant," says Marcella. Adds Ralph, "My TV doesn't even have surround sound. It wasn't too loud."Although there is no record of a similar case involving employment as a nanny, PEOPLE has found Stretton's name attached to more than a dozen cases in three Southern California counties ranging from nonpayment to property damage to negligence. Of the 13 cases found by PEOPLE dating back to 2002, she is a plaintiff in 7 cases and a defendant in 6 more. ABC News reports that she is listed by California Courts as a vexatious litigant for abusing the legal system. ||||| UPLAND (CBSLA.com) — The 64-year-old live-in nanny who has come under national fire for refusing to leave an Upland family’s home is speaking out for the first time.
Ralph and Marcella Bracamonte hired Diane Stretton via Craigslist, offering her room and board for taking care of their three children.
After the first few months, the Bracamontes said Stretton stopped working and refused to leave her room.
The family said they fired Stretton on June 6, but she told them she wasn’t going to budge.
Stretton told KNX 1070’s Charles Feldman, however, that she was never terminated by the couple. ||||| The fired California nanny who wouldn't leave is blaming the weather, the media and physical disabilities as the reasons she hasn't moved out of her former employers' home, but said she will be out by July 4 - under certain conditions, according to an email she sent to her employer's lawyer.
But Marcella Bracamonte, who fired Diane Stretton earlier this month, thinks Stretton's demands are a ploy.
“I don’t believe her. She is going to show up when I am not here with a bunch of food and water and she will barricade herself in her room,” Bracamonte said.
“I want her to leave by tomorrow, Tuesday 4 p.m. I am not going to play games with this lady,” she said.
Nanny Who Wouldn't Leave Spotted Hiding in Car at Police Station
Family Stumped by Fired Live-In Nanny Who Won't Leave
Nanny Who Wouldn't Leave Has Disappeared
Stretton, 64, was hired by Marcella and Ralph Bracamonte in early March to help care for their three children in exchange for room and board. After several weeks, Stretton stopped working and said she was unable to perform her job because health problems and only came out of her room to eat, the Bracamontes claim. The family asked Stretton to sign a letter on June 6 giving her 30 days to leave, but Stretton threatened to sue the family for elder abuse and improper firing, Marcella Bracamonte said.
In an email sent this weekend to Marc Cohen, the Bracamontes' lawyer, Stretton said she tried to move out of the house but there was "always a bunch of news vehicles right in front of the house. The media needs to be completely gone before I continue moving."
She said her departure will now be delayed by a coming heat wave. "The temperature over the next 5 days is expected to be near 100 degrees. I can't work in that kind of heat," she wrote in her email.
Stretton said in her email that she wants to be able to sleep in the Bracamonte home for three more nights and to be able to shower in their bathroom.
"If the media stays away, I will be out by the 4th of July. But that depends on the circus not continuing," she wrote.
The Bracamontes have plans to be away for July 4, but Marcella Bracamonte does not intend to leave her house unattended.
“I have my sister-in-laws, brother-in-laws and their children, so at least seven people will be here,” she told ABC News.
Stretton disappeared from the Bracamontes' house Thursday morning and was later discovered in her car outside of a police station on Friday. She has refused to speak to the media, hiding under window screen.
During Stretton's standoff with the Bracamontes, her litigious past has emerged. She has a long history with litigation and is listed on California's Vexatious Litigant List, which includes people who have been found to bring legal action that is frivolous or repetitive.
The majority of the lawsuits were directed at her own family members, particularly her two sisters. According to documents, Stretton tried to block her sisters from selling family property.
Last year, Stretton even sued her son, Michael, according to court records, and a car rental agency for property damage and personal injury in connection with a motor vehicle accident.
Court documents show that when Stretton's father, John Richardson, died in 2000, his will included Stretton's two sisters, Donna Tobey and Sharon Freeburn. Richardson "specifically and expressly omitted Stretton," according to court documents.Stretton has not returned calls from ABC News. | – The fired nanny who has been refusing to leave her former employers' home says she is now ready to go—when conditions are just right. Diane Stretton over the weekend emailed Marcella and Ralph Bracamonte's lawyer blaming the weather and the media for her failure to depart their California home, ABC News reports. There are "always a bunch of news vehicles right in front of the house," the 64-year-old complains. "The media needs to be completely gone before I continue moving." She noted a predicted near-100-degree heat wave will make it impossible to move in the next few days because she "can't work in that kind of heat"—though "if the media stays away, I will be out by the 4th of July. But that depends on the circus not continuing." But Marcella Bracamonte, who says she fired Stretton last month after she "just stopped working," isn't convinced. "I don’t believe her. She is going to show up when I am not here with a bunch of food and water and she will barricade herself in her room," she says. Stretton, for her part, tells KNX 1070 news radio she only refused to work twice, when she had the flu and had worked 90 days straight. "I didn’t get lunch breaks, I didn’t get coffee breaks, I didn't get any holidays. Basically, I was working 24/7." Bracamonte, who tells People that she hired Stretton through a Craigslist ad and that her references checked out, says she and her family will be out of town on the day when Stretton claims she is going to move—but there will be plenty of other family members house-sitting. "I feel like she knows that I'm going to be gone and that she wants to lock me out of my home," she says. |
Sant Gopaldas had been fasting at Triveni and Bag ghats of the Ganga in Rishikesh since June 24
Two days after Ganga activist GD Agarwal died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Rishikesh, another activist, 36-year-old Sant Gopaldas was rushed to the premier institute early Saturday.
He was brought to the hospital at 3.45 am and admitted to the emergency ward, acting medical superintendent of the institute Brijendra Singh said. He is currently being treated at the endocrinology ward.
Dr Meenakshi Dhar, head the team of doctors attending to him said he was dehydrated. His sugar level has come down to 65. He has refused to eat anything or undergo medical treatment and is being given intravenous fluids, she added.
The administration has given permission to AIIMS authorities to take any measures they deem fit to save his life, including force-feeding.
Sant Gopaldas began his fast against mining operations at the Ganga river bed. He had been fasting at Triveni and Bag ghats of the Ganga in Rishikesh since June 24, his follower Arvind Hatwal said.
||||| MUMBAI (Reuters) - One of India’s most prominent environmental activists has died at the age of 86 after more than 15 weeks of a hunger strike to protest against government inaction on cleaning up the Ganges.
Activists of the youth wing of India's main opposition Congress party light candles during a vigil for environmental activist GD Agarwal also known as Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand after he passed away while he was on a fast-unto-death seeking cleansing of the Ganges river, in New Delhi, India, October 11, 2018. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis
The death of G.D. Agarwal, who held a PhD in environmental engineering from the University of California in Berkeley, prompted an outpouring of grief and tributes from activists.
“His demise has shut one of the leading voices of criticism of the government on the Ganga pollution,” said environmentalist Rakesh Jaiswal. “He was one of the most important figures in this fight.”
The Ganges, worshipped by Hindus, is India’s largest river system and one of its most polluted. Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 with a pledge to clean up the 1,570-mile-long river, used for water by 400 million people, but increasingly choked with domestic and industrial waste.
A flagship five-year project he launched in 2015 has fallen flat, critics say. Results of a federal audit released in Dec. 2017 revealed lapses in planning and financial management of the scheme and said under a quarter of the funds for the programme had been spent in two years.
Agarwal began his fast on June 22 in the northern Haridwar city, demanding a law to protect the river and the scrapping of construction of hydroelectric projects along its banks that have destroyed its natural flow.
In a letter to Modi in August, he threatened to fast unto death unless action was taken.
Modi said on Twitter he was “saddened” by Agarwal’s death. “His passion towards learning, education, saving the environment, particularly Ganga cleaning, will always be remembered. My condolences.”
India’s opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi also paid tribute. “To save the Ganga is to save the country. We will take his fight forward,” he wrote on Twitter.
Ravi Kant, director of the AIIMS hospital in the northern city of Hrishikesh, on the banks of the Ganges, said Agarwal died of a cardiac arrest on Thursday.
He had been forcibly taken to the hospital by police a day before, hours after he stopped drinking water. Television footage showed Agarwal, clad in a saffron robe, being picked up by police officers along with the chair he was sitting on, as he kicked his legs in protest.
Some activists on Friday demanded an independent investigation into Agarwal’s death.
“I don’t think the government made any honest effort to fulfil his demands,” said Ravi Chopra, an environmentalist. | – An 86-year-old Indian activist died Thursday during a hunger strike to protest pollution in the Ganges River, Reuters reports. G.D. Agarwal was more than 15 weeks into a fast that he began on June 22. He was demanding a law to protect the Ganges—India's largest waterway, sacred to Hindus, which is filthy with domestic and industrial waste—as well as the discontinuing of construction of hydroelectrical projects. Another activist tells Reuters that Agarwal's death "has shut one of the leading voices of criticism of the government on the Ganga pollution." The day before he died, Agarwal was forcibly taken to the hospital after refusing to drink water. Officers reportedly picked him up in the chair he was sitting in as he kicked his legs in protest. He later died of cardiac arrest, per Reuters. Another activist, 36-year-old Sant Gopaldas, was hospitalized Saturday after starting a hunger strike on June 24, NDTV reports. Gopaldas was protesting mining operations along the Ganges. Authorities have reportedly given hospital staff the OK to force-feed him. |
Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan told his fiancee the day he was diagnosed last week that he regrets exposing her to the deadly virus and had he known he was carrying Ebola, he would have “preferred to stay in Liberia and died than bring this to you,” a family friend said.
“He apologized to Louise the day they told him what he had,” said Saymendy Lloyd, a close friend of Louise Troh, the fiancee of Duncan, who is in critical condition and no longer responsive. “He told her, ‘I’m so sorry all of this is happening. . . . I would not put the love of my life in danger.’ ”
Family members gathered in Dallas and were able to see Duncan on Monday at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital via a laptop camera in his hospital room. “He is not responsive at all. They said he was drugged and they put him in deep sleep,” said Lloyd, who was with the family.
She said the family members were saddened by the sight of Duncan.
Lloyd said this was the first time Duncan’s mother, who lives in North Carolina, saw her son since he came to the United States.
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“She has not seen him for 12 years, and the first time she saw him was through a monitor,” said Lloyd. “She was very, very emotional. She told him to be strong, that she is praying for him, that she loves him and God is able to do all things.”
Troh, who is in mandated isolation in Dallas with her 13-year-old son and two other people, spoke by phone to Lloyd.
Duncan and Troh’s 19-year-old son, Eric Karsiah Duncan, tried to visit his father at the hospital Tuesday evening.
Speaking later at a news conference at Wilshire Baptist Church, the Angelo State University student thanked his mother’s church members.
“I’m praying for my family to be okay and my dad makes it out safely,” said Eric Duncan, who had not seen his father since he was 3 in Liberia. “I hope they find a cure for it.”
As Thomas Duncan fights for his life, Texas health officials are bracing for a critical week in Dallas, where they are watching for any signs that as many as 48 people who had contact with Duncan may develop symptoms of Ebola. Health officials say the incubation period for the disease is 21 days, but it could appear eight to 10 days after exposure.
Duncan began showing symptoms Sept. 24, when he first sought medical treatment at Texas Presbyterian, three blocks from the home of Troh. Duncan was sent home but was taken back to the hospital by ambulance Sept. 28. Two days later, last Tuesday, a blood test confirmed that he had Ebola. Health officials say the “10-day threshold” for the disease will fall within the next few days.
View Graphic More than a dozen drugs are being studied for treating Ebola and other filoviruses.
“This is a critical week. We need to be prepared in Dallas for what could happen if family members become ill,” said David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of Health Services. “We are doing contingency planning and praying for what if. I have been concentrating on what we need to do now to protect Dallas.”
None of the 10 “high risk” people — including four people who lived in the apartment where Duncan stayed and six health-care workers — have developed symptoms, health officials said. Troh, who was moved to an undisclosed location with the three people who were in the apartment with Duncan, is still well, family members say. On Sunday, members of the Liberian community association were able to take her traditional Liberian food, including jollof rice, foo foo, cassava leaves and plantains. “She called me, ‘I’m eating some traditional Liberian food,’ ” Lloyd said. “She was very happy about that.”
Health officials say they are continuing to watch 38 other people who had “possible contact” with Duncan and were considered to be at lower risk. Twice a day, health officials are checking the temperature of the 48 people — of whom six are in mandated isolation.
“They receive one call a day [to ask for a temperature reading] and one visit per day,” said Sana Sayed, a spokeswoman for the city of Dallas. “A health worker makes a physical contact with the 48 people being monitored every single day, seeing them and checking their temperature.”
Lakey would not discuss why hospital protocols failed to detect Duncan the first time he visited Texas Health Presbyterian with a 101.1 fever, complaining of abdominal pains. The hospital’s decision to send him home put other people at risk.
“A lot of evaluations will take place to find out what happened on the first presentation to find out why wasn’t a diagnosis made,” Lakey said.
Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price criticized the hospital for failing to heed warnings sent in July about what protocols hospitals should follow to treat infectious diseases.
“I said at the outset, Presbyterian is a boutique hospital next to a little Ellis Island,” Price said, referring to the neighborhood where many residents are immigrants. “If you don’t have insurance, you’re not going to get treated. That’s the elephant in the room.”
Texas Health Resources, the hospital network that includes Texas Health Presbyterian, responded to criticism Tuesday by saying, “He was treated the way any other patient would have been treated, regardless of nationality or ability to pay for care. We have a long history of treating a multicultural community in this area.”
Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that the agency was exploring ways to increase the screening of passengers on both sides of the Atlantic.
“We’re working very intensively on the screening process,” Frieden said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday. “We’re looking at that entire process to see what more can be done.”
While he promised that “additional steps” were coming, Frieden did not elaborate on what that would include. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in an interview Tuesday that Frieden told him that the plan is to have “tougher types of screening on U.S. soil.”
Still, Frieden said the CDC has had teams on the ground working to strengthen the screening of passengers leaving West Africa. The screening has included taking temperatures, keeping an eye out for other symptoms and having travelers fill out questionnaires.
He said the CDC methods have been used to screen more than 36,000 people over two months. And of those travelers, a small portion of whom were coming to the United States, only 77 people had a fever or other symptoms that caused them to be taken out of line, he said. “As far as we know, none of those 77 people had Ebola,” Frieden noted.
Of course, these methods are not perfect, as was made clear when Duncan filled out a questionnaire, had his temperature taken by a person trained by the CDC and boarded multiple flights on his way to Dallas.
President Obama’s promise of stepped-up screening for Ebola at U.S. airports that handle international flights will fall on the shoulders of the Customs and Border Protection officers who greet passengers arriving from abroad.
Though they often seem preoccupied with scrutinizing passports and luggage, customs officers are trained to detect signs of illness, and they routinely do just that, officials said.
“CBP personnel review all travelers entering the United States for general overt signs of illnesses,” the agency said in a statement.
In addition to visual observations, CBP officers question passengers about their health and are instructed to alert the CDC if a passenger appears to be seriously ill. If a person is believed to have “a possible communicable disease,” they are isolated while the CDC and local authorities conduct the evaluation.
Federal law requires pilots to radio ahead if a passenger dies or falls ill with certain symptoms.
“If somebody comes in on a flight that has a fever or any one of those triggers, CDC can insert themselves at any point in the process,” said Rob Yingling, spokesman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which runs Dulles International and Reagan National airports. “They can say [to the pilot], ‘Tell us more about this case,’ or they can actually physically go to the plane.”
The CDC maintains an office at Dulles and other major airports that handle international flights.
Meanwhile, up to 4,000 service members are expected to head to West African countries ravaged by the Ebola epidemic. They will be monitored several times a day and, if any of them contract Ebola, they will be flown back to the United States aboard a specially designed plane for treatment.
Among the tasks laid out for the military is the construction of 17 treatment centers for people with the disease. This will take until the middle of next month, according to Gen. David Rodriguez, chief of U.S. Africa Command.
Mark Berman, Ashley Halsey III, Dan Lamonthe and Amy Ellis Nutt contributed to this report from Washington. ||||| DALLAS (AP) — The family of a man diagnosed with the first U.S. case of Ebola again visited him at the hospital Tuesday but declined to view him via video the last time had been too upsetting.
Nowai Korkoya, mother of Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, center, walks with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, right, and Josephus Weeks, Duncan's nephew after they spoke to reporters Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2014, in... (Associated Press)
Nowai Korkoya, center, mother of Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, is wheeled by the Rev. Jesse Jackson after her family visited her son at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2014, in... (Associated Press)
FILE - This 2011 photo provided by Wilmot Chayee shows Thomas Eric Duncan at a wedding in Ghana. In September 2014, Duncan became the first patient in the U.S. diagnosed with Ebola. (AP Photo/Wilmot Chayee) (Associated Press)
Nowai Korkoya, mother of Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, walks with the Rev. Jesse Jackson after they spoke to reporters, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2014, in Dallas. Duncan's family has gathered in Dallas to... (Associated Press)
Josephus Weeks, left, nephew of Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, stands next to the Rev. Jesse Jackson as he finishes up speaking to reporters Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2014, in Dallas. Duncan's family has gathered... (Associated Press)
Josephus Weeks, left, and his son Josephus Weeks, Jr., nephews of Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, visit with a reporter after seeing their uncle at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Tuesday, Oct. 7,... (Associated Press)
Relatives of Thomas Eric Duncan glimpsed him using a video system at Dallas' Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Monday. But when they returned anew, this time with Rev. Jesse Jackson, they decided such images were too much.
"What we saw was very painful. It didn't look good," said Duncan's nephew, Josephus Weeks.
Weeks said he and Duncan's mother were unable to sleep after seeing Duncan's face.
The hospital says Duncan is in critical condition and is sedated but stable. He is on a breathing machine and kidney dialysis. Duncan's liver function, which declined over the weekend, has improved, though doctors say it may it may not stay that way.
David Lakey, commissioner of Texas' Department of State Health Services, walked the hospital ward housing Duncan, which is otherwise vacant. He said security and medical officials wear gowns, double gloves and masks, and are following protocols on removing them and showering when they leave the ward.
"They are doing their work very safely," Lakey said.
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Eds: Associated Press Writer Will Weissert contributed to this report from Austin. ||||| Photo
DALLAS — The Liberian man battling the Ebola virus is on a ventilator and receiving kidney dialysis, health officials said Tuesday, but for the first time doctors had some positive news to report about his condition. Family members who were briefed by doctors said they were told Mr. Duncan’s temperature and blood pressure are back to normal and the debilitating diarrhea Ebola brings had slowed.
A little more than a week after testing positive for the virus, the patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, 42, remained in critical condition on Tuesday, while getting an experimental antiviral drug that doctors hope will help him recover.
But his family, who gathered here today and held a vigil with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, said they had some reasons to be optimistic.
“We are happy Eric is doing better. If all goes well we will be able to see him,” his nephew, Josephus Weeks, said.
Photo
It is a critical week not just for Mr. Duncan but for the 48 people who had some contact with him after he showed signs of the disease. In this city, on edge over fears that Ebola could spread, officials have urged calm, saying those potentially exposed to the virus are being tracked and none have showed symptoms.
Dr. David Lakey, the Texas health commissioner, said Tuesday that the next few days could be decisive in determining whether any of the 48 people who came in contact with Mr. Duncan develop the virus.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the maximum incubation period for the virus is 21 days, but symptoms typically appear in eight to 10. Mr. Duncan, who apparently contracted the virus before flying to the United States, began complaining of symptoms on Sept. 24 and was hospitalized in isolation on Sept. 28. The 10-day threshold will pass by the middle of this week.
Of the 48 people under observation, 10 are deemed to be at high risk, officials said. Three of those people shared an apartment with Mr. Duncan and seven are health care workers. The other 38 people are considered to be at lower risk.
“None of them are sick, none of them have a fever,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the director of the C.D.C., said Tuesday.
Dr. Frieden said Mr. Duncan’s condition and the lack of new cases were positive signs with implications for what he said will be a long fight against the disease.
“Globally, this is going to be a long hard fight,” he said. “We can never forget that the enemy here is a virus, the enemy is Ebola, not people, not countries, not communities, a virus. And it’s a virus that doesn’t spread through the air, that we do know how to control. We do know how to stop it by isolating patients, doing contact tracing and breaking the chains of transmission. I can say one week in that there are real signs of progress not only in Dallas but also around the world.”
Since Saturday, Mr. Duncan has been receiving brincidofovir — an experimental drug developed to fight smallpox and other highly infectious viruses. The C.D.C. said there are no more doses of ZMapp, another experimental drug used on two American aid workers who later recovered from Ebola.
Mr. Duncan’s nephew said that despite signs of improvement, the virus has given his uncle serious infections in his lungs and kidneys, and Mr. Duncan has not yet turned a corner toward recovery.
Mr. Duncan came to Dallas a few weeks ago from Liberia to reunite with Louise Troh, with whom he has a son. Now Ms. Troh, one of her other sons and two men who were staying with them are quarantined until late October. Local officials moved them a few days ago from a small apartment, which had towels and bedding contaminated with Ebola, to a modest four-bedroom ranch house that was donated by a church after officials were unable to find a house for the potentially infected family through traditional landlords.
More Ebola Coverage
“They are doing very well,” said the Rev. George Mason of Wilshire Baptist Church, which Ms. Troh attends. “They are counting the days until they can come out.”
At the church on Tuesday night, Karsiah Duncan, Mr. Duncan’s 19-year-old son with Ms. Troh, spoke publicly about his father for the first time. The younger Mr. Duncan had not seen his father since he was 3, when his parents separated in an Ivory Coast refugee camp and Ms. Troh left for the United States. He is a freshman at Angelo State University, west of Dallas, where he plays on the football team.
A reunion was to be one of the highlights of Mr. Duncan’s visit. Instead, Karsiah visited his father at the hospital on Tuesday evening.
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“I just came down here because I thought God was calling me to see my dad,” he said. He thanked the doctors caring for his father, and paid tribute to the strength of his mother, who has been quarantined since Mr. Duncan was hospitalized on Sept. 28. “Keep praying and let God do what he got to do.”
Mr. Mason, the pastor, said he had visited the family to bring a Bible and letters from his congregation. Liberians in the area have come to bring traditional foods such as potato greens, cassava leaves and pepper sauce, not supplied by aid agencies. A number of local officials coordinating the response, including Mayor Mike Rawlings of Dallas and Judge Clay Jenkins of Dallas County, have also stopped by.
While they are careful to avoid contact, Mr. Mason said, they wear no protective clothing.
“The science is clear,” he said. “If they don’t have symptoms, they are not contagious. We had a choice to act out of fear or out of love. We chose to act out of love.” ||||| A member of the Cleaning Guys Haz Mat clean up company removes items from the apartment where Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan was staying before being admitted to a hospital on October 6, 2014 in Dallas, Texas.
A member of the Cleaning Guys Haz Mat clean up company removes items from the apartment... Read More
A member of the Cleaning Guys Haz Mat clean up company removes items from the apartment where Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan was staying before being admitted to a hospital on October 6, 2014 in Dallas, Texas. Close
The care provided Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan may have cost as much as half a million dollars, a bill Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas is unlikely to ever collect.
Duncan died today at the hospital, where he had been isolated since Sept. 28. He had been on a ventilator, was given an experimental medicine and began receiving dialysis when his kidney’s failed Oct. 4, the hospital has said. His treatment included fluids replacement, blood transfusions and drugs to maintain blood pressure. There’s also the cost of security, disposing of Ebola-contaminated trash and equipment to protect caregivers.
“It is with profound sadness and heartfelt disappointment that we must inform you of the death of Thomas Eric Duncan this morning at 7:51 a.m.,” Texas Health Presbyterian said today in a statement.
The Ebola Scourge
The bill for Duncan’s care may eventually total $500,000 including indirect costs such as the disruption to other areas of the hospital, said Dan Mendelson, chief executive officer of Avalere Health, a Washington consulting firm. Duncan’s care probably cost $18,000 to $24,000 a day, said Gerard Anderson, a health policy professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Photographer: Mike Stone/Getty Images Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas on Sept. 30 in Dallas. Close Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas on Sept. 30 in Dallas. Close Open Photographer: Mike Stone/Getty Images Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas on Sept. 30 in Dallas.
Duncan had been in isolation in the hospital for nine days. “If they recognize that he has no money they will clearly just write it off as charity care,” Anderson said in a telephone interview yesterday before Duncan’s death was announced.
No Insurance
Duncan came to the U.S. from Liberia on Sept. 20 on a tourist visa. He had no health insurance to pay for his care, said the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the civil rights advocate, who traveled to Dallas at the request of Duncan’s mother.
Spokesmen for Texas Health Presbyterian and for the Liberian embassy in Washington declined to discuss who would pay for Duncan’s care.
Related:
Duncan is the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the U.S. Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha have also treated Ebola patients, three of whom have been released after recovering. A fourth patient is under care in Omaha and a fifth in Atlanta.
Neither of the hospitals would comment on the cost of treating those patients. Kent Brantly, the first person to be transported from Liberia to the U.S. for care, was covered under health insurance provided by his charity, Samaritan’s Purse, said Todd Shearer, a spokesman for the group.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images Civil rights advocate Reverend Jesse Jackson, right, walks with Nowai korkoyah, the mother of Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, after speaking to the media at the South Dallas Cafe on October 7, 2014 in Dallas, Texas. Close Civil rights advocate Reverend Jesse Jackson, right, walks with Nowai korkoyah, the... Read More Close Open Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images Civil rights advocate Reverend Jesse Jackson, right, walks with Nowai korkoyah, the mother of Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, after speaking to the media at the South Dallas Cafe on October 7, 2014 in Dallas, Texas.
SIM’s Coverage
Two other aid workers, Nancy Writebol and Rick Sacra, went to Liberia with the Charlotte, North Carolina-based missionary group SIM. They are covered by the group’s health and workers’ compensation insurance plans, and SIM plans to pay their $25,000 deductibles, said George Salloum, the group’s vice president for finance and operations. Writebol’s evacuation from Liberia was covered in full by one of SIM’s insurance carriers, Aetna Inc. (AET), he said. He’s still waiting for bills from other carriers, whom he declined to name, and said he didn’t know what the hospital care cost.
“The hospitals have not disclosed that information to us,” Salloum said in a phone interview. “I’m very anxious to find out, personally, just wondering what they’re charging for that kind of care.”
Emory and Nebraska are known for their expertise in exotic diseases and careful isolation of infectious patients. Texas Health Presbyterian has no such pedigree.
Hospital Rank
It is ranked the fifth-best hospital in the Dallas-Fort Worth region and 15th-best in Texas by U.S. News and World Report. Duncan arrived there in an ambulance on Sept. 28, after being initially sent home two days earlier from the emergency room with antibiotics. The hospital has blamed a communication failure in its electronic record system for Duncan’s initial release.
“They have an excellent reputation in the community” and “very good infectious disease physicians,” Stephen Love, president and CEO of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council, a trade group, said in a phone interview.
Anderson, who is a former federal health official, said that as a foreign citizen Duncan wouldn’t have been eligible for any U.S. health programs such as Medicaid, for low income people. Texas hospitals charge $8,176 per day on average for treatment of viral illnesses, including exotic diseases such as West Nile virus and Dengue fever, said Andrew Fitch, a health-care pricing expert at NerdWallet, a San Francisco-based company that provides consumer finance and health data.
That figure “is actually probably on the low end” for Ebola, Fitch said in a phone interview. “The isolation ward would bump up the charge a lot.”
Area Costs
Health care generally is more costly in Dallas than in the rest of the country, according to the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, a project of Dartmouth University that tracks regional variation in spending by Medicare, the U.S. health insurance program for the elderly and disabled. Medicare beneficiaries in Dallas cost about $11,484 on average in 2012, placing the area within the 90th percentile for the U.S.
Isolation procedures can include placing patients by themselves in rooms capable of negative air pressure, to prevent microorganisms from escaping, said Pritish Tosh, an infectious diseases physician and researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Physicians and nurses treating the patients must don gloves, gowns and masks with eye protection before entering the room and dispose of the gear afterward, he said.
Intensive Care
That can roughly double the cost of standard treatment in an intensive care unit, Anderson said. If a U.S. outbreak occurs, something federal health officials say is unlikely, the cost of care may fall as hospitals gain experience and streamline procedures, said Jeffrey Rice, CEO of Healthcare BlueBook Inc., a Brentwood, Tennessee, company that calculates health-care prices for consumers.
There is no approved cure for Ebola, though some patients have received experimental medications. Standard treatment includes supportive care to maintain body fluids, replace blood and fight off opportunistic infections.
The Ebola outbreak originated in West Africa, where it has infected 8,033 people, killing 3,879, primarily in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, according to a report today from the World Health Organization.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Wayne in Washington at awayne3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net Andrew Pollack ||||| DALLAS (AP) — The Fort Worth, Texas, company Cleaning Guys has dealt with hazardous spills. It has cleared bloody crime scenes, including some that involved HIV.
File - In the Oct. 3, 2014 file photo, hazardous material cleaners prepare to hang black plastic outside The Ivy Apartments in Dallas. A 15-member crew from the Cleaning Guys of Fort Worth labored for... (Associated Press)
File - In the Oct. 2, 2014, file photo, a hazardous materials cleaning company truck sits parked outside The Ivy Apartments in Dallas. A 15-member crew from the Cleaning Guys of Fort Worth labored for... (Associated Press)
In this photo made Monday, Oct. 6, 2014, Brad Smith, a hazardous material cleaner speaks to reporters staking out an apartment in Dallas. A 15-member crew that labored for four days at the apartment... (Associated Press)
In this photo made Monday, Oct. 6, 2014, a hazardous material cleaner removes an item from an apartment in Dallas. A 15-member crew that labored for four days at the apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this Oct. 3, 2014, file photo, a hazardous material cleaner removes an item from an apartment in Dallas. A 15-member crew that labored for four days at the apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan... (Associated Press)
But Garrett Eison, the company's operations manager, said he was initially anxious when the company agreed to take on a job others were hesitant to do: cleaning up the Dallas apartment where an Ebola patient stayed.
"This is definitely something that would make you a little more nervous," Eison said, though he added that because he knew his company was prepared, "I don't feel worried about it."
Eison was part of a 15-member crew that spent four days at the apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan stayed when he began showing Ebola-related symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea. They wore protective suits with gas masks as they filled about 140 barrels with items from the home for incineration, including mattresses, the patient's sheets and the entire apartment's carpet.
By the end, logos on the company's black and green trailers — televised nationwide by media camped outside the home — became a recognizable brand across Dallas, where Eison's colleagues have been approached in public and thanked.
The job wasn't easy to fill. At a briefing last week, Texas Health Commissioner David Lakey said that "there's been a little bit of hesitancy for entities to want to do that." A Dallas County spokeswoman said Tuesday that the county contacted seven vendors for the task and that "the only vendor that was responsive and met the guidelines" for that kind of waste disposal was the Cleaning Guys.
Duncan arrived in Dallas last month from Ebola-ravaged Liberia and stayed in the apartment with Louise Troh, her 13-year-old son and two nephews until he developed symptoms several days later and was eventually hospitalized. The family was moved to an undisclosed location on Friday, the day the cleanup started. They have not yet shown symptoms.
For the next several days, the crew cleared out the place, including a 26-hour final stretch lasting into Monday. The job required rotating two-person teams after they'd worked for 40 minutes to avoid exhaustion. They disposed of most of the family's belongings but were able to set aside items such as passports, a laptop, a family Bible, trophies, photographs and other keepsakes.
Company owner Erick McCallum said that for the job they set up a "little city" outside the apartment that included food, portable toilets and a place for workers to rest. They also made sure workers were properly hydrated and had their blood pressure under control.
McCallum said his crew didn't have any specific training for Ebola, which is spread by contact with bodily fluids and has killed more than 3,400 people in West Africa. But he noted his company's previous work prepared them for what he calls his business' most high-profile job.
The workers consulted with Dallas County and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to ensure everyone was safe.
"It comes down to biohazard training," he said. "The steps and precautions taken are basically the same."
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Associated Press writers Diana Heidgerd and Emily Schmall contributed to this report. | – Ebola doesn't just cause a horrific death: It'll leave you with a massive hospital bill if you survive, reports Bloomberg. Care for Liberian national Thomas Duncan, who is in critical condition at a Dallas hospital, is costing up to $1,000 an hour, and analysts believe the bill could total more than $500,000, including costs like security and decontamination. Duncan—who will also face criminal charges if he pulls through—has no health insurance, and it's not clear if the bill will ever be paid. "It's too early to make a decision about payment of bills; he is in critical condition," a Liberian Embassy spokesman says. "The focus is on his health." More: Duncan, 42, is receiving an experimental drug, and health officials say there have been a few positive signs: He's still on dialysis, but his blood pressure and temperature are now normal, reports the New York Times. None of the 48 people under observation who came into contact with him are showing Ebola symptoms. But with the incubation deadline days away, Dallas is on edge, reports the AP. "This is a very critical week," says Texas Health Commissioner David Lakey. "We're at a very sensitive period when a contact could develop symptoms. We're monitoring with extreme vigilance." Before he became unresponsive, Duncan apologized to his fiancee and told her he would have "preferred to stay in Liberia and died than bring this to you," a family friend tells the Washington Post. The friend says he told her, "I'm so sorry all of this is happening ... I would not put the love of my life in danger." Duncan's relatives have been able to view him via a video system, but they decided not to during a hospital visit yesterday because earlier images had been too disturbing. "What we saw was very painful. It didn't look good," a nephew tells the AP. A fascinating read: How Firestone shut down Ebola. |
Movie Trailers are like food menus, they give you a preview of what your gonna get. If you look at a McDonald’s menu and you choose to get your favourite burger, presented/showcased in a nice picture with pickles, chicken, mild cheese (you’re favourite, in-fact...that’s the only reason you’re getting this burger...because you love mild cheese). So you use your hard worked money to pay for this burger, you get the burger, but only to find out that...this isn’t the burger you ordered. Yes it has pickles and chicken...but...it doesn’t have mild cheese...it has regular cheese.
“Suicide Squad” trailers showcased several SPECIFIC Joker scenes that I had to pay for the whole movie just so that I can go watch those SPECIFIC SCENES that WB/DC had advertised in their trailers and TV spots. These scenes are: When Joker banged his head on his car window, when Joker says, ‘’let me show you my toys’’, when Joker punchs the roof of his car, when Joker drops a bomb with his face all messed up and says, ‘’BYE BYE!’’. Non of these scenes were in the movie. I drove 300 miles to London to go watch these specific scenes they had explicitly advertised in their TV ads...and they didn’t show them to me. Adding to this, they were also 2 specific Katana scenes they advertised that were also the reason I wanted to go watch the movie. These scenes were: Katana’s eyes going black, and a slow motion shot of her and her sword taking souls...in a smokey kind of style. These scenes were advertised several times in the 1st trailer and many TV ads...but they didn’t show it to me in the movie. I wasted alot of money paying and travelling to go watch this movie because of these specific scenes they had advertised to me and all of us saying, ‘’hey, check out our preview! this will all be in our movie, come watch it on the 5th!!’’. All lies. I told the theatre about this unjust act and said I didn’t get what I came here to see...can I have my money back. They laughed at me and kicked me out. So I’m now taking this to court. I want my refund, the trauma of being embarrassed as I was being kicked out and people laughing at me for wanting my refund, and also the 160 pounds of fuel money I used to drive to London from Scotland.
If you advertise something...give me what you have advertised. Period. This is becoming a habbit with movie studios, showing epic scenes in trailers...but their never shown in the movies. It’s unjust.
I just want to say, join me if you feel the same way. Let’s stop this nonsense of false bullshitery...and don’t let them bribe you with their ‘’deluxe premium special directors gold extended edition supreme cut’’ nonsense. You should get what they advertised as their first theatre showing and what you have paid for based on what they have showed you in their advertisements.
Our court process will begin on 11/08/16 this week. ||||| Oh, I’m not going to kill you. I’m just going to...sue you? Wait, that’s not how the line goes. Well, that is, unless you’re Reddit user BlackPanther2016. Disgruntled by Suicide Squad's so-called false advertising, the moviegoer is sharing his plans to sue Warner Bros. & DC Entertainment for wrongly showing some of The Joker’s scenes in its preview trailers.
Posting to r/movies, the user had lots to say about how fed up he is with Suicide Squad and Hollywood’s tendency to delete scenes shown in trailers. He writes, “Suicide Squad trailers showcased several SPECIFIC Joker scenes that I had to pay for the whole movie just so that I can go watch those SPECIFIC SCENES that WB/DC had advertised in their trailers and TV spots...Non [sic] of these scenes were in the movie. I drove 300 miles to London to go watch these specific scenes they had explicitly advertised in their TV ads...and they didn't show them to me.”
Of course, many fans are aware of the decision Warner Bros. made to cut many of The Joker’s scenes. Actor Jared Leto even told Telestar, “There are a lot of scenes that didn’t make it to the final film. Hopefully they will see the light of day. Who knows.” But, for one Reddit user, the studio’s choice is totally unacceptable. “I wasted alot of money paying and travelling to go watch this movie because of these specific scenes they had advertised to me and all of us saying, “hey, check out our preview! this will all be in our movie, come watch it on the 5th!!”. All lies,” he explained before continuing. “I'm now taking this to court. I want my refund, the trauma of being embarrassed as I was being kicked out and people laughing at me for wanting my refund, and also the 160 pounds of fuel money I used to drive to London from Scotland.”
If you happen to feel the same way as BlackPanther2016, then you now have a champion for this cause. The user’s post finishes with them calling out to similarly disappointed fans, urging others to stand up against Hollywood’s “unjust” advertising schemes. “Let's stop this nonsense of false bullsh**ery...and don't let them bribe you with their “deluxe premium special directors gold extended edition supreme cut” nonsense,” the user pleads. “You should get what they advertised as their first theatre showing and what you have paid for based on what they have showed you in their advertisements.” ||||| For anyone who hasn't had the chance to peep Suicide Squad just yet, the following slice of info might qualify as a spoiler. Despite a year's worth of trailers, teasers, and declarations of method acting prowess, Jared Leto doesn't really get a ton of screen time in the film. That's not only a bummer for Leto, but it's also quite the bummer for Joker and/or Leto fans. Just ask the guy who's apparently threatening to sue because Suicide Squad's distinct lack of Joker left him so damn befuddled. Also, um, mad. Dude seems really mad.
A Reddit user by the digital name of BlackPanther2016, as first reported by Screen Rant, considers movie trailers to be similar to food menus. "They give you a preview of what your [sic] gonna get," the post reads. Fair enough. But what's the main beef here? The Reddit user and his brother, apparently an attorney, are beyond bummed that they drove "300 miles to London" to specifically peep scenes they had seen in the trailer only to later be met with profound disappointment:
"Suicide Squad trailers showcased several SPECIFIC Joker scenes that I had to pay for the whole movie just so that I can go watch those SPECIFIC SCENES that WB/DC had advertised in their trailers and TV spots. These scenes are: When Joker banged his head on his car window, when Joker says, 'let me show you my toys', when Joker punchs [sic] the roof of his car, when Joker drops a bomb with his face all messed up and says, 'BYE BYE!'. Non [sic] of these scenes were in the movie."
Whether this is all a semi-elaborate joke or not remains to be seen, but BlackPanther2016 claims to be kicking off his "court process" on Thursday. This perpetually bummed Suicide Squad viewer wants a full refund, gas, and some sort of additional compensation for the "trauma of being embarrassed" as the theater staff kicked him out as he proceeded to complain to them about false advertising.
Anyway, peep this fan-made Joker and Harley Quinn movie and imagine all that could have been with the gift of an R rating. | – The only people more villainous than clown-faced maniacs are the people who make movie trailers about them, apparently. Comicbook.com reports a Scottish Reddit user named BlackPanther2016 claims he or she is suing Warner Bros. and DC over what he claims were misleading Suicide Squad trailers that heavily featured Jared Leto's Joker. As the Huffington Post points out, despite a prominent presence in the advertising campaign for Suicide Squad, the Joker only appears in the film for about 15 minutes. "I drove 300 miles to London to go watch these specific scenes they had explicitly advertised in their TV ads," BlackPanther2016 writes on Reddit. "They didn't show them to me.” BlackPanther2016 says his brother is a lawyer and their court case for false advertising starts Thursday. He compares film trailers to restaurant menus, and says he definitely didn't get what he ordered when he went to Suicide Squad. “I'm now taking this to court," BlackPanther2016 writes. "I want my refund, the trauma of being embarrassed as I was being kicked out and people laughing at me for wanting my refund." HuffPo doesn't think the disappointed Joker fan has a legal leg to stand on. And Complex can't figure out whether or not the whole thing is a joke. |
No more waiting in lines: Snap is making Spectacles available to buy online in the U.S.
The $130 glasses, which allow wearers to take circular videos and post them to their Snapchat accounts, are now available on Spectacles.com. Before, the glasses were sold through vending machines which popped up in major metro areas around the country, as well as a store in Manhattan.
Because of the short supply, those lucky enough to snag a pair were able to resell the wearable devices for up to $5,000. CNBC reporters had to wait in line for a total of 18 hours to get ahold of the funky sunglasses. ||||| 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 ||||| Snap wants to prove to investors in its upcoming IPO that Spectacles can earn money for its business, not just be a brand stunt. So today, Snap begins selling its video-recording sunglasses Spectacles openly online for $129.99 in the U.S. at Spectacles.com. Previously it only dispensed them from Snapbot vending machines in surprise locations and its NYC pop-up store for the last three months.
Snap has now closed that pop-up, and tells me “Snapbots will continue to land in surprising locations around the U.S. following a brief “nap” :) “. Buyers should expect to wait two to four weeks for their Spectacles to ship, and households are limited to 6 pairs. People can also now buy $49.99 charging cases and $9.99 charging cords from Snap, which will no longer be sold on Amazon.
As for why Snap is expanding Spectacles beyond its buzzy limited release strategy, a spokesperson explains:
“As Evan shared in his interview with the WSJ, when we launched, the idea was : ‘We’re going to take a slow approach to rolling them out,’ says Spiegel. ‘It’s about us figuring out if it fits into people’s lives and seeing how they like it.’ Response has been positive since November’s launch so we’re now happy to be able to make Spectacles more readily available — especially for those in the US who have not been able to make it to a Snapbot.”
Despite that positive response, Snap admitted in its IPO filing that “The launch of Spectacles . . . has not generated significant revenue for us,” and notes “We expect to experience production and operating costs related to Spectacles that will exceed the related revenue in the near future.”
There was that one charging case that melted… but in general, users have been quite pleased with the glasses that can record 10 to 30-seconds of video at a time. The circular, view-with-your-phone-in-any-orientation video format Snap pioneered also gives its Snapchat app something that its popular clone Instagram Stories can’t copy.
Still, Spectacles proved that face-worn computers could be cool if launched by the right brand and kept out of the hands of the geeks at first. Instead of giving developers first access, which created a socially awkward stigma around Google Glass, Snap let its biggest fans chase its Snapbots around the country.
Snap doesn’t necessarily need to make money directly from Spectacles if it can use them to get more people creating and watching Snaps. But showing it can earn real revenue from hardware could bolster confidence in its public offering. Now the question is what camera this “Camera Company” will release next. ||||| Back in November, Snap Inc. (formerly Snapchat) announced it would be selling camera-enabled sunglasses called Spectacles. The only catch: If you wanted a pair, you had to track down a roving vending machine that popped up in random places around the United States for short periods of time. New York City got a temporary Snap store (it is closed as of today), but long lines and high demand meant you might not be able to get your hands on a pair, even if you waited for hours. (Speaking from experience here.) Starting today, getting your hands on a pair of Spectacles is going to get a whole lot easier; Snap is now selling the glasses via its website.
Spectacles come in three colors — teal, coral, and the ever-stylish black — and retail for $130. The company is currently only shipping in the United States, so if you’re a Snapchatter abroad, you are out of luck. (Though you could always try eBay. Following the vending machine release last fall, plenty of pairs popped up for resale online if you were willing to pay a significant markup. This will likely happen again now that Specs are more widely available.) The purchase limit is six pairs and glasses should ship in two to four weeks. Pop-up vending machines around the country will also remain a part of Snap’s distribution strategy, though they’ll be taking a short break, a Snap spokesperson confirmed.
This announcement comes just weeks after Snap’s SEC filing was released in preparation for its initial public offering. According to the filing document, Snap lost $514.6 million last year. Which means Spiegel & Co. only have to sell approximately 4 million pairs of Spectacles to break even this year. | – Snapchat found itself with a marketing sensation on its hands late last year when it began selling funky-looking sunglasses called Spectacles. The trick is they allow users to record quick videos and photos and send them directly to their Snapchat accounts, but the catch was they were available only through vending machines that would turn up in random locales or through a now-shuttered pop-up store in Manhattan, notes New York. Now, however, parent company Snap is selling them online at Spectacles.com for $129. Just how crazy did demand get? CNBC notes that the glasses were selling for up to $5,000 on secondary markets, adding that its own reporters stood in line for 18 hours to get them. (There's a limit of six per household for the new online purchases.) Snap has said the glasses haven't been big money-makers, but TechCrunch thinks the new move is designed to show prospective IPO investors that they could be. The vending machines will go on hiatus for awhile, but they're expected to resurface eventually. |
COUGAR, Wash. (AP) — An Ohio man who was missing on Mount St. Helens was found Wednesday on a flank of the peak nearly a week after he set out on a day hike and survived by eating berries and bees, authorities and the man's relatives said.
Matthew B. Matheny, 40, of Warren, Ohio, was in good condition, talking and did not appear to have suffered life-threatening injuries but was flown to a hospital to spend the night as a precaution, the Cowlitz County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
His parents told reporters outside the Vancouver, Washington, hospital that he was being treated for dehydration and would stay overnight, adding that he ate berries and killed bees that he also ate.
Matheny, 40, was not familiar with the terrain, got lost and had not seen anyone since Aug. 9, they said.
Friends last saw Matthew Matheny when he borrowed a car and headed to Blue Lake Trail on the southwest side of St. Helens. They reported him missing after he failed to return, prompting a search. A sheriff's deputy found the borrowed Subaru Outback at the trailhead on Saturday.
About 30 search-and-rescue personnel, assisted by helicopters, tracking dogs and a drone operated by the sheriff's office searched for him daily.
Searchers on Tuesday decided to focus on a 1-square-mile (2.6-square-kilometer) area based on cellphone signals and a computer model that sought to predict Matheny's movements.
Blue Lake Trail is a short walk through meadows and tall fir trees to Blue Lake, according to the Washington Trails Association, Beyond the lake, hikers can access other trails and ridges, leading to views of Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams.
Matheny was found below a different trail, authorities said.
"He was in the free forest at this point. He lost the trail, he fell down the steep back," said Paul Pepper, another member of the rescue team. ||||| An Ohio man found alive Wednesday on Mount St. Helens after six days lost in the wilderness sustained himself on berries and bees as he tried to find his way, his parents said.
Matthew Matheny, 40, of Warren, Ohio, set off for a hike on the famous southwest Washington mountain last Thursday. Authorities had launched a search and rescue operation that ended successfully when Matheny was airlifted to a Vancouver hospital Wednesday.
He was being treated mostly for dehydration and likely would stay overnight, parents Linda and Carney Matheny said during a press conference outside PeaceHeath Southwest Medical Center. A hospital spokesman said earlier that Matheny was in satisfactory condition, which means his vital signs were good and that he was awake and alert.
Matheny was scraped up, his parents said, including his feet, which were unprotected after the sandals he was wearing broke during the ordeal. His mother said she was going to "wring his neck" for his choice of hiking footwear.
Matheny was in Washington state visiting friends and decided to spend Thursday afternoon hiking while his friends were at work, the Mathenys said. He drove a friend's Subaru Outback to the mountain and later couldn't find his way back to the car. His friends reported him missing when he did not return, the Cowlitz County Sheriff's Office said.
Search for missing Ohio man at Mount St. Helens 7 Gallery: Search for missing Ohio man at Mount St. Helens
On Saturday, a Skamania County sheriff's deputy found the Subaru unoccupied at the start of the Blue Lake trail, which is in Cowlitz County. The trail is located off Forest Road 81 and near Mount St. Helens.
Matheny was found about three miles away from the Subaru by a Skamania County-based rescue crew on the flanks of the mountain Wednesday morning. He hadn't seen another person since Thursday and was without water for days, his mother said, but the fluids from the berries may have been enough to keep him going.
Bees chased after Matheny as he moved about on the mountain, his father said, so Matheny killed and ate some.
"He knew it was a tough situation," said Linda Matheny, who arrived in Washington with her husband on Sunday. "But everyone who has encountered him have told us it's remarkable the condition he's in."
About 30 search-and-rescue personnel, assisted by helicopters, tracking dogs and a drone operated by the sheriff's office had been searching for Matheny daily, The Daily News of Longview reported. Matheny's friends and family also have been at the search scene.
Searchers on Tuesday decided to focus on a 1-square-mile area based on cellphone signals and a computer model that sought to predict Matheny's movements.
Charlie Rosenzweig, chief criminal deputy for Cowlitz County Sheriff's Office, called it "extremely unusual" that someone would survive such an ordeal, the newspaper reported.
According to the Washington Trails Association, Blue Lake Trail is a short walk through meadows and tall fir trees to Blue Lake. Beyond the lake hikers can access other trails and ridges, leading to views of Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams.
The parents described their son as a former Boy Scout who is interested in fitness and nutrition with a sense of humor and a knack for getting himself into humorous situations. They would recall some of the things he'd said or done to keep their moods light while the search was ongoing, but at times the laughter would turn to tears due to the uncertainty of the search's outcome, Linda Matheny said.
She said when they were called at their northeast Ohio home by authorities on Saturday and told the vehicle their son drove had been found, they waited by the phone for hours hoping the next update would be that he was found. It didn't come.
"By Sunday morning, we thought, 'We're getting on a plane,'" the mother said.
They flew to Portland that night, drove north to Washington, stayed in the area and went to the mountain on Monday.
The parents said they're ecstatic their son has been found and also in a bit of shock. They thanked all the emergency responders, volunteers and his friends who aided in helping find their son.
"We could not believe when we walked in here, he's sitting up in bed, getting fluids, talking to us," Linda Matheny said outside the hospital Wednesday. "We got Matt back."
— Everton Bailey Jr. and Jim Ryan
The Associated Press and Rebecca Woolington of The Oregonian/OregonLive staff contributed to this report ||||| A hiker missing for six days on Washington state's Mount St. Helens survived on huckleberries and bees that he killed and ate, according to the man's parents.
Matthew Matheny, 40, who was visiting the area from Warren, Ohio, was found alive Wednesday on the side of the mountain leading up to the legendary volcano, the Cowlitz County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
Matheny was conscious and talking when rescue teams found him, authorities said. He was transported to a local hospital by helicopter, but it does not appear that he suffered any life-threatening injuries, according to the sheriff's office.
After visiting him in the hospital, Matheny's parents told ABC Portland affiliate KATU that their son was in good physical condition and had survived by eating huckleberries as well as bees he had killed.
"I don't know where he learned that," his mother, Linday Matheny, said, adding that he was a former boy scout.
Courtesy Cowlitz County Sheriffs Office
On Tuesday, authorities used cell phone records to determine that Matheny was in the general area of the Blue Lake Trail, near Mount St. Helens. Witnesses also told authorities that they saw a man in gray clothing in the area, according to the sheriff's office, which stated that he may have been wearing a gray Cleveland Browns sweatshirt, shorts and sandals that day.
Matheny had borrowed a friend's Subaru Outback last Thursday to drive to the mountain and go hiking. But after losing contact with him, the friend, Michael Bush, filed a missing persons report, and search and rescue teams began combing the area for him on Saturday morning.
Courtesy Cowlitz County Sheriffs Office
The gray Subaru was found unoccupied Saturday at the entrance to the Blue Lake Trail, authorities said.
Matheny was found days later in the general area of Blue Lake Trail, and members of his family were waiting at the base camp when he was located, according to the sheriff's office.
Matheny started out his hike with two liters of water and some snacks he had brought with him, but he was all out after Thursday and couldn't find any water sources, his parents told KATU.
STOCK/Getty Images
At least 40 people participated in the search for Matheny, Cowlitz County Sheriff's Deputy Charlie Rosenzweig told ABC News. A helicopter and drone searched for him from above, KATU reported.
ABC News' Cassidy Gard and Jennifer Watts contributed to this report. | – Matthew Matheny went for what was supposed to be a brief hike on Mount St. Helens on Thursday last week—and was airlifted to a Vancouver, Wash., hospital Wednesday when search and rescue teams finally found him. The 40-year-old Warren, Ohio, resident, who was in the state visiting friends, had borrowed a buddy's Subaru Outback to go to the trail, but he became lost in the wilderness and could't find his way back to the vehicle, the Oregonian reports. The search began after Matheny was reported missing and authorities discovered the unoccupied Subaru at the entrance to the Blue Lake Trail on the side of the mountain. He was treated overnight for dehydration, but authorities say he doesn't have life-threatening injuries—and he's lucky to be alive at all. Around 30 searchers took part in the rescue operation, which located Matheny in the general area of the trail, ABC News reports. Authorities zeroed in on a small area Tuesday using cellphone signals and a computer model that tried to predict his movements, the AP reports. His parents, who flew to the state days ago and are ecstatic that he has been found, say he apparently survived by eating berries—and by killing and eating some bees that had been chasing him. "He knew it was a tough situation," mother Linda Matheny tells the Oregonian. "But everyone who has encountered him [has] told us it's remarkable the condition he's in." She adds that she wants to "wring his neck" for his choice of hiking footwear: sandals. |
Following through on the deep constitutional concerns stated in its prior Northwest Austin decision, a majority of the Court seems committed to invalidating Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and requiring Congress to revisit the formula for requiring preclearance of voting changes. The vote seems quite likely to be five to four. The more liberal members pressed both the narrow argument that an Alabama county was not a proper plaintiff because it inevitably would be covered and the broader argument that there was a sufficient record to justify the current formula. But the more conservative majority was plainly not persuaded by either point. It is unlikely that the Court will write an opinion forbidding a preclearance regime. But it may be difficult politically for Congress to enact a new measure. More analysis soon.
Recommended Citation: Tom Goldstein, From the Shelby County argument, SCOTUSblog (Feb. 27, 2013, 10:55 AM), http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/02/from-the-shelby-county-argument/ ||||| Voting Procedures: A lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund talks about arguing in favor of the Voting Rights Act at the Supreme Court.
WASHINGTON — A central provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 may be in peril, judging from tough questioning on Wednesday from the Supreme Court ’s more conservative members.
If the court overturns the provision, nine states, mostly in the South, would become free to change voting procedures without first getting permission from federal officials.
In a vivid argument in which the lawyers and justices drew varying lessons from the legacies of slavery, the Civil War and the civil rights movement, the court’s conservative wing suggested that the modern South had outgrown its troubled past and that the legal burdens on the nine states were no longer justified.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked skeptically whether “the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North.” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whose vote is probably crucial, asked whether Alabama today is an “independent sovereign” or whether it must live “under the trusteeship of the United States government.”
Justice Antonin Scalia said the law, once a civil rights landmark, now amounted to a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.”
That remark created the sharpest exchange of the morning, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the other end. “Do you think that the right to vote is a racial entitlement?” she later asked a lawyer challenging the law, with an edge in her voice that left little doubt she was responding to Justice Scalia’s statement. “Do you think that racial discrimination in voting has ended, that there is none anywhere?”
The outcome of the case will most likely remain in doubt until the end of the court’s current term, in June. Many legal observers predicted that the justices would overturn part of the voting law in 2009, when the court had the same conservative-leaning majority, only to be proven wrong.
One important change, however, is that Chief Justice Roberts suggested in the 2009 ruling that Congress update its formula to determine which parts of the country should remain subject to the law. Congress has not done so.
The question at the heart of Wednesday’s argument was whether Congress, in reauthorizing the provision for 25 years in 2006, was entitled to use a formula based on historic practices and voting data from elections held decades ago.
Should the court strike down the law’s central provision, it would be easier for lawmakers in the nine states to enact the kind of laws Republicans in several states have recently advocated, including tighter identification standards. It would also give those states more flexibility to move polling places and redraw legislative districts.
The four members of the court’s liberal wing, citing data and history, argued that Congress remained entitled to make the judgment that the provision was still needed in the covered jurisdictions. The law passed the Senate unanimously and House overwhelmingly, by a vote of 390 to 33 in 2006.
“It’s an old disease,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer said of efforts to thwart minority voting. “It’s gotten a lot better. A lot better. But it’s still there.”
Justice Kennedy said that history taught a different lesson, referring to the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. “The Marshall Plan was very good, too,” he said. “But times change.”
Justice Breyer looked to a different conflict.
“What do you think the Civil War was about?” he asked. “Of course it was aimed at treating some states differently than others.” He also said that the nation lived through 200 years of slavery and 80 years of racial segregation.
Debo P. Adegbile, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which joined the government in defending the law, echoed that point. “This statute is in part about our march through history to keep promises that our Constitution says for too long were unmet,” he said.
The law was challenged by Shelby County, Ala., which said that its federal preclearance requirement, in Section 5 of the law, had outlived its usefulness and that it imposed an unwarranted badge of shame on the affected jurisdictions.
The county’s lawyer, Bert W. Rein, said that “the problem to which the Voting Rights Act was addressed is solved.” | – If today's questions from the conservative wing of the Supreme Court are any guide, the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 is doomed. In fact, writes Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSblog, expect a 5-4 decision in favor of striking down Section 5 of the act, one of its core provisions. It requires nine mostly Southern states to get federal permission when they want to change voting rules, and Antonin Scalia and others suggested the measure is no longer necessary, reports the New York Times. Scalia called it a "perpetuation of racial entitlement," Anthony Kennedy wanted to know how long Alabama had to live "under the trusteeship of the United States government," and Chief Justice John Roberts wondered whether people in the South were more racist than those in the North. The court's liberal wing made the case that the act is still necessary, with Stephen Breyer saying the "old disease" of racism, along with the desire to keep minorities from voting, remains. If the court strikes down the act, it would likely require Congress to come up with a new formula for it, but both the Times and SCOTUSblog think it's unlikely that would be politically possible. |
(CNN) Disney has announced the cast for the next chapter from the galaxy far, far away -- and it will include the late Carrie Fisher.
Fisher will reprise her role as Princess Leia Organa, using "previously unreleased footage shot for 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens,'" director J.J. Abrams announced Friday.
"We desperately loved Carrie Fisher. Finding a truly satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga without her eluded us," Abrams said in a statement. "We were never going to recast, or use a CG character."
Abrams added that with "the support and blessing" from Fisher's daughter, Billie Lourd, the film found a way "to honor Carrie's legacy and role as Leia in 'Episode IX' by using unseen footage we shot together in Episode VII."
Fisher died in 2016 after suffering a cardiac event on a flight from London to Los Angeles. She was 60. Following her death, Disney said that it had "no plans to digitally recreate Fisher's performance.
Read More ||||| Carrie Fisher will appear from beyond the grave in the upcoming Star Wars film.
On Friday, Disney and Lucasfilm revealed the official cast list for the ninth trip to a galaxy far, far away and it contained one major surprise: Fisher is back as Princess General Leia Organa, despite her shocking death in 2016.
According to the studio’s online announcement, production on the newest Star Wars adventure is expected to commence next week, on Aug. 1, and Fisher is among the listed cast members returning for the film, thanks to some unused footage shot for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Returning director J.J. Abrams, who co-wrote the script for Episode IX alongside Chris Terrio, said in a statement, “We desperately loved Carrie Fisher. Finding a truly satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga without her eluded us. We were never going to recast, or use a CG character. With the support and blessing from her daughter, Billie, we have found a way to honor Carrie’s legacy and role as Leia in Episode IX by using unseen footage we shot together in Episode VII.”
Fisher died December, 2016 at age 60 of a cardiac arrest.
RELATED VIDEO: Carrie Fisher Remembered by her Star Wars Castmates
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy had previously indicated to Entertainment Weekly that Fisher’s death would halt her involvement with the picture, saying, “Obviously, with Carrie having passed away, it shook everybody. We pretty much started over.”
Abrams, who takes over after Colin Trevorrow’s departure from the director’s chair, directed The Force Awakens.
Carrie Fisher on the set of The Last Jedi Lucasfilm Ltd.
Also returning to the franchise are Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Lourd, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, and Billy Dee Williams.
As for the film’s fresh new faces, actors Naomi Ackie and Richard E. Grant will join the film in unspecified roles. Perhaps not surprisingly, John Williams will once again compose the film’s score, as he has done throughout the Star Wars saga.
The film is expected to hit theaters on Dec. 20, 2019. | – Excellent news for fans of Princess Leia. Or in this case, General Leia. The late Carrie Fisher will appear in the upcoming Star Wars film thanks to unused footage, reports People. Director JJ Abrams announced the move Friday, and he said it had the blessing of Fisher's daughter, Billie Lourd. Star Wars: Episode IX, which caps the latest trilogy in the series, is due in theaters late next year, reports CNN. "We desperately loved Carrie Fisher," said Abrams. "Finding a truly satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga without her eluded us," (and) "we were never going to recast, or use a CG character." Fisher died in 2016 at age 60 of cardiac arrest. (See more stories about Fisher here.) |
McDonald's has joined the fight against plastic pollution by switching to paper straws at its restaurants in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The change, which will begin to take effect in September, follows trials of paper straws at select locations. The US fast food chain said a majority of its customers supported the move away from plastic.
"Reflecting the broader public debate, our customers told us they wanted to see a move on straws but to do so without compromising their overall experience when visiting our restaurants," said Paul Pomroy, CEO of McDonald's UK and Ireland.
McDonald's (MCD) uses 1.8 million straws each day at its 1,361 restaurants in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company said the changeover would be complete in 2019.
Plastic straws are the sixth most common type of litter globally, according to Litterati, an app that identifies and maps trash. Only 1% are recycled, largely because they are made of a mixture of polypropylene and polystyrene.
According to the UK government, 1 million birds and more than 100,000 sea mammals die every year from eating or getting tangled in plastic waste. And research shows there will be more plastic than fish by weight in the world's oceans by 2050.
UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove called on other companies to follow the example of McDonald's.
"McDonald's has made a significant investment in UK manufacturing to produce an alternative to plastic, showing British businesses are taking a global lead," he said in a statement.
Several large UK restaurant chains such as Pizza Express and Wagamama have already stopped using plastic straws.
And a group of more than 40 companies including Coca-Cola (KO), Nestle (NSRGF), Unilever (UL) and Procter & Gamble (PG) pledged earlier this year to slash the amount of plastic they use and throw away in the United Kingdom.
The flurry of commitments comes as efforts to eliminate single-use plastic intensify.
The European Union moved last month to ban 10 items -- including plastic cutlery, straws and cotton swabs -- by 2030 in a bid to clean up the oceans. But it could take years to come into effect.
Related: Europe plans ban on plastic cutlery, straws and more
In April, British Prime Minister Theresa May announced the United Kingdom would look to ban plastic-stemmed cotton swabs, stirrers and straws. She urged Commonwealth countries to commit to the fight against plastic waste at a meeting in London.
McDonald's said that plastic straws would still be available "for those that require it," but they will be kept behind the counter.
Some manufacturers have previously argued against the removal of plastic straws because they are needed by some people with disabilities, children and the elderly.
-- Laura Smith-Spark and Jacopo Prisco contributed to this report. ||||| Image copyright PA Image caption Paper straws will replace the plastic ones
McDonald's will replace plastic straws with paper ones in all its UK and Ireland restaurants, starting from September.
It is the latest company to opt out of some single-use plastic products which can take hundreds of years to decompose if not recycled.
The restaurant chain uses 1.8 million straws a day in the UK.
"Reflecting the broader public debate, our customers told us they wanted to see a move on straws," the firm said.
This decision follows a successful trial in selected restaurants earlier this year. The move to paper straws will be completed next year.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove called it a "significant contribution" to helping the environment, adding that it was "a fine example to other large businesses".
The ban does not yet extend to the rest of the chain's global empire, but trials will begin in selected restaurants in the US, France and Norway.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Will McCallum on ten ways to cut down on plastics
In some other countries, straws are being offered on request only.
In April, the government proposed a ban on plastic straws and cotton buds in England. But many businesses, including Waitrose, Costa Coffee, and Wagamama, have already started to take action.
All JD Wetherspoon pubs stopped using plastic straws at the beginning of the year. Pizza Express said it would replace all plastic straws with biodegradable ones by summer 2018.
And more than 60 independent British festivals - including Boardmasters and Bestival - have banned plastic straws as part of a pledge to rid their sites of single-use plastic by 2021.
Most straws are made from plastics such as polypropylene and polystyrene, which unless recycled take hundreds of years to decompose.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Rich Horner filmed himself swimming through rubbish off the island of Nusa Penida near Bali
Many end up in landfill and the oceans, and the BBC's Blue Planet II highlighted the damage plastic can cause to marine wildlife.
But not everyone thinks total bans are the answer.
Plastic straws enable many disabled people to drink independently, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson said. She said paper alternatives were not always suitable or safe.
And Tetra Pak - the food packaging company - has said plastic straws serve a "vital" function in cartons and should not be banned.
It argues that straws can be recycled together with cartons if they are pushed back into the box.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Plastic pollution is killing animals in the Arctic
Transcend Packaging in Wales, and Huhtamaki in Belfast, will supply the straws for all 1,361 McDonald's restaurants.
The straws will use paper from certified sustainable sources, the company said.
"The government's ambitious plans, combined with strong customer opinion, has helped to accelerate the move away from plastic and I'm proud that we've been able to play our part," said Paul Pomroy, chief executive of McDonald's UK and Ireland. ||||| Fast food giant McDonald's is to move away from using plastic straws in its U.K. and Ireland restaurants.
In an announcement Friday, the business said it would commence a phased rollout of paper straws in all 1,361 of its sites in the two countries. The transition is set to start in September and will be completed by 2019.
"McDonald's is committed to using our scale for good and working to find sustainable solutions for plastic straws globally," Francesca DeBiase, McDonald's executive vice president of global supply chain and sustainability, said in a statement.
The business has also started to test alternatives to plastic straws in Belgium. It will do the same later this year in a number of restaurants in the U.S., France, Australia, Norway and Sweden. Tests will also take place in a number of markets, including Malaysia, to offer straws only when they are requested by customers.
"We hope this work will support industry wide change and bring sustainable solutions to scale," DeBiase added.
The issue of plastic waste is a serious one. Europeans produce 25 million tons of plastic waste per year, according to the European Commission. Less than 30 percent of this is collected for recycling.
McDonald's joins a growing number of major companies looking to reduce their use of plastic. In January, U.K. supermarket Iceland, which specializes in frozen food, made a commitment to eliminate plastic packaging from its own brand products by 2023. The same month, bottled water brand Evian said it would produce all its plastic bottles from 100 percent recycled plastic by the year 2025. | – "A move on straws" is afoot across the pond, and McDonald's is driving the push. The fast-food chain is nixing plastic straws and moving to paper in all of its Ireland and United Kingdom restaurants in what the UK's environment secretary calls a "significant contribution" to going green, the BBC reports. Those locations currently use 1.8 million plastic straws per day. The straw switchover will start in September and be fully in place by 2019. The initiative comes after a trial run there, and new paper-straw trials are set for some McDonald's locations in France, Norway, Sweden, Australia, and the US, CNBC notes. CNNMoney notes that, per trash-mapping app Litterati, plastic straws are the sixth most common type of litter in the world. Only about 1% of plastic straws are recycled, and, because of their combination polypropylene-polystyrene makeup, they can take hundreds of years to decompose. Some advocates say plastic straws are safer for certain customers with disabilities, but McDonald's says the plastic versions will still be available upon request "for those that require it." |
When a crime occurs in the physical world, investigators search for specific types of evidence.
Say they're looking into a robbery. Where was the break-in point? Was a weapon used?
SEE ALSO: More than 10 million devices helped take down the internet on Friday
At Dyn, the domain name service-provider hit with a massive distributed denial of service attack on Friday that shut down a huge chunk of the internet, the company hasn't said much about its investigation. But others have unearthed new leads that may point to the perpetrators.
This photo shows Dyn, a New Hampshire internet service company, in the old mill section of the city, on Oct. 21, in Manchester, New Hampshire. Image: AP Photo/Jim Cole
Of course, the attack was so massive that the results of the investigation may not help prevent another attack. Sure, you can reenforce your windows and put a bolt on the door, but what good will that do against an innumerable number of invaders?
The attack that jammed the internet
Friday's DDoS attack on Dyn came in three waves that left the internet reeling.
Dyn allows internet users to access a range of hugely popular sites such as Twitter and Spotify, and the attack on Dyn left major websites dealing with outages and extreme slowness.
A distributed denial of service attack is when an onslaught of web traffic overwhelms a server so everyday users are unable to access it.
"The nature and source of the attack is under investigation, but it was a sophisticated attack across multiple attack vectors and internet locations," Kyle York, Dyn’s chief strategy officer, wrote in a company blog post on Saturday.
Hackers essentially weaponized video cameras to send unmanageable amounts of traffic to Dyn's servers, causing much of the Internet to slow to a crawl. Image: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire
The investigation points to attention seeking hackers
Adam Coughlin, Dyn's director of corporate communications, told Mashable the company "should" have completed a "root cause analysis" by mid-week.
"At this point we know this was a sophisticated, highly distributed attack involving 10s of millions of IP addresses," York wrote in a blog post.
But while Dyn isn't revealing many details, the cybersecurity firm Flashpoint released more information on Tuesday about who might be behind the attack.
Flashpoint, a company that has provided analysis to Dyn, found that the hacker or group of hackers who attacked the site on Friday also targeted a video game company.
"We look at a lot of different DDoS attacks that happen, and political actors don't attack video game companies, generally," Allison Nixon, Flashpoint's director of security research at Fl Security Research, told Mashable.
Researchers also doubt the hack was intended for financial gain, since hacks for money usually target Bitcoin exchanges or gambling sites.
"They're trying to show how powerful they are, and how else do you show how powerful you are than taking down someone that's powerful."
Instead, early signs point to a hacker or a group of hackers who just wanted to show off. "They're trying to show how powerful they are, and how else do you show how powerful you are than taking down someone that's powerful," Nixon said.
According to Tuesday's report, Flashpoint believes they're "likely connected to the English-language hacking forum community, specifically users and readers of the forum hackforums.net."
The attacker used a type of malware called Mirai, which hacks poorly protected devices and uses them to hurl junk data at whatever the attacker wants.
A hacker who goes by the handle Anna-Senpai released the Mirai source code earlier this month on hackforums.net, making it accessible to anyone. This means it is more difficult to track down the person who directed the operation, as any hacker could have put the code to work.
The attack was similar to recent DDoS attacks against the security blog Krebs on Security as well as OVH, a French "internet service hosting provider." Flashpoint has said similar types of attacks often originate from users of hackforums.net.
Friday's attack, though similar, involved devices that were "separate and distinct" from the devices used in the other digital assaults.
The malware used in last week's DDoS attack hijacked digital video recorders as well as cameras. Image: Soeren Stache/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
The investigation only matters up to a point
The size of the attack leveled at Dyn makes it unclear how useful the company's post-mortem will be, because it likely can't bolster its cyber defense quickly enough to prevent such a massive assault.
Friday's attacker hijacked millions of "Internet of Things" (IoT) devices such as DVRs and video recorders, and had those devices flood Dyn with data. Dyn doesn't control those cameras, and experts said many of those devices can't be patched, meaning someone can simply hack them again and again to launch new assaults.
"This is the internet of largely un-patchable things," Joshua Corman, the director of The Atlantic Council's Cyber Statecraft Initiative, told Mashable. "Unless you take them out of service, these [devices] can be repeat offenders for the life of the internet."
A surveillance camera outside the Landtag state parliament in Potsdam, Germany. Image: Ralf Hirschberger/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
Even if companies get better at mitigating large DDoS attacks, it will be difficult to scale at the rate at which the number of hackable devices increases. According to Intel, by 2020 there will be 200 billion objects connected to the internet. That's up from 2 billion in 2006.
Due to the sheer number of devices, the attackers have a significant advantage. The more devices they can use in the attack, the more powerful the attack will be.
In the coming days and weeks, investigators will no doubt explore how they were exploited, how the attack was carried out and the effectiveness of their response to the attack. Cybersecurity experts said Dyn will likely want to take stock of what vulnerabilities could be strengthened in case the company again falls victim.
Can major DDoS attacks be stopped?
CCTV cameras were among the devices hacked in last week's DDoS attack on Dyn. Image: Clive Gee/PA Wire
These kind of attacks are likely to continue as long as millions of IoT devices remain hackable.
Companies might be able to do a few things to mitigate the damage, but they can't stop manufacturers from making hackable devices, and they can't singlehandedly educate the public about enhancing the security of every device hooked up to the IoT.
"I'm not saying every user should be a security expert and figure out how to reconfigure their toaster or whatever," Zach Lanier, director of research at Cylance, a cybersecurity firm, told Mashable. "But there are some basic practices that users can do to make sure their IoT devices aren't accessible."
Krebs on Security suggests resetting IoT devices such as wireless routers and IP cameras to their factory settings, which is often just a matter of finding a reset button on the device. This wipes out any malware already on the device.
But it could be reinfected in minutes, so you'll need to quickly reset the device's default password.
Googling the device's make and model should turn up a web address and a factory default username-password combo. Typing that into a web browser should take you to the device's "administration panel," where you can reset the password, Krebs on Security reported.
Until many IoT device owners get on top of security, we should all expect some more slow days on the internet. ||||| Researchers at Flashpoint pointed a finger of blame at “script kiddies” for the huge IoT-based DDoS attack that made parts of the internet inaccessible last Friday. In fact, the primary target may have been a “a well-known video game company” that happened to use Dyn for DNS services.
The researchers wrote:
Flashpoint assesses with moderate confidence that the most recent Mirai attacks are likely connected to the English-language hacking forum community, specifically users and readers of the forum “hackforums[.]net.”
Flashpoint explained:
The infrastructure used in the attack also targeted a well-known video game company. While there does not appear to have been any disruption of service, the targeting of a video game company is less indicative of hacktivists, state-actors, or social justice communities, and aligns more with the hackers that frequent online hacking forums. These hackers exist in their own tier, sometimes called “script kiddies,” and are separate and distinct from hacktivists, organized crime, state-actors, and terrorist groups. They can be motivated by financial gain, but just as often will execute attacks such as these to show off, or to cause disruption and chaos for sport.
Although Flashpoint never named which specific video game company, it seems like the PlayStation Network may have been the real target.
As Network World's Time Greene pointed out, there is a post on hackforums[.]net which reads: “this is funny, only because they didnt actually attk DYN fun fact DYN was never intentionally attkd until later that day PSN was the target (bf1 release) they used DYN's ns: ns00.playstation.net, ns01.playstation.net, ns02.playstation.net etc.”
Flashpoint does not believe there was any political motivation behind the attacks. Allison Nixon, director of researcher at Flashpoint, shot down theories that The Jester, WikiLeaks or New World Hackers were responsible for the attacks, calling their claims of responsibility “dubious.”
Nixon added, “All the arrows point away from any sort of political motivation,” which hurts “the nation-state argument. Of course, you never know until someone’s got handcuffs on them.”
At the Council on Foreign Relations on Tuesday, National Intelligence Director James Clapper said he also believes a “non-state actor” was behind the attack. Not that everything Clapper says can be considered entirely truthful.
So far, Dyn has refused to speculate regarding motivation or the identity of the attackers. However, Dyn has said its analysis indicated the Mirai botnet was the primary source of “maliciously targeted, masked TCP and UDP traffic over port 53.”
Senator wants ISPs to ban insecure IoT devices from their networks
Senator Mark Warner, a co-chair of the Senate Cybersecurity Caucus, has grown increasingly concerned about the flood of insecure IoT devices; the massive DDoS attack on Dyn DNS, which took down large chunks of the internet on October 21, seems to have been the last straw.
On Tuesday, Warner sent a letter to the FCC, FTC and DHS, pointing out that “manufacturers today are flooding the market with cheap, insecure devices, with few market incentives to design the product with security in mind, or to provide ongoing support.” And the effectiveness of Mirai depends, “in large part, on the unacceptably low level of security inherent in a vast array of network devices.”
He added, “Because the producers of these insecure IoT devices currently are insulated from any standards requirements, market feedback, or liability concerns, I am deeply concerned that we are witnessing a ‘tragedy of the commons’ threat to the continued functioning of the internet, as the security so vital to all internet users remains the responsibility of none.”
Although “ISPs cannot prohibit the attachment of ‘non-harmful devices’ to their network,” after the release of Mirai source code and the crippling attack on Dyn DNS, Warner believes it is “entirely reasonable” for “devices with certain insecure attributes” to be “deemed harmful to the ‘network’.” In addition to wanting to know if ISPs can block “insecure” IoT devices from connecting to their networks, Warner asked for answers to another eight questions.
Dyn amends number of Mirai-controlled IoT devices used in DDoS attacks
Dyn had previously suggested there had been tens of millions of infected IoT devices used in the Oct. 21 attacks. Today, Dyn said: | – The distributed denial of service attack that sent Internet users into a tailspin Friday was the most powerful of its kind by far, say cybersecurity researchers, and they're especially alarmed because it looks to be the work of amateur hackers. Twitter, Netflix, Reddit, and other sites went down as the Mirai botnet took over poorly protected "Internet of things" devices like DVRs and webcams—whose owners hadn't changed the devices' default passwords—and bombarded domain host company Dyn with traffic so regular users couldn't get through. Apparently there were a lot of insecure devices out there to use. Dyn says there were "100,000 malicious endpoints" leading an attack twice as powerful as any other DDoS attack reported, per the Guardian. Researchers from cybersecurity firm Flashpoint suspect the attack was tied to the community at Hackforums.net—where the Mirai source code was published earlier this month, per Mashable—and was meant to target a video game company, perhaps the PlayStation Network, reports Computer World. If amateur hackers did so much damage, "imagine what a well-resourced state actor could do with insecure IoT devices," says a cybersecurity rep at the Council on Foreign Relations. "We have a serious problem with the cyber insecurity of IoT devices and no real strategy to combat it." Experts recommend users reset an IoT device to its factory settings to erase any existing malware, then create a new password immediately. |
KABUL (Reuters) - Twelve people were killed on Friday in the bloodiest day yet in protests that have raged across Afghanistan over the desecration of copies of the Muslim holy book at a NATO military base with riot police and soldiers on high alert braced for more violence.
The burning of the Korans at the Bagram compound earlier this week has deepened public mistrust of NATO forces struggling to stabilize Afghanistan before foreign combat troops withdraw in 2014.
Hundreds of Afghans marched toward the palace of Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, while on the other side of the capital protesters hoisted the white flag of the Taliban.
Chanting "Death to America!" and "Long live Islam!," protesters also threw rocks at police in Kabul, while Afghan army helicopters circled above.
Friday is a holy day and the official weekly holiday in Afghanistan and mosques in the capital drew large crowds, with police in pick-up trucks posted on nearby streets.
Armed protesters took refuge in shops in the eastern part of the city, where they killed one demonstrator, said police at the scene. In another Kabul rally, police said they were unsure who fired the shots that killed a second protester.
Seven more protesters were killed in the western province of Herat, two more in eastern Khost province and one in the relatively peaceful northern Baghlan province, health and local officials said. In Herat, around 500 men charged at the U.S. consulate.
U.S. President Barack Obama had sent a letter to Karzai apologizing for the unintentional burning of the Korans at NATO's main Bagram air base, north of Kabul, after Afghan laborers found charred copies while collecting rubbish.
Muslims consider the Koran to be the literal word of God and treat each copy with deep reverence. Desecration is considered one of the worst forms of blasphemy.
Afghanistan wants NATO to put those responsible on public trial.
In neighboring U.S. ally Pakistan, about 400 members of a hardline Islamist group staged protests. "If you burn the Koran, we will burn you," they shouted.
To Afghanistan's west, Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami said the U.S. had purposely burned the Korans. "These apologies are fake. The world should know that America is against Islam," he said in a speech broadcast live on state radio.
"It (the Koran burning) was not a mistake. It was an intentional move, done on purpose."
Most Westerners have been confined to their heavily fortified compounds, including at the sprawling U.S. embassy complex and other diplomatic missions, as protests that have killed a total of 23 people, including two U.S. soldiers, rolled into their fourth day. The embassy, in a message on the microblogging site Twitter, urged U.S. citizens to "please be safe out there" and expanded movement restrictions to relatively peaceful northern provinces, where large demonstrations also occurred Thursday, including the attempted storming of a Norwegian military base.
The Taliban urged Afghan security forces Thursday to "turn their guns on the foreign infidel invaders" and repeatedly urged Afghans to kill, beat and capture NATO soldiers.
Germany, which has the third-largest foreign presence in the NATO-led war, pulled out several weeks early of a small base in the northern Takhar province Friday over security concerns, a defense ministry spokesman said.
(Additional reporting by Amira Mitri in TEHRAN, Imtiaz Shah in KARACHI, Sabine Siebold in BERLIN, Writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Michael Georgy and Ed Lane) ||||| It was unclear on Friday night whether, after four days of protests, the violence that has rolled through the country was finally spent, or if the Koran burning had uncorked an inexhaustible well of fury over the continuing presence of Western troops after 10 years of war. In some measure, the angry demonstrations were to be expected in a religious country fed up with foreigners, but the tension this week seems more pervasive and irresolvable than in the past.
“The violence is almost within the normal realm of things that you would see after this kind of incident,” said Martine Van Bijlert, a co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, a policy and research institute in Kabul. “The big question is, how long does it go on? You have to watch who jumps on the bandwagon. It is very intense, and there’s the feeling that all areas need to have had their own demonstration if they haven’t had one yet.”
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The worst violence Friday was in Herat Province, in the West on the Iranian border, where seven people were killed. Protesters there were armed and some appeared to be agents provocateurs, government officials said.
“People were on their way home after the prayer when a number of opposition and agitator people, misusing the pure emotions of the people, urged them to go toward the United States Consulate in the city,” said Mohyaddin Noori, the spokesman for Herat’s provincial governor. “On the way to the consulate, some of these riotous people who were armed opened fire and were throwing rocks.”
One of the vehicles hit by gunfire was a police truck full of ammunition, which exploded, sending bullets in all directions and wounding 65 people, he said.
Several Heratis suggested that Iranian agents were at work behind the scenes. Some noted that Radio Mashad, an Iranian station, had urged action against Western interests in Afghanistan, taking advantage of a moment when people’s emotions were running high, said Mohammed Rafiq Shaheer, a professor of political science at Herat University. He noted that protesters appeared to have been directed to march towards the American Consulate by mullahs in several areas of the city.
He said that he blamed Pakistani and Iranian intelligence. Both agencies, he said, “have invested a lot in this country and they have people loyal to them, and this is a perfect time for the intelligence apparatus of the neighboring countries to ignite people’s fiery emotions which would lead them to violence.”
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Two protesters died in Khost Province, near the Pakistan border, and one in Baghlan Province.
In Kabul, despite larger numbers of protesters on the streets, only a handful were injured.
Interior Minister Bismullah Khan adopted a nuanced strategy that encouraged the protesters to express themselves peacefully, but also put in place a phalanx of police units to keep the most menacing from making their way to the center of the city.
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Riot police officers backed up by heavily armed special units in some 40 police trucks faced down an estimated 4,000 men wielding rocks and sticks after Friday Prayer. At one point as the two groups neared each other, protesters threw rocks and shouted, but the police did not fire and eventually moved the protesters back.
A few of the protesters were waving the Taliban’s white flag, some wore head wrappings bearing the jihad slogan “I sacrifice myself,” and protesters throughout the city shouted “Death to America.”
The police also broke up another crowd of about 1,000 in central Kabul, first by driving trucks into the crowd to disperse it and then by chasing the protesters on foot and hitting them with rubber batons.
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Some officers said they did the job despite sympathizing with the protesters.
“We try to stop the demonstrators from violence and looting,” said a Kabul police officer, Azizullah, 40, who uses only one name. “That is our job, but If I were an ordinary person, not a policeman, I would have joined the demonstrations.”
NATO said it was still investigating what led to the decision to burn Korans and other religious texts. Early reports said that the books had inflammatory messages written in them from detained Taliban suspects. Most of the Korans that were rescued from the flames are still at Bagram Air Base in a locked container. They are viewed as evidence, a NATO spokesman said. A few of the Korans were taken out of the base by Afghan employees.
The absence of lethal violence in Kabul belies a deep frustration that appeared in interviews with police officers and protesters alike, a sense that justice has not yet been done and a suspicion that the United States, while apologizing, will not hold anyone to account.
“Just by saying ‘I am sorry,’ nothing can be solved,” said Wali Mohammed, one of the protesters. “We want an open trial for those infidels who have burned our Holy Koran.”
Mohammed Anwar, an off-duty police officer, had joined the protesters on Friday and seemed barely able to contain his fury. “I will take revenge from the infidels for what they did to our Holy Koran, and I will kill them whenever I get the chance,” he said as he walked with crowd of protesters wielding rocks and sticks. “I don’t care about the job I have.” ||||| Germany says it has withdrawn troops from an outpost in northern Afghanistan amid protests over the burning of Qurans at a U.S. base.
Defense Ministry spokesman Stefan Paris said the German military, which handed over security responsibility for the Taloqan area to Afghan authorities on Feb. 15, had originally planned to shut down its base there altogether in late March.
But, he said Friday, the regional commander decided in view of demonstrations in Taloqan and elsewhere in the north _ which led to injuries but no deaths _ that the 50 remaining German soldiers should pull back to a larger base in Kunduz immediately.
Paris says the soldiers already have made the roughly 43-mile (70-kilometer) transfer to Kunduz and have taken most material from the Taloqan outpost with them.
Germany has nearly 4,800 troops in northern Afghanistan. | – Protesters are rallying once again to decry the burning of Korans at Bagram, with more shouts of "death to America"—and deaths—throughout the country. The New York Times reports that gunfire was audible as demonstrators assembled at a Kabul mosque following Friday prayers. Another 4,000 people carrying sticks and rocks moved toward the center of the city; some waved Taliban flags and had a jihadist slogan written on their clothes: "I sacrifice myself." Demonstrations occurred in at least six more provinces throughout Afghanistan, and Reuters reports that nine more were killed today: seven in the western province of Herat, and two in Khost in the east. Meanwhile, Germany says it has withdrawn troops from an outpost in northern Afghanistan amid the protests. The German military had planned to shutter its base in the Taloqan area in late March, but the 50 remaining soldiers have been transferred out of the base in light of the demonstrations, reports the AP. And at home, Obama is facing GOP criticism for his apology. |
British Airways' chief executive is "profusely" sorry for an IT meltdown he revealed has disrupted 75,000 passengers' flights.
Alex Cruz told Sky News the airline was "making some progress" towards getting their services back to normal on Monday following the computer outage, which he described as "a tragedy".
The airline boss denied claims from the GMB union the problems were down to BA cutting "hundreds of dedicated and loyal" IT staff and contracting the work out to India to save money.
Mr Cruz insisted those parties involved in the weekend's problems had "not been involved with any type of outsourcing in any foreign countries".
He added: "They've all been local issues around a local data centre who have been managed and fixed by local resources."
Mr Cruz said there was "no evidence whatsoever" a cyberattack was behind the computer problems.
He instead cited a "power surge" around 9.30am on Saturday morning for the "catastrophic effect" on all of BA's systems.
Video: Honeymooners stuck in Heathrow for three days
Video: BA boss reacts to honeymooners' delay
The IT troubles had led to no compromise of any passenger data or any concerns about access to the terror watchlist for flights, Mr Cruz said.
He revealed BA is operating more than 95% of its flights on Monday, with all of its Gatwick services and long-haul flights from Heathrow going ahead.
More than 90% of BA short-haul flights from Heathrow would also be operating, while more than two-thirds of passengers affected on Saturday and Sunday would make it to their final destination by the end of Monday.
Other passengers whose flights were disrupted over the weekend will have the option to re-book their flights for any time over the next six months.
Image: People sleep at Heathrow Airport as a British Airways IT chaos affected 75,000 passengers
Responding to the chaos that grounded scores of planes over the weekend, Mr Cruz said: "We do apologise profusely for the hardship that these customers of ours have had to go through.
"We know that there have been holidays interrupted and personal events that have been interrupted and people waiting in queues for a really long time.
"We absolutely profusely apologise for that and we are absolutely committed to provide and abide by the compensation rules that are currently in place."
Mr Cruz promised an "exhaustive investigation" into the meltdown, adding: "We're absolutely committed to finding the root causes of this particular event and we will make sure nothing like this happens to British Airways ever again."
Experts predict BA is facing a huge compensation bill, estimated at more than £100m, over the disruption.
Customers have been left queuing for hours in packed terminals over the last few days and some had to bed down on terminal floors on Saturday.
Many complained of scant information from staff.
:: Passengers describe airport pandemonium
Mr Cruz was shown a Sky News video of a honeymoon couple who had been stranded for three days at Heathrow, causing them to miss the start of their cruise holiday.
He said: "We are extremely sorry and what we will do is make up and follow absolutely our obligations and provide as much flexibility as we can to them and the rest of the passengers that have been affected."
The IT outage had a knock-on effect on BA services around the world, while passengers who did get onto flights from the UK reported arriving without luggage.
Video: BA worker threatens to call police on passenger
Video has emerged of a BA employee at Venice Airport threatening to call the police on a woman who asked about the policy on customers who do not have money to pay for hotel rooms.
Stacy Irish, who posted the footage on Twitter on 28 May, said: "I was told it has nothing to with BA if customers can't afford it. She then said she would call the police."
Some experts expect the disruption to linger for several days, as planes and aircrew are returned to their positions and the backlog of passengers is cleared. ||||| Alex Cruz, the chief executive of British Airways, has apologised “profusely” to passengers caught up in the travel chaos at the weekend that grounded flights at Heathrow and Gatwick, but denied the disruption had anything to do with cost-cutting in the business.
Giving his first media interview since a major outage caused the airline’s IT system to collapse last Saturday, he refused to resign and said the problem was not a result of outsourcing jobs to other countries.
“I can confirm that all the parties involved around this particular event have not been involved in any type of outsourcing in any foreign country,” he told Sky News.
“They have all been local issues around a local data centre.”
He added that no BA passengers’ data had been compromised in the IT meltdown and said there was no evidence it was the result of a cyber attack, promising not to allow such an outage to happen again.
The IT failure was caused by a short but catastrophic power surge at 9.30am that affected the company’s messaging system, he said, and the backup system failed to work properly.
“We will have completed an exhaustive investigation on exactly the reasons of why this happened,” Mr Cruz said. “We will, of course, share those conclusions once we have actually finished them.
“We have no evidence whatsoever that there was any cyber attack of any sort.”
BA plans to operate about 95 per cent of its flights on Monday from the two major London hubs, but 27 departures and arrivals were already cancelled on the day, and 58 were delayed.
After the outage caused more than 1,000 flights to be delayed or cancelled, including BA’s sister airlines in Spain, Iberia and Air Nostrum, focus quickly turned to Mr Cruz’s handling of the company, having shut down the airline’s computer department last year, slashing 700 jobs in the UK.
In pictures: British Airways disruptions
17 show all In pictures: British Airways disruptions
1/17 A passenger looks at a British Airway plane at John F. Kennedy (JFK) international airport in New York Getty Images
2/17 British Airways planes are seen at Heathrow Terminal 5 Reuters
3/17 Passengers stand at the British Airways check-in desk after the London's Gatwick and Heathrow airports suffered an IT systems failure, at the 'Leonardo da Vinci' airport in Fiumicino, near Rome, Italy EPA
4/17 Arrivals notice boards are displayed at Heathrow Terminal 5 Reuters
5/17 People wait with their luggage at the British Airways check in desks at Heathrow Terminal 5 Reuters
6/17 Thousands of passengers face a second day of travel disruption after a British Airways IT failure caused the airline to cancel most of its services Getty Images
7/17 A woman covered in a blanket sleeps in Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 Getty Images
8/17 People sleep next to their luggage at Heathrow Terminal 5 Reuters
9/17 People sleep at Heathrow Terminal 5 in London Reuters
10/17 A woman sleeps on a luggage trolley at Heathrow Terminal 5 Reuters
11/17 People queue to enter the terminal at Gatwick Airport Reuters
12/17 People wait with their luggage at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 Getty
13/17 Thousands of passengers face a second day of travel disruption after a British Airways IT failure caused the airline to cancel most of its services Getty
14/17 People queue with their luggage outside Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 Getty Images
15/17 People queue for check-in at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5. Thousands of passengers face a second day of travel disruption after a British Airways IT failure caused the airline to cancel most of its services Getty Images
16/17 People sleep next to their luggage at Heathrow Terminal 5 Reuters
17/17 People wait with their luggage at Heathrow Terminal 5 Reuters
He then outsourced the company’s IT systems to Indian firm Tata Consultancy Services.
GMB union’s national aviation officer, Mick Rix, claimed the chaos “could have all been avoided” if BA had not “made hundreds of dedicated and loyal IT staff redundant and outsourced the work to India”.
Experts predict the knock-on effect could continue for several days and BA is facing huge compensation costs, with reports suggesting the bill could top £100m.
Mr Cruz said the airline was “committed” to following all compensation rules. ||||| In this image taken from the twitter feed of Emily Puddifer, a view of Terminal 5 departure lounge, at London's Heathrow airport after flights were canceled due to the airport suffering an IT systems... (Associated Press)
In this image taken from the twitter feed of Emily Puddifer, a view of Terminal 5 departure lounge, at London's Heathrow airport after flights were canceled due to the airport suffering an IT systems failure, Saturday, May 27, 2017. British Airways canceled all flights from London's Heathrow and Gatwick... (Associated Press)
LONDON (AP) — Travelers on British Airways and its sister airlines in Spain faced a third day of delays and cancellations Monday, mainly on short-haul flights in Europe, after the company suffered a colossal IT failure over the weekend.
BA chief executive Alex Cruz said that the airline was running a "near-full operation" at London's Gatwick Airport and planned to operate all scheduled long-haul services from Heathrow. But he said there would still be delays, as well as some canceled short-haul flights.
Data from flight tracker FlightAware.com showed BA's sister airlines in Spain, Iberia and Air Nostrum, cancelled over 320 flights on Monday, a bank holiday in the U.K. that sees a high level of air travel.
BA itself canceled another 27 flights and had 117 more delayed Monday.
The airline, which is part of the broader International Airlines Group, canceled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick on Saturday after the IT outage, which it blamed on a power-supply problem. The glitch threw the plans of tens of thousands of travelers into disarray.
Cruz told Sky News Monday the problem started at 9:30 Saturday morning when "there was indeed a power surge that had a catastrophic effect over some communications hardware which eventually affected all the messaging across our systems."
He said there was no evidence indicating the airline had come under cyberattack.
BA operates hundreds of flights from Heathrow and Gatwick on a typical day — and both are major hubs for worldwide travel.
Passengers, some of whom had spent the night at London's Heathrow Airport, faced frustrating waits to learn if and when they could fly out.
Some endured hours-long lines to check in, reclaim lost luggage or rebook flights at Terminal 5, BA's hub at Heathrow. Many complained about a lack of information from the airline.
Cruz apologized in a video statement, saying: "I know this has been a horrible time for customers."
The British union GMB linked the IT problems directly to the company's decision to cut IT staff last year.
"This could have all been avoided. In 2016, BA made hundreds of dedicated and loyal IT staff redundant and outsourced the work to India," said Mick Rix, national officer for aviation at the union. ||||| Ryanair is making hay while the sun is not shining on British Airways.
BA customers are facing a third day of travel disruption because of a breakdown in the airline's computer system.
And Ryanair is making no attempt to hide its schadenfreude:
"Meanwhile, over at the @ British_Airways IT department..." said a tweet on the official Ryanair account, along with the hashtag #ShouldHaveFlownRyanair.
"Breaking news: BA appoints new head of IT," said another tweet which was pinned to Ryanair's page.
Ouch.
Some people saw the funny side:
@Ryanair I am crying this is bloody brilliant 😂😂😂😂 — Dannii (@Dannii_BJROE) May 28, 2017
Others didn't:
@Ryanair Isn't this a bit like a run down corner shop poking fun at Sainsbury's? — Jon Cook (@JonCook188) May 28, 2017
@Ryanair Oh the irony @Ryanair the company with THE worst customer service known to man ... flew once 11 years ago, vowed never again .. and haven't — Sean Elkins (@seanieboyelkins) May 29, 2017
British Airways said 75,000 customers were affected by the technical glitch over the weekend but denied the failure was because the company outsourced its IT operations. ||||| Image copyright Getty Images
British Airways is working to restore its computer systems after a power failure caused major disruption for thousands of passengers worldwide.
The airline is "closer to full operational capacity" after an IT power cut resulted in mass flight cancellations at Heathrow and Gatwick.
Thousands of passengers remain displaced, with large numbers sleeping overnight in terminals.
BA has not explained the cause of the power problem.
So far on Monday, 13 short-haul flights at Heathrow have been cancelled.
Heathrow advised affected BA passengers not to travel to the airport unless their flights had been rebooked, or were scheduled to take off today.
Passengers on cancelled flights have been told to use the BA website to rebook.
Chief executive Alex Cruz has posted videos on Twitter apologising for what he called a "horrible time for passengers".
But no-one from the airline has been made available to answer questions about the system crash, and it has not explained why there was no back-up system in place.
Cancellations and delays affected thousands of passengers at both Heathrow and Gatwick on Saturday.
All flights operated from Gatwick on Sunday but more than a third of services from Heathrow - mostly to short-haul destinations - were cancelled.
Passengers slept on yoga mats handed out by the airline as conference rooms were opened to provide somewhere more comfortable to rest.
What went wrong at BA?
Rory Cellan-Jones, technology correspondent
Image copyright Getty Images
BA blames a power cut, but a corporate IT expert said it should not have caused "even a flicker of the lights" in the data-centre.
Even if the power could not be restored, the airline's Disaster Recovery Plan should have whirred into action. But that will have depended in part on veteran staff with knowledge of the complex patchwork of systems built up over the years.
Many of those people may have left when much of the IT operation was outsourced to India.
One theory of the IT expert, who does not wish to be named, is that when the power came back on the systems were unusable because the data was unsynchronised.
In other words the airline was suddenly faced with a mass of conflicting records of passengers, aircraft and baggage movements - all the complex logistics of modern air travel.
Read the full blog
BA said it operated virtually all scheduled long-haul flights on Sunday, but the knock-on effects of Saturday's disruption resulted in a reduced short-haul programme.
"We apologise again to customers for the frustration and inconvenience they are experiencing and thank them for their continued patience."
Ian Sanderson, one of the affected passengers who is stuck in transit in London, said he was "incandescent with rage" after being unable to rebook his flight, or speak to a member of staff.
Image copyright Twitter Image caption Thousands of customers have taken to Twitter to vent their frustration
Speaking on Sunday evening, he said: "I've bombarded them with about 100 tweets in the last 24 hours. I know that's annoying but there's nothing else I can do.
"We've tried to call them on the numbers they give and all we've got is the same recorded message which then cuts off at the end."
Former Virgin Airlines spokesman Paul Charles said: "What seems remarkable is there was no back-up system kicking in within a few minutes system failing.
"Businesses of this type need systems backing up all the time, and this is what passengers expect."
'Extraordinary circumstances'
BA is liable to reimburse thousands of passengers for refreshments and hotel expenses, and travel industry commentators have suggested the cost to the company - part of Europe's largest airline group IAG - could run into tens of millions of pounds.
Shares in IAG listed on the Madrid stock exchange are currently trading down by about 3%.
Customers displaced by flight cancellations can claim up to £200 a day for a room (based on two people sharing), £50 for transport between the hotel and airport, and £25 a day per adult for meals and refreshments.
Consumer expert Franky Brehany said travellers stranded in a "high-value city" like London may be able to claim more and should keep all receipts.
But he added that it might be harder for passengers to claim compensation, as BA may blame "extraordinary circumstances" - "like an act of God or force majeure" - meaning the airline would only have to reimburse hotel and food costs.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Queues built up on Sunday at Heathrow Terminal 5 as passengers waited to speak to BA staff
Image copyright Getty Images
Thousands of bags remain at Heathrow Airport, but BA has advised passengers not to return to collect them, saying they will be couriered to customers.
The airline said there was no evidence the computer failure was the result of a cyber-attack. It denied claims by the GMB union that the problem could be linked to the company outsourcing its IT work.
Gatwick Airport said it was continuing to advise customers travelling with British Airways to check the status of their flight with the airline before travelling to the airport.
EU flight delay rights | – It's close but no cigar for British Airways. The airline has fully restored all its long-haul services out of Heathrow following Saturday's crippling IT failure, but Monday marks the third day of related delays and cancellations, particularly when it comes to short-haul flights. The AP reports BA axed 27 flights on Monday, and sister airlines Iberia and Air Nostrum cancelled more than 320. The airline didn't offer much in the way of details until Monday when in an interview with Sky News, CEO Alex Cruz faulted a power surge. The Independent reports Cruz also said the backup system didn't kick in as it should have. Cruz brushed away a British union's assertions that the root of the IT issue stretches back a year, when "hundreds" of IT staffers lost their jobs, per the union GMB, with the work outsourced to India. Cruz countered that "they've all been local issues around a local data center who have been managed and fixed by local resources." But that doesn't stop the BBC from speculating that for BA's "Disaster Recovery Plan" to have worked, "veteran staff with knowledge of the complex patchwork of systems built up over the years" would be key, and it's possible some of those people left during last year's shift to India. GMB isn't the only one needling the airline. Mashable reports budget airline Ryanair has been poking fun on Twitter. In one tweet, it proclaims, "Breaking news: BA appoints new head of IT.... #ShouldHaveFlownRyanair"; the picture above features the line "computer says no." See its other tweet here. |
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By Scott Kaufman
Friday, May 23, 2014 14:37 EDT
An Alabama man who posted videos of himself complaining about bicyclists has been arrested and charged with reckless endangerment.
In the videos, Keith Maddox describes what it’s like sharing the road with bicyclists as he drives to work.
“See what I was talking about?” he says in a video posted on May 21, 2014. “Look there! Look right there. I ought to run him in the ditch. Ride your little bicycle!” he yells as he passes the bicyclist.
“You piece of crap! I oughta run him in the ditch is what I shoulda done! I shoulda put him in the ditch.”
In another video, he passes a bicyclist and says, “Lord have mercy, I’m gonna hurt one of them one of these days. Can’t help myself, I’m gonna do it.”
“Isn’t that nice?” he asks in a video from May 20, 2014. “Me, I’m trying to make it to work. Watch this,” he says, revving his engine as he passes the bicyclists.
“That scare you boys?” he yells.
The videos were discovered by cycling enthusiast groups online, who alerted the Calhoun County Sheriff’s office to Maddox’s threats. They arrested him and charged him with reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor charge, and released him on $3,000 bond.
Maddox asked for forgiveness on his Facebook page with a note — since taken down — in which he apologized “to all people that I have offended over those absolute stupid videos that I posted …anybody who knows me knows that I would never ever intensionally [sic] hurt anyone…those were in very bad taste and I especially want to apologize to the northeast Alabama bicycle association…I am truly sorry for Anyone I may have offended….and please everyone share the road and be very aware of bicycle riders everywhere..and again I am truly sorry for my extremely bad judgement…please except my apology thanks.”
Watch a compilation of the videos that Maddox posted below. | – A series of angry viral videos has an Alabama man facing a reckless endangerment charge. Apparently fed up with cyclists slowing him down on the road, Keith Maddox posted videos in which he explains his feelings—and threatens those on bikes, the Raw Story reports. "You piece of crap!" he shouts while driving by one cyclist. "Ought to run him in the ditch is what I should have done." "I’m gonna hurt one of them one of these days. Can’t help myself, I’m gonna do it," he says in another clip. Cyclist groups told police about the videos and Maddox was charged with the misdemeanor. On Facebook, however, he apologized about "those absolute stupid videos that I posted," adding that he wouldn't actually hurt anybody. "Please everyone share the road and be very aware of bicycle riders everywhere." A local cycling association head said he'd accept the apology, the Anniston Star reports. "Many cyclists' first reaction will be to scream for the guy's head," Bobby Phillips said. "But that's not going to help anybody and could drive biking and non-biking people further apart." |
Getty Images Elon Musk
A statement from Tesla’s board members on Wednesday raises further questions following the shock tweet from Elon Musk that he wants to take the auto maker private.
The brief news release from Tesla board members—Brad Buss, Robyn Denholm, Ira Ehrenpreis, Antonio Gracias, Linda Johnson Rice, and James Murdoch—consisted of three sentences:
Last week, Elon opened a discussion with the board about taking the company private. This included discussion as to how being private could better serve Tesla’s long-term interests, and also addressed the funding for this to occur. The board has met several times over the last week and is taking the appropriate next steps to evaluate this.
Two board members, venture capital investor Steve Jurvetson as well as Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk, didn’t sign on to the statement. (Jurvetson has taken leave from Tesla after being accused of sexual harassment.)
The statement from members of Tesla Inc.’s TSLA, +5.77% board does show there was a discussion of how he could fund such a bid. But the board’s statement leaves open the crucial question of whether they were satisfied that—as Musk’s surprise tweet put it—he had enough backing to assert “funding secured.”
At $420 a share, the price at which Musk tweeted he was considering setting the bid, the deal would be valued at $72 billion before debt.
Related: A Tesla buyout would be the largest in history—by a wide margin
Tesla shares were down more than 1% early Wednesday, after surging by about 11% on Tuesday. The electric-car maker’s stock has climbed by 21% so far this year. By comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +3.29% is set for a year-to-date gain of 3.5%, the S&P 500 index SPX, +3.43% is on track for a return of 6.8%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +4.26% has advanced by more than 14% so far this year, according to FactSet data. Tesla’s run-up comes despite the company being a consistent target of investors aiming to short the its stock, or bet against Tesla’s shares rising.
Another crucial question raised by the statement is the timing. “Last week” predates Tesla’s filing on Monday of its 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which didn’t mention such discussions.
News of a takeover would certainly be considered material, yet it wasn’t disclosed until Musk’s tweet on Tuesday.
Another question is what the “appropriate next steps” are, though that’s probably the imminent formation of a committee to evaluate the bid.
What was left out of the statement also is worth considering. For instance, there was no indication that the board was satisfied with either Musk’s method or timing for announcing the approach, though they didn’t rebuke him, either.
Murdoch also sits on the board of News Corp., which owns MarketWatch, the publisher of this report.
Related: Did Elon Musk break any laws with his going-private tweet?
Want news about Europe delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Europe Daily newsletter. Sign up here. ||||| Several independent directors of Tesla Inc.’s board said Wednesday it has met several times over the past week to discuss Chief Executive Elon Musk’s proposal to take the electric-car maker private in what would be the biggest buyout in history.
“Last week, Elon opened a discussion with the board about taking the company private,” according to a statement from several board members. The talks included how being a private company could “better serve Tesla’s long-term interests, and also addressed the funding for this to occur,”... ||||| Image copyright Getty Images
Tesla's board has confirmed that it will consider the proposal by chief executive Elon Musk to take it private.
A statement was issued by six members of the electric carmaker's board after Mr Musk tweeted to say he had the funding to de-list the company.
The board had "met several times over the last week" to discuss going private, the statement said.
They said this "included discussion as to how being private could better serve Tesla's long-term interests".
Mr Musk said in his tweet on Tuesday that shareholders would be offered $420 (£326) per share, valuing the business at more than $70bn.
This would make it the biggest deal of its kind, surpassing the purchase of utility TXU Corp in 2007 for $44bn by a consortium.
The brief statement by six of the nine board directors said Mr Musk had "opened a discussion" about taking the company private last week.
The discussions "addressed the funding for this to occur", the six directors added. They did not include Mr Musk, his brother Kimbal Musk, and Steve Jurvetson, a venture capitalist.
'Irregular' announcement
The board statement came amid questions about how Mr Musk opted to disclose the possible de-listing to investors.
While companies are allowed to make announcements via social media, typically they also make a simultaneous regulatory filing, said Andrew M Calamari, a partner at the law firm Finn Dixon & Herling and former director of the New York office of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US market regulator.
"Just in terms of the style of this, it strikes me as very irregular," Mr Calamari said.
"It also raises questions about his intent," he added. "Was he in earnest in what he's saying, or does he have some other motive" like influencing the stock price.
Tesla shares reached a peak of $368 after Mr Musk's tweets on Tuesday, before trading on the stock market was halted.
Trades resumed later that afternoon, after the company published an email from Mr Musk to employees elaborating on the plans.
Tesla shares surged close to their all-time high of $385, which they touched almost a year ago, but fluctuated on Wednesday after the board members issued their statement.
'Wild swings'
In the staff memo, Mr Musk explained why he wanted to take the company private.
"As a public company, we are subject to wild swings in our stock price that can be a major distraction for everyone working at Tesla, all of whom are shareholders," he wrote.
"Being public also subjects us to the quarterly earnings cycle that puts enormous pressure on Tesla to make decisions that may be right for a given quarter, but not necessarily right for the long term," he wrote.
He added that the company was "the most shorted stock in the history of the stock market" - a trading strategy which assumes share prices will fall - so "being public means that there are large numbers of people who have the incentive to attack the company".
Those traders are likely to have lost money when the share price rose on the announcement about a delisting.
Questions continue
Mr Musk already owns 20% of the company. He said his intention in taking the company private was not to increase his personal holding and his plan would give existing investors the option to retain their shares.
Regulators are likely to be interested in what evidence exists - such as agreements with investors or banks - for Mr Musk's claim that funding was "secured", Mr Calamari said.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, the US market regulator, has inquired about the issue, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The structure of the deal also remains ambiguous, said Adam C Pritchard, professor of securities law at the University of Michigan.
If more than 2,000 investors opt to retain their shares, then the firm would be subject to the disclosure rules of a public company, he added.
"Intuitively it doesn't make sense because it would still be a public entity, and the public entity status is what is apparently objectionable to Musk," Mr Pritchard said.
Steven Kaplan, a University of Chicago professor who researches private equity, said it would be difficult for Mr Musk to raise the necessary finance when Tesla has still not made a profit.
"The company is cash-flow negative. How do you use any debt on a company that is cash-flow negative?" he said. | – Elon Musk wasn't blowing smoke. The BBC reports on a three-sentence statement issued by six of Tesla's nine board members saying the board had "met several times over the last week" to discuss Musk's proposal to take the company private, which he announced via an unexpected tweet Tuesday. The talks "included discussion as to how being private could better serve Tesla's long-term interests" and the statement ends by saying the board "is taking the appropriate next steps to evaluate this." The three board members who did not sign the statement are Musk, brother Kimbal Musk, and a board member who is on leave, reports the Wall Street Journal. At MarketWatch, Steve Goldstein flags some unresolved points: The statement didn't elaborate on Musk's claim of "funding secured" and raised but didn't answer a question of timing. "'Last week' predates Tesla's filing on Monday of its 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which didn't mention such discussions. News of a takeover would certainly be considered material," he writes. Shares of Tesla are currently down about 1%. |
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Kinshasa, pictured in 1955, was at the centre of the pandemic, scientists say
The origin of the Aids pandemic has been traced to the 1920s in the city of Kinshasa, in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, scientists say.
An international team of scientists say a "perfect storm" of population growth, sex and railways allowed HIV to spread.
A feat of viral archaeology was used to find the pandemic's origin, the team report in the journal Science.
They used archived samples of HIV's genetic code to trace its source, with evidence pointing to 1920s Kinshasa.
Their report says a roaring sex trade, rapid population growth and unsterilised needles used in health clinics probably spread the virus.
Meanwhile Belgium-backed railways had one million people flowing through the city each year, taking the virus to neighbouring regions.
Experts said it was a fascinating insight into the start of the pandemic.
HIV came to global attention in the 1980s and has infected nearly 75 million people.
It has a much longer history in Africa, but where the pandemic started has remained the source of considerable debate.
Family affair
A team at the University of Oxford and the University of Leuven, in Belgium, tried to reconstruct HIV's "family tree" and find out where its oldest ancestors came from.
The research group analysed mutations in HIV's genetic code.
"You can see the footprints of history in today's genomes, it has left a record, a mutation mark in the HIV genome that can't be eradicated," Prof Oliver Pybus from the University of Oxford told the BBC.
By reading those mutational marks, the research team rebuilt the family tree and traced its roots.
Image copyright SPL
HIV is a mutated version of a chimpanzee virus, known as simian immunodeficiency virus, which probably made the species-jump through contact with infected blood while handling bush meat.
The virus made the jump on multiple occasions. One event led to HIV-1 subgroup O which affects tens of thousands in Cameroon.
Yet only one cross-species jump, HIV-1 subgroup M, went on to infect millions of people across every country in the world.
The answer to why this happened lies in the era of black and white film and the tail-end of the European empires.
In the 1920s, Kinshasa (called Leopoldville until 1966) was part of the Belgian Congo.
Prof Oliver Pybus said: "It was a very large and very rapidly growing area and colonial medical records show there was a high incidence of various sexually transmitted diseases."
Sex and railways
Large numbers of male labourers were drawn to the city, distorting the gender balance until men outnumbered women two to one, eventually leading to a roaring sex trade.
Prof Pybus added: "There are two aspects of infrastructure that could have helped.
"Public health campaigns to treat people for various infectious diseases with injections seem a plausible route [for spreading the virus].
"The second really interesting aspect is the transport networks that enabled people to move round a huge country."
Around one million people were using Kinshasa's railways by the end of the 1940s.
The virus spread, with neighbouring Brazzaville and the mining province, Katanga, rapidly hit.
Those "perfect storm" conditions lasted just a few decades in Kinshasa, but by the time they ended the virus was already starting to spread around the world.
Image copyright SPL Image caption The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) attacks the immune system
Prof Jonathan Ball, from the University of Nottingham, told the BBC: "It's a fascinating insight into the early phases of the HIV-1 pandemic.
"It's the usual suspects that are most likely to have helped the virus get a foothold in humans - travel, population increases and human practices such as unsafe healthcare interventions and prostitution.
"Perhaps the most contentious suggestion is that the spread of the M-group viruses had more to do with the conditions being right than it had to do with these viruses being better adapted for transmission and growth in humans. I'm sure this suggestion will prompt interesting and lively debate within the field."
Dr Andrew Freedman, a reader in infectious diseases at Cardiff University, said: "It does seem an interesting study demonstrating very elegantly how HIV spread in the Congo region long before the Aids epidemic was recognised in the early 80s.
"It was already known that HIV in humans arose by cross species transmission from chimpanzees in that region of Africa, but this study maps in great detail the spread of the virus from Kinshasa, it was fascinating to read." ||||| A new, sophisticated analysis of hundreds of genetic sequences of HIV from different time points and locations adds fascinating insights to the origin of the AIDS epidemic. The study, which appears in this issue of Science (see p. 56), confirms earlier analyses that an HIV-infected person came to what today is Kinshasa around 1920, but it then shows for the first time how the virus went from there to two cities in the southeastern portion of the country, likely aided by the extensive rail system that then existed. The researchers also note that 13 documented cases exist of different simian viruses jumping from chimpanzees, gorillas, and monkeys into humans, but only one—known has HIV-1 group M—sparked a global epidemic. They show that group M and another strain, group O, expanded at the same rate until about 1960, but then group M nearly tripled its rate of spread. Possible reasons include public health campaigns that had contaminated needles and an increase in the number of clients of sex workers. ||||| LONDON Bustling transport networks, migrant labor and changes to the sex trade in early 20th-century Congo created a "perfect storm" that gave rise to an HIV pandemic that has now infected 75 million people worldwide, researchers said on Thursday.
In an analysis of the genetic history of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, the scientists said the global pandemic almost certainly began its global spread in the 1920s in Kinshasa in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Here, a confluence of factors including urban growth, extensive railway links during Belgian colonial rule and changes in sexual behavior combined to see HIV emerge in Congo's capital and spread across the globe.
Oliver Pybus, a professor at Oxford University's zoology department who co-led the research, said that until now most studies have taken a piecemeal approach to HIV's genetic history and looked only at certain HIV genomes in particular locations.
"For the first time, we have analyzed all the available evidence using the latest phylogeographic techniques, which enable us to statistically estimate where a virus comes from," he said. "This means we can say with a high degree of certainty where and when the HIV pandemic originated."
United Nations AIDS agency (UNAIDS) data show that more than 35 million people worldwide are currently infected with HIV, and some 1.5 million people died of AIDS-related illness in 2013.
Since the HIV/AIDS pandemic began, it has killed up to 40 million people worldwide.
The disease is spread in blood, semen and breast milk. No cure exists, but AIDS can be kept at bay for many years in people with HIV who take cocktails of antiretroviral drugs.
Various strains of HIV are known to have been transmitted from primates and apes to humans at least 13 times in history, but only one of those transmissions - of a strain known as HIV-1 Group M - led to the current human pandemic.
Pybus said the key questions centered on how this happened.
"Why did most of (the HIV strains) die out, and why did some of them -- like HIV-2 -- go on to generate local epidemics in Africa, and why did only one go to become a global pandemic?" he said in a telephone interview.
"To answer that, we needed to try to reconstruct the spread through space and time of the global pandemic strain."
Pybus and an international team of researchers analyzed HIV-1 group M sequences from a major HIV sequence database and then combining these analyses with spatial and epidemiological data. Their study will be published in the journal "Science" on Thursday.
Philippe Lemey, a professor at Belgium's University of Leuven who worked on the study, explained that genetic analysis had helped establish the time and place of the pandemic's origins. The team then compared that with historical data "and it became evident that the early spread of HIV-1 from Kinshasa to other population centers followed predictable patterns."
A key factor, the analysis suggests, was the DRC's transport networks, particularly its railways, which made Kinshasa one of the best-connected of all central African cities.
"Data from colonial archives tells us that by the end of 1940s over one million people were traveling through Kinshasa on the railways each year," said Nuno Faria of Oxford University, who also worked on the team.
He said the genetic data showed that HIV rapidly spread across the DRC -- a country the size of Western Europe -- traveling with people along railways and waterways to reach Mbuji-Mayi and Lubumbashi in the extreme south and Kisangani in the far north between the end of the 1930s and early 1950s.
The team's findings also suggest that along with transport, social changes such as the changing behavior of sex workers and public health initiatives against other diseases that led to the unsafe use of needles may have contributed to turning HIV into a full-blown epidemic.
"We think it is likely that the social changes around the independence in 1960 saw the virus break out from small groups of infected people to infect the wider population and eventually the world," said Faria.
(Reporting by Kate Kelland) ||||| A “perfect storm” of urban change that began in 1920s Kinshasa led to the catastrophic spread of HIV across Africa and into the wider world, according to scientists who used genetic sequencing and historical records to trace the origins of the pandemic.
Though the virus probably crossed from chimpanzees to humans in southern Cameroon years earlier, HIV remained a regional infection until it entered the capital of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
From the 1920s until 1960, the pandemic HIV strain – there were others that fizzled out – spread from Kinshasa, crossed borders to other nations, and ultimately landed on distant continents. It has infected nearly 75 million people worldwide to date.
When the virus arrived, Kinshasa was bustling. It was the largest and fastest growing city in the region with transport links reaching up and down the country. The busy Congo river curved north and east to Kisangani more than 600 miles away. The railway carried scores of workers southeast to Katanga, a mining province reliant on immigrant labour, and on to Lubumbashi more than 900 miles away.
Records show that by the 1940s, more than a million people a year passed through Kinshasa on the railways alone. By 1960, the rate of new pandemic HIV infections outpaced the growth of the regional population, according to research published in Science.
While boats and trains spread the virus far, other factors played their part. Records suggest Kinshasa had a relatively high proportion of men and a consequent demand for sex workers. Some doctors may have unwittingly spread the virus further, through unsterilised jabs at sexual health clinics.
An international team of scientists led by the universities of Oxford in Britain and Leuven in Belgium reconstructed the history of the HIV pandemic using historical records and DNA samples of the virus dating back to the late 1950s. The DNA allowed them to draw up a family tree of the virus that traced its ancestry through time and space. Using statistical models they could push farther back than the 1950s and locate the origin of the pandemic in 1920s Kinshasa.
People with HIV in central Africa at the time did not have specific symptoms that would have been written down in their medical records. The virus causes the immune system to collapse, leaving people open to all manner of infections. “For an epidemic like HIV where we’re trying to track back to before it was even discovered, genetics is the only source of information we have,” said Oliver Pybus, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford University and senior author on the study.
The genetic data suggests that pandemic HIV spread rapidly through the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country the size of western Europe. From the late 1930s to the early 1950s, the virus spread by rail and river to Mbuji-Mayi and Lubumbashi in the south and Kisangani in the north. There the virus took hold and formed secondary reservoirs from where it spread to countries in southern and eastern Africa.
At first, HIV was an infection confined to specific groups of people. But the virus seemed to break out into the general population and spread around the world after what was then known as the Republic of the Congo achieved independence in 1960.
“Parts of the story can only be suggestive. Without a time machine it’s very difficult to prove causality. But we can be fairly sure we have the time and place where this happened,” Pybus said. “It seems a combination of factors in Kinshasa in the early 20th century created a perfect storm for the emergence of HIV, leading to a generalised epidemic with unstoppable momentum that unrolled across sub-Saharan Africa.”
Different strains of HIV have almost certainly jumped from apes to humans – through hunting or handling bushmeat – scores of times throughout history. Only a dozen or so incidents have left their traces in the DNA of HIV strains around today. Some outbreaks infected hundreds of thousands of people in Africa but went no further. Only one, known as HIV-1 group M, went pandemic.
“We all want to know how this happened, how we got here,” said Pybus. “We wanted to answer the question: why did this one turn into a pandemic?” | – More than half a century before AIDS even had a name, the HIV virus was already spreading across Africa via the city now known as Kinshasa, researchers say. In the 1920s, the city was Leopoldville, capital of the Belgian Congo, and scientists say a "perfect storm" of conditions caused the pandemic to emerge, the BBC reports. The fast-growing city was full of transient male workers who visited prostitutes, researchers say. Sexually transmitted diseases were rife, and unsterilized needles at health clinics also helped spread the disease, according to a study published in the journal Science. Researchers studied HIV's genetic code as well as historical documents. The researchers note that strains of HIV have been transmitted from primates to humans at least 13 times, but only one has caused a global epidemic. They believe a key factor in the 1920s spread was the Congo's booming transport network early last century, which saw a million people travel through Kinshasa every year on the railways alone, reports Reuters. Researchers say the disease was at first confined to specific groups of people, but it started to spread into the general population and around the world after 1960, the Guardian reports. It took genetic research to track the pandemic back to its source because the disease hits the immune system, meaning victims died from any of a wide variety of infections, making the spread of HIV before it was identified hard to track through medical records, says the lead researcher, an evolutionary biologist. (HIV has infected 75 million people, but UN officials say real progress is being made and the epidemic could be over by 2030.) |
If nobody understands a mathematical proof, does it count? Shinichi Mochizuki of Kyoto University, Japan, has tried to prove the ABC conjecture, a long-standing pure maths problem, but now says fellow mathematicians are failing to get to grips with his work.
The problem gets its name from the simple equation for adding two numbers, a + b = c, but poses deep questions about the true nature of numbers. In 2012 Mochizuki posted a 500-page paper online that claimed to solve the puzzle, but it required a dense framework of new maths dubbed "Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory" that even experienced mathematicians found difficult to follow.
Mochizuki is a highly-respected mathematician and his work is taken seriously, says Minhyong Kim of the University of Oxford, but in the years since he posted the proof no one has been able to give a definitive answer on whether it is correct. "It's a bit disappointing that no one has come out and said it's right or wrong," he says.
Easy as ABC?
Now Mochizuki has posted a new report describing his efforts to explain his theory to others. He says that three researchers who studied it with his help have yet to find an error, but it will take a few more years for it to be fully confirmed.
He has also criticised the rest of the community for not studying his work in detail, and says most other mathematicians are "simply not qualified" to issue a definitive statement on the proof unless they start from the very basics of his theory.
Some mathematicians say Mochizuki must do more to explain his work, like simplifying his notes or lecturing abroad. "I sympathise with his sense of frustration but I also sympathise with other people who don't understand why he's not doing things in a more standard way," says Kim. It isn't really sustainable for Mochizuki to teach people one-on-one, he adds, and any journal would probably require independent reviewers who have not studied under Mochizuki to verify the proof.
Mochizuki's seeming reticence calls to mind Grigori Perelman, another mathematician who refused to engage with the mathematical community and ultimately turned down a $1 million prize for his solution to a problem called the Poincaré conjecture. "This sense of stubbornness, dignity and pride is a part of what gives him the personality necessary to embark on a project like this," says Kim. But for now, the proof remains in limbo. "It's a curious state."
If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to. ||||| Shinichi Mochizuki of Kyoto University, Japan claims he has proven the ABC conjecture, one of the longest standing mysteries of mathematics. However, even though his 500-page paper was published in 2012, no one has managed to understand it. Mochizuki says his fellow mathematicians are failing to get to grips with his work.
The ABC conjecture is deceptively complicated. It roughly states that three numbers a, b and c, which have no common factor and satisfy a + b = c cannot be too smooth (more detailed explanation here). In number theory, a smooth number is an integer which factors completely into small prime numbers.
The beauty of this theory is that it captures the intuitive sense that triples of numbers which satisfy a linear relation, and which are divisible by high perfect powers, are rare. It seems like a bottomless, still lake – it seems very simple, but the more you dive into it, the deeper it gets. In fact, the theory poses some significant questions about the actual nature of numbers, so truly understanding it would be highly significant for mathematics.
Step in, Mochizuki. In 2012, he published a 500-page paper online that claimed to solve the puzzle. There were two problems however – the first one, that it’s a 500 page paper, and the second (and more important one), that it uses a dense framework of new maths created by him and dubbed “Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory” – a framework that has even experience mathematicians struggling. Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory is basically a whole new way of looking at numbers which he used to prove other conjectures, such as the Szpiro conjecture, and part of the Vojta’s conjecture for the case of hyperbolic curves, as well as Fermat’s Last Theory.
Mochizuki is a highly-respected mathematician and his work is taken seriously – it’s not like no one has tried to understand his work. It’s just that … no one could. Now, he has released a report in which he says that mathematicians working with him studying his theory have yet to find a flaw, but he criticized the community, saying that most researchers are “simply not qualified” to issue a definitive statement on the proof because they don’t truly understand his theory – and haven’t tried hard enough. Minhyong Kim of the University of Oxford is one of the many who are still awaiting the verdict in this case.
Advertisement “It’s a bit disappointing that no one has come out and said it’s right or wrong,” he says.
The thing is that if you want to understand the proof of this theory, you have to first understand the Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory he developed, and that’s no easy feat in itself.
“I sympathise with his sense of frustration but I also sympathise with other people who don’t understand why he’s not doing things in a more standard way,” says Kim. It isn’t really sustainable for Mochizuki to teach people one-on-one, he adds, and any journal would probably require independent reviewers who have not studied under Mochizuki to verify the proof.
I’m not exactly sure exactly why Mochizuki chose to work in this complicated way, but hey, if it works, it works. I think the scientific community has a duty to rise up to the event and figure out if this is right or wrong. Sure it’s complicated, but that’s modern math – you’d expect no less. I also believe we’re not going to get any reply from Mochizuki, seeing as he wrote the following:
“The papers were released in order to make it possible for specialists to study and assess the validity of IUTeich; they were never intended as an announcement to the general public. Moreover, I never envisaged that these papers might elicit reactions consisting of non-mathematical content from non-specialists. I have no intention of responding to such non-mathematical reactions.”
But until someone figures if Mochizuki is right or wrong, his theories remain in a Schrodinger’s cat like state.
“This sense of stubbornness, dignity and pride is a part of what gives him the personality necessary to embark on a project like this,” says Kim. But for now, the proof remains in limbo. “It’s a curious state.” | – A Japanese mathematician swears he's solved one of the biggest problems in the world of math. The problem is, nobody, not even fellow mathematicians of the highest caliber, can understand Shinichi Mochizuki's proof of something called the ABC conjecture, reports New Scientist. It doesn't help that the proof itself is 500 pages long or that Mochizuki developed his own set of mathematical principles called the Inter-Universal Teichmuller Theory that must be mastered first. (Those who don't are "simply not qualified" to weigh in, says Mochizuki.) Mathematicians aren't saying that Mochizuki's resolution of the theory is wrong, but they're not saying it's right, either. As a result, it's been in a kind of math limbo since 2012, despite attempts by the Kyoto University professor as recently as last month to shed light on it. As for the ABC conjecture, it's a longstanding math problem that also happens to be "deceptively complicated," explains ZME Science. "It roughly states that three numbers a, b, and c, which have no common factor and satisfy a + b = c cannot be too smooth. ... In number theory, a smooth number is an integer which factors completely into small prime numbers." Got that? The upshot, according to both sites, is that the theory raises fundamental questions about the "nature of numbers," and thus its proof would be a major milestone. "It's a bit disappointing that no one has come out and said it's right or wrong," says Oxford professor Minhyong Kim. (Elsewhere, a beating seems to have turned this man into a math whiz.) |
During their season-opener against Fresno State, Nebraska honored its late punter, Sam Foltz, who was killed in a car crash in July.
On a 4th-and-4 early in the game, the team came out with 10 men, in punt formation, without a punter. Players on both sides, as well as fans, clapped and cheered to remember the legacy of Foltz and former Michigan State punter Mike Sadler, who was also killed in the crash.
After about a minute, they punted the ball away.
Foltz was the Big Ten Punter of the Year last season and led the conference with 44.2 yards per punt. He was on the Ray Guy watch list for best punter in the nation this season. ||||| Nebraska honored punter Sam Foltz by sending out a punterless punt team after going three-and-out in its first drive tonight against Fresno State—taking a delay of game penalty while the ten remaining players stood in memory of their teammate.
Foltz and former Michigan State punter Mike Sadler died five weeks ago in a Wisconsin car accident.
[BTN] | – The Nebraska Cornhuskers lost punter Sam Foltz in a car accident in July, and the football team paid him tribute in its first game of the season on Saturday: After their first drive ended with a fourth and four, the team lined up solemnly in punt formation with just 10 men and stood without a punter for a minute as the crowd cheered, reports Sports Illustrated. The Cornhuskers took a delay of game penalty for their tribute, notes Deadspin. Foltz was the Big Ten Punter of the Year last season. |
Police in Mexico are searching for a band of 20 musicians and roadies who went missing after a gig.
Kombo Kolombia, who are Mexicans but play Colombian-style vallenato music, last played a private gig in Hidalgo, north Mexico, but have not been seen or answered their mobile phones since.
"They were not answering their mobile phones, but we just thought it was because they were in a remote place," said family member Jose Ruiz.
"We started to look for them, and we found their cars open and empty, and neither they nor their instruments were at the farm where they were scheduled to play."
Police confirmed that the band has not been seen or heard from since Thursday.
A number of musicians have been kidnapped and murdered by drug gangs in Mexico over the last few years.
In 2007 Sergio Gomez, singer in the band K-Pax, was kidnapped and strangled to death.
Hours after denying reports of his murder, Sergio Vega, known as El Shaka, was shot dead while driving his red Cadillac.
Most of those murdered were narcocorridos, who sing songs celebrating the lives of drug barons.
Among them is Diego Rivas, who was shot dead in 2011 after composing a song in praise of Joaquin Shorty Guzman, Mexico's most wanted drug baron.
The missing band play Colombian music, not usually linked to drug gangs, but local media report that the venue of the band's last gig does have links to drug violence.
Last year conductor and pianist Rodolfo Cazares, music director of the Bremerhaven City Theatre in Germany, was kidnapped while visiting relatives in Mexico. He has not been seen since. Fears are growing that he may have been murdered by a drug gang.
Last year more than 70,000 people died in drug-related violence in Mexico, prompting President Enrique Pena Nieto, who was sworn in last December, to set-up a new national police force to tackle organised crime.
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This article is copyrighted by IBTimes.co.uk, the business news leader ||||| Authorities in northern Mexico still have no leads after searching two days for 20 people with a Colombian-style band who went missing after a private performance at a bar, an official with the Nuevo Leon State Investigation Agency said Sunday.
The 20 people include 15 members of Kombo Kolombia and the band's crew.
People living near the bar in Hidalgo municipality north of Monterrey reported hearing gunshots about 4 a.m. Friday, following by the sound of vehicles speeding away, said the source with the state agency. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted by the news media.
The officials added that gunfire is common in the area, and said investigators found spent bullets nearby.
Relatives filed an official report about their missing loved ones on Friday, after they lost cellular telephone contact with them following the Thursday night performance. When family members went to the bar to investigate, they found the band members' vehicles still parked outside.
For three years, Kombo Kolombia has played a Colombian style of music known as vallenato, which is popular in Nuevo Leon state. Most of the group's musicians were from the area, and have held large concerts in addition to bar performances.
Nuevo Leon state officials said one of those missing is a Colombian citizen with Mexican residency.
Members of other musical bands, usually groups that performed "narcocorridos" celebrating the exploits of drug traffickers, have been killed in Mexico in recent years. But Kombo Kolombia did not play that type of music and its lyrics did not deal with violence or drug trafficking. | – Members of a Colombian-style band who disappeared after a gig in northern Mexico last week have become the latest musicians to be kidnapped and murdered by drug gangs, authorities fear. The 16-man Kombo Kolombia band and four of its roadies were reported missing early Friday; investigators have now discovered at least eight bodies dumped in a well in the area, the AP reports. The band members were Mexican but played Colombian-style vallenato music, which is not normally associated with drug gangs, the International Business Times reports. After the band played a private show in a bar north of Monterrey last Thursday night, people reported hearing gunshots and vehicles speeding away. The band members' empty vehicles were found outside the bar. |
CLOSE On Tuesday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its 2017 nominees. And, that means there were some snubs! Time
Director/writer Martin Scorsese and Andrew Garfield on the set of 'Silence.' (Photo: Kerry Brown)
La La Land and diversity were major winners in Tuesday's Oscar nominations, but not everyone woke up to an avalanche of excited texts. Among the most surprising omissions from this year's crop:
Silence. Despite its muted box office ($5.2 million since late December) and shutout at the Golden Globes, we still figured Martin Scorsese’s passion project might have a shot with the Academy, given the director’s prodigious 12 Oscar nods (and one win) to date. But the religious epic ultimately fell on deaf ears, eking out just one nomination for best cinematography.
Amy Adams. Once considered an on-the-bubble contender, the five-time Oscar nominee gained momentum in the past month thanks to Arrival's strong showing with industry and critics' groups. But the overdue actress' understated performance as a linguistics expert may not have been flashy enough for voters, who otherwise greeted the sci-fi drama with eight nominations including best picture.
Finding Dory. Stellar reviews and more than $1 billion at the global box office couldn't help the Disney/Pixar blockbuster swim to a nomination for best animated feature — a category its predecessor, Finding Nemo, dominated in 2004.
Denzel Washington. The dynamic Fences star earned his seventh acting Oscar nod for his acclaimed August Wilson adaptation with Viola Davis, but was edged out of best director by comeback kid Mel Gibson (Hacksaw Ridge) and first-time nominee Denis Villeneuve (Arrival).
Annette Bening. Not only is she a four-time Oscar nominee, but the 20th Century Women star is also a member of the Academy's Board of Governors as a representative for the Actors Branch. So how did she miss out on Nomination No. 5? Blame it on a crowded field of other well-respected actresses including Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins) and French icon Isabelle Huppert (Elle), both of whom have showier roles than Bening's '70s matriarch.
Deadpool. For a second there, it looked like the Merc with a Mouth might actually score a nomination for best picture, given the underdog's surprising inclusion in Golden Globes and guild nominations. But even with the boost of Ryan Reynolds' delightfully unconventional awards campaign, the R-rated superhero couldn't go the distance.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson. After picking up best supporting actor at the Golden Globes, Johnson was passed over for his creepy Nocturnal Animals turn in favor of his wry co-star, Michael Shannon. Tom Ford's stylish second feature was otherwise missing from the nominations, despite recent love from the BAFTA Awards and the Writers Guild of America.
Taraji P. Henson. Arriving at the tail end of awards season, Hidden Figures blasted off at the box office with $83.7 million (and counting) since late December and four nominations including best picture and best supporting actress (Octavia Spencer). But the Empire star couldn't manage a best-actress nod for her powerful turn as NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, nor could her other well-reviewed co-stars Janelle Monáe and Kevin Costner in supporting categories.
Sully. Clint Eastwood's workmanlike take on the Miracle on the Hudson hasn't been a major awards player in months, despite its inclusion on the National Board of Review's top 10 films of the year list. Still, its shutout in major categories is surprising given its stellar box office ($125.1 million) and likable star in Tom Hanks, who was once again overlooked for best actor after recent high-profile snubs for Bridge of Spies and Captain Phillips.
CLOSE Here are the best picture nominees for the 89th Academy Awards. USA TODAY NETWORK
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2koQDbA ||||| The Oscars certainly knows how to keep us on our toes.
While movies like La La Land and Manchester by the Sea are up for awards in several categories, as expected, this year’s Academy Award nominations were full of many notable snubs and surprises. While actors Taraji P. Henson, Amy Adams and Hugh Grant were overlooked, Viggo Mortensen managed to snag a spot in the Best Actor category. And at yet another awards show, Finding Dory couldn’t make it despite its pledge to “just keep swimming.”
Keep reading for a breakdown of the biggest shocks from this morning’s announcement leading up to the biggest night in films.
Snub: Taraji P. Henson
The math just doesn’t add up.
Despite Hidden Figures receiving such positive reviews, lead actress Henson failed to score a nomination for her portrayal of Katherine Johnson, the African-American mathematician who helped send the first American astronauts into space.
Janelle Monáe was also sidelined despite a solid performance.
The musician and producer was nominated for a Golden Globe for best original score for Hidden Figures. However, his work was overlooked in the Oscars’ Original Score and Best Original Song categories.
The awards show wasn’t a total miss for Hidden Figures, though: After Henson’s snub, the film — which nabbed a nomination for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture at for Screen Actors Guild Awards — pulled through with a spot in the Best Picture category.
In addition, Octavia Spencer received a mention in the Best Supporting Actress category.
Snub: Amy Adams
Despite a critically acclaimed performance in Arrival, the five-time Oscar nominee won’t have another shot at taking home the statue this year. In a tight Best Actress category that included Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman and Emma Stone, Adams failed to make an appearance.
Emily Blunt, who received recognition for the SAG Awards, also didn’t make the cut — although that would have been a bigger shock.
Snub: Annette Bening
The four-time Oscar nominee was another overlooked contender in the packed Best Actress division. Her acclaimed film 20th Century Women also came up short across the board, failing to secure any Oscar nods.
It’s been 21 years since Gibson, who welcomed his ninth child last week, won Best Picture and Best Director for Braveheart. Despite a series of controversies in the early 2000s, nominations for Best Director and Best Picture for Hacksaw Ridge (Gibson’s first directorial effort since 2006’s Apocalypto) have solidified his comeback to Hollywood.
“What could be more exciting than listening to the nominations being announced while holding my newborn son! This is a truly wonderful honor,” Gibson said in a statement.
Snub: Hugh Grant
The Florence Foster Jenkins actor will have to wait a bit longer for his first Oscar nomination.
Despite SAG and BAFTA nominations for best supporting actor and a Golden Globes lead actor spot, Grant failed to secure a slot. Instead, Michael Shannon snagged the final opening in the best Best Supporting Actor category for his role in Nocturnal Animals. (Shannon’s costar in that film, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, won the category at the Golden Globes but did not make the cut for the Academy Awards.)
RELATED VIDEO: La La Land Leads! Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone Musical Nabs Record-Tying 14 Oscar Nominations
Surprise: Viggo Mortensen
Mortensen said it best himself: “It’s the little movie that could.”
After the Captain Fantastic actor scored a Golden Globe nomination for his role as the patriarch of a family who is forced to reintegrate into society after living in isolation for a decade, the Screen Actors Guild also honored Mortensen with a nod for outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role for the summer comedy. Mortensen can now add “Oscar nominee” to his resume.
Snub: Finding Dory
The Pixar sequel fans waited 13 years for the sequel, but it just couldn’t swim its way into awards season. The forgetful yet lovable fish voiced by Ellen DeGeneres scored with reviewers and at the box office (it’s earned over $1 billion worldwide), but was edged out in a year full of strong contenders in the best animated feature film category, including Disney’s Moana and Zootopia.
Awards season gave no love for Sully.
After being left out of both the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards, fans hoped that the Miracle on the Hudson movie would be able to nab a couple nominations at the Oscars, but there was no such luck. Neither director (and Academy golden boy) Clint Eastwood nor Hanks, a two-time Best Actor winner, were recognized. ||||| Story highlights There was more diversity this year
#OscarsLessWhite became a popular hashtag
(CNN) Is it time for a new hashtag?
This year's Oscar nominations have thrust the conversation about diversity back into the limelight, but this time in a more positive context.
Seven actors of color were nominated Tuesday -- Denzel Washington and Viola Davis for "Fences," Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris for "Moonlight," Ruth Negga for "Loving," Dev Patel for "Lion" and Octavia Spencer for "Hidden Figures."
Davis is now a three-time Oscar nominee, a first for an African American woman. ||||| Nominations for the 89th Academy Awards were announced this morning in L.A., and if you are La La Land, Moonlight‘s Mahershala Ali or Elle‘s Isabelle Huppert, you’re probably feeling a mountain high — just like most of the Hollywood film industry now attending the Sundance Film Festival. However, for others including Silence director Martin Scorsese, Hidden Figures star Taraji P. Henson and Arrival‘s Amy Adams, their Oscars hopes just got buried.
Here are some of the most significant people and projects snubbed this year for the Oscars, which will be held February 26 on ABC and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. Tell us who you think we might have missed.
Martin Scorsese – Denied a Golden Globe nomination and a DGA Awards nom, the silence is deafening on the Silence director this morning. Has the faith been lost?
Sully – The heroic story of pilot Chesley Sullenberger’s 2009 emergency landing of a US Airways flight on the Hudson River, and everyone on board escaping safely, was borderline miraculous. The fact that star and multiple Oscar winner Tom Hanks, director and multiple Oscar winner Clint Eastwood, and the film’s box office success were overlooked in the major categories is nothing short of a sin.
Michael Keaton – The past nominee deserved a break today for his performance as McDonald’s mogul Ray Kroc in The Founder. But no Happy Meal there.
Taraji P. Henson – The math just didn’t add up with Academy members for the Empire star’s performance as NASA human computer Katherine Johnson. Her Hidden Figures character helped get John Glenn into space and back home safely and received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015, but not even a chance at a reward for past nominee Henson. Congrats to co-star and previous Oscar winner Octavia Spencer on her Best Supporting Actress nom though.
The King’s Choice – Norway’s big Oscar hope for Best Foreign Language Film tells the true tale of the monarch who resisted Hitler and the Nazis in some of the darkest days of WWII. History should never forget King Haakon VII, but Oscar voters sure did.
Amy Adams – Strangely there won’t be an Academy arrival this year for the Arrival actress even though the Denis Villeneuve-helmed movie picked up Best Picture and Best Director noms among six others.
Matthew McConaughey – The actor radically transformed himself for Gold, but this past Best Actor winner did not find Oscar paydirt today.
Annette Bening – The previous Best Supporting Actress nominee didn’t see any 21st century appreciation this year for 20th Century Women.
Kevin Costner – The Dances With Wolves winner was the hidden weapon of Hidden Figures but didn’t take flight for his role in the NASA civil rights pic.
Trolls – Academy members really know just how to stop the Animated Feature feeling, don’t they? And don’t tell me that Original Song nomination was all this DreamWorks Animation flick deserved.
Adam Driver – The Star Wars alum put on a forceful campaign for his poetic New Jersey bus driver lead in Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, but Oscar wasn’t along for the ride.
Tom Ford – The Nocturnal Animals helmer saw his well-appointed film win the Grand Jury Prize at Venice and score Golden Globe nominations (including for Ford himself) and nine BAFTA noms. But the designer and director won’t be wearing Oscar gold.
Eye In The Sky – Maybe it’s because the last film appearance of Alan Rickman was released in March, or maybe it was the topic of drone warfare, but the Helen Mirren-starring pic didn’t fly with voters.
Hugh Grant – The Florence Foster Jenkins star landed SAG and BAFTA nominations for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globes Lead Actor nom, but it was an Oscar funeral for Grant today.
“I See A Victory” – The Hidden Figures tune from 2014 nominee Pharrell Williams is a foot tapper and a musical window into the film’s subject of equality. Still, no one ever accused Oscar voters of having too much introspection or swing at the same time, and they proved it again with this snub.
Deadpool – Yes, he comes out of the superheroes of the Marvel Universe, but you know in your heart that the merc with a mouth deserved to see the genre barrier broken with a Best Picture nomination. Almost never made, the witty and unconventional Fox pic was a real Hollywood success story for star Ryan Reynolds and director Tim Miller. Blockbusters are movies too, AMPAS members.
Aaron Taylor Johnson – A Golden Globes win for the Nocturnal Animals actor and a BAFTA nomination, but nothing from Oscar.
The Birth Of A Nation – Just one day short of a year ago, the pic starring and directed by Nate Parker about the 1831 Nat Turner-led slave rebellion debuted at Sundance and was garlanded with Oscar hopes. A record-breaking pickup by Fox Searchlight followed and then Audience and Grand Jury Sundance awards, and it looked like TBOAN was a contender. Then a 1999 sexual assault allegation against Parker resurfaced, plus box office disappointment. And even with a first-time feature directing nom from the DGA, Birth was ignored by Academy members. | – From #OscarsSoWhite to #OscarsLessWhite: The 2017 Academy Awards nominations included seven actors of color plus diverse nominees in other categories, CNN reports. That's not to say there weren't any snubs, as rounded up by People, Deadline, and USA Today. Some of the big ones: Taraji P. Henson: Hidden Figures was nominated for Best Picture, but lead actress Henson failed to snag a nomination. Janelle Monáe wasn't nominated either; Octavia Spencer was. Pharrell Williams: His Hidden Figures score was nominated for a Golden Globe, but not an Oscar. The Birth of a Nation: Nate Parker's movie about the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner debuted with Oscar dreams, and Academy Award nominations looked likely at first. But, likely thanks in part to sexual assault allegations against Parker that resurfaced, it was shut out by the Oscars. Denzel Washington. He got an acting nod for Fences, but not a directing one. Amy Adams: The Arrival actress didn't make it into the Best Actress race. Hugh Grant: He received SAG, BAFTA, and Golden Globe nominations for his role in Florence Foster Jenkins, but wasn't able to score his first Oscar nomination. Finding Dory: Despite a massive box office haul and positive reviews, the Pixar flick didn't make it into the Best Animated Feature Film category. Sully: Another movie with a huge box office take and great reviews, the Clint Eastwood flick failed to snag a Best Picture nod. One surprise nominee? Mel Gibson. |
A Nasa spacecraft that will hurtle past Pluto on Tuesday at more than 45,000 kilometres per hour has revealed the dwarf planet to be larger than scientists thought.
Fresh measurements from New Horizons, the first spacecraft to reach Pluto on the outer edge of the solar system, show that it is 2,370 kilometres across, roughly two-thirds the size of Earth’s moon.
Alan Stern, the lead scientist on the $700m (£450m) mission, said the increased dimensions meant Pluto must hold more ice and less rock beneath its surface than researchers had expected. Pluto has been hard to measure with any accuracy from Earth because it is so far away, and its atmosphere creates mirages that can fool ground-based telescopes.
Other instruments onboard New Horizons confirmed that Pluto’s north pole bears an icy cap. The latest measurements beamed to Earth from the probe picked up chemical signatures of methane and nitrogen ice in the polar cap.
One early image received from New Horizons last week showed Pluto as an orangey globe bearing a large bright spot shaped like a heart. More recent images have revealed cliffs, craters and chasms larger than the Grand Canyon.
“The science we’ve already made is mouth-watering,” said Stern. “The Pluto system is enchanting in its strangeness and its alien beauty.”
New Horizons will perform its historic flyby at 12.49pm BST on Tuesday. But scientists must wait until 2am BST on Wednesday for the probe to make contact with Earth and confirm it has survived the encounter.
The most dangerous hazards for New Horizons are dust particles trapped in orbit around Pluto after being dislodged from its moons by meteorite impacts. A strike from a dust particle the size of a grain of rice could destroy the spacecraft, but the risk of such a disaster is low, at around one in 10,000.
The New Horizons spacecraft has spent more than nine years on its 4.8bn kilometre journey to Pluto, the last world in the solar system to be visited by a spacecraft. On board are seven sophisticated instruments and the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930.
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When the probe blasted off in January 2006, Pluto was the ninth planet in the solar system. Seven months later, astronomers at the International Astronomical Union voted to downgrade the icy body to a dwarf planet, because it does not dominate its region of space in the way the other major planets do.
The spacecraft will take scores of photographs as it speeds past Pluto and its five known moons, Charon, Hydra, Nix, STyx and Kerberos. The images will give the first close-up view of the mountains and valleys of the unknown world, and its tenuous atmosphere seen as the sun rises and sets behind it. Instruments on New Horizons might even find evidence that it snows on the tiny world.
Nasa officials expect the first images from the flyby to be released on Wednesday night. The snapshots from onboard cameras will capture details up to 100 metres across, a vast improvement on those taken on approach, which pick out features about 15 kilometres across.
But scientists are in for a long wait to learn everything New Horizons sees. The probe will collect so much information as it passes Pluto that it will take 16 months to send it all back to Earth.
The mission marks the end of the US space agency’s bid to explore every planet in the solar system, starting with Venus in 1962. Tuesday’s flyby coincides with the 50th anniversary of the first ever fly-by of Mars by the Mariner 4 probe. ||||| An illustration of the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto and its largest moon, Charon.
Nine and a half years after it launched into space, a NASA probe is set to become the first spacecraft to fly by the dwarf planet Pluto. The New Horizons spacecraft is expected to make its closest approach tomorrow (July 14) at 7:49 a.m. EDT (1149 GMT), coming within 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) of Pluto's surface. But even 4.67 billion miles (7.5 billion km) away, the historic mission could help scientists learn more about planet Earth. This is because studying other objects in the solar system can provide clues about Earth's history. Here are five things researchers can learn about Earth by studying the dwarf planet Pluto.
How Earth formed
Earth and the other planets in this solar system were likely born after a bunch of smaller objects smashed into each other. In fact, early in Earth's history, a Mars-sized object nearly annihilated the planet, according to NASA.The resulting pieces of debris eventually coalesced into the moon we see today. [Photo Timeline: How the Earth Formed]
Artist's impression of a planetary system being formed. Credit: NASA
Roughly 4 billion years ago, the inner solar system was a billiard zone, partly because Jupiter's strong gravity served as a slingshot that sent asteroids and comets hurtling toward the sun. In the region of space where Pluto is found, called the Kuiper Belt, icy and rocky objects had a relatively tranquil environment. This means that observing Pluto (and similar objects in the Kuiper Belt) offers hints about what the solar system looked like early in its history.
Where Earth's water came from
Last year, scientists discovered that water from comets may not have seeded Earth with life-building molecules, as had previously been thought. Observations from the European Rosetta spacecraft showed a different type of water on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The molecules of water (specifically, the deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio) were different from the molecules found on Earth, according to a study published in the journal Science in December 2014.
There are many objects in the solar system that are icy, including moons, dwarf planets and even parts of the planet Mars. It's possible that there is ice on Pluto as well, scientists have said. Examining the ice on the dwarf planet could help researchers refine theories about how water spread through the solar system.
How life began on Earth
Life on Earth is full of carbon. This is why the potential discovery of organics (carbon-based molecules) in other parts of the solar system is such an exciting prospect. While not every organic chemical originated from something living, they are considered the building blocks of life.
Are there organics even on icy, hostile Pluto? There are some reasons to think there may be, given that organics have been found in similarly life-unfriendly environments such as Mercury and Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Finding organic material — or even not finding them — could give scientists a better idea of how life first arose on Earth.
Earth's atmospheric structure
Earth's atmosphere, as seen from high above the surface. Credit: NASA
Pluto has something of a bizarre atmosphere. The dwarf planet's gravity is so low that its tenuous atmosphere extends much higher than Earth's atmosphere does. Some scientists think the dwarf planet's atmosphere collapses onto the surface when Pluto is colder. Because Pluto's orbit is taking it closer to the sun right now, gases in the atmosphere are heating up and expanding. [5 Strange Facts About Pluto]
By studying the atmospheres of other worlds, astronomers can learn more about how these same processes work on Earth. For example, Venus has a hothouse surface driven by a runaway greenhouse effect. Measurements of Venus' superhot, hellish atmosphere have helped scientists better understand global warming on Earth.
How the sun affects Earth
Life on Earth wouldn't survive for long without the sun. Most of the heat on Earth comes from its closest stellar neighbor. The sun even has effects high in the atmosphere, such as when solar flares belch gas (called coronal mass ejections) toward Earth and "excite" molecules in its atmosphere, causing stunning auroras (also known as the northern and southern lights).
While auroras are benign, the sun's radiation can also zap power lines or satellites during so-called geomagnetic storms. Scientists are interested in seeing how the sun interacts with atmospheres throughout the solar system, including at Pluto. These observations will help researchers better predict the effects of intense solar activity, ranging from what happens after a solar flare to how the sun affects Earth's climate.
Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. ||||| Image copyright NASA/JHU-APL/SWRI Image caption Pluto (R) and Charon (L) are the key targets for observation during the flyby
Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft has begun the most intense period of its encounter with Pluto.
The probe is set to hurtle past the dwarf world on Tuesday, grabbing a mass of pictures and other science data.
Controllers got a last health status report, before the robotic craft turned its antenna away from the Earth to concentrate on its target.
Only when New Horizons has its trove of images safely in its onboard memory will it call home again.
This is not expected to happen until just after midnight (GMT) into Wednesday.
It means there will be a long, anxious wait for everyone connected with the mission, as they hold out for a signal that will be coming from almost five billion km away.
New Horizons' flyby of 2,370km-wide Pluto is a key moment in the history of space exploration.
Its successful execution will complete the initial reconnaissance of the "classical" nine planets in our Solar System.
It will mark the fact that every body in that system - from Mercury through to Pluto - will have been visited at least once by a space probe.
Image copyright NASA Image caption The robotic probe turns its antenna away from Earth during the flyby
New Horizons has been returning a steady stream of information on approach to the dwarf world in recent days, but this will be as nothing compared to the huge number of observations it plans to acquire when passing just 12,500km from the surface.
This is timed to occur at 11:50 GMT (12:50 BST).
The probe will investigate not only Pluto but also its five moons: Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra.
To achieve that, it must perform a furious set of manoeuvres as it points every which way in the sky to get the images and other types of data it needs.
"I can't wait to get into the data and really start making sense of it. Right now, we're just standing under the waterfall and enjoying it," New Horizons' principal investigator, Alan Stern, told BBC News.
Just getting the probe in position to make the flyby has been a monumental feat.
Because the observations are all run on an automated command sequence, New Horizons must fly a perfect path past Pluto, and with perfect timing - otherwise its cameras will shoot empty sky where the dwarf or its moons are expected to be.
This has necessitated aiming New Horizons at a "keyhole" in space just 100km by 150km (60miles by 90 miles), and arriving at that location within a set margin of 100 seconds.
All this has been achieved after a multi-billion-km flight across the Solar System lasting nine and a half years.
The mission team will not celebrate until New Horizons contacts Earth again, which should happen at 00:53 GMT Wednesday (01:53 BST).
This communication will contain only engineering information on the status of the probe, but controllers should be able to tell very quickly whether the flyby sequence worked properly or not.
The first high-resolution pictures from the pass should be downlinked later on Wednesday.
There is a very small possibility that New Horizons could be lost as it flies through the Pluto system.
Any stray icy debris would be lethal if it collides with the spacecraft at its 14km/s velocity (31,000mph).
As an insurance policy, the mission team therefore downlinked one last set of data from all seven of the probe's instruments on Monday.
This included a final full-frame picture of Pluto before the approaching dwarf filled the entire field of view. This image is expected to be released by Nasa on its website at the moment of closest approach on Tuesday.
Media caption Prof Alan Stern says Pluto is "a little larger than anticipated"
On Monday, the New Horizons team announced a new, more precise measurement of Pluto's diameter at 2,370km. The probe sees the girth of Charon to be very similar to earlier estimates, at 1,208km.
Nix is estimated to be about 35km across, and Hydra about 45km in diameter. Kerberos and Hydra are a lot smaller, but New Horizons has not yet been able to make a good determination of their size. This will come from the flyby data.
Image copyright NASA Image caption How Pluto and its biggest moon, Charon, compare in size to the Earth
The BBC will be screening a special Sky At Night programme called Pluto Revealed on Monday 20 July, which will recap all the big moments from the New Horizons flyby.
Follow Jonathan on Twitter. ||||| CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was expected to get up-close and personal with Pluto on Tuesday, on track to zoom within 7,800 miles of the small icy world left unexplored until now.
This July 11, 2015, image provided by NASA shows Pluto from the New Horizons spacecraft. On Tuesday, July 14, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will come closest to Pluto. New Horizons has traveled 3 billion... (Associated Press)
It's the final destination on NASA's planetary tour of the solar system, which began more than a half-century ago. Pluto was still a full-fledged planet when New Horizons rocketed away in 2006, only to become demoted to dwarf status later that year.
The 3 billion-mile journey from Cape Canaveral, Florida, culminates Tuesday at 7:49 a.m. EDT. That's when the spacecraft is due to fly past Pluto at 31,000 mph.
The New Horizons team gathered at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, won't know for many hours if everything went well. The spacecraft will be too busy taking photographs and collecting information to "phone home." A confirmation signal is expected at around 9 p.m. EDT.
New Horizons has already beamed back the best-ever images of Pluto and big moon Charon. Pluto also has four little moons.
"The Pluto system is enchanting in its strangeness, its alien beauty," principal scientist Alan Stern told reporters Monday.
Discovered in 1930, Pluto is the largest object in the so-called Kuiper Belt, considered the third zone of the solar system after the inner rocky planets and outer gaseous ones. This unknown territory is a shooting gallery of comets and other small bodies.
An extension of the $720 million mission, not yet approved, could have New Horizons flying past another much smaller Kuiper Belt object, before departing the solar system.
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Online:
NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/
Johns Hopkins University: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ ||||| Ahead of Tuesday's historic flyby, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has already delivered data that 'is a gift for the ages.' Among the discoveries: Pluto is bigger than previously thought.
Will Macy's become the next store to drop the Ivanka Trump brand?
On the eve of NASA's historic flyby of Pluto, scientists and tourists at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona are excited about the images and discoveries the New Horizons' spacecraft will beam back to Earth.
NASA's New Horizons mission to the Pluto-Charon system has yet to mark its finest hours – a historic flyby that makes its closest approach to the binary planet and its moons Tuesday morning.
But even as the spacecraft puts the wraps on its final approach, data New Horizons has delivered within the past 48 hours "is a gift for the ages," says Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., and the mission's principal investigator.
The craft's approach is revealing "tremendous diversity between the two planets in the system and their moons," he said. "We're already seeing complex and nuanced surfaces that tell us of history for these two bodies that is probably beyond our wildest dreams."
In short, "the Pluto system is enchanting in its strangeness and alien beauty," Dr. Stern said during a briefing Monday.
How alien?
It's as though "we're on the bridge of the Enterprise approaching some alien planet around Alpha Centauri 3 or whatever it is," said Paul Schenk, a planetary geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston and a member of the New Horizons science team. "It's like someone painted it for a 'Star Trek' episode."
Even seemingly mundane measurements, such as a new, more-accurate determination of Pluto's size – now pegged at 1,473 miles across, at the high end of estimates that have ranged from 1,429 miles to around 1,491 miles – carry import.
The new size, combined with long-established, precise measurements of Pluto's mass, yields a dwarf planet a bit less dense than previously estimated. That means its interior contains more ice, versus rock, than previously estimated. This change has implications – yet to be worked out – for the process that formed the binary-planet system as well as for the chemistry of the disk of dust, gas, and ice that encircled the sun and provided the building blocks for the planets ad their moons, Stern explained.
Bragging rights also come into play.
"The new measurement unambiguously settles the debate about the largest object in the Kuiper Belt," Stern said, referring to a region of the solar system extending more than 2 billion miles beyond Neptune. By some estimates, the region hosts trillions of comets as well as several hundred thousand objects larger than 60 miles across. It's also the region that gave birth to Pluto and the object that would collide with it to form Charon. Another Kuiper Belt inhabitant, Eris, had previously laid claim to the "largest" label at 1,445 miles across.
A larger Pluto also means that the lower layer of the atmosphere is shallower than previously thought, which will affect models that try to shed light on the atmosphere's structure and behavior.
Another early result involves nitrogen escaping from Pluto's tenuous atmosphere. New Horizons' instruments began to pick up the great escape five days ago, when the craft supposedly was too far away to see it, Stern said. It could mean that the nitrogen is fleeing the planet at a higher rate than models have suggested or that the mechanism responsible for triggering the loss is different than researchers have anticipated.
In addition, incoming data show that a hypothesized polar cap on Pluto is in fact an ice cap consisting of nitrogen and methane ices.
New Horizons also is revealing features on Pluto that are generating speculation, pending more detail from measurements taken at the closest approach.
For instance, images of Pluto released over the weekend show a surface that in many places hosted vast expanses of small, tightly packed dimple-like formations.
The features appear to be similar to those on Neptune's moon Triton, Dr. Schenk said. Triton – itself thought to be a Kuiper Belt object that Neptune captured – hosts a surface "that looks like a boiling pot of porridge, with cells of material popping up. They create a cellular pattern that looks like the skin of a cantaloupe."
There, researchers suspect that relatively buoyant rock or ice has risen from deeper in the crust to build the array of hills and depressions – similar in principle to salt domes that rise through surrounding rock to form low hills in southern Louisiana or southeastern Texas.
The science team hopes to get a closer look at some of these dimpled regions in images New Horizons takes during its closest approach Tuesday morning.
In addition, images so far show a relatively smooth surface over much of Pluto, suggesting that the surface could be relatively young, Schenk said.
Again, he cites Triton as a possible analog. The relative smoothness of much of Triton's surface suggests that it's less than 100 million years old. "On Triton, everything is very young," Schenk said.
It speaks to Triton as a captured Kuiper Belt object whose orbit around Neptune initially would have been elliptical, but over time became circular. The change in orbit would have heated Triton significantly, allowing fresh material to well up from depth and repave the surface, erasing any evidence of impact craters that would have accumulated over time.
On Pluto, "we're not seeing any large craters that would pop out and say: There's a big basin here," he says. "So we're beginning to think that maybe that it's a very young surface."
The source of internal heating required to provide material for repaving Pluto is unclear, Schenk acknowledges. Perhaps heat left over from the impact that formed Charon remained intense enough long enough to provide sources of fresh material for resurfacing Pluto.
"We still don't know," he says. "But we'll find that out."
[Correction: This article has been updated to correct the new measurements of Pluto's diameter.] ||||| Pluto is pictured from a million miles away in this July 11, 2015 handout image from New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI).
SYDNEY A space tracking station surrounded by cows in an Australian valley will on Tuesday become the first place in the world to get close-up images of Pluto, the most distant planetary body ever explored.
After nine-and-half years of traveling 5.3 billion km (3.3 billion miles), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s spacecraft New Horizons will get within 12,500 km (7,800 miles) of Pluto on Tuesday evening.
The spacecraft has been sent specifically to take pictures of Pluto, a part of the solar system that has been in deep freeze for billions of years. The data will be relayed back to the tracking station at Canberra's Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC).
"It's very exciting because we have never ever visited Pluto, either by robots or man missions because it is so far away," CDSCC Director Ed Kruzins told Reuters.
Up to now, little has been known about Pluto, the most distant planetary body in the solar system and the last to be explored by NASA.
It was downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006 and is thought to contain important clues about the origins of the solar system.
"There's a feeling among scientists that Pluto probably will tell us what the early solar system looked like and it's now locked in deep freeze and maybe it will tell us what we once were, a long time ago," Kruzins said.
New Horizons, the fastest spacecraft ever launched, is due to send a message that will be received by the Australian tracking station on Wednesday - a key message that will determine if the mission has been a success.
Each piece of data will then take about four-and-half hours to transmit, with the full dataset taking about 15 months to complete.
New Horizons will travel at 58,000 km (36,039 miles) per hour past Pluto, Kruzins said, which could pose a problem if there is any space debris.
"Even a grain of sand would cause significant damage to the vehicle, it would be like being hit by a brick at 70 kilometers per hour," Kruzins said.
The tracking station, 35 km (20 miles) from the capital of Canberra, is part of NASA's Deep Space network and is one of only three tracking stations in the world.
New Horizons will be at its closest to Pluto for about 24 hours before continuing on its journey to the outer solar system.
(Editing by Robert Birsel) ||||| NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly within 8,000 miles of Pluto on Tuesday and reveal the last world in the solar system—or at least the last of the planets that most of us learned about in school. Until now, Pluto’s face has remained hidden because it's so far away. To really see it as more than a blurry blob, we needed to go there. (Learn more about the historic mission to Pluto on the National Geographic Channel.)
But getting to the icy world is no easy feat. By the time New Horizons reaches Pluto at 7:50 a.m. EDT Tuesday, it will have traveled roughly 3 billion miles for a single, fleeting chance to fly past the dwarf planet.
Launched in 2006, New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft to ever leave Earth. It crossed the orbit of Jupiter the next year and has been traveling nearly a million miles a day —but it still took 9.5 years for the spacecraft to reach Pluto and its moons.
View Images On Saturday, New Horizons got one of its last looks at this side of Pluto, which faces its moon Charon. Captured from a distance of 2.5 million miles from Pluto, the photo shows mysterious geometric features above the equator, along with sinewy dark splotches. Photograph by NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
In fact, New Horizons is going so fast—more than 30,000 miles per hour—that the spacecraft will pass by Pluto in just three minutes.
The entire close encounter lasts for hours, though, with New Horizons making hundreds of observations of Pluto and its five bizarre moons . The first of the highest-resolution images will be released Wednesday afternoon, and the rest of the data will trickle in over the next 16 months.
While waiting for the flyby at New Horizons mission headquarters, space writer Nadia Drake answers some of the biggest questions about Tuesday's event.
1. Why a flyby? Why not slow down or orbit Pluto?
Simply put, slowing down and orbiting Pluto is nearly impossible if you want to get there in a reasonable amount of time. The planet’s gravity is so weak that a spacecraft pulling into orbit would need to be going really slowly. For New Horizons to slow down enough, it would have to carry enough fuel to fire its brakes and reverse all its forward momentum—that’s about as much fuel as was used to launch the spacecraft and get it zooming along in the first place. Launching all that propellent, plus the spacecraft, is pretty much impossible . (Read about chasing Pluto's shadow ).
WATCH: NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will fly by Pluto on July 14, after traveling three billion miles from Earth in roughly 9.5 years. Video by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
2. We see amazing shots of faraway galaxies, so why haven't we ever gotten a good picture of Pluto?
Though they’re far away, those distant, glittering galaxies are really big and bright, which is why telescopes like Hubble can see them. But Pluto is too small and dim for even our sharpest Earth-based eyes to get a good look at: It's only about two-thirds as wide as Earth’s moon. Even dwarf planet Ceres, which lives much closer to Earth, is too small to be anything but a blurry blob in Hubble pictures. (Learn more about Pluto's first close-up ).
3. What's the biggest thing that could go wrong?
It could be disastrous for the spacecraft to run into a dust particle as it flies through the Pluto system. Because the spacecraft is going so fast, colliding with something the size of a rice pellet could be catastrophic. So, the team has spent the last few weeks intensively surveying the system for anything that might be shedding dust and debris in the spacecraft’s path, and so far have found nothing to be concerned about. (Learn what happened when the spacecraft went silent ).
4. What will the pictures of Pluto look like?
The images coming back from New Horizons are already by far the best ever taken of the dwarf planet, even though the latest image, on July 12, was taken from about a million miles away. Tuesday’s encounter will produce close-up, detailed images of Pluto and Charon, plus some images of the smaller moons. (Also see " Three Possible Plutos ").
On the side of Pluto that the spacecraft will be able to see, features as small as the lakes in New York City’s Central Park will be visible. But that’s not all: After New Horizons zooms by Pluto, it will swivel around and take a look at the planet’s south pole, which we haven’t seen yet. (Check out the weirdest feature I'd like to see on Pluto ). Facing away from the sun, that pole is in the dark, except for the soft glow of sunlight reflected off Charon. In other words, New Horizons will give us a glimpse of Pluto’s wintry pole, in Charon's moonlight. (Also see: " Proposed Names for Pluto System's Features Include Kirk and Spock ").
5. How long does it take to send a photo of Pluto to Earth?
Radio signals traveling at the speed of light take 4.5 hours to travel between Pluto and Earth. So, data received from New Horizons will have been on the road for about as long as it takes to drive between San Francisco and Santa Barbara. Because of that, it will take about 16 months for all of New Horizons’ flyby data to make it to Earth—meaning that new discoveries will be trickling in through the end of 2016. (See the first color image of Pluto from New Horizons ).
View Images The New Horizons spacecraft, illustrated here flying past Pluto, traveled about 3 billion miles to visit the dwarf planet and its five known moons. Illustration by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute (JHUAPL/SwRI)
6. What are we going to learn about Pluto?
New Horizons will take a good, detailed look at Pluto and its large moon Charon (in fact, Charon is so large it forms a binary system with Pluto). Scientists are curious about Pluto’s terrains and composition, whether there’s evidence for geologic activity, and what the planet’s thin, nitrogen atmosphere is doing. They’ll also be looking for clues to how the Pluto system formed and evolved—and many of those clues might lie in the features of the four small moons Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, and Styx . (Check out Pluto's possible polar cap ).
7. What will New Horizons do after it passes Pluto? How long can it keep going?
After New Horizons passes Pluto, it will continue sailing on into the Kuiper Belt, which is a vast, icy debris ring outside the orbit of Neptune. If NASA approves it, New Horizons will sail past and study another icy world within the next five years. The spacecraft carries enough fuel for that encounter (it’ll use the propellent to adjust its course), and will still be able to send data back to Earth, even though that body is nearly a billion miles farther out. Ultimately, it will continue heading out of the solar system, much as NASA’s Voyager I and II spacecraft are doing. (Learn more about New Horizon's Mission ).
8. Is this our only chance, or will any other spacecraft be going to Pluto?
There are no plans at this point to send another spacecraft to Pluto, but it sure would be nice to learn even more about that enigmatic little world and its cousins on the fringe of the observable solar system.
9. Is it carrying a message for aliens?
Not yet. There is a project, called the One Earth Message, that aims to upload a digital message to the spacecraft once it’s done collecting data and sending it all to Earth. That could be years from now, if New Horizons flies by another body in the Kuiper Belt. The message would be something like a new version of the Voyager Golden Record , which carried the sights and sounds of Planet Earth into the cosmos aboard the Voyager I and II spacecraft.
10. What did New Horizons do during the nine years it took to get to Pluto?
It spent a lot of that time hibernating, but did occasionally wake up for system tests. And, of course, it woke up to take a look at Jupiter as it flew by the giant planet in 2007. No sense missing out on that view! Later, when it crossed Neptune’s orbit in 2014, New Horizons woke up again to snap a picture of the icy blue giant—but Neptune was so far away it looked like a faint dot. (Learn about the spacecraft first awakening after a multi-year nap ). ||||| This collaborative project is an extension of the 2016 End of Term project, intended to document the federal government's web presence by archiving government websites and data. As part of this preservation effort, URLs supplied from partner institutions, as well as nominated by the public, will be crawled regularly to provide an on-going view of federal agencies' web and social media presence. Key partners on this effort are the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative and the Data Refuge project. This collection is a continuation of the 2016 End of Term web archiving and, as such, is deduplicated against that collection. It allows for the ongoing archiving of publicly nominated websites beyond the "official" end of the End of Term project.
Interested members of the public, particularly government information specialists, are invited to submit selected web sites to be included in the collection using the public nomination tool.
For more information on partner institutions, web crawling and past End of Term projects, please visit the End of Term Archive. | – This is one of the biggest days in the exploration of our solar system since Voyager 2 approached Neptune in 1989—and there may not be a day like it again. According to NASA's calculations, its New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto at 31,000mph at 7:49am EDT today; confirmation of that will come tonight, some 13 hours later, reports the AP. The confirmation will mark the completion of NASA's tour of the "classical nine" planets, reports the AP, which notes that Pluto was considered a full-fledged planet instead of a dwarf one when the probe began its journey in 2006. Some things to know about the historic flyby, which comes 50 years to the day after the first successful flyby of Mars: New Horizons will have to capture a vast amount of data in a short time. The probe will be pushed to its limits as it pivots to capture photos and information on Pluto and its moons Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra during the flyby. "I can't wait to get into the data and really start making sense of it. Right now, we're just standing under the waterfall and enjoying it," principal New Horizons scientist Alan Stern tells the BBC. We don't know whether it was a success. The probe is far too busy to "phone home," the AP notes, but it's expected to send a confirmation signal at around 9pm tonight. The eagerly awaited first photos from the flyby should be released tomorrow night, the Guardian reports, though it will take 16 months to send all the data from the flyby back to Earth. We've already learned a lot of new things about Pluto. "The science we've already made is mouth-watering," says Stern. "The Pluto system is enchanting in its strangeness and its alien beauty." Among NASA's findings in recent days: Pluto's North Pole has an icy cap and the planet's diameter is 1,597 miles across, not 1,471 miles as previously thought. The finding suggests the planet contains a lot more ice and a lot less rock than thought, the Christian Science Monitor reports. There are still a lot of mysteries to be solved. Scientists hope the first close-up look at Pluto's surface will explain features like heart- and doughnut-shaped features recently spotted for the first time. LiveScience notes that new information from Pluto could help explain how our own planet formed and how life began. "There's a feeling among scientists that Pluto probably will tell us what the early solar system looked like and it's now locked in deep freeze and maybe it will tell us what we once were, a long time ago," the director of the Deep Space Communication Complex tells Reuters. The Australian facility will be first to receive new information from the spacecraft. New Horizons isn't done. New Horizons will keep traveling into the Kuiper Belt debris field and beyond after it passes Pluto, National Geographic notes, and it may have more research to do if NASA approves funding. (The astronomer who first spotted Pluto in 1930 is the spacecraft's only passenger.) |
Story highlights The shooter was a former doctor at the hospital, officials tell CNN
The shooter died at the scene of apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police say
New York (CNN) A gunman identified as a doctor opened fire with an assault rifle inside the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital in New York City on Friday, killing a woman and wounding at least six other people before killing himself, law enforcement officials said.
The shooter was identified as Dr. Henry Bello, who previously worked at the hospital, two law enforcement officials told CNN.
Police officers found the gunman, who was wearing a white lab coat and carrying ID, dead on the hospital's 17th floor. He died of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, New York City Police Commissioner James O'Neill said at a news briefing.
The body of a woman who was shot was found near his body, O'Neill said. The woman's name was not immediately released.
Six people were wounded on the 16th floor, and five of those are in serious condition from gunshot wounds, O'Neill said.
Read More ||||| NEW YORK (AP) — The Latest on a shooting at Bronx Lebanon Hospital (all times local):
4:35 p.m.
A law enforcement official says the gunman who opened fire at a New York City hospital was a doctor who formerly worked there.
The official says Dr. Henry Bello walked into Bronx Lebanon Hospital at about 2:50 p.m. Friday with a rifle concealed in his lab coat and opened fire, killing at least one person and injuring six others. He then apparently killed himself.
The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Bello was listed on the hospital's website as a family medicine physician. It's not clear when he left the hospital. Calls there rang unanswered.
— By Associated Press writer Colleen Long
___
4:10 p.m.
A New York City police spokesman says the gunman inside the Bronx Lebanon Hospital is dead after killing at least one person.
New York Police Department spokesman J. Peter Donald said Friday afternoon that the shooter had died. At least one other person was dead and several others were shot.
According to a law enforcement official, the shooter was wearing a lab coat and had the rifle concealed inside it. The official was not authorized to speak on an ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Police were still trying to identify how many people had been shot. Emergency crews had been kept from going inside the hospital while the shooter was at large.
— By Associated Press writer Colleen Long
___
4:05 p.m.
A New York City police spokesman says the gunman inside the Bronx Lebanon Hospital is dead.
New York Police Department spokesman J. Peter Donald tweeted Friday afternoon that the shooter had died. Police say at least two victims have been shot.
According to a law enforcement official, the shooter was wearing a lab coat and had the rifle concealed inside it. The official was not authorized to speak on an ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Police were still trying to identify how many people had been shot. Emergency crews had been kept from going inside the hospital while the shooter was at large.
— By Associated Press writer Colleen Long
___
3:40 p.m.
Police say at least two people have been shot at a New York City hospital and the gunman is still at large.
The gunfire broke out at 2:50 p.m. Friday inside the Bronx Lebanon Hospital in the Bronx.
Television images showed the hospital surrounded by police cars and fire trucks. Police could be seen on the roof of the building, at one point, with their guns drawn.
Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center describes itself as the largest voluntary, not-for-profit health care system in the south and central Bronx.
The 120-year-old hospital claims nearly 1,000 beds spread across multiple units. Its emergency room is among the busiest in New York City.
The hospital is about a mile and a half north of Yankee Stadium.
___
3:25 p.m.
Police say multiple people have been shot at a New York City hospital.
The gunfire broke out at 2:50 p.m. Friday inside the Bronx Lebanon Hospital in the Bronx.
Police had no immediate information on whether anyone was killed.
Television images showed the hospital surrounded by police cars and fire trucks. ||||| A disgruntled doctor armed with an AR-15 rifle and wearing a lab coat went on a rampage on Friday in the Bronx hospital where he had worked, killing a doctor and wounding six other people — five of them seriously — before setting himself on fire and shooting himself in the head, the authorities said.
The furious attack by the doctor — identified by the police as Henry Bello, 45 — sent workers at the hospital, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, diving behind desks and doors as gunshots and smoke filled the hallways of a place devoted to healing. Witnesses described medical workers ripping a fire hose from the wall to use as a tourniquet on one victim’s leg, while others recalled the horrific sight of the gunman, his torso aflame, running down a hallway.
Dr. Bello had a troubled past, having worked at the hospital for about six months before quitting after being accused of sexual harassment, officials said. And years earlier, he was arrested and charged with sexual abuse after assaulting a woman in Manhattan.
Image Henry Bello
The attack appeared to be the type of mass shooting by a lone gunman that has struck communities around the United States.
“He’s shooting! He’s shooting!” one woman yelled in the frantic initial moments of the afternoon assault, as recounted by a mother in the pediatric emergency room who had cowered with her five children, ages 1 to 10.
Some believed that the death toll would have been far higher had the shooting occurred anywhere but where it did — a hospital filled with state-of-the-art medical equipment, and with doctors and nurses who rushed to victims and performed triage where they fell, in staircases and hallways, even as the gunman was still at large.
“The situation unfolded in the middle of a place that people associate with care and comfort,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters outside the hospital, on the Grand Concourse in the Claremont Village neighborhood. The gunman acted alone, Mr. de Blasio said, adding that it appeared to be a workplace dispute that ended when the gunman committed suicide — “but not before having done horrible damage,” the mayor said. | – At least one person was killed and multiple others injured Friday by a gunman inside New York City's Bronx Lebanon Hospital, the AP reports. The shooter, a doctor who used to work at the hospital, also apparently killed himself. A law enforcement official anonymously named Dr. Henry Bello as the suspect; it's not clear when he left the hospital. The AP says six others were injured while CNN puts the number at five, three of them with serious injuries. Per CNN, the victim who was killed is a woman. The New York Times says three of the people shot are doctors. |
"Eat my panties off me," Mrs. Pratt rhythmically coos. Vogue threatens Anna Wintour's town car, Elin Nordegren invests in another house, Ryan Seacrest cries over Simon. Come, plumb the depths of Wednesday's gossip.
If only we could harness the force of all the Schadenfreude they create and use it to power whole cities. "Ooh—come eat my panties off me," Heidi Montag murmurs in her new single, "I'll Do It," which is so gross I'm starting to second-guess even the non-gross parts. Case in point: "off up into ya dungin." I think she means "dungeon," but is it possible that "dungin" is slang for some part of the body that one can be "up into"? This song sounds suspiciously like a catalog of Pratt-Montag fetishes. Point being: You don't want to listen to this song, except that you kind of do, so here it is. [THG] ||||| The world may have to wait for the patter of little Speidi feet: Heidi Montag says that her quest to have kids with husband Spencer Pratt is "kind of on hold" as she launches her campaign to become a "pop star" with her just-released album Superficial.
Reimagine Heidi and other stars with Jersey Shore star Snooki's hair!
"I'm really trying to do this pop star [thing], my first album, so I think that would kind of be distracting from this album coming out," she said in a radio interview with Ryan Seacrest Tuesday. "But one day I would love to have kids. I don't know if Spencer quite feels the same way."
See how Heidi, Spencer and other Hills stars looked like back in the day
The Hills star spent three years working on Superficial, which features songs like "I'll Do It," in which she tells a lover to "come eat my panties off of me." R-rated lyrics or not, she tells Seacrest that "it's very personal, empowering music...just about living life and enjoying every moment and living it up--definitely club music."
Did Heidi get a nosejob? Examine the evidence for yourself!
The reality diva also explains the title. "I think that Superficial is kind of a double entendre," she says. "It's superficial in a sense that everything in Hollywood is a little superficial. It's superficial in a positive way too. It's not what it seems to be, it's the inside that counts. It's kind of the unknown and the known."
On the spiritual side, Montag and Pratt "have been getting very into yoga," she says. "It's very relaxing and has definitely calmed my husband down a little bit. He's a little energetic. " | – The wait is over: Heidi Montag’s debut album finally dropped yesterday, and it’s just as horrible as you’d expect. Case in point: Superficial track “I’ll Do It” includes the lyrics, “Come eat my panties off of me / Do whatever you feel comes naturally.” Nonetheless, Montag called the music “empowering,” Us reports—but not everyone agrees. The song “is so gross I'm starting to second-guess even the non-gross parts,” writes Azaria Jagger for Gawker. Here's yet another example, Jagger continues: "'Off up into ya dungin.' I think she means ‘dungeon,’ but is it possible that ‘dungin’ is slang for some part of the body that one can be ‘up into’?" Listen to the track at left. |
In the lead-up to the second US presidential debate tonight (Oct. 9), the electorate waited anxiously to see how Donald Trump would respond to video surfaced by the Washington Post in which Trump talked about forcibly kissing and groping women. By now the comments are familiar to many, including the part where Trump boasts he can grab women “by the pussy” if he feels like it.
Given the highly charged situation, the top that Melania Trump, the candidate’s wife, chose for the evening was risky, to say the least. She opted for what’s called a “pussy-bow” blouse—a sartorial reverberation of her husband’s lewd remarks, apparently by Gucci in silk crepe de chine.
There’s no indication that the choice was meant to symbolize anything. The Trump campaign told CBS the choice was not intentional. But it didn’t keep people from noticing.
Campaign spokeswoman says this was not intentional. https://t.co/Yuka1Pli2j — Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) October 10, 2016
The style, which has actually come back into fashion in recent months due largely to Gucci’s influence, has a mixed history of its own—especially among feminists, as I’ve written. Some loathe it, because it recalls the way women entering the workforce en masse in the 1970s and 1980s had to conform to office dress codes established by men: The blouse was seen as the women’s equivalent of the shirt and tie.
Other women embrace that history, and the empowerment they find in the name, which some believe started because of the bow’s resemblance to a vagina. (It’s more likely the name is derived from the bows people used to tie on their cats’ necks, as implied by the style’s other name: the pussycat-bow.)
The shirt also became closely associated with Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s prime minister throughout the 1980s. The conservative leader wore them because she found them “rather softening and pretty,” as a contrast with her notoriously tough persona.
Whatever Melania Trump meant to convey with her look, her pink bow unfortunately managed to remind many of her husband’s comments about women—which weren’t pretty. ||||| Just a few days before the second presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, a video surfaced in which the Republican nominee boasts about participating in a form of sexual assault. Specifically, Trump tells then-“Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush that he just goes up to “beautiful” women and “grab[s] them by the p***y.” What’s more, Trump explains, “When you’re a star, they let you do it.”
For the Trump campaign, “P***gate” is the stuff of nightmares. In the minds of many pundits, it’s a near fatal blow that has cost the business magnate crucial endorsements, female votes and any edge running mate Mike Pence had won for their ticket in last week’s vice presidential debate.
For the political party of the elephant, it was undoubtedly the elephant in the room. So, imagine fashion connoisseurs’ surprise when they noticed that Melania Trump walked into the debate hall wearing Gucci’s fuchsia pussy-bow blouse.
WWW.NET-A-PORTER.COM
Yes, you read right. In the fashion world, a women’s blouse with a bow tied at the neck is known as a pussy bow or pussycat bow. The look became popular in the mid-20th century, thanks to such designers as Coco Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Omar Kiam. In fact, after Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1979, the pussy bow became a signature part of her look.
Rick Wilking-Pool/Getty Images
According to retail website MatchesFashion.com, “A pussybow blouse is one of the prettiest ways to embrace Gucci’s new-found eclecticism. This fuchsia-pink design is cut in Italy from silk-georgette, and detailed with softly gathered shoulders and buttoned cuffs to maximise the vintage vibes. Tuck it into a knife-pleated skirt, finishing with statement accessories.”
Melania, for her part, chose to pair the ironically named blouse with a pair of matching fuchsia-pink pants -- a choice that set social media on fire.
The Trump campaign maintains that the choice of blouses was made exclusively for aesthetics, not monikers. The Internet, it seems, will agree to disagree. ||||| An unfortunate choice? Melania Trump was stylish in a fuchsia top paired with matching pants while supporting husband Donald Trump at the second presidential debate on Sunday, October 9.
But while she looked great, the $1,100 Gucci shirt was perhaps not quite the best fashion choice given the blouse's style: pussy bow. Just two days earlier, a 2005 video surfaced in which the Republican presidential nominee was recorded on an Access Hollywood bus bragging about groping women's genitals.
"You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. When when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything," the business mogul, 70, told then Access Hollywood host Billy Bush during the conversation. "Grab them by the p—y. You can do anything."
He also boasted about trying to seduce a married woman, who Access Hollywood has since identified as Nancy O'Dell.
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign told CBS News Sunday night that the former model's shirt choice "was not intentional."
Viewers of the debate were quick to ponder on Twitter why she may have selected to wear this particular style after the presidential hopeful's latest scandal:
Melania is going to vote for HRC the #PussyBow and matching pants (suit) confirm that she is a double agent. pic.twitter.com/uUscYfEOOG — Christen Clifford (@cd_clifford) October 10, 2016
Love Melania's pussy-bow blouse, wonder if her husband grabbed it from the closet for her? — Lizabeth (@lilbit_liebs) October 10, 2016
https://twitter.com/stellabugbee/status/785323907184222208
It seems both Melania Trump's speech writer and stylist do not read the news and/or do their research #pussybow #debates via @MegletNY pic.twitter.com/icOfAsZCjg — Kristen Massaro (@KreeBeau) October 10, 2016
Though Melania, 46, attended the debate, she did condemn her husband's lewd remarks. "The words my husband used are unacceptable and offensive to me," she said in a statement Saturday. "This does not represent the man that I know. He has the heart and mind of a leader. I hope people will accept his apology, as I have."
But according to The New York Times, the former model refused to do a joint TV appearance with her husband to address his 2005 comments.
The presidential hopeful initially labeled his words as "locker room banter," which he reiterated again during Sunday's presidential debate. After co-moderator Anderson Cooper pressed him on the topic, the former Apprentice star denied that he had sexually assaulted women.
Bush, 44, who was heard also making inappropriate comments in the leaked video, has been suspended from the Today show.
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! ||||| Melania Trump opted to wear a Gucci garment to the second presidential debate with an eyebrow-raising name: a “pussy-bow” shirt.
The hot pink blouse, which retails for $1,100, was identified by multiple fashion mavens on social media as the one Donald Trump Donald John TrumpMcMaster complained that Trump 'thinks he can be friends with Putin': report Manafort requests Virginia trial be moved, citing media coverage Giuliani: Mueller needs to prove Trump committed crime before agreeing to interview MORE’s wife was sporting at the Sunday debate in St. Louis.
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“Pussy-bow shirts are one of Gucci’s signature silhouettes,” a product description for the “pussy-bow silk crepe de chine shirt” reads. “We think it’s a chic way to elevate office or weekend looks.”
The fashion choice came just days after Trump, the Republican was widely condemned following the Friday release of an audiotape from 2005 in which he described, in vulgar terms, his attempts to have sex with women.
Saying he’s “automatically attracted to beautiful” women and “just starts [kissing] them,” Trump told then-“Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush, “And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Whatever you want. Grab them by the p---y.”
Melania Trump, the GOP presidential nominee’s wife of 10 years, released a statement Saturday calling her husband’s remarks “offensive” and “unacceptable.” She said she had accepted an apology from Trump. | – Melania Trump, master troller? While what Donald Trump's wife was wearing during the "ugliest debate in American history" at first glance didn't seem newsworthy, it's now creating buzz based on name alone, the Hill reports. There was no "wardrobe malfunction," but Melania's bright fuchsia $1,100 Gucci silk crepe de chine shirt set Twitter aflutter because the style is one of the fashion house's "signature silhouettes" known as the pussy-bow—which immediately brings to mind Trump's recently revealed "hot mic" tape from 2005. CBS News notes that the style—also known as the pussycat bow—was popular in the mid-1900s and a favorite of Margaret Thatcher. Quartz reports that this "sartorial reverberation" of Donald Trump's 2005 comments—which Melania called "unacceptable and offensive"—wasn't any kind of jab or joke on her part, per CBS journalist Sopan Deb, who tweeted, "Campaign spokeswoman says this was not intentional." But the Internet is a cynical bunch, with the Cut's Stella Bugbee wistfully noting, "I really want to believe the Pussy Bow was an artful act of silent rebellion," while George Takei is simply incredulous: "You can't make this stuff up." (Here's who won and lost the debate.) |
Video
When and how long a baby looks at other people’s eyes offers the earliest behavioral sign to date of whether a child is likely to develop autism, scientists are reporting.
In a study published Wednesday, researchers using eye-tracking technology found that children who were found to have autism at age 3 looked less at people’s eyes when they were babies than children who did not develop autism. But contrary to what the researchers expected, the difference was not apparent at birth. It emerged in the next few months and autism experts said that might suggest a window during which the progression toward autism can be halted or slowed.
The study, published online in the journal Nature, found that infants who later developed autism began spending less time looking at people’s eyes between 2 and 6 months of age and paid less attention to eyes as they grew older. By contrast, babies who did not develop autism looked increasingly at people’s eyes until about 9 months old, and then kept their attention to eyes fairly constant into toddlerhood.
“This paper is a major leap forward,” said Dr. Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, a pediatrician and autism researcher at the University of Alberta, who was not involved in the study. “Documenting that there’s a developmental difference between 2 and 6 months is a major, major finding.”
The authors, Warren R. Jones and Ami Klin, both of the Marcus Autism Center and Emory University, also found that babies who showed the steepest decline in looking at people’s eyes over time developed the most severe autism.
“Kids whose eye fixation falls off most rapidly are the ones who later on are the most socially disabled and show the most symptoms,” said Dr. Jones, director of research at the autism center. “These are the earliest known signs of social disability, and they are associated with outcome and with symptom severity. Our ultimate goal is to translate this discovery into a tool for early identification” of children with autism.
The eye-tracking differences are not something parents and pediatricians would be able to perceive without the technology and expertise of an autism clinic, Dr. Jones said. “We don’t want to create concern in parents that if a child isn’t looking them in the eyes all the time, it’s a problem,” he said. “It’s not. Children are looking all over the place.”
Autism therapies have not yet been developed for young babies, but there are efforts to adapt intensive behavioral therapy for use with children as young as 12 months, Dr. Jones said.
Diagnoses of autism have increased, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from one child in 150 in 2002 to one in 88 in 2008. The reasons are unclear, although some factors could be greater awareness of the disorder and a growing number of older fathers.
Dr. Jones and Dr. Klin, who directs the autism center, studied two groups of babies. One group was at high risk for autism, with a 20 times greater likelihood of developing it because they had siblings with the disorder. The other group was at low risk, with no relatives with autism.
The researchers assessed 110 children, from 2 months to 2 years of age, 10 times while watching videos of friendly women acting like playful caregivers. Eye-tracking technology traced when the babies looked at the women’s eyes, mouths and bodies, as well as toys or other objects in the background. At age 3, the children were evaluated for autism. Ultimately, researchers used data from 36 boys, 11 of whom developed autism. (They excluded data from girls because only two developed autism.)
While the number of children studied was small — and the researchers are now studying more children — experts not involved in the study said the results were significant because of the careful and repeated measurements that were not just snapshots, but showed change over time.
“It’s well done and very important,” said Dr. Geraldine Dawson, director of the Center for Autism Diagnosis and Treatment at Duke University. She said it was notable that “early on these babies look quite normal; this really gives us a clue to brain development.”
She said a possible explanation was that early in life, activities like looking at faces are essentially reflexes “controlled by lower cortical regions of the brain that are likely intact” in children with autism. But “as the brain develops, babies begin to use these behaviors in a more intentional way. They can look at what they want to look at. We think that these higher cortical regions are the ones that are not working the same” as in typical children.
Dr. John N. Constantino, a child psychiatrist and pediatrician at Washington University in St. Louis, said the study showed that “babies who develop autism are for the most part doing an awful lot of things right for the first few months.” Perhaps the genes that drive autism begin to derail typical development after that, so that “what you are looking at moment by moment, day by day, second by second, is completely different from what other children are looking at, and the cumulative experience is what sends you off into the trajectory of autism.”
The researchers found that children who developed autism paid somewhat more attention to mouths and sustained attention to bodies past the age when typical children became less interested. Even more noticeable was that children who developed autism looked more at objects after the first year, while typical children’s interest in objects declined.
“We’re measuring what babies see, but more importantly we’re measuring what they don’t see,” Dr. Jones said.
Dr. Dawson said that looking at people teaches babies about “facial expressions and language and gesture. If the baby who’s developing autism is paying attention to objects, they’re really losing out on those opportunities.”
Before this study, experts said, research found that potential signs of autism — including differences in temperament, eye contact and pointing out objects — could be detected late in a child’s first year. Most cases of autism in children are diagnosed between ages 3 and 5, although the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends screening children at between 18 and 24 months.
But the new study suggests the need to develop therapies that begin even earlier. “The train has long left the station if you don’t start intervention until 18 months,” Dr. Constantino said.
Dr. Jones said eye contact was “just one very important channel.”
He continued, “I think we’d see the same things if we were measuring a child’s social reciprocity via touch or auditory listening preferences, but those are harder to measure.”
He and Dr. Klin advocate the eventual use of eye tracking and other measures in social development growth charts, similar to height and weight charts. Still, the authors and other experts cautioned that the results required confirmation in many more children.
Autism is so complex and varied that eye-tracking is unlikely to be able to identify every condition on the autism spectrum, Dr. Zwaigenbaum and others said. But they said the study helped illustrate the need for therapies to increase social engagement among very young infants, “either by intensifying the experience for them or making it pleasurable in other ways,” Dr. Constantino said.
“It really does present an opportunity for seeing if we could do some preventative interventions,” said Dr. Sally Ozonoff, vice chairwoman for research in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the MIND Institute of the University of California, Davis. “Maybe you could keep the child from heading into that decline, so it doesn’t turn into autism.” ||||| Image copyright Kay Hinton/Emory University Image caption Eye tracking experiments were used to detect signs of autism
An early indication of autism can be identified in babies under six months old, a study suggests.
US researchers, writing in Nature, analysed how infants looked at faces from birth to the age of three.
They found children later diagnosed with autism initially developed normally but showed diminished eye contact - a hallmark of autism - between two and six months of age.
A UK expert said the findings raise hope for early interventions.
In the study, researchers led by Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta used eye-tracking technology to measure the way babies looked at and responded to social clues.
These early markers are extremely important for us to identify - the earlier we can diagnose a child who has one of these disorders - such as autism - the earlier we can provide intervention and development Dr Deborah Riby, Durham University
They found infants later diagnosed with autism had shown a steady decline in attention to the eyes of other people from the age of two months onwards, when watching videos of natural human interactions.
Lead researcher Dr Warren Jones told BBC News: "It tells us for the first time that it's possible to detect some signs of autism in the first months of life.
"These are the earliest signs of autism that we've ever observed."
The study, in collaboration with the Marcus Autism Center and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, followed 59 infants who had a high risk of autism because they had siblings with the life-long condition, and 51 infants at low risk.
Dr Jones and colleague Dr Ami Klin followed them to the age of three, when the children were formally assessed for autism.
Thirteen of the children were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders - a range of disorders that includes autism and Asperger's syndrome - 11 boys and two girls.
The researchers then went back to look at the eye-tracking data, and what they found was surprising.
"In infants with autism, eye contact is declining already in the first six months of life," said Dr Jones.
But he added this could be seen only with sophisticated technology and would not be visible to parents.
"It's not something that parents would be able to see by themselves at all. If parents have concerns they should talk to their paediatrician."
Dr Deborah Riby, of the department of psychology at Durham University, said the study provided an insight into the timing of atypical social attention in children who might go on to develop autism.
Autism spectrum disorders Autism and Asperger's syndrome are part of a range of related developmental disorders known as autistic spectrum disorders (ASD)
They begin in childhood and last through adulthood.
ASD can cause a wide range of symptoms, which are grouped into three categories including problems with social interaction, impaired communication skills and unusual patterns of thought and behaviour Source: NHS Choices
"These early markers are extremely important for us to identify - the earlier we can diagnose a child who has one of these disorders - such as autism - the earlier we can provide intervention and development," she said.
Caroline Hattersley, head of information, advice and advocacy at the National Autistic Society, said the research was "based on a very small sample and needs to be replicated on a far larger scale before any concrete conclusions can be drawn".
"Autism is a very complex condition," she said.
"No two people with autism are the same, and so a holistic approach to diagnosis is required that takes into account all aspects of an individual's behaviour. A more comprehensive approach allows all of a person's support needs to be identified.
"It's vital that everyone with autism can access a diagnosis, as it can be key to unlocking the right support which can enable people with the condition to reach their full potential."
The research is published in the journal Nature. ||||| By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 6 (HealthDay News) -- At least one sign of autism may begin as early as 2 months of life, new research suggests.
The study of 110 babies found that infants later diagnosed with autism showed a decline in the amount of attention they paid to other people's eyes beginning at 2 months and continuing until 24 months.
"We found that signs of autism are measurable and observable within the first months of life," said study author Warren Jones, director of research at the Marcus Autism Center at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
"These are the earliest signs of autism ever observed," Jones said, noting they may be associated with symptom severity.
Children with autism have impaired communication and social skills and often exhibit repetitive behaviors. Symptoms may be mild, as in Asperger syndrome, or severe, as in full-blown autism. It's estimated that one in 88 U.S. children has an autism spectrum disorder.
Despite the observed decline in eye attention, the researchers said infants later diagnosed with autism did pay more attention to people's eyes than was expected.
"This insight, the preservation of some early eye-looking, is important because, in the future, if we were able to use similar technologies to identify early signs of social disability, we could then consider interventions to build on that early eye-looking and help reduce some of the associated disabilities that often accompany autism," said Jones.
Autism therapies work best when begun while the brain is still developing. "This early developmental window may be an opportunity to intervene that we didn't know we had before," Jones added.
The findings, released online Nov. 6 as a letter in the journal Nature, need to be confirmed in larger studies before they can lead to changes in clinical practice.
Deficits in eye contact are a key sign of autism spectrum disorders, according to background information in the study. But it wasn't clear when such deficits begin.
Currently, autism is often diagnosed using a scientifically validated checklist designed for youngsters between 16 months and 30 months old, according to Autism Speaks.
For the study, the researchers enrolled 59 babies considered to be at high risk of developing an autism spectrum disorder because they had a sibling with autism. Another 51 babies were enrolled who were considered low-risk.
To see if they could pinpoint when lack of interest in other people's eyes begins, the research team used eye-tracking technology to measure the babies' focus when shown videos of caregivers engaged in normal behaviors.
The babies were shown the videos at 10 time points between 2 months and 2 years of age.
By age 3, just one child from the low-risk group was later diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, compared to 12 youngsters in the high-risk group. Because just two of these children were female, the researchers limited their analysis to the 11 male children diagnosed with autism. They compared them to 25 typically developing children from the low-risk group.
The researchers noted that the decline in interest in other people's eyes began at 2 months and continued declining until 2 years.
One expert called the findings a significant advance.
"This was a very well-done, very revealing study documenting in a precise and systematic way that children who are later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders have demonstrable and progressive differences in visual regard in infancy. It's a breakthrough finding," said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York in New Hyde Park, N.Y.
"Whether this might permit accurate and reliable diagnosis earlier is still very unclear. But if it does lead to earlier identification, it may lead to the development of earlier interventions," he said.
Jones pointed out that these deficits aren't something that parents would be able to see on their own. "This is not something a parent can see by just holding a baby. We collected many measurements over time," he explained.
"Parents shouldn't be concerned if their babies aren't looking at them 100 percent of the time, but if they do have persistent concerns, they should talk to their child's pediatrician," advised Jones. | – A new autism study makes what looks to be a significant discovery: The first signs show up as early as two months of age in the form of reduced eye contact by babies, reports the New York Times. If the findings hold up, they could provide doctors with the earliest warning yet that a child is developing the disorder—a big deal because research suggests that the earlier treatment begins, the more effective it is. The study "tells us for the first time that it's possible to detect some signs of autism in the first months of life," one of the Emory University researchers tells the BBC. "These are the earliest signs of autism that we've ever observed." The researchers studied two groups of kids from birth to age 2 with sophisticated eye-tracking technology. One of the groups was deemed high risk because of a sibling with autism. The researchers then went back when the kids were 3 and found a clear correlation between those who had been recently diagnosed with autism and their eye contact as babies. The dropoff began between two and six months of age, and the more severe it was, the more severe the case of autism. An autism researcher not involved with the study called it a "major, major finding." The researchers say this isn't something parents would likely be able to notice on their own, notes HealthDay via US News & Report. Nor do they want parents to panic if their child isn't maintaining constant eye contact. But "if they do have persistent concerns, they should talk to their child's pediatrician," adds one. |
Sarasota, Fla.-(Newsradio 970 WFLA)-The incident happened at approximately 3:15 Sunday afternoon, at High Noon Gun Range in Sarasota.
William Brumby was positioned in the last shooting lane where there was a solid wall on his right-hand side. After firing a round, the spent shell casing struck the wall causing it to deflect and fall into the back of Mr. Brumby's shirt. Brumby then used his right hand, which was holding the handgun, in an attempt to remove the casing. While doing so, he inadvertently pointed the firearm directly behind him and accidentally fired. The round struck his 14-year-old son, Stephen, who was transported to Sarasota Memorial Hospital and later died as a result of his injuries.
Based on witness statements as well as video obtained from inside the business, detectives determined that Brumby died as a result of an accidental gunshot by his father.
At this time there are no charges pending against Mr. Brumby. The investigation is ongoing. ||||| A 14-year-old boy was killed Sunday in an accidental shooting at the High Noon Guns shooting range at 4583 Bee Ridge Road, according to the Sarasota County Sheriff's Department. Richard Dymond rdymond@bradenton.com ||||| SARASOTA - UPDATE: A memorial fund has been set up to help the family of a boy who was accidentally shot and killed Sunday at a gun range.
Authorities say Stephen J. Brumby, 14, was accidentally shot by his father, William C. Brumby, 64, at about 3:15 p.m. at High Noon Gun Range, 4583 Bee Ridge Road, Sarasota. Stephen Brumby was home-schooled and one of seven Brumby children.
Here is the post for the Stephen J. Brumby Memorial Fund on GoFundMe:
Stephen Brumby, the fourth of seven children and the son of Clayton and Elizabeth Brumby died tragically July 3rd 2016. In his 14 years of life he was described as “a meteor that couldn't be contained” by his family or anyone that knew him. He loved fishing, tennis music, archery, and knife throwing. He had an insatiable appetite to learn and was constantly sharing his wisdom with those around him. He was passionate about his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and dedicated his life to sharing his hope with everyone he met. The families' only comfort is knowing that He is communing with the heroes of his faith and rejoicing in paradise.
Your generous gifts and donations will help with the expenses the family is now faced with.
Help spread the word!
The site: www.gofundme.com/stephenbrumby.
PREVIOUSLY: The victim in the accidental shooting death has been identified as 14-year-old Stephen J. Brumby, according to a report from the Sarasota County Sherriff's Office.
The boy's father, William C. Brumby, fired a round in the last shooting lane at High Noon Gun Range in Sarasota, officials said. After he fired, the spent shell casing hit a wall on his right-hand side, deflecting back and falling into the back of his shirt, said the report.
Using his right hand which was holding the gun, Brumby tried to remove the casing, according to the report. He accidentally pointed the gun behind him, accidentally firing it, officials said. The round hit his son.
Brumby was also at the gun range with his 24-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter at the time of the incident. Neither were injured.
There are currently no charges against Brumby. The investigation is ongoing.
PREVIOUS: A 14-year-old boy died Sunday after he was accidentally shot in the neck at an indoor gun range. The incident occurred at about 3:15 p.m. at High Noon Guns, 4583 Bee Ridge Road, according to a Sarasota County Sheriff's Office report.
The boy, whose name was not released by authorities Sunday, was taken to Sarasota Memorial Hospital with serious injuries, the report said. He later died, authorities said, and the investigation is ongoing. Workers at the gun shop declined to talk to the media Sunday, as did law enforcement.
An October 2013 Herald-Tribune article described the High Noon gun range as possibly being one of the safest indoor shooting ranges ever designed.
High Noon Guns owner John Buchan reportedly traveled the country, examining other indoor ranges, before building his own. The nine-lane operation he designed is quieter than most, the Herald-Tribune reported, thanks to sound-dampening panels, and safer than most, thanks to strategically placed armored steel plates, which are concealed behind wooden walls. Bullets are absorbed by a large mound of granulated rubber material heaped into a pile downrange, which is backed up by more steel plating capable of stopping a 20mm cannon, although High Noon limits the range to handguns and .22 rifles, the story said. The dividers between the shooters feature more armor, concealed by wood — a feature Buchan chose to increase safety. The walls are lined with sound-dampening panels that are built to both reduce noise and absorb a stray round, preventing ricochets. “It's as safe as we could make it,” the story quoted Buchan as saying.
Sunday's accidental shooting is the second death at an area gun range in the past year.
Last August, sheriff's deputies were called to the Take Aim Gun Range after a customer killed himself on the firing line with a rented pistol. The man, in his 70s, came to the range in the afternoon to target shoot with two friends. After the three men finished shooting and as the victim's two friends were walking out, the man turned the handgun on himself and fired. He was pronounced dead a short time later. | – Tragedy in Sarasota, Fla., where police say a father accidentally shot and killed his son at a shooting range Sunday afternoon, WFLA reports. William Brumby was firing in the last shooting lane at High Noon Gun Range, where there was a solid wall to his right, when a spent shell casing hit that wall and ricocheted into the back of Brumby's shirt. Brumby, who was holding the handgun he was using in his right hand, used that same hand to try and get the casing out, accidentally pointing the gun behind him and firing it while doing so. The bullet hit his 14-year-old son, Stephen, who was brought to a local hospital but could not be saved. The Herald-Tribune notes that, in 2013, the newspaper described High Noon as "possibly ... one of the safest indoor shooting ranges ever designed," thanks to armored steel plates embedded in the dividers between lanes and sound-dampening panels that were designed to both make the range quieter than most other ranges and to prevent ricochets by absorbing stray rounds. According to the Bradenton Herald, High Noon's website states that shooters younger than 14 shoot for free as long as a parent is with them. No charges are currently pending against Brumby. |
Image copyright AFP Image caption Japanese workers often spend a lot of time with colleagues even after leaving the office
Death from overwork in Japan is such a longstanding problem it even has its own word, "karoshi".
Now the government and business groups are trying to get workers to take a small step to reclaim their lives by leaving work early one day a month.
The scheme, dubbed "Premium Friday", suggests companies make staff go home at 15:00 on the last Friday of the month, starting in February.
It has been given renewed impetus by the suicide of a woman who was working more than 100 hours overtime a month at Japan's biggest ad agency, Dentsu.
Her death was ruled to be a case of "karoshi" and has led to an investigation, an announcement the firm's chief executive will resign and deep concern in Japan at the country's work culture.
But with around 2,000 deaths a year linked to overwork, few believe the voluntary scheme represents anything more than a small step towards changing attitudes and it is unclear how many companies will take it up.
Image copyright Premium Friday Image caption Premium Friday has its own logo
It is not the first time overwork has been seen as a problem nor the first time anyone has tried to do something about it.
Among other initiatives, the government has in the past tried to make employees take more of the leave they are entitled to - Japan's labour ministry says they only take about half - without much success.
The number of public holidays in Japan this year increased to 16 in part aimed at forcing people to take breaks.
The government has also tried to encourage more flexible hours, allowing government workers to start and leave work early in the summer and even switching off the lights in some offices late in the evening, something Dentsu is also now trying.
Workers are increasingly taking the initiative to go home on time some days too, even announcing it on social media to encourage others to do the same.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The death of a Dentsu employee has focused attention on a longstanding problem
But while this has helped change the idea that working excessive overtime is necessarily a good thing, none has had a made much of a dent in the hours themselves.
Around 22% of the population work more than 49 hours a week according to 2014 figures from the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training, behind South Korea at 35% but ahead of the US, where 16% of workers put in those kind of hours.
Why change?
For the government and business groups, there is an element of self-interest too.
Japan's economy has stagnated for more than two decades. The situation has been made worse by low consumption spending and a very low birth rate, both of which are aggravated by workers spending most of their waking hours at a desk.
Productivity and efficiency also suffer from firms having staff perpetually on hand, as companies don't invest in labour-saving technologies.
Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at the Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, told the BBC that private consumption could rise by as much as 124 billion yen ($1bn; £860m) every Premium Friday if "100%" of those eligible headed home at 3pm on those days.
But he stresses no one knows how many people will take up the idea and that total participation is unlikely, which could mean a much smaller boost to the economy.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Maybe next time dad can come too - increasing family time is one goal
Why would companies and workers not take part? Well, being first to make such a change could be painful.
Companies face higher costs and Japanese workers often feel guilty at leaving their colleagues behind.
"Japanese workers worry about letting down their colleagues" says Mr Nagahama. "They have a strong sense of working as a team."
Having employees work less is especially difficult for Japan's many small businesses, which are battling to keep costs down. The fact that many of them are family-run makes an early walk-out even trickier.
Even with Premium Friday, Mr Nagahama points out some employees may make up the time on other days or even do other jobs in their newly-gained leisure time, which would nullify the point of the scheme.
It is not even clear if the government ministry behind the idea will be participating, though Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Hiroshige Seko has reportedly promised that he will not have appointments after 15:00 on those Fridays.
Image copyright AFP Image caption The rare sight of office workers enjoying themselves while it is still light could become more common
Despite doubts about the scheme, supporters hope the modest goal of an early finish once a month combined with the backing of government and industry will encourage uptake, and eventually more fundamental change in workplace culture.
The campaign is also promoting commercial opportunities for restaurants, shops, travel companies and other businesses who could benefit, in the hope that firms will see the benefit of increased leisure time for employees.
Of course, changing deeply-rooted attitudes to work will be difficult. Many previous attempts have failed. But ironically the effort might be helped by Japanese workers' declining corporate loyalty.
Cut adrift by years of restructuring from the lifetime employment bargain that bound their fathers to a single firm, younger Japanese people may find that the chance to head to the izakaya (pub) a bit earlier some Fridays is just the nudge they need to adopt a better work-life balance.
Reporting by Simeon Paterson. ||||| The country that coined the word karoshi (death by overwork) wants companies to let workers finish early on the last Friday of every month so that they can go out and have fun.
In an effort to curb excessive work hours and to spur consumption, the government and business groups will launch the Premium Friday campaign on Feb. 24.
Although it’s unknown how many companies will participate, the nation’s biggest business lobby, Keidanren, is encouraging its more than 1,300 member companies to take part.
One indication of just how tough it is to get change in Japan’s rigid work practices: the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which is pushing the idea, hasn’t decided yet if its officials will get to join in.
However, METI chief Hiroshige Seko said, “I’m giving my secretaries a strict order not to put in any appointments after 3 p.m.” on the first Premium Friday.
There’s a clear relationship between leisure time, holidays and spending, said Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo. If most workers, including those at small and medium-size firms participate, private consumption could rise by about ¥124 billion on each Premium Friday, according to his calculations.
That may provide some boost to private consumption, which makes up about 60 percent of the economy.
However, Nagahama said he is concerned workers at smaller companies may have difficulty leaving early, or that they will simply have to make the time up on other days, limiting the campaign’s impact.
Japanese workers typically use just half of their annual paid leave entitlements. In part to work around this problem and enforce time away from work, Japan has 16 annual public holidays, more than countries including the U.S. and France. ||||| Japan’s work culture is notoriously punishing. This is, after all, the country that coined the phrase karoshi, or death by overwork.
A much trumpeted labor initiative doesn’t look as though it’s going to change things very much, either. Beginning Feb. 24, the Japanese government and participating business groups will launch the “Premium Friday” campaign to let people leave the office a couple of hours early — but not every Friday. Just the last Friday of each month, Bloomberg reports.
The scheme is not mandatory, either, so it is unclear how many enterprises will actually take part. The Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) has encouraged its members to sign up, but they comprise a mere 1,300 companies. (There are well over 2.5 million registered businesses in Japan according to figures from 2006.)
Even the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which is promoting “Premium Friday,” has not signaled if its staff will participate.
“Premium Friday” comes at a time when karoshi is back in the spotlight. Earlier this week, the head of Japan’s biggest ad agency Dentsu (dentsu-inc) resigned over the suicide of Matsuri Takahashi, a young employee who leaped to her death in December 2015 after becoming depressed from overwork.
“Death by overwork should never happen. I ask executives to take effective measures to redress (the situation.)” said Keidanren chairman Sadayuki Sakakibara following Takahashi’s suicide, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reports.
For more on death by overwork, watch Fortune’s video:
According to 2014 figures from the Japan Institute For Labor Policy, Japan has the highest percentage of workers working over 49 hours per week among the G-7 nations. However data from the Japan Productivity Center indicates that the country also has the worst productivity among the group.
“Japan is still a country where working long hours is considered a virtue,” said Kazunari Tamaki, a lawyer who specializes in karoshi told Japan’s Kyodo. “But we need to focus on improving efficiency within fixed hours to boost productivity.”
Unfortunately, with schemes like “Premium Friday” that’s unlikely to happen any time soon. | – Workers in Japan put in notoriously long hours, and the country appears to be paying a price: stressed out workers and resulting health problems, including suicide. As the Japan Times notes, there's even a word for it: "karoshi," or "death by overwork." Now Japan is designating the last Friday of every month as "Premium Friday," with employees encouraged to sign out at 3pm—and maybe do a little shopping to jump-start their weekend and possibly a lagging economy, reports the London Times. The move isn't mandatory for companies, but the nation's biggest business lobby is on board and encouraging its members to take part when it launches on Feb. 24. It doesn't help that most workers in Japan tend to use only half their allotted paid time off, and that an estimated one in eight work 50 hours or more—the highest percentage among G-7 nations. So it remains unclear whether Premium Friday will be a sufficient break for the overworked, or even attainable for those who must squeeze in their work at other times. Fortune is skeptical, calling it an "essentially meaningless" scheme. It quotes a critic who says the bigger issue to focus on is efficiency to cut down on those long work weeks, which are "still considered a virtue." Another problem is that Japan has lots of small, family-run businesses where shortened hours could be a problem, notes the BBC. (A Japanese CEO resigned after a young woman's suicide.) |
A man convicted of a 2015 window peeping incident in Grand Rapids is now accused of sexually assaulting women in two separate incidents.
Xavier Jajuan Davis, 31, was arraigned earlier this week on three counts of criminal sexual conduct. He is being held in the Kent County Jail on a $400,000 bond.
Tips generated from a composite drawing released by police earlier this month led to his arrest.
Davis is charged with second-degree criminal sexual conduct for an Oct. 25 incident at 303 Monroe Avenue NW, which is the address of DeVos Place. Davis lists his employer as DeVos Place, court records show.
Details of the assault have not been released.
He also faces two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a potential life offense, for a Dec. 28th incident on Oak Park Drive west of Kalamazoo Avenue SE. Details of that case also have not been disclosed.
A probable cause hearing on both cases is set for Jan. 30 in Grand Rapids District Court.
Davis has a 2012 home invasion conviction in Ottawa County. He was charged in that case after his arrest for a window peeping incident near Grand Valley State University.
Davis was again accused of window peeping for incidents that occurred over the span of several weeks near downtown Grand Rapids in 2015. His image was caught by surveillance video at a home on East Fulton Street.
Davis was convicted of disorderly person-window peeping and sentenced to several months in the Kent County Jail. Court documents at the time indicated that Davis was a suspect in other window peeping incidents in which college-age women were targeted.
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Have a news tip? Email news@wzzm13.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter. ||||| Man cleared of rape charges sues city Copyright 2018 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Xavier Davis speaks with 24 Hour News 8 on Aug. 21, 2018. [ + - ] Video
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A man arrested and held in jail for 129 days before he was cleared on sexual assault charges is suing the City of Grand Rapids and three members of the police department.
The lawsuit claims police targeted a man and refused to release him even after they had proof he was not their suspect.
The 24-page complaint filed in Grand Rapids Federal Court Friday details what Xavier Davis says were violations of his rights that include unlawful imprisonment, arrest and prosecution.
In January, Davis was featured in media stories when he was arrested for a publicized sexual assault in Grand Rapids
“It was all over social media, Internet,” said Davis
A Grand Rapids woman said she was the victim of a sexual assault at gunpoint around 1:30 a.m. on Dec. 28 in the 4200 block of Oak Park Drive SE.
Police put out a sketch looking for tips and say the victim identified Davis from a photo lineup, which was enough to lead police to arrest Davis as he was at the bus station on Jan. 14.
“The worst part for me, I think, is still reliving, I have dreams and stuff, of how the arrest went down at the bus station,” Davis said.
In January, Davis strongly denied the charges, saying he was nowhere near where the assault occurred.
“Hey, what are you guys gonna do when you realize you’ve messed up? Basically telling them on-camera in the interrogation that you guys are gonna be sued after this if you don’t fix this,” Davis told police during his interrogation.
Davis had a criminal past that included time in prison in 2012 for a home invasion and three months in jail in 2015 for a window peeping charge.
Xavier would remain in jail through May, even as evidence came in in March that included cell phone and Uber records that indicated he was not at the scene, and DNA tests showed it was someone else’s DNA evidence at the scene.
“When they had what’s called exculpatory evidence, they sat on it. A lot of this information – Uber records, cell phone records, DNA records – they had by the latest, the end of March,” Davis said.
The lawsuit says it was this failure to release that is the most damning.
“Where the false imprisonment, wrongful imprisonment will come in is because they had the information and did nothing with it,” Davis said.
While in jail, Davis was assaulted and had to be put in protective custody.
He lost his two jobs, his home and after he was released had to spend time in a homeless shelter.
“When the judge signed the PR bond, I was overwhelmed with excitement but at the same time I was nervous, what are people gonna think, what are people gonna say,” Davis said.
Davis has been able to get a new job and a new place to live.
He is seeking an undetermined amount of damages.
The city said Sunday it had not yet been served with the lawsuit. Once it is, it has 21 days to respond. ||||| GRAND RAPIDS, MI - A man accused of sexually assaulting two women, including one at gunpoint, has filed a federal lawsuit after DNA evidence failed to link him to the crimes.
Xavier Jajuan Davis of Grand Rapids contends he was suspected based on a police sketch that he says bears little resemblance to him.
"I'm telling them, 'You have the wrong person. There's gotta be a mistake. You guys are making a mistake,'" Davis, 32, told MLive/The Grand Rapids Press.
"For whatever reason, they decided Xavier Davis was the guy," his attorney, Mark Linton said.
"They just seemed to have it out for him."
Charges dropped against man accused of sexually assaulting woman at gunpoint
The Police Department said: "As is the case with any lawsuit against the police department or an officer acting in the capacity of his or her duties, all inquiries will be forwarded to the City Attorney's Office."
The city has not yet been served with the lawsuit, Assistant City Attorney Kristen Rewa said.
Davis is suing the city and three investigators.
He said he was under investigation, but not charged, in a burglary and arson when he was arrested for the gunpoint rape. He contends police convinced the woman that he was responsible based on a police sketch.
He says that investigators learned beginning in February that Davis was not in the area of the armed sex assault and that DNA tests excluded him as the suspect. Phone records and Uber records also supported his case, he said. He was released from jail, and placed on electronic tether, on May 22.
"Defendants knew or should have known that there was not probable cause to arrest and charge Mr. Davis, causing him to be held in jail for 129 days and then placed on a tether for another 61 days," Linton wrote in the lawsuit.
"The actions of Defendants in light of this knowledge were extreme and outrageous."
Once he got out of jail, Davis was evicted from his rental home and lost jobs at DeVos Place and The B.O.B., he said.
Charges were dropped just as Davis was set for trial July 23 in Kent County Circuit Court.
Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker said "witness issues" and a lack of a DNA match led to the dismissal in the case involving the gun. An unrelated sex-assault case was also dropped.
Davis says he became a suspect in the sex assault in 2017 after he complained to city officials that he was unfairly targeted in the burglary and arson. He said he was at work when the crimes occurred.
He said Detective Adam Bayliss was upset and told him he was only doing his job.
Lt. Kristen Rogers then told Davis that the burglary and arson cases had been closed, the lawsuit said. Detective Kevin Snyder, however, suggested to Rogers that police obtain a DNA sample from Davis to determine if it matched evidence found at the rape scene, the lawsuit said.
Davis had been in trouble before. He was sentenced in 2012 to 15 months in prison for attempted home invasion and has twice been convicted of window peeping.
On Jan. 14, Davis was arrested by U.S. Marshals at the Greyhound bus station. He was told he was arrested for multiple sex-assault charges. Detectives questioned him and obtained a DNA sample.
Linton said that the "primary basis for having Mr. Davis publicly arrested was that the officers compared his picture to a sketch draft based on a description (by) the victim in a rape case ... ."
He said that the victim could not identify her attacker but after suggestions by police agreed that it could have been Davis. The victim in that case was raped during the early morning Dec. 28 in her parked car on Kalamazoo Avenue SE.
At his Jan. 17 arraignment, Davis was also charged with an unrelated sexual assault that happened at DeVos Place. The victim told police that a worker sexually assaulted her in a utility room, the lawsuit said.
Davis was suspected after a detective recalled that Davis worked at DeVos Place. But Davis started working there a month after the assault was reported, his attorney said.
The lawsuit contends that Snyder "unduly coerced" the victim in the DeVos Place to agree it was possible Davis committed the assault.
"Despite having clear exculpatory evidence for the rape case dating back to February of 2018, the charges against Mr. Davis were not dismissed until July 23, 2018," Linton wrote in the lawsuit.
Davis, once held on $400,000 bond, was assaulted at the Kent County Jail shortly after his arrest and put into a one-man cell for his safety, the lawsuit said.
His case was reported in local media. His booking photo and the police sketch were put on Grand Rapids Police Department's Facebook page, the lawsuit said.
Allegations in the lawsuit include malicious prosecution, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and false imprisonment. | – "For whatever reason, they decided Xavier Davis was the guy." That from the lawyer for 31-year-old Davis, arrested in January as the suspect in a sexual assault in Grand Rapids, Mich. The problem: DNA evidence and Uber and phone records showed Davis wasn't the guy, and charges against him were dropped in July, per MLive.com. Before that, though, he was in prison for 129 days, then attached to an e-tether for two months, and now he's suing the City of Grand Rapids and three cops for false imprisonment and defamation, among other allegations, per WOOD. "I'm telling them, 'You have the wrong person,'" Davis says of his arrest, which he says was based on a sketch that doesn't even look like him; WZZM has a picture of it. It gets a bit complicated: Davis was already under investigation for a burglary and arson when he was arrested for the rape of a woman in her car in late December. At his January arraignment, Davis—who was sent to prison for more than a year in 2012 for a home invasion and also has been convicted of window peeping—was then charged with another sexual assault at his workplace, though his lawyer says he started working there after the assault report. In both cases, Davis contends police led the victims to believe he was their attacker, and that even after the DNA and other evidence started to surface in February showing he wasn't in the car case, he was still incarcerated for months. He also says his face and name were plastered everywhere after his arrest, and he lost his two jobs and was evicted from his home after he got out of jail, per WOOD. He said he told cops during his initial questioning: "You guys are gonna be sued after this if you don't fix this." Charges in both cases were dropped, and WOOD notes Davis has since secured a new job and place to live. (Cops hope DNA will lead them to the Zodiac Killer.) |
There are three Republican presidential candidates left in the race, and chances are, one of them will be the party’s nominee. On “Fox News Sunday” yesterday, Chris Wallace asked RNC Chairman Reince Priebus the question that’s on the minds of many: Isn’t it possible, at a contested convention, that the nomination could go to someone who isn’t already a candidate?
Priebus described such as a scenario as an “extreme hypothetical,” which he considers “highly unlikely.” The Republican leader twice said it’s “possible” for a non-candidate to end up as the nominee, but Priebus reiterated his belief that the Republican ticket will be led by “one of the three people [currently] running.”
And yet, some in Priebus’ party can’t seem to let go of their dream. Politico reported this morning there are still “top” Republican insiders talking up the idea of nominating House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
On the eve of the Wisconsin primaries, top Republicans are becoming increasingly vocal about their long-held belief that Speaker Paul Ryan will wind up as the nominee, perhaps on the fourth ballot at a chaotic Cleveland convention. One of the nation’s best-wired Republicans, with an enviable prediction record for this cycle, sees a 60 percent chance of a convention deadlock and a 90 percent chance that delegates turn to Ryan – ergo, a 54 percent chance that Ryan, who’ll start the third week of July as chairman of the Republican National Convention, will end it as the nominee.
The piece, from Politico’s Mike Allen, added that the Wisconsin congressman is “more calculating and ambitious than he lets on.” It added that Ryan “is running the same playbook he did to become speaker: saying he doesn’t want it, that it won’t happen. In both cases, the maximum leverage is to not want it – and to be begged to do it.”
The Speaker happens to be in Israel right now, but he called into Hugh Hewitt’s conservative radio show this morning to once again he rejects the speculation. “I think you need to run for president in order to be president,” Ryan said . “I’m not running for president, so, period. End of story.”
Except, it’s probably not the end of the story.
The Republicans and pundits keeping these embers burning have been quick to note, accurately, that Paul Ryan made similar comments after John Boehner’s retirement, saying he wouldn’t be a candidate for Speaker. The Wisconsin Republican, we now know, can be talked into accepting great power when it’s offered to him on a platter – which means the speculation will continue, probably until the convention itself.
But so long as the chatter continues, let’s keep a few relevant details in mind. The first is the simple fact that if Republicans hold 50+ nominating contests over a six-month period, and then nominate someone who did not run for president – and has said repeatedly that he does not want to be president – the prospect of party-wide chaos shouldn’t be dismissed too quickly.
Second, the assumption that Paul Ryan represents electoral magic for the GOP continues to be wrong. The Speaker was on the Republican ticket four years ago – when he failed to win his home state – and recent polling suggests the American mainstream doesn’t share the Beltway’s affection for the GOP House leader.
Finally, let’s say for the sake of conversation that all of the obvious hurdles simply disappear. Let’s imagine convention delegates were willing to embrace Ryan without controversy; the Speaker decided he wouldn’t mind being president after all; the party wouldn’t fracture; and polls turned in his favor. Even then, the idea would be dubious on the merits: The Republican Party would find itself in late July with a presidential nominee who has no campaign infrastructure, no platform, no stump speech, no staff, and no money. ||||| POLITICO Playbook: Crisis
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is essentially in open war with President Donald Trump. | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
DRIVING THE DAY
IS THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT IN A STATE OF CRISIS? … There’s no doubt we have gotten accustomed to lurching from standoff to standoff, diplomatic row to global skirmish. But over the past few days, it feels as if the crisis in our government has hit a new inflection point.
-- WE ARE NOW ON DAY 27 of a government shutdown centered on whether the U.S. should build a new barrier on the southern border with Mexico. Hundreds of miles of barriers already exist. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have been willing to blink, and both sides appear to be growing increasingly dug in. The shutdown is continuing ad infinitum. Ratings agencies and economic forecasters have warned Congress to shape up, or face huge consequences. Ben White on the growing number of recession warnings
-- AT THE SAME TIME, the Trump administration is forcing some workers to come back to work with no pay. The agents whom the government has hired to ensure people don’t board our airliners with bombs and weapons -- TSA employees -- are working without pay. So are the people protecting the president of the United States. NYT’s Katie Rogers and Alan Rappeport on people coming back to work without pay
-- SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI is in open war with PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, and has essentially rescinded her invitation for the president to speak to the nation from the Capitol in the annual State of the Union. The situation she lays out is quite dire: She expressed concern that the government cannot protect the building, which will be filled with almost the entire government. It also had the additional political benefit of being a kick to the groin to the president.
DHS SECRETARY KIRSTJEN NIELSEN said publicly DHS and the Secret Service are ready to protect the Capitol for this event. HOUSE MINORITY WHIP STEVE SCALISE (R-LA.) indicated if Trump shows up at the Capitol anyway, they’ll find a place for him to speak.
-- MEANWHILE … A SENIOR HOUSE REPUBLICAN, Steve King of Iowa, was admonished by his leadership, and in some cases asked to leave Congress, because he voiced support for white supremacy. He has been stripped of his committee assignments. This comes after years of racist statements.
LOOK AT ALL OF THE AVAILABLE EVIDENCE, and ask yourself a simple question: Do you believe the government is poised to function over these next two years? Do you believe that these two parties are poised to pass the USMCA -- the new trade deal with Canada and Mexico? Do you believe a big infrastructure package is right around the corner? How about the debt limit -- will that be lifted easily?
Good Thursday morning. JOHN KASICH, who recently signed up as a CNN contributor, is raising money off of it. His email solicitation
NEW PBS NEWSHOUR/NPR/MARIS POLL: “With the 2020 presidential election already underway, 57 percent of registered voters said they would definitely vote against President Donald Trump, according to the latest poll from the PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist. Another 30 percent of voters said they would cast their ballot to support Trump, and an additional 13 percent said they had no idea who would get their vote.” PBS
A message from the National Retail Federation: Tariffs imposed by Washington are having a negative impact on Main Street retailers in communities across the country. Scroll down to learn more. http://bit.ly/2TJDuvH
THE PELOSI-VS.-TRUMP STORIES …
-- JOHN BRESNAHAN, HEATHER CAYGLE and RACHAEL BADE: “‘She’s satin and steel’: Pelosi wages war on Trump”: “Donald Trump may have finally met his match in Nancy Pelosi. As the partial government shutdown grinds on with no end in sight, the struggle between the president and the speaker is becoming an unprecedented political fight — with the fallout likely to extend far beyond this episode.
“Pelosi privately refers to Trump as the ‘whiner in chief.’ She’s questioned his manhood. She calls out Trump’s lies to his face and openly wonders whether he’s fit for the job. She mocks Trump for his privileged upbringing and his lack of empathy for the less fortunate. She jokes with other senior Democrats that if the American public saw how Trump acts in private, they’d ‘want to make a citizen’s arrest.’” POLITICO
-- WAPO’S PAUL KANE, PHIL RUCKER and JOSH DAWSEY: “‘She wields the knife’: Pelosi moves to belittle and undercut Trump in shutdown fight”
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INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE -- NYT’S MAGGIE HABERMAN and ANNIE KARNI, “In a West Wing in Transition, Trump Tries to Stand Firm on the Shutdown”: “President Trump has insisted that he is not going to compromise with Democrats to end the government shutdown, and that he is comfortable in his unbendable position. But privately, it’s sometimes a different story. ‘We are getting crushed!’ Mr. Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, after watching some recent coverage of the shutdown, according to one person familiar with the conversation. ‘Why can’t we get a deal?’ ...
“Mr. Trump has told [his senior staffers] he believes over time the country will not remember the shutdown, but it will remember that he staged a fight over his insistence that the southern border be protected. ... Unlike his predecessors, according to White House officials, Mr. Mulvaney is not interested in challenging what has revealed itself to be the one constant in the Trump White House: the special status reserved for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, the president’s family members and senior advisers, in the West Wing.
“Mr. Mulvaney’s more hands-off approach to the family members has allowed Mr. Kushner to position himself among lawmakers on Capitol Hill as the person who can deliver to Mr. Trump what he wants. The dynamic, according to multiple White House officials, is similar to the opening days of the administration, when the staff to the new president was just beginning to meet with Washington officials and Mr. Kushner often told people that ‘everything runs through me.’” NYT
THE ATLANTIC’S ELAINA PLOTT on SHAHIRA KNIGHT: “Trump’s Chief Shutdown Negotiator Is Unknown to Most Americans”
SEXUAL HARASSMENT WATCH -- HOLLY OTTERBEIN and ALEX THOMPSON: “Sanders faces former staffers about sexual harassment on 2016 campaign”: “Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) met Wednesday with a group of former staffers who have raised concerns about allegations of sexual harassment and violence during his 2016 presidential campaign and have urged him to make reforms if he runs again next year.
“Sanders did not respond to a reporter’s questions as he entered the meeting through a private door at a hotel in Washington. The former aides sought a meeting with Sanders to ‘discuss the issue of sexual violence and harassment on the 2016 campaign, for the purpose of planning to mitigate the issue in the upcoming presidential cycle,’ according to a copy of a letter first reported by POLITICO.” POLITICO
-- BUZZFEED’S ZOE TILLMAN: “A Lawsuit Claims Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee Retaliated Against A Staffer Who Planned To Sue The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Over An Alleged Rape”: “A former staffer for Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee claims in a new lawsuit that the lawmaker retaliated against her and fired her because she was planning to pursue legal action over an alleged rape by a former employee of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. The woman, identified in court papers by the pseudonym Jane Doe, alleges she was raped in October 2015, when she was a 19-year-old intern for the CBCF, by the foundation’s intern coordinator at the time, Damien Jones.” BuzzFeed
AOC UPDATE -- “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a social media star, to school House Democrats on Twitter use,” by USA Today’s Eliza Collins: “The House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee is hosting a session Thursday morning with Ocasio-Cortez of New York (@AOC – 2.42 million followers) and Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut (@jahimes – 76,500 followers) ‘on the most effective ways to engage constituents on Twitter and the importance of digital storytelling.’” USA Today
THE INVESTIGATIONS … “Rudy Giuliani says Trump didn’t collude with Russia but can’t say if campaign aides did,” by CNN’s Caroline Kelly: “In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on ‘Cuomo Prime Time,’ Giuliani, a former New York mayor and Trump's attorney, said he doesn't know if other people in the campaign, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, were working with the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential race.
“‘I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or people in the campaign,’ Giuliani said. He added, ‘I said the President of the United States. There is not a single bit of evidence the President of the United States committed the only crime you can commit here, conspiring with the Russians to hack the DNC.’” CNN
-- “GOP wants Mueller transparency — with caveats,” by Darren Samuelsohn: “Senate Republicans are sending signals they want it both ways on special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report: They are calling for transparency while still giving themselves an out if crucial parts are withheld. It’s a talking point that echoes the line William Barr, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be attorney general, used in his confirmation hearing this week. Barr vowed to publicly release as much of Mueller’s findings as he can, ‘consistent with the regulations and the law.’” POLITICO
-- ABC’S ELIANA LARRAMENDIA and JAMES HILL: “Michael Cohen fears Trump rhetoric could put his family at risk: Sources”: “Michael Cohen is having reservations about his highly anticipated public appearance before Congress next month, fearing that President Donald Trump’s frequent diatribes against him could put his family in danger, according to sources close to Cohen.” ABC
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CNN’S MANU RAJU and JEREMY HERB: “Effort to ease Russian sanctions boosted by former Louisiana senator”: “Former Republican Sen. David Vitter is lobbying on behalf of companies linked to a Russian oligarch with ties to President Vladimir Putin, aligning himself with Trump administration efforts to ease sanctions on his clients, according to documents filed with the Justice Department.”
“Vitter, who has registered as a foreign agent, lobbied with several countries' ambassadors and the Treasury Department to ease punishing sanctions imposed on major aluminum firms tied to oligarch Oleg Deripaska. After the Treasury Department agreed last month and eased the sanctions, Vitter was spotted in the Senate ahead of critical votes taking aim at the Trump administration move.” CNN
TRUMP’S THURSDAY -- The president will leave the White House at 10:45 a.m. to go to the Pentagon. At 11 a.m., Trump will participate in the missile defense review announcement. He will then return to the White House.
PLAYBOOK READS
PHOTO DU JOUR: Furloughed federal employees get free lunch at a pop-up staged by chef José Andrés during the partial government shutdown Wednesday. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION -- “Top HUD official’s departure follows disagreements over housing policy and Puerto Rico disaster funds,” by WaPo’s Tracy Jan, Arelis Hernández, Josh Dawsey and Damian Paletta: “Deputy Secretary Pam Patenaude, second-in-command at the agency helmed by Ben Carson and widely regarded as HUD’s most capable political leader, is said to have grown frustrated by what a former HUD employee described as a ‘Sisyphean undertaking.’ ...
“Trump told then-White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and then-Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney that he did not want a single dollar going to Puerto Rico, because he thought the island was misusing the money and taking advantage of the government ... Patenaude told White House budget officials during an early December meeting in the Situation Room that the money had been appropriated by Congress and must be sent.” WaPo
-- “Pentagon seeks to expand scope and sophistication of U.S. missile defenses,” by WaPo’s Paul Sonne: “The Trump administration is seeking to expand the scope and sophistication of American missile defenses on a scale not seen since President Ronald Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ initiative in a new strategy that President Trump plans to roll out personally on Thursday alongside military leaders at the Pentagon.” WaPo
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BANNON WATCH -- STEVE BANNON predicted Tuesday night that Trump will appoint four justices to the Supreme Court as president and that Clarence Thomas may retire so that the president could pick someone to replace him, according to two people at his speech at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.
He also said in front of the 250 people gathered at the Loews Hotel that Trump will run in 2020; but if he doesn’t, a Nikki Haley/Mike Pompeo slate would be a winning ticket. Bannon’s a fan of Ocasio-Cortez and said he admires her “grit.” He also said that the U.S. economic war with China is just starting (and that he believes the U.S. is winning) and will grow to encompass more than just trade disputes. Pic
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TRUMP INC. -- “Federal agency ‘improperly’ ignored constitutional concerns before allowing Trump to keep lease to his hotel, internal watchdog says,” by WaPo’s Jonathan O’Connell and David Fahrenthold: “The General Services Administration ‘ignored’ concerns that President Trump’s lease on a government-owned building — the one that houses his Trump International Hotel in Washington — might violate the Constitution when it allowed Trump to keep the lease after he took office, according to a new report from the agency’s inspector general. Trump’s company won the lease several years before he became president.
“After Trump was elected, the agency had to decide whether his company would be allowed to keep its lease. At that time, the inspector general found, the agency should have determined whether the lease violates the Constitution’s emoluments clauses, which bar presidents from taking payments from foreign governments or individual U.S. states. But it did not, according to the report issued Wednesday.” WaPo
CHINA WATCH -- “Huawei Targeted in U.S. Criminal Probe for Alleged Theft of Trade Secrets,” by WSJ’s Dan Strumpf, Nicole Hong and Aruna Viswanatha: “Federal prosecutors are pursuing a criminal investigation of China’s Huawei Technologies Co. for allegedly stealing trade secrets from U.S. business partners, including technology used by T-Mobile US Inc. to test smartphones, according to people familiar with the matter.
“The investigation grew in part out of civil lawsuits against Huawei, including one in which a Seattle jury found Huawei liable for misappropriating robotic technology from T-Mobile’s Bellevue, Wash., lab ... The probe is at an advanced stage and could lead to an indictment soon.” WSJ
MEDIAWATCH -- NYT’s Michael Grynbaum: “David Haskell, a longtime deputy editor at New York magazine, will become its editor in chief on April 1, inheriting a glossy biweekly and a suite of websites devoted to pursuits like fashion, food, shopping and politics.” NYT
PLAYBOOKERS
SPOTTED: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his wife Louise Linton eating dinner with Bret Baier and his wife Amy at Prime Rib last night … Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) at Brothers and Sisters in Adams Morgan ... Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) having dinner at the Monocle with a few other people.
HARVARD INSTITUTE OF POLITICS has named its spring 2019 fellows. Resident fellows include: former Reps. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) and Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), Andrew Gillum, Aisha Moodie-Mills, Catherine Russell and Michael Zeldin. The spring visiting fellows include: Gary Cohn, former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Mitch Landrieu and Michael Nutter.
BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): Jim Durette, deputy COS for Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) (hat tip: Hank)
BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Steve Rabinowitz, president and co-founder of Bluelight Strategies. How he got his start in politics: “Moved to Washington to volunteer, then work for my local congressman Mo Udall when he ran for president and I was but 18. Then worked, also nationally, for Presidents Jerry Brown, John Anderson, Gary Hart, Walter Mondale, Paul Simon, Mike Dukakis and Bob Kerrey’s presidential campaigns before finally working for that Bill Clinton guy. My non-political friends used to call me ‘the kiss of death.’ But I was the first among my political cohort to truly learn how a mult box worked and what the color temperature of light was.” Playbook Plus Q&A
BIRTHDAYS: former first lady Michelle Obama is 55 ... Rebecca Buck, CNN political reporter (hubby tip: Brendan) … Maury Povich is 8-0 ... former FCC Chairman Newton Minow is 93 ... Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is 65 ... POLITICO’s Steve Shepard and Joanne Kenen ... John Wagner, WaPo national political reporter, is 5-0 ... Alyssa Franke of EMILY’s List ... Al Shofe … Nikki Schwab, Washington reporter at The Daily Mail ... NBC News’ Alex Moe ... POLITICO Europe’s Alba Pregja … Jim Free is 72 ... David Avella, chairman of GOPAC ... Chris Jones, SVP/senior director of U.S. talent acquisition at BCW Global ... Cynthia Kroet ... Stephen Gilmore ... Bill Galston is 73 … Jeremy Pelofsky of Finsbury ... Julie Alderman of Planned Parenthood (h/t Londyn Marshall) ...
… Tommy Joyce (h/ts Lauren Ehrsam and Ed Cash) ... Kousha Navidar … Robert E. Lewis Jr. is 4-0 ... photographer Steven Purcell is 56 … Elizabeth Hays Bradley (h/t Jon Haber) ... Dan Gilbert is 57 ... Charlotte Rediker ... Becca Sobel ... Julie Barko Germany ... John Seabrook is 6-0 ... Mary Clare Rigali, analyst at Albright Stonebridge ... Edelman’s Katherine Wiet and Kurt Hauptman ... Haris Alic ... Karlygash Faillace ... Doug Wilder is 87 ... Alyssa Roberts ... Barbara Riley ... YouTube alum Vadim Lavrusik ... Taylor Barden ... Warren Cathedral is 58 ... Robbie Hughes is 37 ... Amit Jani ... John M. Gillespie ... Noelani Bonifacio ... Tegan Millspaw Gelfand ... Mark Pieschel … John Hoyt (h/t Teresa Vilmain) … Mike Spahn, COS to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), is 4-0 (h/t Maureen Knightly)
A message from the National Retail Federation: Tariffs imposed by Washington are coming directly out of the pocketbooks of American small business owners and consumers. As the owner of a Texas luggage shop said, "This could be such a detrimental impact on our business." Listen to the stories of local retailers impacted by tariffs at http://bit.ly/2TJDuvH. ||||| House Speaker Paul Ryan on Sunday rebuffed relentless speculation that he might emerge from Republican infighting as the GOP’s presidential candidate, telling The Times of Israel that there were “lots of reasons” why he hadn’t run for president this time, and that he wasn’t about to change his mind.
Speaking soon after arriving in Jerusalem at the start of a visit, Ryan assessed that a Donald Trump victory in Tuesday’s primary in Wisconsin — Ryan’s home state — would put the billionaire front-runner on course to clinching the Republican nomination, while a Ted Cruz victory would make an open convention more likely. And he noted that “Cruz is doing pretty well. He’s pulling ahead in polls.”
But Ryan, the VP candidate on Mitt Romney’s 2012 ticket, was quick to stress that “I’m the co-chair of the convention, so I’m perfectly neutral on this.”
Pressed, nonetheless, on how he might respond if prevailed upon to come forward as the nominee who could heal a divided party, Ryan was adamant: “No, I’ve already said that that’s not me.
“I decided not to run for president,” Ryan elaborated. “I think you should run, if you’re going to be president. I think you should start in Iowa and run to the tape.”
Asked why he had opted to stay out of the race this time, Ryan, 46, who is married with a daughter and two sons, said there were “lots of reasons” including “Phase of life: I have a young family.” He said he had “thought I could make a huge difference” in his former position as head of the House Ways and Means Committee, “and still be the kind of dad and husband I want to be.”
What’s more, he added, “We had 17 people running. We had a deep bench of qualified people. So I thought we had that fairly well taken care of.”
Ryan said he ascribed the rise of Trump and anti-establishment Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders to “deep anxiety” among Americans over the “flat” economy and threats to national security.
Ryan’s trip to Israel is his first overseas visit since he assumed the Speaker’s office last October, and he said it was highly important for him to have come to Israel on the first day of his first foreign trip in the job, “to buttress and reinforce our alliance and my belief in a stronger alliance between our two countries.”
The Times of Israel’s full interview with Paul Ryan will be published on Monday. | – Paul Ryan, a man who is not running for president and swears that he doesn't want the job, continues to get about as much press about it as the official remaining candidates. In his Politico Playbook on Monday, Mike Allen talks to a Republican in the know who "sees a 60% chance of a convention deadlock, and a 90% chance that delegates turn to Ryan—ergo, a 54% chance that Ryan, who'll start the third week of July as chairman of the Republican National Convention, will end it as the nominee." Ryan, meanwhile, tells the Times of Israel while on a visit to Jerusalem that he's not interested. "No, I've already said that that's not me," he tells the newspaper. Of course, as Allen and Steve Benen at MSNBC point out, Ryan said much the same thing about becoming House speaker before accepting the job as John Boehner's successor. Saying he doesn't want the job gives him "maximum leverage" and sets up a scenario in which he's "begged to do it," writes Allen. Benen thinks those in the GOP hoping for just this scenario should be careful: "The Republican Party would find itself in late July with a presidential nominee who has no campaign infrastructure, no platform, no stump speech, no staff, and no money." |
The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) has announced that its database was accessed by a Russian hacking group, which posted the confidential medical data of several US athletes online on Monday.
The cyber espionage group, known as Fancy Bear, released records on four female American Olympic athletes: tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams, gymnastics multi-gold medallist Simone Biles and basketball player Elena Delle Donne.
In each case, the hackers published records of so-called “Therapeutic Use Exemptions”, which permit athletes to use certain otherwise banned substances if they have a verified medical reason to do so. In making the disclosure, Fancy Bear said it planned to release more information in due course.
The group, also known as Tsar Team, claimed the Therapeutic Use Exemptions constituted evidence of doping by US Olympians. “After detailed studying of the hacked Wada databases we figured out that dozens of American athletes had tested positive,” the hackers said in a statement. “The Rio Olympic medallists regularly used illicit strong drugs justified by certificates of approval for therapeutic use. In other words, they just got their licences for doping.”
US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) chief Travis Tygart said in a statement that it was “unthinkable” for hackers to “illegally obtain confidential medical information in an attempt to smear athletes to make it look as if they have done something wrong.” He added: “In fact, in each of the situations, the athlete has done everything right in adhering to the global rules for obtaining permission to use a needed medication.”
Wada Report Outlines Alleged Russian Doping Cover Up System Used in Sochi
Wada had previously warned that it might face cyberattacks, following its investigators’ revelations of Russian state-sponsored doping in the run-up to the Rio Games this summer. “These criminal acts are greatly compromising the effort by the global anti-doping community to re-establish trust in Russia,” said Olivier Niggli, the agency’s director general. “Wada deeply regrets this situation and is very conscious of the threat that it represents to athletes whose confidential information has been divulged.”
The agency said it believed the hack was carried out using spear-phishing emails to gather passwords for the Wada Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (Adams) database. Less than a month ago, the agency confirmed that a hacker had accessed the Adams account for Yuliya Stepanova, the Russian 800-metre runner who blew the whistle on the widespread doping among her country’s Olympic team.
More than 100 Russian athletes were subsequently banned from competing in Rio, following the publication of an independently commissioned Wada report, which found evidence of a Russian state-run doping programme going back at least four years. ||||| Image copyright AP Image caption Simone Biles' confidential medical data has been released
The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) has condemned Russian hackers for leaking confidential medical files of star US Olympic athletes.
Athletes affected include tennis players Venus and Serena Williams and teenage gymnast Simone Biles.
A group calling itself "Fancy Bears" claimed responsibility for the hack of a Wada database.
After the leak, Ms Biles said she had long been taking medicine for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
The hacker group had accused her of taking an "illicit psycho-stimulant", but she said she had "always followed the rules".
The Rio Olympics quadruple gold medallist had obtained the necessary permission to take prescription medicine on the Wada banned drugs list, USA Gymnastics said in a statement.
Image copyright @Simone_Biles
Wada said in a statement that the cyber attacks were an attempt to undermine the global anti-doping system.
Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was "out of the question" that the Kremlin or secret services were involved in the hacking, Russian news agencies reported.
The hackers accessed records detailing "Therapeutic Use Exemptions" (TUEs), which allow the use of banned substances due to athletes' verified medical needs.
"By virtue of the TUE, Biles has not broken any drug-testing regulations, including at the Olympic Games in Rio," USA Gymnastics said.
Fancy Bears said TUEs amount to "licences for doping".
The leaked documents allege that Serena Williams was granted permission to use drugs commonly used to treat muscle injuries, such as anti-inflammatories, while Biles is said to use Ritalin - a treatment for her ADHD.
Former - Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority head Richard Ings said: "Nothing I see here gives me cause for alarm," adding it looked "totally normal".
"The issue here is privacy breach."
'Compromising trust'
Russia's track and field team were banned from the Rio Olympics over an alleged state-backed doping programme. All of its athletes are barred from the ongoing Paralympics.
"Let it be known that these criminal acts are greatly compromising the effort by the global anti-doping community to re-establish trust in Russia," Wada director-general Olivier Niggli said.
'An act of revenge?' - Analysis by BBC sports editor Dan Roan
This is the latest twist in what was already the biggest doping scandal in the history of sport, and further evidence of the bitter divisions it has sparked.
The hack appears to be an act of revenge - retaliation for Wada's damning report into Russian state-sponsored cheating.
Although the Russian government has denied any involvement, it has always maintained that the country has been made a scapegoat for a much wider problem, and this will only add fuel to that fire.
Although the athletes concerned have broken no rules, the revelations - along with the threat of more leaks of other competitors' medical records - will inevitably exacerbate the controversy surrounding TUEs at a time when sport's leaders are desperately trying to restore trust.
Many athletes will now be nervously wondering if their private medical details records are the next to be made public.
And with the future of Wada currently in the balance, the fact its security was so badly compromised will raise more questions over the entire anti-doping system, especially after the account of Russian whistleblower Yuliya Stepanova was hacked last month, leading to fears for her safety.
US Anti-Doping Agency chief Travis Tygart called the hack "cowardly and despicable".
"In each of the situations, the athlete has done everything right in adhering to the global rules for obtaining permission to use a needed medication," he said.
Image copyright PA Image caption Serena Williams has won four Olympics golds in her career
The US Olympic Committee has had "zero adverse findings from the Rio Olympic Games that weren't 100% within the medical guidelines set forth by anti-doping authorities," spokesman Patrick Sandusky said.
Earlier this month, Mr Niggli said Wada was experiencing almost daily cyber attacks originating from Russia.
Fancy Bears, which is also known as Tsar Team (APT28), has pledged to release confidential records from other national Olympic teams.
How Wada was hacked - Dave Lee, BBC North America technology reporter
Image copyright Reuters
It's an old adage in cybersecurity that the weakest point of any supposedly secure system is the people that use it.
Wada says it believes this hack was made possible thanks to a successful spearphishing attack. Phishing is a term given to the technique of tricking a user into giving up crucial information - often by clicking a link that takes them to a malicious website disguised as a familiar one, such as the log-in page for a bank or social network.
Spearphishing takes this one significant step further. While a phishing attack is often aimed at many people in the hope some will fall for it, spearphishing is highly targeted. Hackers perhaps identified a small number of people, or even just one person, and wrote a phishing attack specifically designed to trick them.
Other than pushing a message of vigilance among staff, spearphishing is incredibly difficult to defend against. Attackers often scour the internet, looking for added information on the target that might make an email more believable. Sometimes even knowing a person's favourite football team is enough to tip the balance in making a spearphishing email seem genuine. ||||| Russian hackers — possibly the same group that compromised the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers — have made top American athletes their latest target.
Joining an intercontinental dispute over sports doping, the hackers penetrated the World Anti-Doping Agency’s athlete database and publicly revealed private medical information about three of the United States’ most famous athletes: Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Simone Biles.
The hackers published documents this week showing that Ms. Biles, who won four gold medals in gymnastics at the Rio Olympics last month, and the Williams sisters received medical exemptions to use banned drugs.
The antidoping agency confirmed the authenticity of the documents in a statement Tuesday, attributing the hack to Fancy Bear, a Russian cyberespionage group that forensics specialists have tied to breaches against government agencies, nonprofit organizations and corporations. That group is believed to be associated with G.R.U., the Russian military intelligence agency suspected of involvement in the recent theft of emails and documents from the D.N.C. ||||| The World Anti-Doping Agency said Tuesday that a Russian government hacking group had gained access to a database containing drug-test results and confidential medical data from last month’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. On Monday, the group began posting confidential information about noteworthy U.S. Olympic athletes — tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams, four-time gymnastics gold medalist Simone Biles and women’s basketball standout Elena Delle Donne — and promised more leaks would be forthcoming.
WADA said in a statement that the hacking group was able to access passwords to its Rio Olympic database via spear-phishing, the practice by which computers are infected after a user opens an email that is thought to be from a trusted source.
“WADA deeply regrets this situation and is very conscious of the threat that it represents to athletes whose confidential information has been divulged through this criminal act,” Director General Olivier Niggli said in the statement. “We are reaching out to stakeholders … regarding the specific athletes impacted.”
The data release comes as the FBI is conducting a broad investigation into Russian government hacking and influence operations in the United States, including a possible effort to undermine confidence in the U.S. elections. The latest incident appears to be part of a larger campaign of strategic releases of hacked material by the Russian government to embarrass victims or raise doubts about their integrity, analysts said.
It comes after nearly every member of that country’s track and field team was banned from this year’s Olympics after numerous investigations uncovered a widespread, government-run doping scheme that dated back years.
“They’re trying to sow doubt over the integrity of the individual athletes and the various Olympic bodies and watchdog groups,” said Rich Barger, chief information officer at ThreatConnect, a cybersecurity company. “It’s just ultimately sour grapes. What we’re seeing here is a digital temper tantrum.”
The information released mostly involves Therapeutic Use Exemptions, situations in which WADA allows athletes to take certain banned substances if they’re used to treat legitimate medical issues.
In a statement to Newsweek, the International Olympic Committee said none of the athletes mentioned in the hack had done anything wrong.
“The IOC strongly condemns such methods which clearly aim at tarnishing the reputation of clean athletes,” the organization said. “The IOC can confirm, however, that the athletes mentioned did not violate any anti-doping rules during the Olympic Games Rio 2016.”
The hacking group, which is known as Fancy Bear or APT28, works for the military intelligence service GRU. It was one of two Russian spy groups that hacked the Democratic National Committee and may be linked to the release of embarrassing DNC emails by WikiLeaks in July. It has also been active in propaganda operations, researchers say. And last year it hacked the French TV5Monde station, knocking the network off the air for 18 hours in April 2015.
In its statement, WADA said one of the victims whose password was stolen was Yuliya Stepanova, a whistleblower who exposed widespread doping in Russia athletics.
“We will start with the U.S. team which has disgraced its name by tainted victories,” the group said on a website that exposed the hacked WADA documents. “We will also disclose exclusive information about other national Olympic teams later. Wait for sensational proof of famous athletes taking doping substances any time soon.” | – In what one analyst calls a "digital temper tantrum," hackers linked to the Russian government have hacked into the World Anti-Doping Agency's Olympic database and released information on star American athletes, including Serena and Venus Williams. WADA has confirmed the security breach, and the hacking group "Fancy Bears"—which was apparently motivated by revenge for WADA's exposure of state-sponsored Russian doping—says there are more leaks to come, the Washington Post reports. A roundup of developments: Fancy Bears also posted information on gymnast Simone Biles and basketball player Elena Delle Donne relating to "Therapeutic Use Exemptions" that allow athletes to use banned substances for valid medical reasons, the Independent reports. The hackers claimed the exemptions were "licenses for doping." WADA says it believes the attacks were carried out with a "spear-phishing" attack that gathered passwords with emails to authorized users that convinced them to click on infected links. According to the leaked documents, Biles uses medication to treat ADHD. "Having ADHD, and taking medicine for it is nothing to be ashamed of" and "nothing that I'm afraid to let people know," she tweeted in response. Venus Williams, who was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease Sjogren's syndrome in 2011, issued a statement saying she followed all the rules and was disappointed "that my private, medical data has been compromised by hackers and published without my permission." The Fancy Bears group is believed to be linked to the Russian military intelligence agency suspected of hacking the DNC, reports the New York Times, which notes that the Kremlin "has gone to to great lengths to maintain plausible deniability in matters of espionage"—and denies involvement in the WADA hack. The hackers are "trying to sow doubt over the integrity of the individual athletes and the various Olympic bodies and watchdog groups," Rich Barger of cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect tells the Post. "It's just ultimately sour grapes. What we're seeing here is a digital temper tantrum." US Anti-Doping Agency chief Travis Tygart called the hack "cowardly and despicable," saying that the athletes involved had "done everything right in adhering to the global rules for obtaining permission to use a needed medication," the BBC reports. Fancy Bears, which claims to be allied with Anonymous, says it will release information on other countries' athletes this week, reports the AP, which found that a French phone number provided by the group was bogus and the mailing address it gave was that of a florist east of Paris. |
A Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taleban showed signs of improvement by moving her limbs Saturday, the military said, though she remains unconscious and on a ventilator.
The shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who campaigned for the right to an education, has been denounced worldwide and by the Pakistani authorities, who have offered a reward of more than $100,000 for the capture of her attackers.
“The sedation given to Malala was reduced on Saturday so that neurosurgeons could do their clinical assessment and as a result of it Malala responded and moved her hands and feet,” military spokesman Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa said.
“It is a positive development,” Bajwa told a press conference near Army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, close to the capital Islamabad, where Malala is being treated in a military hospital.
“As per doctors, (the) condition of Malala is stable.”
A team of specialist doctors are providing “constant care” to Malala and all “contingencies” were in place in case they decide to move her abroad for further treatment, the general said.
“It is a case of serious head injury and the progress is very slow in it.”
Two other girl students wounded with Malala were “also being taken care of at places where they can get best treatment”, he said, without elaborating.
Bajwa said that all available resources were being used to investigate the incident and some arrests had been made, but he declined to say how many people were currently in custody and how many had been let go.
Asked whether the military might now consider launching an offensive against the Taleban in their tribal area stronghold of North Waziristan, on the Afghan border, Bajwa said: “Such decisions are not taken overnight.”
A military statement earlier said: “(The) health condition of Malala continues to remain satisfactory. Her vitals are okay and she is still on ventilator.”
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf visited Malala on Friday, paying tribute to her and two friends who were also wounded when a gunman boarded their school bus on Tuesday and opened fire.
“It was not a crime against an individual but a crime against humanity and an attack on our national and social values,” he told reporters, pledging renewed vigour in Pakistan’s struggle with Islamist militancy.
Bajwa Friday said the next 36 to 48 hours would be critical for Malala.
The attack has sickened Pakistan, where Malala won international prominence with a blog for the BBC that highlighted atrocities under the Taliban who terrorised the Swat valley from 2007 until a 2009 army offensive.
Activists say the shooting should be a wake-up call to those who advocate appeasement with the Taleban, but analysts suspect there will be no seismic shift in a country that has sponsored radical Islam for decades.
Schools opened with prayers for Malala on Friday and special prayers were held at mosques across the country for her speedy recovery at the country’s top military hospital in the city of Rawalpindi.
The Defence of Pakistan Council, an Islamist alliance which earlier this year carried out major rallies across Pakistan against the resumption of NATO supply lines through the country cautioned against the attack on Malala being used as a reason to launch fresh military offensives against militants.
“We strongly condemn this attack, but it should not be used as a pretext to launch military offensive in North Waziristan,” alliance chairman Maulana Samiul Haq told a press conference in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.
“It would be suicidal and affect the entire country. We appeal to the military not to commit any such mistake,” Haq said.
“The way (US President Barack) Obama has responded to the incident clearly indicates the intentions. We will not let it happen,” Haq said.
“The world does not see or condemn killing of countless innocent girls and children in drone attacks by America, but now they are reacting to this incident,” Haq said.
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ERROR: Macro /ads/dfp-ad-article-new is missing! ||||| We WILL defy the Taliban and go back to school, says friend shot with brave Malala
Shazia Ramzan was hit in the shoulder and hand on the school bus
Malala had told her she thought she would be targeted by the Taliban
Speaking out: Shazia Razman, 14, was shot twice at the same time as her best friend Malala Yousafzai (inset) who is now in hospital
The best friend of the 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban yesterday vowed to defy the extremists again and return to school with her.
Shazia Ramzan watched in horror as classmate Malala Yousafzai was shot beside her on their school bus, before the gunman turned and shot her too.
Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, brave Shazia, also 14, who was hit in the shoulder and hand, said: ‘She will recover and we will go back to school and study together again.’
As Shazia sat up in her hospital bed, Malala was yesterday still critically ill in a hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, after being shot by the Taliban gunman as she travelled home on a school bus in Mingora in the strife-torn Swat Valley on Tuesday.
Malala, who from the age of 11 defied the Taliban to write a blog for the BBC championing education for girls, was targeted by the extremists, who believe girls should be kept at home and barred from school.
In hospital in Peshawar, Shazia said Malala had told classmates she might be a target but refused to hide from the Taliban.
She also described the callous way the gunman shot Malala in the head and then turned his gun on her and another of Malala’s classmates before fleeing.
Support: Afghan students show their support for Malala who was shot on the school bus by Taliban extremists
‘Malala told us she had been threatened by the extremists,’ she said. ‘She said she had been speaking too much against mujahideen [Taliban] and they might do something to her.’
Describing Tuesday’s attack, she said: ‘It was just a normal school day. We were coming home after our second-term exams. The bus was taking the usual route.
‘Then it suddenly stopped and two men confronted us. They asked, “Which one of you is Malala?” Some of the girls started to talk and then one of the men opened fire. All the girls started crying and shouting. Malala was hit in the head and fell to the floor unconscious. There was blood everywhere. I was in total shock.
‘Then the man with the gun fired at me and another girl and ran away. We were all just so traumatised and shocked. Everything happened so quickly.
Solidarity: People light candles to pray for the recovery of Malala Yousafzai in Lahore, Pakistan. Her best friend has vowed that they will return to school
‘The bus driver raced us to hospital. It was chaotic because everyone was screaming and crying and Malala was lying on the floor in front of me.’
Shazia had been hit by two bullets. By yesterday, however, she was well enough to walk around her bed in the Combined Military Hospital. The third girl had comparatively minor injuries.
Target: Malala had been told extremists wanted to harm her after she spoke out against them
Explaining the build-up to the attack, Shazia said: ‘Malala would talk to us about the dangers she was facing but refused to change the way she lived. She just said the extremists might do something to her because she had spoken out against them so much and they might want to harm her.
‘She knew something might happen but she never let it affect her. She refused to be anything other than a normal schoolgirl.’
Shazia said she was disgusted with the men who carried out the attack. ‘We don’t know who they were but I am sure they were the people Malala had been warned about,’ she said.
As she prepared to go home to her family, Shazia said her greatest wish was to return to school with Malala – even though the Taliban has threatened to return and kill Malala.
‘With the grace of God, I am completely all right now. Malala will recover soon too, I hope. We will go back to school and study together again.
‘I am praying for Malala and praying she can join her school friends again as soon as possible. The whole nation is praying for her and I am sure she will make a full recovery.’ Shazia’s father Muhammad Ramzan, 50, who runs a bakery in Mingora, said he was horrified by the attack.
‘We have never been enemies with anyone,’ he said. ‘I don’t know who did this. Malala was outspoken and she had told her classmates something like this could happen but we never imagined it would happen in this way.’
Injured: Hospital staff assists Malala at the Saidu Sharif Teaching Hospital in the Swat Valley
Malala’s uncle Mehmood-ul-Hassan Yousafzai said her condition was improving. Doctors said the next 48 hours would be critical to her recovery. ||||| A supporter of Pakistani political party Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), reacts while holding a poster of 14-year-old schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai, who was shot last Tuesday by the Taliban for speaking... (Associated Press)
Tens of thousands rallied in Pakistan's largest city Sunday in the biggest show of support yet for a 14-year-old girl who was shot and seriously wounded by the Taliban for promoting girls' education and criticizing the militant group.
The Oct. 9 attack on Malala Yousufzai as she was returning home from school in Pakistan's northwest horrified people inside and outside the country. At the same time, it gave hope to some that the government would respond by intensifying its fight against the Taliban and their allies.
But protests against the shooting have been relatively small until now, usually attracting no more than a few hundred people. That response pales in comparison to the tens of thousands of people who held violent protests in Pakistan last month against a film produced in the United States that denigrated Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
Demonstrations in support of Malala _ and against rampant militant violence in the country in general _ have also been fairly small compared with those focused on issues such as U.S. drone attacks and the NATO supply route to Afghanistan that runs through Pakistan.
Right-wing Islamic parties and organizations in Pakistan that regularly pull thousands of supporters into the streets to protest against the U.S. have less of an incentive to speak out against the Taliban. The two share a desire to impose Islamic law in the country _ even if they may disagree over the Taliban's violent tactics.
Pakistan's mainstream political parties are also often more willing to harangue the U.S. than direct their people power against Islamist militants shedding blood across the country _ partly out of fear and partly because they rely on Islamist parties for electoral support.
One of the exceptions is the political party that organized Sunday's rally in the southern port city of Karachi, the Muttahida Quami Movement. The party's chief, Altaf Hussain, criticized both Islamic and other mainstream political parties for failing to organize rallies to protest the attack on Malala.
He called the Taliban gunmen who shot the girl "beasts" and said it was an attack on "the ideology of Pakistan."
"Malala Yousufzai is a beacon of knowledge. She is the daughter of the nation," Hussain told the audience by telephone from London, where he is in self-imposed exile because of legal cases pending against him in Pakistan. His party is strongest in Karachi.
Many of the demonstrators carried the young girl's picture and banners praising her bravery and expressing solidarity.
The leaders of Pakistan's main Islamic parties have criticized the shooting, but have also tried to redirect the conversation away from Taliban violence and toward civilian casualties from U.S. drone attacks.
Cyril Almeida, a columnist for Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, said this type of "obfuscation" prevents Pakistanis from seeing "there is a continuum from the religious right to violent Islamism."
"The religious right creates an enabling environment for violent Islamism to recruit and prosper. And violent Islamism makes state and society cower and in doing so enhances the space for the religious right," Almeida wrote in a column Sunday.
Malala earned the enmity of the Pakistani Taliban for publicizing their behavior when they took over the northwestern Swat Valley, where she lived, and for speaking about the importance of education for girls.
The group first started to exert its influence in Swat in 2007 and quickly extended its reach to much of the valley by the next year. They set about imposing their will on residents by forcing men to grow beards, preventing women from going to the market and blowing up many schools _ the majority for girls.
Malala wrote about these practices in a journal for the BBC under a pseudonym when she was just 11. After the Taliban were pushed out of the Swat Valley in 2009 by the Pakistani military, she became even more outspoken in advocating for girls' education. She appeared frequently in the media and was given one of the country's highest honors for civilians for her bravery.
The military carried out its offensive in Swat after a video surfaced of a militant flogging a woman who had allegedly committed adultery, which helped mobilize public support against the Taliban.
Many hope the shooting of Malala will help push the military to undertake a long-awaited offensive in the Pakistani Taliban's last main sanctuary in the country in the North Waziristan tribal area.
The Pakistani Taliban said they carried out the shooting because Malala was promoting "Western thinking." Police have arrested at least three suspects in connection with the attack, but the two gunmen who carried out the shooting remain at large.
The young girl was shot in the neck, and the bullet headed toward her spine. Two of her classmates were also wounded in the attack.
Doctors at a military hospital operated on Malala to remove the bullet from her neck, and she was put on a ventilator. Her condition improved somewhat on Saturday when she was able to move her legs and hands after her sedatives were reduced.
On Sunday, she was successfully taken off the ventilator for a short period and later reconnected to avoid fatigue, the military said. Doctors are satisfied she is making slow and steady progress and will decide whether to send her abroad for treatment. They have not said whether she suffered any brain damage or other type of permanent damage.
The United Arab Emirates plans to send a specialized aircraft to serve as an ambulance for the girl in case doctors decide to send her abroad, the Pakistani ambassador to the country, Jamil Ahmed Khan, said Sunday.
Visas are being finalized for the air ambulance crew and six doctors who will accompany the flight, Khan told Pakistan's Geo TV. Arrangements have been made to treat the girl at three hospitals in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, he said.
The UAE Embassy in Islamabad could not immediately be reached for comment.
No decision has yet been taken to send the girl abroad, but the air ambulance is part of the contingency plan, the Pakistani military said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has written letters to top political and religious leaders in Pakistan denouncing the attack on Yousufzai and asking them to help battle extremism in both countries, the president's office said in a statement issued late Saturday. Karzai wrote that he views the shooting as an attack on Afghanistan's girls as well.
____
Abbot reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Asif Shahzad, Zarar Khan and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Deb Riechmann in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report. ||||| Malala Yousafzai did not trade in her modest head scarf for a pair of skinny jeans. She wanted to go to school.
For that, the Taliban tried to kill her. When her attackers learned that the freckled 14-year-old Pakistani might survive, they promised to finish the job. Malala, they explained, had been "promoting Western culture."
The Taliban has committed all manner of atrocities over the years, many of them aimed at women. This time, the militants created an icon for a global movement — for the notion that the most efficient way to propel developing countries is to educate their girls. The idea has been flourishing in some of the world's most destitute and volatile places. Today, courtesy of the Pakistani Taliban, it has a face.
PHOTOS: Malala Yousafzai
"People think 'Western values' is wearing jeans and sipping pop. Malala was doing none of that," said Murtaza Haider, a Pakistan native and the associate dean of research and graduate programs at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto's Ryerson University. "All she said was: 'Would you be kind enough to reopen my school?' This is what the Taliban thinks is a 'Western value.' This is not a Western value. This is a universal value."
Pakistan's Swat Valley, where Malala grew up, is rich in agriculture and minerals, and ringed like a halo by mountains with perennial snow. There are falcons and peridot-colored lakes, and, for a time, there was the country's only ski resort. Queen Elizabeth II visited in the 1960s.
Then, in 2003, came an arm of the Taliban, which imposed strict religious law, as it had in neighboring Afghanistan. Music was banned. Men would wear beards. And girls would no longer go to school.
This last bit did not sit well with Malala. When she was all of 11 years old, she started a diary about life under the Taliban's thumb.
Entries in that diary were published by the BBC. Malala became something of a celebrity, featured in documentaries, insisting to visiting journalists that she still had rights — "to play," she said, "to sing." Most of all: "I have the right of education." She knew she was risking her life, telling a reporter at one point that if the Taliban tried to kill her, "I'll first say to them: 'What you're doing is wrong.'"
The communications revolution that is the hallmark of Malala's generation has not yet lived up to its promise of transforming the world economy. But it has ushered in an age of instantaneous, worldwide conversation. When replacement referees in the NFL bungle crucial calls, the debate is won at the moment it begins, and the regular refs are promptly brought back in. When politicians dismiss half the country as "victims" or deliver a lackluster debate performance, the public verdict is delivered swiftly.
Malala lived in one of the few places where that conversation still doesn't resonate. But she had unwittingly tapped into that revolution — and was back in school when she was shot and critically wounded last week. She didn't know it, but she had a voice powerful enough to contest the Taliban.
Years before she was born, anecdotal evidence collected by development programs suggested the importance of educating girls. Knowledge in girls' heads often meant money in their pockets. And women tended to invest not in themselves, but in their communities — in healthcare, for instance, or nutrition.
Researchers developed metrics to measure the effect. Educated women were more skilled and could make more money, but they also married later and raised healthier children. They had lower rates of disease. Extrapolate from there and the results ballooned from primary education to more efficient local government, even democratic reform.
That movement has caught fire.
In 2009, the book "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide" made the compelling argument that this is the defining social issue of the 21st century, as rejecting slavery defined the 19th and fighting totalitarianism defined the 20th.
The book spawned a television series that aired this fall. A film, "Girl Rising," documenting the struggles of girls seeking an education, is to arrive in theaters next spring and air on CNN. The movie is the centerpiece of 10x10, a global action campaign for girls education.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has steered the weight of the U.S. government toward the issue, and more foreign aid has been earmarked for girls education. Corporate partners have signed on to the cause.
"It's just that moment, the moment when you put your finger on the pulse of the problem," said Maro Chermayeff, executive producer of "Half the Sky's" outreach effort. "People are starting to understand that incredible untapped potential: the army of change that girls can be."
Richard Robbins, director of "Girl Rising," now has a photo of Malala on his desk in Los Angeles. Traveling to Haiti, Sierra Leone and elsewhere for the film, Robbins said he found that girls encountered a host of obstacles to education: geographic isolation, for instance, or the sense that school is not a good investment because there's no job at the other end.
"But there are very few people in the world now who are actually against education," Robbins said. "This idea that it's dangerous for a girl to have knowledge — this is the last gasp of that idea, which was pretty prevalent 200 years ago, everywhere in the world."
There is always room for cynicism in Malala's corner of the world. Pakistan has blown numerous opportunities to combat extremism. With the planned withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan, some see an opening for more Taliban influence in the region, not less. As one Pakistani journalist tweeted: "For everyone who seems to think Malala's assassination attempt is some 'moment' — Pakistan had lots of them and guess what happened? Nothing."
But even some hardened observers see suggestions of lasting effects. Women have protested with signs assailing the Taliban by name — unthinkable in some pockets of Pakistan. Few thought that a promised reward for information leading to Malala's assailants would do any good. On Friday, police announced that several men had been detained.
"There's definitely international condemnation, but in equal amount there's condemnation in Pakistan," said Shamila Chaudhary, a former director for Pakistan and Afghanistan at the White House National Security Council, now a senior South Asia fellow at the New America Foundation.
PHOTOS: Malala Yousafzai
Some believe the attempt to kill Malala could propel the girls education movement into the Swat Valley — and then, perhaps, pose an existential threat to the Taliban.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh attended college in the U.S. and has returned home to Afghanistan to open one of that nation's first boarding schools for girls. Students who live in regions under Taliban control attend in secret, she said. Some hide their school books in grocery bags, just as she did when she grew up under Taliban rule.
"What Malala has achieved, the military could not," Basij-Rasikh said.
scott.gold@latimes.com | – The Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for promoting girls' education rights is in stable condition at a military hospital, the AFP reports. Malala Yousufzai, 14, moved her limbs yesterday but is still unconscious on a ventilator. Doctors had reduced her sedative to let neurosurgeons assess her, "and as a result of it Malala responded and moved her hands and feet," said a military spokesman. "It is a positive development." In other developments: Tens of thousands today marched through Karachi, Pakistan's most populated city, in Malala's name—bringing public outcry to the level of protests over Innocence of Muslims, the AP reports. Pakistan's right-wing Islamic parties may be responsible for the delay; they have shied from criticizing Malala's shooting because they share the Taliban's desire for Islamic law. In Swat Valley, where Malala lived, one of her classmates promised she will return to school with Malala one day. "She will recover and we will go back to school and study together again," Shazia Ramzan told the Daily Mail. In trying to kill Malala, the Taliban turned her into a global icon for the girls' education movement, writes Scott Gold at the LA Times. "The idea has been flourishing in some of the world's most destitute and volatile places," writes Gold. "Today, courtesy of the Pakistani Taliban, it has a face." Click for his full article. |
Archaeologists in southern England have discovered what may be one of the largest medieval royal palaces ever found – buried under the ground inside a vast prehistoric fortress.
The probable 12th century palace was discovered by archaeologists, using geophysical ground-penetrating ‘x-ray’ technology to map a long-vanished medieval city which has lain under grass on the site for more than 700 years.
Located inside the massive earthwork defences of an Iron Age hill fort at Old Sarum in Wiltshire, the medieval city was largely founded by William the Conqueror who made it the venue for one of Norman England’s most important political events – a gathering of the country’s nobility at which all England’s mainly Norman barons and lords swore loyalty to William.
The Old Sarum geophysical survey is being carried out by archaeologists from the University of Southampton - and is giving scholars an unprecedented and unique opportunity to more fully understand Norman town planning.
So far they have been able to reveal the buried foundations of literally dozens of ordinary houses – and a vast mystery complex that is likely to have been a huge royal palace.
The 170 metre long, 65 metre wide complex, arranged around a large courtyard, had walls up to 3 metres thick – and included a 60 metre long probable great hall, what appears to have been a substantial tower and multi-story buildings with upper floors almost certainly supported by substantial columns.
“The location, design and size of the courtyarded complex strongly suggests that it was a palace, probably a royal one. The prime candidate for constructing it is perhaps Henry I sometime in the early 12th century,” said one of Britain’s leading experts on high status medieval buildings, Dr Edward Impey, Director-General of the Royal Armouries.
It is the first time that archaeologists in Britain have ever found what is probably a previously unknown medieval royal palace of that size. Up until now historians have thought that the only royal residence at the site was a much smaller complex on top of a man-made castle mound.
“This is a discovery of immense importance. It reveals the monumental scale of building work taking place in the earlier 12th century,” said historian, Professor David Bates of the University of East Anglia, a leading authority on Norman England and author of the key modern study of the Norman world – The Normans and Empire.
Because the city was largely abandoned up to 140 years after most of it had been built, and because it has remained a green field site ever since, it is giving academics a unique opportunity to study a Norman city.
In pictures: 12 amazing archaeological discoveries 12 show all In pictures: 12 amazing archaeological discoveries 1/12 Ancient forest, discovered in February 2014 Ancient forest revealed by storms. The recent huge storms and gale force winds that have battered the coast of West Wales have stripped away much of the sand from stretches of the beach between Borth and Ynyslas. The disappearing sands have revealed ancients forests, with the remains of oak trees dating back to the Bronze Age, 6,000 years ago. The ancient remains are said by some to be the origins of the legend of ‚Cantre‚r Gwealod‚ , a mythical kingdom now submerged under the waters pif Cardigan Bay 2/12 Medieval royal palaces, discovered in November 2014 Archaeologists in southern England have discovered what may be one of the largest medieval royal palaces ever found – buried under the ground inside a vast prehistoric fortress at Old Sarum. The probable 12th century palace was discovered by archaeologists, using geophysical ground-penetrating ‘x-ray’ technology to map a long-vanished medieval city which has lain under grass on the site for more than 700 years 3/12 The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered ca. 1950 The Dead Sea Scrolls are almost 1,000 biblical manuscripts discovered in the decade after the Second World War in what is now the West Bank. The texts, mostly written on parchment but also on papyrus and bronze, are the earliest surviving copies of biblical and extra-biblical documents known to be in existence, dating over a 700-year period around the birth of Jesus. The ancient Jewish sect the Essenes is supposed to have authored the scrolls, written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, although no conclusive proof has been found to this effect 4/12 Diamond, discovered in March 2014 This rare diamond that survived a trip from deep within the Earth's interior confirmed that there is an ocean’s worth of water beneath the planet’s crust 5/12 Whale skeletons, discovered in February 2014 Chilean and Smithsonian paleontologists study several fossil whale skeletons at Cerro Ballena, next to the Pan-American Highway in the Atacama Region of Chile 6/12 Complete mammoth skeleton, discovered in November 2012 The first complete mammoth skeleton to be found in France for more than a century was uncovered in a gravel pit on the banks of the Marne, 30 miles north-east of Paris. Picture shows experts at work making a silicon cast of the mammoth's tusk 7/12 Million-year-old human footprints, discovered in February 2014 Photograph of the footprint hollows in situ on the beach as Happisburgh, Norfolk 8/12 Terracotta warrior, discovered in June 2010 Chinese archaeologists unearthed around 120 more clay figures in June 2010 excavations at the terracotta army site that surrounds the tomb of the nation's first emperor in the northwestern Shaanxi Province © Jason Lee / Reuters 9/12 Neolithic 'lost avenue' - prehistoric stone circle, discovered in September 1999 The discovery of a Neolithic 'lost avenue' was described as one of the most important finds of the last century. Since the 1700s, archeologists and historians have argued over the existence of the huge sarsen stones, which were unearthed at the site of the world's biggest prehistoric stone circle at Avebury in Wiltshire 10/12 Byzantine mosaic, discovered in February 2007 Plans for a walkway at the centre of the furious dispute over Jerusalem's holiest site were delayed by the discovery of a Byzantine mosaic 11/12 Ancient gold, discovered in March 2014 Gold fitting for a dagger sheath (around 1900 BC.) found near Stonehenge 12/12 Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799 The Rosetta Stone is a basalt slab inscribed with a decree of pharaoh Ptolemy Epiphanes (205-180 BC) in three languages, Greek, Hieroglyphic and Demotic script. Discovered near Rosetta in Egypt 1/12 Ancient forest, discovered in February 2014 Ancient forest revealed by storms. The recent huge storms and gale force winds that have battered the coast of West Wales have stripped away much of the sand from stretches of the beach between Borth and Ynyslas. The disappearing sands have revealed ancients forests, with the remains of oak trees dating back to the Bronze Age, 6,000 years ago. The ancient remains are said by some to be the origins of the legend of ‚Cantre‚r Gwealod‚ , a mythical kingdom now submerged under the waters pif Cardigan Bay 2/12 Medieval royal palaces, discovered in November 2014 Archaeologists in southern England have discovered what may be one of the largest medieval royal palaces ever found – buried under the ground inside a vast prehistoric fortress at Old Sarum. The probable 12th century palace was discovered by archaeologists, using geophysical ground-penetrating ‘x-ray’ technology to map a long-vanished medieval city which has lain under grass on the site for more than 700 years 3/12 The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered ca. 1950 The Dead Sea Scrolls are almost 1,000 biblical manuscripts discovered in the decade after the Second World War in what is now the West Bank. The texts, mostly written on parchment but also on papyrus and bronze, are the earliest surviving copies of biblical and extra-biblical documents known to be in existence, dating over a 700-year period around the birth of Jesus. The ancient Jewish sect the Essenes is supposed to have authored the scrolls, written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, although no conclusive proof has been found to this effect 4/12 Diamond, discovered in March 2014 This rare diamond that survived a trip from deep within the Earth's interior confirmed that there is an ocean’s worth of water beneath the planet’s crust 5/12 Whale skeletons, discovered in February 2014 Chilean and Smithsonian paleontologists study several fossil whale skeletons at Cerro Ballena, next to the Pan-American Highway in the Atacama Region of Chile 6/12 Complete mammoth skeleton, discovered in November 2012 The first complete mammoth skeleton to be found in France for more than a century was uncovered in a gravel pit on the banks of the Marne, 30 miles north-east of Paris. Picture shows experts at work making a silicon cast of the mammoth's tusk 7/12 Million-year-old human footprints, discovered in February 2014 Photograph of the footprint hollows in situ on the beach as Happisburgh, Norfolk 8/12 Terracotta warrior, discovered in June 2010 Chinese archaeologists unearthed around 120 more clay figures in June 2010 excavations at the terracotta army site that surrounds the tomb of the nation's first emperor in the northwestern Shaanxi Province © Jason Lee / Reuters 9/12 Neolithic 'lost avenue' - prehistoric stone circle, discovered in September 1999 The discovery of a Neolithic 'lost avenue' was described as one of the most important finds of the last century. Since the 1700s, archeologists and historians have argued over the existence of the huge sarsen stones, which were unearthed at the site of the world's biggest prehistoric stone circle at Avebury in Wiltshire 10/12 Byzantine mosaic, discovered in February 2007 Plans for a walkway at the centre of the furious dispute over Jerusalem's holiest site were delayed by the discovery of a Byzantine mosaic 11/12 Ancient gold, discovered in March 2014 Gold fitting for a dagger sheath (around 1900 BC.) found near Stonehenge 12/12 Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799 The Rosetta Stone is a basalt slab inscribed with a decree of pharaoh Ptolemy Epiphanes (205-180 BC) in three languages, Greek, Hieroglyphic and Demotic script. Discovered near Rosetta in Egypt
“Archaeologists and historians have known for centuries that there was a medieval city at Old Sarum, but until now there has been no proper plan of the site. Our survey shows where individual buildings are located – and from this we can piece together a detailed picture of the urban plan within the city walls,” said the archaeologist leading the geophysical survey, Kristian Strutt of the University of Southampton.
The construction of the Norman city of Old Sarum - including a spectacular cathedral – was symbolic of a large-scale monumental building trend which was taking place around the country in the late 11th century. Bury St Edmunds, Norwich and Lincoln were all being massively expanded – and cathedrals were being built in Westminster, Winchester, Gloucester and York. In London the White Tower of the Tower of London was being constructed.
However, by the early 13th century, the political and diocesan centre at Old Sarum was proving too cramped and exposed to the elements – and was therefore moved, lock, stock and barrel, to a totally new location, Salisbury, two and a half miles to the south. Even the masonry of the great Norman cathedral and other structures were transported and re-used to construct a new cathedral and other buildings in the newly established city of Salisbury.
All that remained of Old Sarum, politically, was its right to send two MPs to Parliament – until, that is, the rotten boroughs were abolished with the passing of the Reform Act of 1832. Today the site, including the medieval castle and the visible foundations of the Norman cathedral, is in the care of English Heritage.
Only now is geophysical survey work beginning to re-discover the long-vanished city – and what appears to have been its truly massive royal palace. ||||| Image copyright Environment Agency/University of Southampton Image caption The inner and outer baileys of the Old Sarum Iron Age fort were surveyed
A detailed plan of a medieval city has been produced by experts without any digging at the site.
The latest scanning techniques were used to uncover a network of buildings at the 11th Century Old Sarum near Salisbury, Wiltshire.
The results include a series of large structures, possibly defences, with open areas of ground behind possibly for mustering resources or people.
Old Sarum was the original site of Salisbury, which is two miles away.
Image copyright English Heritage Image caption Old Sarum lies two miles north of the modern-day city of Salisbury, Wiltshire
Image copyright University of Southampton Image caption Students from the University of Southampton spent the summer on site
WHAT IS OLD SARUM?
It was the location of the original Salisbury
It combines a royal castle and cathedral within an Iron Age fortification
Its ecclesiastical power waned during the 1220s when a new cathedral was built in New Sarum (present day Salisbury)
Henry VIII ended the castle's use in 1514
The Romans, Normans and Saxons have all left their mark there
For 150 years it was a major centre of government but its influence declined during the 13th Century as New Sarum flourished
Source: English Heritage
It was originally an Iron Age fort, established around 400 BC, and occupied by the Romans after the conquest of Britain in AD 43.
This latest survey of the site was carried out by the University of Southampton and concentrated on the inner and outer baileys of what would have been the fort.
It sets those monuments within the context of a bustling, vibrant town established shortly after the Norman conquest Neil Holbrook, Cotswold Archaeology
Other structures plotted on the plan include residential areas and industrial features such as kilns or furnaces.
The university's director of archaeological prospection services, Kristian Strutt, said: "Archaeologists and historians have known for centuries that there was a medieval city at Old Sarum, but until now there has been no proper plan of the site.
"Our survey shows where individual buildings are located and from this we can piece together a detailed picture of the urban plan within the city walls."
He said the reinforcing of the entire outer bailey during the Middle Ages represented a "substantial urban centre" and more non-intrusive work was needed to build on this knowledge.
The techniques used to survey the land included magnetometry, earth resistance, ground penetrating radar and electric resistivity tomography, which uses electrodes to probe underground.
These new approaches are "exciting and innovative", according to Neil Holbrook from Cotswold Archaeology, and "could be applied pretty much anywhere".
"The survey adds a whole new dimension to our understanding of a site which we thought we knew. In fact, there is so much more to be found out," he added.
"The plan shows for the first time just how much other activity there was around the castle and cathedral which have long been known. It sets those monuments within the context of a bustling, vibrant town established shortly after the Norman conquest." ||||| University of Southampton
Archaeologists reveal layout of medieval city at Old Sarum Ref: 14/219 03 December 2014
Picture courtesy of English Heritage
Archaeologists from the University of Southampton have revealed for the first time the plan of a network of buildings in a once thriving medieval city at the historic site of Old Sarum, near Salisbury.
A research team of students and academics carried out a geophysical survey of the ancient monument, scanning ground at the site with state-of-the-art equipment to map the remains of buried structures. They concentrated their survey around the inner and outer baileys of what was once a fortification, with its origins in the Iron Age and the Roman conquest.1
Their investigations reveal the layout of a settlement including structures from the late 11th century, contemporary with the construction of a cathedral and castle. The city was inhabited for over 300 years, but declined in the 13th century with the rise of New Sarum (Salisbury).
The project findings mainly concentrate on the medieval period and highlight:
• A series of massive structures along the southern edge of the outer bailey defensive wall, perhaps suggesting large buildings of a defensive nature.
• An open area of ground behind these large structures, perhaps for mustering resources or people, or as part of a circular route through the city.
• Residential areas in the south east and south west quadrants of the outer bailey alongside the inner bailey ditch.
• Evidence of deposits indicating industrial features, such as kilns or furnaces.
• Features suggesting quarrying at the site after the 1300s and following the city’s decline – indicating a later period of habitation at the site.
Archaeologist Kristian Strutt, Experimental Officer and Director of Archaeological Prospection Services at the University of Southampton, says: “Archaeologists and historians have known for centuries that there was a medieval city at Old Sarum, but until now there has been no proper plan of the site.
“Our survey shows where individual buildings are located and from this we can piece together a detailed picture of the urban plan within the city walls.”
The research was conducted as part of the Old Sarum and Stratford-Sub-Castle Archaeological Survey Project, directed by Kristian Strutt and fellow Southampton archaeologists Timothy Sly and Dominic Barker. Old Sarum is under the custodianship of English Heritage, who kindly granted permission for the investigation to take place.
Heather Sebire, Property Curator at English Heritage, comments: “Having the team of archaeologists on site over the summer gave our visitors a chance to find out more about how important historic landscapes are surveyed. The use of modern, non-invasive surveying is a great start to further research at Old Sarum.
“From this work we can surmise much about the site’s past and, whilst we can’t conclusively date the findings, it adds a new layer to Old Sarum’s story. We welcome the chance to find out more about our sites, and look forward to exploring ideas for further research in the future.”
The team used a variety of techniques to examine the outer and inner bailey of the site. These included the use of topographic survey methods and geophysical survey techniques – comprising of magnetometry, earth resistance, ground penetrating radar (GPR) and electric resistivity tomography (ERT) survey.
Kristian Strutt concludes: “Our research so far has shown how the entire outer bailey of the monument was heavily built up in the Middle Ages, representing a substantial urban centre. Results have given us compelling evidence as to the nature of some of the structures. It is clear, however, that there is more non-intrusive work that could be carried out to further expand our understanding of the site.”
The team hopes to return to complete the survey of the inner and outer baileys and survey the Romano-British settlement to the south of Old Sarum in Easter 2015. The project fieldwork in 2014 was used as a training season for undergraduate and postgraduate archaeology students at the University, continuing a long tradition of research-led teaching at some of the most impressive archaeological sites in the south of England. Previous fieldwork has been conducted by students at Portchester Castle, Netley Abbey and Bishop’s Waltham Palace in Hampshire, and at Bodiam Castle in East Sussex.
Ends
Archaeology at Southampton
Notes for editors | – A prehistoric fortress is home to a much later structure: what may be one of the biggest medieval palaces ever discovered, one whose remnants remain buried beneath the ground, the Independent reports. The site in southern England is surrounded by huge earthworks that date to the Iron Age. Researchers used ground-penetrating radar and other technology to investigate what's under the grass within the inner and outer baileys of the former fort, the BBC reports. Without doing any digging, they found a large complex that leading medieval-building expert Dr. Edward Impey believes is an early 12th-century castle. It measures about 560 feet by 210 feet and features 10-foot-thick walls and what appears to be a 200-foot-long great hall, the Independent notes. "The prime candidate for constructing it is perhaps Henry I," says Impey. "Archaeologists and historians have known for centuries that there was a medieval city at Old Sarum," notes survey leader Kristian Strutt, "but until now there has been no proper plan of the site." The archaeologists' survey uncovered residential areas, evidence of kilns or furnaces, and an open area—"perhaps for mustering resources or people"—near some large structures, per a press release. "From this we can piece together a detailed picture of the urban plan," says Strutt. The Iron Age fort at the site was likely built around 400 BC and taken over by Romans in 43 AD, the BBC notes. But by the onset of the 13th century, the city built in the same place became too tight and weather-beaten for habitation and was abandoned in favor of today's Salisbury, which is located roughly two miles away. (Another 'lost city' was recently investigated using similar techniques in Cambodia.) |
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 ||||| One tweet too many
X marks the spot where Denis Finley, editor of the paper in Bernie Sanders' hometown, screwed up. If Oprah Winfrey was the media's Big Winner for her Golden Globes peroration on sexual harassment, Finley was a (fortunately less-publicized) Big Loser due to ham-handed tweets.
Even the most sober of mainstream media get bollixed up over page views and reader engagement as they seek to be more refined P.T. Barnums of a digital age. Being provocative for provocation's sake is increasingly rationalized as a way to promote your handiwork, no matter how tenuous and fleeting the actual loyalty manifested (perhaps with help from a Drudge Report link) might be.
But, as Finley, executive editor of the Gannett-owned Burlington Free Press, unwittingly reminds us, there's a difference between being responsibly provocative and perhaps tone deaf to your audience — especially in the digital age.
Vermont plans to join Oregon and Washington, D.C., in offering drivers a third option in listing gender on licenses. So M, F or X. In liberal Burlington, where Sanders was mayor, it's not unpopular. And it just prompted one citizen's tweet, "This is awesome! // #VT Is One Step Closer To Offering A Third Gender On Driver's Licenses." But Finley, who came to the Free Press from Virginia in 2016 after a long stint as Norfolk Virginian-Pilot editor (and, briefly, as publicist for a Norfolk museum), felt compelled to respond: "Awesome! That makes us one step closer to the apocalypse."
If Winfrey played brilliantly to her audience, Finley fumbled in recognizing his. The Vermont online universe is now filled with mostly outrage, and claims of canceling subscriptions. In fact, it was only the third in a succession of curious tweets by Finley. They underscored the tempting perils of journalists, even newsroom bosses, who feel compelled to opine on, well, just about anything.Thus, Finley saw an Associated Press tweet on how fans of Frank Lloyd Wright are seeking to prevent the demolition of a Montana office building designed in 1958. This inspired a response: "I don't care who designed them, destroy all office buildings."
Fine. Chalk that up to lame humor. Then, after word from none other than The New York Times that "Former President Barack Obama is to be the first guest on David Letterman's new monthly Netflix talk show," he sought to exhibit his inner Jimmy Kimmel with this: "Another reason not to subscribe to Netflix." That was lame, with a smidgen of the obtuse.
As outrage quickly manifested itself over the gender matter, Finley seemed to dig a deeper hole. A Tim Sinnott tweeted that the state policy was awesome "because recognition is awesome" and Finley responded, "All recognition? Any recognition, Tim? What if someone said it's awesome they are going to recognize pedophiliacs on licenses? I'm not being snarky, I'm just asking. Not all recognition is awesome."
Finley was either high-mindedly engaged in a Socratic inquiry, as if teaching a constitutional law seminar, or manifesting Jonesean (as in Alex Jones, of InfoWars) subtlety cum derision. If I'm a top Gannett official, I might now be wondering if a second bomb cyclone affecting New England is actually on my payroll.
"So you think trans people are the equivalent of pedophiles?" Anderson asked.
When tracked down by Vermont's Seven Days about the flap (He declined comment when I contacted him, saying, "Maybe in a few days"), Finley said, "I really just wanted to ask the question: 'Why is that awesome? And why is that necessary?' That’s all, and I think any journalist would ask that question." He said use of the word apocalypse was inspired by a Sports Illustrated feature, "Signs of the Apocalypse."
When I passed through Burlington last summer, there were still Sanders T-shirts in store windows. How long before some retail outlets offer a tie-dyed image of Finley with a big, fat "X"?
"Denis Finley doesn't seem to care that, when he enters the arena as executive editor, he carries the reputation of his news organization with him. 'Reader engagement' is not making provocative statements and then picking fights with people who disagree," says Tom Kearney, deputy managing editor of the Stowe Reporter, Waterbury Record and News & Citizen of Morrisville, and executive editor of the Shelburne News and The Citizen, which serves Charlotte and Hinesburg.
Then there's Jon Margolis, who was an A-list national political writer during his heyday with The Chicago Tribune. That was a pre-internet world where reporters and editors weren't tweeting their views on everything from whom they'd seen at lunch, a referee's call in the NFL game they were watching or, of course, every breathing moment of Donald Trump.
"Why this urge to tweet so often?" asks Margolis, who is retired in South Burlington, a few blocks from the Burlington city line. "I do not think the world breathlessly awaits my latest witty aphorism or my personal take on what happened today. If I have something to offer that’s worthwhile, I’ll write a piece about it. That means reporting — online, on the phone, at somebody’s office. And then writing, as well as possible, which means as succinctly as possible but always more than 280 clicks of the keyboard."
"Tweeting is like artificial turf. The technology makes it possible, not advisable. That would apply even where the tweet is not as aggressively ignorant as Finley’s. But just think: Were he writing an article instead of a blurt (essentially what a tweet is) he might have read it over and then altered (or deep-sixed) it. Or had somebody else edit it, which even the boss should always do. Amazing how the conventional processes of newspapers can save us from ourselves."
Jake Tapper vs. Stephen Miller
Jousting between cable TV hosts and guests is now a performance fixture. Bill O'Reilly rode it to riches before his sexual harassment self-immolation. In its most pedestrian post-O'Reilly form, it brings some well intentioned but weak liberal saps served up as red meat for Fox's Tucker Carlson.
In a fairer tussle, it brought us CNN's Jake Tapper and White House aide Stephen Miller. And Tapper giving him the boot.
Tapper is evolving into his network's prime skeptic of all things Trump and, unlike Carlson, not reflexively given to pillorying lightweight guests. And Miller is the unbridled partisan who has reveled in public combat ever since his high school days at a largely liberal Los Angeles high school
As The New York Times' Matt Flegenheimer has put it in a profile of Miller, his life "is a triumph of unbending convictions and at least occasional contrivance. It is a story of beliefs that congealed early in a home that he helped nudge to the right of its blue-state ZIP code, and of an ideology that became an identity for a spindly agitator at a large and racially divided public high school."
"These formative years supplied the template for the life Mr. Miller has carved out for himself in Washington, where he remains the hard-line jouster many of Mr. Trump’s most zealous supporters trust most in the White House — and many former peers fear."
This all began with the equally pro forma, and dungeon's host salutation, "Stephen, thanks so much for joining us and happy new year, good to see you."
On Sunday, Miller called Michael Wolff the "garbage author of a garbage book," a rather mediocre pre-meditated line for someone of his acerbic and calculating essence. He called Trump a "political genius." He called it a "work of pure fiction." And "a pile of trash."
It was mostly solid, fair-minded inquisition by Tapper for about six minutes, until it first got a tad personal and each started cutting off the other. Miller referred to CNN's Trump coverage as hysterical, and Tapper suggested it was Miller who was being hysterical. As if Miler were a child, Tapper asked him to "settle down, settle down."
At the nine-minute mark, what had seemed a small lull turned sour as Tapper brought up a letter that Miller wrote on the subject of firing then-FBI Director James Comey. Miller stumbled a tad before Tapper broached the president's bizarre Saturday tweet on his own purported genius.
Tapper correctly persisted in broaching the public discourse on Trump's rationality, as Miller sought to divert the topic to his theme of CNN being out of touch with a working America that his boss understands and CNN doesn't.
Then, Tapper had enough. He said that Miller was being "obsequious," playing to an audience of one (Trump) and not answering his question. He simply cut him off. It was rather abrupt and could have been executed in a less peremptory manner. It came off as a host losing control, as much as Trump critics loved the scene and think Miller deserved it. But if you don't want to fight the lions, stay away from their pen.
Regardless, both Miller and Tapper surely came away thinking they'd won (maybe all the more so as Miller was escorted out by security). Predictably, Trump soon tweeted some venom Tapper's way: "Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!"
New York Times unveils ad on Golden Globes
Truly salute The New York Times for actually trying to market excellence in a way that's about 20 years late for most of the newspaper industry. It unveiled the next part of its "The Truth is Hard" brand campaign during NBC's Golden Globes broadcast.
Similar to its first ad on last year's Oscars, the ad features black type against a white background. "He said, she said" are the first words you see. Then they are repeated multiple times until it's just, "She said, she said, she said, she said," with the ad ending "The truth has power. The truth will not be threatened. The truth has a voice."
The "truth has a voice" is a simple and potent notion. But, as a TV spot, it falls a bit flat. As one top advertising executive told me, it's unlikely that most viewers connected the paper's incredible sex harassment reporting, including on Harvey Weinstein, and the ad. For those who who did — the event was filled with unavoidable talk of sex harassment in Hollywood, including Seth Meyers' opening monologue — the ad was preaching to the choir.
Potency of advertising involves melding the right media and the right audience. In a narrow sense, the Golden Globes might seem a good target — but only in a narrow sense. The Times has a great narrative to spin as to why it should be trusted, including its admirable attention to fact-checking and precision (even with some hotly disputed cuts in the copy editing force). Perhaps a larger campaign can include such factors.
It's because the challenge for quality media involves more than the mere declaration of virtue. As with changing the attitudes of Americans toward sex harassment, changing attitudes toward even the best of media — especially when it comes to people paying for content — will involve a military-like campaign, with no one-size-fits-all-messages and the unavoidable (and very expensive) need to make the case with unprecedented regularity and persistence.
TV news viewing continues to head south, Trump aside
As Poynter reports, "Until now, local TV news viewership has been declining slowly. But a new Pew research study shows that from 2016 to 2017, the decline picked up speed."
Younger Americans' turn from TV news is important. But, somewhere in the mix, is surely ideology, though the study does not point explicitly to what's been previously shown to be the sharp decline in Republicans' confidence in "mass media."
A revealing photo history
The Associated Press put together a gallery of photos of what actresses have tended to wear at the Golden Globe Awards over the years, as opposed to the black dresses they pointedly wore last night.
The morning Babel
CNN opened with Trump defending his mental fitness and, no surprise, a very brief take at colleague Tapper's spat with Miller. It gave rather more time to social media hurrahs about Winfrey's Golden Globes speech and the notion of her running for president.
"When you think of the Democratic lineup for 2020 ... you pretty quickly run out of star power," said Brian Stelter, media reporter cum political analyst. "If you want to fight fire with fire, Trump is a reality TV star and Oprah Winfrey has been on TV in some ways longer than he has. There are a lot of reasons why this might make sense to Democratic insiders. That speech if anything, gave people more reason to dream it up." For sure, there was a smattering of speculation. But, one might hope, it quickly encounters recognition of what's playing out before us: the obvious limits of electing somebody with no experience in the arena.
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" backed Tapper's performance ("I would have cut it short after the second answer," said Mika Brzezinski) and was the latest to get time with author Michael Wolff. And, before then, there was Axios' Jonathan Swan on what appears to be Trump's shrinking work schedule and also the co-hosts' riff on Trump's insecurity. The latter included the co-hosts venturing into the topic of TV stars, no names mentioned, being self-absorbed ("We've met a lot of people in television who are narcissistic and stupid," Brzezinski said). Hmmm.
But it was a different tone on Trump's favorite morning show, "Trump & Friends," where co-host Brian Kilmeade surfaced at Pancake Pantry in Nashville, Tenn., for breakfast and generally supportive Trump chat. Oh, he was also giving away free to diners copies of new books both by himself and co-host Ainsley Earhardt. Call it a celebration of American commerce.
Sending individuals back to harm
Sarah Stillman, who heads the Global Migration Project at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, has been compiling a database of individuals essentially deported to harm, even death in Central America. With the help of a dozen students, and lots of activists involved in immigrant rights, humanitarian aid and other organizations, she's now uncovered patterns of awful consequences to what can at times seem almost frivolous infractions and, too, insufficient government due diligence and articulation to individuals of their rights. The melancholy bottom line is underscored in this New Yorker piece.
Terrific women in a mostly male soccer universe
Watching loads of English soccer over the past week, I was reminded of the terrific in-studio hosting work of Brit Rebecca Lowe for NBC's fine coverage of Premier League matches, as well as Brit Kate Abdo (who is also fluent in Spanish, German and French) for Fox Sports' solid (not quite as strong and measured as NBC's) coverage of the related FA Cup tournament. The latter is one in which the top rank teams are thrown into a mix with lower division ones in frequent David vs. Goliath contests (often at the very quaint fields of the Davids). Sunday, mighty Arsenal was such a victim.
And yet, they are surrounded by a sea of men, in studio and out, with all the match announcers men and, with a single seeming exception, glimpsed in an Arsenal-Nottingham Forest match yesterday, all the refs and linesman are male (there was a female linesman).
New England hoopla
New England Patriots fans have reason to be suspicious of ESPN, as Boston.com columnist Chad Finn, underscores. An us-versus-the-world mindset is partly fueled by some inaccurate reporting on the Patriots by ESPN. But when it comes to its chronicle of rising tensions among the owner, coach and star quarterback, Finn defends reporter Seth Wickersham
The reflexive doubts are too bad, he writes, since "if the story is read with clear eyes and all rooting interests aside, it’s far more illuminating than it is salacious."
Are we so sure that Mueller is investigating Trump for obstruction?
Writing in the excellent Lawfare blog, Harvard Law's Jack Goldsmith raises the possibility that the seeming lack of recusal by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in the Mueller Russia investigation might suggest that there's not the obstruction investigation that folks assume (speculation fueled further by a Michael Schmidt opus in The New York Times last week).
"One possibility is that Rosenstein has no conflict because Mueller is not actually investigating the president for obstruction. It has been widely reported for months in multiple reputable outlets that Mueller is conducting such an investigation. Schmidt’s story implies that he is, and reports that Mueller has evidence in his possession that appears relevant only to an obstruction investigation."
The reader over your shoulder
There's unavoidable counsel to journalists in a blog in the Paris Review, the literary bastion founded by the late George Plimpton, as Patricia O'Conner an author and former staff writer at The New York Times Book Review, discusses a 1940s work by poet-novelist Robert Graves, "The Reader Over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of English Prose.”
The book turned on the notion that writers should imagine a bunch of readers standing over their shoulder, in the process laying out 41 core principles and, then, annealing 50 excerpts of writing from famous authors to school headmasters. Graves was pretty fearless in underscoring lack of clarity.
As O'Conner puts it, "Those forty-one principles work both ways; they make for better reading as well as better writing. They can show a reader what’s wrong with something that rings false or doesn’t make sense or leaves questions unanswered. In a climate where rumors, impressions, and outright lies are sometimes treated as fact, informed readers are more important than ever. No democracy can afford to be without readers who can ask the right questions, who can critically judge what they read, who can mentally peer over an author’s shoulder."
And tonight's big college football championship game
It's Alabama versus Georgia and, reports The Wall Street Journal this morning, "ESPN, armed with new data about its viewers, is more aggressively selling its female audience, starting with the College Football Playoff, which culminates in Monday’s championship game. The timing couldn’t be better. Advertisers are looking for new ways to reach women, and more efficiently reach broader audiences, as consumer viewing habits change."
"Financial services firm Northwestern Mutual is among the advertisers using college football to reach women and families. The company wasn’t new to the playoff, and knew that the sporting event reached a 'healthy mix of men and women and families,' but a new pitch and compelling data from ESPN helped the company 'come up with different ad spots' targeting women and families, said Aditi Gokhale, Northwestern Mutual’s chief marketing officer."
Corrections? Tips? Please email me: jwarren@poynter.org. Would you like to get this roundup emailed to you every morning? Sign up here. ||||| 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 | – Denis Finley has taken to Twitter to call Politico a "whore," sniff about David Letterman's upcoming Netflix show featuring Barack Obama, and call for the destruction of all office buildings, but it was his tweets about a potential change to Vermont's driver's licenses that cost him his job as editor of the Burlington Free Press. The paper reports Finley was fired by honchos at parent company Gannett on Monday evening after he was found to have repeatedly flouted its social media rules. "We encourage our journalists to engage in a meaningful dialogue on social media, but ... the conversation [should] adhere to our overarching values of fairness, balance, and objectivity," says an exec from the USA Today Network, Gannett's main brand. Poynter explains Finley's demise came after he reacted to Vermont's proposal to add the gender option "X" to "F" and "M" on driver's licenses. The Washington Post documents the Twitter exchange between commenters who were lauding Vermont's decision and Finley. After one user noted the news was "awesome," Finley replied: "Awesome! That makes us one step closer to the apocalypse." When someone else tweeted the recognition of different genders was awesome, Finley wrote: "All recognition? … What if someone said it's awesome they are going to recognize pedophiliacs on licenses? I'm not being snarky, I'm just asking." Poynter notes some readers threatened to cancel their Free Press subscriptions over the tweets. "'Reader engagement' is not making provocative statements and then picking fights with people who disagree," an editor for a string of other local Vermont papers says. Emilie Stigliani, the Free Press' planning editor, will temporarily step in as Finley's replacement. |
That Gizmodo investigation of leaked data suggesting that most of the women on Ashley Madison's affair-seeking service were fake? Completely bogus... if you ask Ashley Madison. It claims that there are plenty of real live women on the site -- the ratio of paying men to active women (who get to use it for free) is reportedly 1.2 to 1, and women sent 2.8 million messages just in the past week. Gizmodo made "incorrect assumptions" about what some of the data fields meant, Ashley Madison says. Whether or not that's true, you'll want to keep the data in context. The service isn't outlining the ratio of real to fake women, so it's not clear whether real women are bountiful or needles in the proverbial haystack. ||||| Executives at Ashley Madison may have lost their founder and CEO after suffering a breach that leaked highly personal details for more than 30 million users, but they want to make one thing clear: business fundamentals are strong, and the service for people seeking discreet encounters won't go gentle into that good night.
"Recent media reports predicting the imminent demise of Ashley Madison are greatly exaggerated," the remaining executives wrote in a statement issued early Monday morning. "The company continues its day-to-day operations even as it deals with the theft of its private data by criminal hackers. Despite having our business and customers attacked, we are growing." The statement went on to say that the company acquired "hundreds of thousands of new users"—including 87,596 women—although Ars has no way of confirming any of the numbers provided.
Monday's statement also challenged media reports claiming that an infinitesimal percentage of Ashley Madison users were real women and that the rest were either men or bogus female accounts manufactured by Ashley Madison employees in an attempt to lure men. Women sent in excess of 2.8 million messages on the Ashley Madison platform last week alone, company executives said, even as the company provided no details on how many messages were sent from male accounts and made no assurances that the female messages weren't generated by automated scripts.
Further Reading Ashley Madison hack is not only real, it’s worse than we thought Details like those don't seem to matter. Ashley Madison executives are in survival mode. According to the Reuters news service, they were already searching for a buyer in the months leading up to the attack. It's hard to imagine a site that guaranteed 30 million members 100-percent discretion surviving such a breathtaking public breach. But that's just how the executives see it. And since we're on the outside looking in, there's no way to dispute or confirm the claims.
Here's the statement in its entirety: ||||| Ashley Madison founder Noel Biderman poses with a poster during an interview at a hotel in Hong Kong August 28, 2013.
A photo illustration shows the Ashley Madison website displayed on a smartphone in Toronto in this August 20, 2015 file photo.
TORONTO Hundreds of thousands of people signed up for infidelity website Ashley Madison in the last week, parent company Avid Life Media said on Monday, even after hackers leaked data about millions of its clients.
The company also struck back at reports that the site had few genuine female users, saying internal data released by hackers had been incorrectly analyzed.
"Recent media reports predicting the imminent demise of Ashley Madison are greatly exaggerated," the company said in a statement. "Despite having our business and customers attacked, we are growing."
On Aug. 18, hackers who claimed to be unhappy with Avid Life's business practices released Ashley Madison customer data. A second data dump contained thousands of emails and other company documents. Reuters has not independently verified the authenticity of the data, emails or documents.
Last week, tech blog Gizmodo published a widely cited analysis of the customer data, concluding that very few female members had ever checked the site for messages.
Avid Life said on Monday that an unnamed reporter had wrongly concluded that the number of active female members on Ashley Madison could be calculated based on assumptions about the meaning of fields contained in the leaked data.
"Last week alone, women sent more than 2.8 million messages within our platform," Avid Life said, adding that 87,596 women had also signed up for Ashley Madison last week.
Gizmodo published another post on Monday, saying it had arrived at a low number of active female users "based in part on a misunderstanding of the evidence."
On Friday, Avid Life said Chief Executive Officer Noel Biderman had left the company by mutual agreement.
For at least three years before the publication of details about its members, Avid Life had been struggling to sell itself or raise funds, according to internal documents and emails that hackers also released.
(Reporting by Allison Martell; editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Bill Rigby) | – Last week, Gizmodo claimed that an investigation showed most of the female user profiles on Ashley Madison were either fake or inactive—the same complaint hackers had about the site before leaking a massive amount of data—and now the cheating website is hitting back. "Recent media reports predicting the imminent demise of Ashley Madison are greatly exaggerated," Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison's parent company, says in a statement picked up by Reuters. In fact, the company claims that not only have hundreds of thousands of people signed up for Ashley Madison accounts in the past week, but 87,596 of those people are women. Today's statement notes that an unnamed reporter—presumably referring to the Gizmodo writer—incorrectly calculated the number of active female users when looking at the leaked data, and that in truth, "last week alone, women sent more than 2.8 million messages within our platform." Ars Technica notes that there's no way to confirm the number of new sign-ups, and as for those 2.8 million messages, "the company ... made no assurances that the female messages weren't generated by automated scripts." And Engadget notes that while Avid Life Media's statement also claims the ratio of men to active ladies on the site is 1.2 to 1, the company "isn't outlining the ratio of real to fake women, so it's not clear whether real women are bountiful or needles in the proverbial haystack." On another note, the leaked Ashley Madison data revealed that Avid Life Media had been "struggling to sell itself or raise funds" in the three years before the hack, Reuters reports. |
“America's strength doesn't come from lashing out,” Hillary Clinton said Thursday, delivering a harsh rebuke to Donald Trump as she accepted the Democratic nomination for U.S. president.
Clinton’s speech capped the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where she made history as the first female presidential nominee of a major party. While Clinton did not skip over the historic aspect of her nomination, she spent most of her hour-long speech emphasizing two, interlocking themes: the importance of community and togetherness, and the fundamental unfitness of the Republican nominee for office. It was not so dark and ominous a speech as Trump’s own acceptance speech a week ago in Cleveland, but it was a negative speech: a warning against the danger posed to America by a Trump presidency.
The Atlantic's coverage of the Republican and Democratic nominations for the U.S. presidential election
Read more
“None of us can raise a family, build a business, heal a community, or lift a country totally alone,” she said, reprising a theme she introduced in It Takes a Village 20 years ago and echoing her campaign slogan, “Stronger Together.” She added later: “Every generation of Americans has come together to make our country freer, fairer, and stronger. None of us can do it alone.”
The slogan, the latest of many, has never really seemed to take, but here, contrasted with Trump’s charismatic, semi-authoritarian approach, it began to come into its own. What Clinton was offering is, after a fashion, a small-c conservative viewpoint, emphasizing community, family, and cooperation. Clinton contrasted that vision with Trump’s, scorning a climactic phrase from his own acceptance speech: “I alone can fix it.”
“Isn't he forgetting troops on the front lines?” she asked. “Police officers and fire fighters who run toward danger? Doctors and nurses who care for us? Teachers who change lives? Entrepreneurs who see possibilities in every problem? Mothers who lost children to violence and are building a movement to keep other kids safe? He's forgetting every last one of us. Americans don't say. ‘I alone can fix it.’ We say, ‘We'll fix it together.’”
She assailed Trump for his business career, citing his corporate bankruptcies and the stories of contractors and subcontractors who weren’t paid for work they did at his resorts and casinos. She criticized him for manufacturing some of his many branded products in overseas factories, with a slightly stilted punch line: “Donald Trump says he wants to make America great again. Well, he could start by actually making things in America again.” She portrayed him as incapable of handling the slightest provocation, much less the pressures of the Oval Office.
“In the end, it comes down to what Donald Trump doesn't get: that America is great because America is good,” she said. “So enough with the bigotry and bombast. Donald Trump's not offering real change. He's offering empty promises. What are we offering? A bold agenda to improve the lives of people across our country—to keep you safe, to get you good jobs, and to give your kids the opportunities they deserve.”
Trump, as she archly pointed out, offered little in the way of specific policy suggestions during his speech. She, in turn, often seems to enjoy the policy section of her speeches the most, and on Thursday she went through a litany of her proposals, including debt-free college education, immigration reform, campaign-finance reform, and a more robust social-safety net. As Clinton acknowledged early on, her platform has been heavily shaped by the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont progressive who gave her a tougher run than expected during the Democratic primary.
“Bernie, your campaign inspired millions of Americans.”
“Bernie, your campaign inspired millions of Americans, particularly the young people who threw their hearts and souls into our primary,” she said. “You've put economic and social justice issues front and center, where they belong.” She also reached out to Sanders’s supporters, a small but extremely vocal group of whom remain opposed to her. “Your cause is our cause,” she said. (Not all of them bought it: On occasion, her speech was interrupted by chants of “Hillary,” as her supporters tried to drown out hecklers.)
Clinton has never been a great speaker. Despite her long record in the public eye, only a couple of memorable speeches come to mind: Her famous “women’s rights are human rights” speech, and her “18 million cracks” speech when she conceded the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama in 2008. “The truth is, through all these years of public service, the ‘service’ part has always come easier to me than the ‘public’ part,” she acknowledged Thursday. “I get it that some people just don't know what to make of me.” Clinton’s Thursday address doesn’t seem likely to join the list of noteworthy blockbusters. It was a serviceable, workmanlike speech, short on soaring rhetoric.
She didn’t really need to deliver such a moment. The obvious emotional peak of the night came some time earlier, as Khizr and Ghazala Khan stood on the rostrum. The Pakistani immigrants were the parents of Humayun Khan, a young Muslim American soldier killed while serving in Iraq in 2004. Speaking calmly and steadily but with great emotion, Khizr Khan addressed Trump, who has called for a moratorium on Muslims entering the United States, and more recently on immigration from areas with terrorism.
“Let me ask you: Have you even read the U.S. Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of law,’” he said, brandishing a pocket edition. “Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending America—you will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities.”
“You have sacrificed nothing and no one,” Khan said.
Khan’s pained, passionate words won praise from across the political world, especially among conservatives who reject Trump. The speech was part of an evening of intense patriotism, even nationalism. A few wags suggested that the Democratic National Convention’s fourth night more closely resembled a Republican confab. Doug Elmets, a former aide in Ronald Reagan’s White House, delivered his own endorsement of Clinton. So did Jennifer Pierotti Lim, the founder of Republican Woman for Hillary.
Captain Florent Groberg, a Medal of Honor winner who was badly injured in Afghanistan, told the hall, “I'm here tonight not as a Democrat or a Republican. I'm here as a proud immigrant to this country, a proud veteran of the United States Army, and the proud recipient of our country's highest military honor.”
The Clinton campaign is ready to build a big, broad coalition.
Retired General John Allen, flanked by a rainbow platoon of veterans, delivered a fiery, martial speech. “From the battlefield to the capitals of our allies, friends, and partners, the free peoples of the world look to America as the last best hope for peace and for liberty for all humanity, for we are the greatest country on this planet,” Allen said. He added, in rebuke of Trump, “With her as our commander-in-chief, our international relations will not be reduced to a business transaction. Our armed forces will not become an instrument of torture, and they will not be ordered to engage in murder or carry out other illegal activities.”
The night wasn’t purely nationalistic and center-right. Clinton was introduced with an underwhelming speech by her daughter, Chelsea, as her husband, former President Bill Clinton, beamed from the audience. Spotlighting the diversity of views in the party, another speaker was Sherrod Brown, the Ohio senator and progressive darling who was considered as a potential vice-presidential candidate. The Reverend William Barber II, who as president of the North Carolina NAACP spearheaded the Moral Mondays movement, delivered a thunderous, revival-style address.
“I say to you tonight, that some issues are not left versus right or liberal versus conservative, they are right versus wrong,” Barber said. “Is there a heart in this house? Is there a heart in America? Is there somebody that has a heart for the poor? A heart for the vulnerable? Then stand up. Organize together. Fight for the heart of this nation.
But the evening’s program was unmistakably designed to help Clinton expand her support past the Democratic Party, reaching out to moderates, Independents, and Republicans who reject Trump. The theme built on a foundation laid by President Obama in his speech Wednesday, which won somewhat grudging applause from conservatives. That strategy is not without risks. Some liberals were troubled by the tributes to police during the program, and both Allen and Groberg were interrupted by hecklers chanting, “No more war!” (These, too, were drowned out with “USA” chants, a feature more common at Republican rallies.) But the Clinton campaign, having weathered a stormy start to the convention, has seemingly decided it can count on a unified Democratic Party and is ready to build a big, broad coalition. Both parties entered their conventions seeking to unify their bases and turn to the general election. Only the Democrats look to have succeeded. —David Graham
Sacha Zimmerman Link 11:57 PM Charles Mostoller / Reuters ||||| Dan Quayle debating Lloyd Bentsen in 1988. (Darryl Heikes for USN&WR)
Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen was never one given to the clever quip or colorful anecdote. Buttoned-up and taciturn, he made a disastrous stab at a presidential run in 1976. Newspaper scribe Jack Germond once compared the Democrat to plate glass—substantial, but people just couldn't see it.
But during a 1988 vice presidential debate in Omaha, Bentsen delivered one of the most devastating slights ever. Turning to his GOP opponent, Sen. Dan Quayle, who had defended his inexperience as similar to that of John F. Kennedy, Bentsen responded with scathing disdain: "Senator," he said, "I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy."
The audience erupted. In that moment, Bentsen, on the ticket with presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, managed to remake his dry persona and earn himself a footnote in political history. "It's the best put-down I've ever seen," says Germond. But was Bentsen's flawless response to Quayle, then 41 and running with George H. W. Bush, rehearsed?
Yes and no, says Dennis Eckart, who helped Bentsen, then 67, prepare for the debate. An Ohio congressman at the time, Eckart ordered video of Quayle on the campaign trail. There was Quayle raking his fingers through his hair and posing witha h and thrust in his pocket—all, Eckart believed, conscious imitations of Kennedy. And the Indiana senator was comparing his years in Congress to those of Kennedy. On a legal pad, Eckart jotted: "The sob thinks he's JFK."
The answer. Eckart had to persuade Bentsen that Quayle could make the comparison during the debate. (Germond says that Quayle's advisers had told him not to use the Kennedy reference.) Once convinced, Bentsen "turned his whole body to me and said, 'I know John F. Kennedy. I waited for John F. Kennedy that fateful day. He's a friend of mine.'" Eckart said, "That's the answer."
Bentsen, who died in 2006, basked in the post-debate attention. A union in Philadelphia played the theme from Rocky when he arrived. He felt the moment redeemed his poor performance in 1976. But great lines don't win elections. Dukakis-Bentsen got creamed. Quayle was gracious: When he saw Eckart a few months later, he touched his former colleague's new beard and said, "I know Dennis Eckart..." You know the rest. | – A Republican made his way onto the speakers' roster Thursday night at the Democratic convention, but it soon became clear why. Former Reagan administration official Doug Elmets explained that he'll be voting Democratic for the first time in his life, and he used his own version of a now-famous political quote to do so, notes the Atlantic: "I knew Ronald Reagan. I worked with Ronald Reagan. Donald Trump, you are no Ronald Reagan.” He also said of Trump: "I shudder to think where he'll lead this great nation." |
U.S. Supreme Court
Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651 (1977)
Ingraham v. Wright
No. 75-6527
Argued November 2, 1976
Decided April 19, 1977
430 U.S. 651
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
Syllabus
Petitioners, pupils in a Dade County, Fla., junior high school, filed this action in Federal District Court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981-1988 for damages and injunctive and declaratory relief against respondent school officials, alleging that petitioners and other students had been subjected to disciplinary corporal punishment in violation of their constitutional rights. The Florida statute then in effect authorized corporal punishment after the teacher had consulted with the principal or teacher in charge of the school, specifying that the punishment was not to be "degrading or unduly severe." A School Board regulation contained specific directions and limitations, authorizing punishment administered to a recalcitrant student's buttocks with a wooden paddle. The evidence showed that the paddling of petitioners was exceptionally harsh. The District Court granted respondents' motion to dismiss the complaint, finding no basis for constitutional relief. The Court of Appeals affirmed.
Held:
1. The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment does not apply to disciplinary corporal punishment in public schools. Pp. 430 U. S. 664-671.
(a) The history of the Eighth Amendment and the decisions of this Court make it clear that the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment was designed to protect those convicted of crime. Pp. 430 U. S. 664-668.
(b) There is no need to wrench the Eighth Amendment from its historical context and extend it to public school disciplinary practices. The openness of the public school and its supervision by the community afford significant safeguards against the kinds of abuses from which that Amendment protects convicted criminals. These safeguards are reinforced by the legal constraints of the common law, whereby any punishment going beyond that which is reasonably necessary for the proper education and discipline of the child may result in both civil and criminal liability. Pp. 430 U. S. 668-671.
2. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not require notice and hearing prior to imposition of corporal punishment as that practice is authorized and limited by the common law. Pp. 430 U. S. 672-682.
Page 430 U. S. 652
(a) Liberty within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment is implicated where public school authorities, acting under color of state law, deliberately punish a child for misconduct by restraint and infliction of appreciable physical pain. Freedom from bodily restraint and punishment is within the liberty interest in personal security that has historically been protected from state deprivation without due process of law. Pp. 430 U. S. 672-674.
(b) Under the longstanding accommodation between the child's interest in personal security and the traditional common law privilege, there can be no deprivation of substantive rights as long as the corporal punishment remains within the limits of that privilege. The child nonetheless has a strong interest in procedural safeguards that minimize the risk of wrongful punishment and provide for the resolution of disputed questions of justification. Pp. 675-676.
(c) The Florida scheme, considered in light of the openness of the school environment, affords significant protection against unjustified corporal punishment of school children. The teacher and principal must exercise prudence and restraint when they decide that corporal punishment is necessary for disciplinary purposes. If the punishment is later found to be excessive, they may be held liable in damages or be subject to criminal penalties. Where the State has thus preserved what "has always been the law of the land," United States v. Barnett, 376 U. S. 681, 376 U. S. 692, the case for administrative safeguards is significantly less compelling than it would otherwise be. Pp. 430 U. S. 676-680.
(d) Imposing additional administrative safeguards as a constitutional requirement would significantly intrude into the area of educational responsibility that lies primarily with the public school authorities. Prior procedural safeguards require a diversion of educational resources, and school authorities may abandon corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure rather than incur the burdens of complying with procedural requirements. The incremental benefit of invoking the Constitution to impose prior notice and a hearing cannot justify the costs. Pp. 430 U. S. 680-682.
525 F.2d 909, affirmed.
POWELL, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and STEWART, BLACKMUN, and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined. WHITE, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN, MARSHALL, and STEVENS, JJ., joined, post, p. 430 U. S. 683. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 430 U. S. 700.
Page 430 U. S. 653
MR. JUSTICE POWELL delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents questions concerning the use of corporal punishment in public schools: first, whether the paddling of students as a means of maintaining school discipline constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment; and, second, to the extent that paddling is constitutionally permissible, whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires prior notice and an opportunity to be heard.
I
Petitioners James Ingraham and Roosevelt Andrews filed the complaint in this case on January 7, 1971, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. [Footnote 1] At the time, both were enrolled in the Charles R. Drew Junior High School in Dade County, Fla., Ingraham in the eighth grade and Andrews in the ninth. The complaint contained three counts, each alleging a separate cause of action for deprivation of constitutional rights under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981-1988. Counts one and two were individual actions for damages by Ingraham and Andrews based on paddling incidents that allegedly occurred in October, 1970, at Drew Junior High School. Count three was a class action for declaratory and
Page 430 U. S. 654
injunctive relief filed on behalf of all students in the Dade County schools. [Footnote 2] Named as defendants in all counts were respondents Willie J. Wright (principal at Drew Junior High School), Lemmie Deliford (an assistant principal), Solomon Barnes (an assistant to the principal), and Edward L. Whigham (superintendent of the Dade County School System). [Footnote 3]
Petitioners presented their evidence at a week-long trial before the District Court. At the close of petitioners' case, respondents moved for dismissal of count three "on the ground that, upon the facts and the law, the plaintiff has shown no right to relief," Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 41(b), and for a ruling that the evidence would be insufficient to go to a jury on counts one and two. [Footnote 4] The District Court granted the motion as to all three counts, and dismissed the complaint without hearing evidence on behalf of the school authorities. App. 142-150.
Page 430 U. S. 655
Petitioners' evidence may be summarized briefly. In the 1970-1971 school year, many of the 237 schools in Dade County used corporal punishment as a means of maintaining discipline pursuant to Florida legislation and a local School Board regulation. [Footnote 5] The statute then in effect authorized limited corporal punishment by negative inference, proscribing punishment which was "degrading or unduly severe" or which was inflicted without prior consultation with the principal or the teacher in charge of the school. Fla.Stat.Ann. § 232.27 (1961). [Footnote 6] The regulation, Dade County School Board Policy
Page 430 U. S. 656
5144, contained explicit, directions and limitations. [Footnote 7] The authorized punishment consisted of paddling the recalcitrant student on the buttocks with a flat wooden paddle measuring less than two feet long, three to four inches wide, and about one-half inch thick. The normal punishment was limited to one to five "licks" or blows with the paddle, and resulted in
Page 430 U. S. 657
no apparent physical injury to the student. School authorities viewed corporal punishment as a less drastic means of discipline than suspension or expulsion. Contrary to the procedural requirements of the statute and regulation, teachers often paddled students on their own authority without first consulting the principal. [Footnote 8]
Petitioners focused on Drew Junior High School, the school in which both Ingraham and Andrews were enrolled in the fall of 1970. In an apparent reference to Drew, the District Court found that
"[t]he instances of punishment which could be characterized as severe, accepting the students' testimony as credible, took place in one junior high school."
App. 147. The evidence, consisting mainly of the testimony of 16 students, suggests that the regime at Drew was exceptionally harsh. The testimony of Ingraham and Andrews, in support of their individual claims for damages, is illustrative. Because he was slow to respond to his teacher's instructions, Ingraham was subjected to more than 20 licks with a paddle while being held over a table in the principal's office. The paddling was so severe that he suffered a hematoma [Footnote 9] requiring medical attention and keeping him out of school for several days. [Footnote 10] Andrews was paddled several times for minor infractions. On two occasions, he was struck on his arms, once depriving him of the full use of his arm for a week. [Footnote 11]
Page 430 U. S. 658
The District Court made no findings on the credibility of the students' testimony. Rather, assuming their testimony to be credible, the court found no constitutional basis for relief. With respect to count three, the class action, the court concluded that the punishment authorized and practiced generally in the county schools violated no constitutional right. Id. at 143, 149. With respect to counts one and two, the individual damages actions, the court concluded that, while corporal punishment could in some cases violate the Eighth Amendment, in this case, a jury could not lawfully find
"the elements of severity, arbitrary infliction, unacceptability in terms of contemporary standards, or gross disproportion which are necessary to bring 'punishment' to the constitutional level of 'cruel and unusual punishment.'"
Id. at 143.
A panel of the Court of Appeals voted to reverse. 498 F.2d 248 (CA5 1974). The panel concluded that the punishment was so severe and oppressive as to violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and that the procedures outlined in Policy 5144 failed to satisfy the requirements of the Due Process Clause. Upon rehearing, the en banc court rejected these conclusions and affirmed the judgment of the District Court. 525 F.2d 909 (1976). The full court held that the Due Process Clause did not require notice or an opportunity to be heard:
"In essence, we refuse to set forth, as constitutionally mandated, procedural standards for an activity which is not substantial enough, on a constitutional level, to justify the time and effort which would have to be expended by the school in adhering to those procedures or to justify further interference by federal courts into the internal affairs of public schools."
Id. at 919. The court also rejected the petitioners' substantive contentions. The Eighth Amendment, in the court's view, was simply inapplicable to corporal punishment in public
Page 430 U. S. 659
schools. Stressing the likelihood of civil and criminal liability in state law, if petitioners' evidence were believed, the court held that
"[t]he administration of corporal punishment in public schools, whether or not excessively administered, does not come within the scope of Eighth Amendment protection."
Id. at 915. Nor was there any substantive violation of the Due Process Clause. The court noted that
"[p]addling of recalcitrant children has long been an accepted method of promoting good behavior and instilling notions of responsibility and decorum into the mischievous heads of school children."
Id. at 917. The court refused to examine instances of punishment individually:
"We think it a misuse of our judicial power to determine, for example, whether a teacher has acted arbitrarily in paddling a particular child for certain behavior or whether, in a particular instance of misconduct, five licks would have been a more appropriate punishment than ten licks. . . ."
Ibid.
We granted certiorari, limited to the questions of cruel and unusual punishment and procedural due process. 425 U.S. 990. [Footnote 12]
II
In addressing the scope of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, this Court has found it useful to refer to "[t]raditional common law concepts," Powell v. Texas, 392 U. S. 514, 392 U. S. 535 (1968) (plurality opinion), and to the "attitude[s] which our society has traditionally taken." Id. at 392 U. S. 531. So, too, in defining the requirements
Page 430 U. S. 660
of procedural due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, the Court has been attuned to what "has always been the law of the land," United States v. Barnett, 376 U. S. 681, 376 U. S. 692 (1964), and to "traditional ideas of fair procedure." Greene v. McElroy, 360 U. S. 474, 360 U. S. 508 (1959). We therefore begin by examining the way in which our traditions and our laws have responded to the use of corporal punishment in public schools.
The use of corporal punishment in this country as a means of disciplining schoolchildren dates back to the colonial period. [Footnote 13] It has survived the transformation of primary and secondary education from the colonials' reliance on optional private arrangements to our present system of compulsory education and dependence on public schools. [Footnote 14] Despite the general abandonment of corporal punishment as a means of punishing criminal offenders, [Footnote 15] the practice continues to play a role in the public education of schoolchildren in most parts of the country. [Footnote 16] Professional and public opinion is sharply divided on the practice, [Footnote 17] and has been for more than
Page 430 U. S. 661
a century. [Footnote 18] Yet we can discern no trend toward its elimination.
At common law, a single principle has governed the use of corporal punishment since before the American Revolution: teachers may impose reasonable but not excessive force to discipline a child. [Footnote 19] Blackstone catalogued among the "absolute rights of individuals" the right "to security from the corporal insults of menaces, assaults, beating, and wounding," 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *134, but he did not regard it a "corporal insult" for a teacher to inflict "moderate correction" on a child in his care. To the extent that force was "necessary to answer the purposes for which [the teacher] is employed," Blackstone viewed it as "justifiable or lawful." Id. at *453; 3 id. at *120. The basic doctrine has not changed. The prevalent rule in this country today privileges such force as a teacher or administrator "reasonably believes to be necessary for [the child's] proper control, training, or education." Restatement (Second) of Torts § 147(2) (1965); see id. § 153(2). To the extent that the force is excessive or unreasonable, the educator in virtually all States is subject to possible civil and criminal liability. [Footnote 20]
Page 430 U. S. 662
Although the early cases viewed the authority of the teacher as deriving from the parents, [Footnote 21] the concept of parental delegation has been replaced by the view -- more consonant with compulsory education laws -- that the State itself may impose such corporal punishment as is reasonably necessary "for the proper education of the child and for the maintenance of group discipline." 1 F. Harper & F. James, Law of Torts § 3.20, p. 292 (1956). [Footnote 22] All of the circumstances are to be taken into account in determining whether the punishment is reasonable in a particular case. Among the most important considerations are the seriousness of the offense, the attitude and past behavior of the child, the nature and severity of the punishment, the age and strength of the child, and the availability of less severe but equally effective means of discipline. Id. at 290-291; Restatement (Second) of Torts § 150, Comments c-e, p. 268 (1965).
Of the 23 States that have addressed the problem through legislation, 21 have authorized the moderate use of corporal punishment in public schools. [Footnote 23] Of these States, only a few
Page 430 U. S. 663
have elaborated an the common law test of reasonableness, typically providing for approval or notification of the child's parents, [Footnote 24] or for infliction of punishment only by the principal [Footnote 25] or in the presence of an adult witness. [Footnote 26] Only two States, Massachusetts and New Jersey, have prohibited all corporal punishment in heir public schools. [Footnote 27] Where the legislatures have at acted, the state courts have uniformly preserved the common law rule permitting teachers to use reasonable force in disciplining children in their charge. [Footnote 28]
Against this background of historical and contemporary approval of reasonable corporal punishment, we turn to the constitutional question before us.
Page 430 U. S. 664
III
The Eighth Amendment provides: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Bail, fines, and punishment traditionally have been associated with the criminal process, and, by subjecting the three to parallel limitations, the text of the Amendment suggests an intention to limit the power of those entrusted with the criminal law function of government. An examination of the history of the Amendment and the decisions of this Court construing the proscription against cruel and unusual punishment confirms that it was designed to protect those convicted of crimes. We adhere to this longstanding limitation, and hold that the Eighth Amendment does not apply to the paddling of children as a means of maintaining discipline in public schools.
A
The history of the Eighth Amendment is well known. [Footnote 29] The text was taken, almost verbatim, from a provision of the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, which in turn derived from the English Bill of Rights of 1689. The English version, adopted after the accession of William and Mary, was intended to curb the excesses of English judges under the reign of James II. Historians have viewed the English provision as a reaction either to the "Bloody Assize," the treason trials conducted by Chief Justice Jeffreys in 1685 after the abortive rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, [Footnote 30] or to the perjury prosecution of Titus Oates in the same year. [Footnote 31] In
Page 430 U. S. 665
either case, the exclusive concern of the English version was the conduct of judges in enforcing the criminal law. The original draft introduced in the House of Commons provided: [Footnote 32]
"The requiring excessive bail of persons committed in criminal cases and imposing excessive fines, and illegal punishments, to be prevented."
Although the reference to "criminal cases" was eliminated from the final draft, the preservation of a similar reference in the preamble [Footnote 33] indicates that the deletion was without substantive significance. Thus, Blackstone treated each of the provision's three prohibitions as bearing only on criminal proceedings and judgments. [Footnote 34]
The Americans who adopted the language of this part of the English Bill of Rights in framing their own State and Federal Constitutions 100 years later feared the imposition of torture and other cruel punishments not only by judges acting beyond their lawful authority, but also by legislatures engaged in making the laws by which judicial authority would be measured. Weems v. United States, 217 U. S. 349, 217 U. S. 371-373 (1910). Indeed, the principal concern of the American Framers appears to have been with the legislative definition of crimes and punishments. In re Kemmler, 136 U. S. 436, 136 U. S. 446-447 (1890);
Page 430 U. S. 666
Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 408 U. S. 263 (1972) (BRENNAN, J., concurring). But if the American provision was intended to restrain government more broadly than its English model, the subject to which it was intended to apply -- the criminal process -- was the same.
At the time of its ratification, the original Constitution was criticized in the Massachusetts and Virginia Conventions for its failure to provide any protection for persons convicted of crimes. [Footnote 35] This criticism provided the impetus for inclusion of the Eighth Amendment in the Bill of Rights. When the Eighth Amendment was debated in the First Congress, it was met by the objection that the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause might have the effect of outlawing what were then the common criminal punishments of hanging, whipping, and earcropping. 1 Annals of Cong. 754 (1789). The objection was not heeded, "precisely because the legislature would otherwise have had the unfettered power to prescribe punishments for crimes." Furman v. Georgia, supra at 408 U. S. 263.
B
In light of this history, it is not surprising to find that every decision of this Court considering whether a punishment is "cruel and unusual" within the meaning of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments has dealt with a criminal punishment.
Page 430 U. S. 667
See Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97 (1976) (incarceration without medical care); Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153 (1976) (execution for murder); Furman v. Georgia, supra, (execution for murder); Powell v. Texas, 392 U. S. 514 (1968) (plurality opinion) ($20 fine for public drunkenness); Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660 (1962) (incarceration as a criminal for addiction to narcotics); Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86 (1958) (plurality opinion) (expatriation for desertion); Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U. S. 459 (1947) (execution by electrocution after a failed first attempt); Weems v. United States, supra, (15 years' imprisonment and other penalties for falsifying an official document); Howard v. Fleming, 191 U. S. 126 (1903) (10 years' imprisonment for conspiracy to defraud); In re Kemmler, supra, (execution by electrocution); Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U. S. 130 (1879) (execution by firing squad); Pervear v. Commonwealth, 5 Wall. 475 (1867) (fine and imprisonment at hard labor for bootlegging).
These decisions recognize that the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause circumscribes the criminal process in three ways: first, it limits the kinds of punishment that can be imposed on those convicted of crimes, e.g., Estelle v. Gamble, supra; Trop v. Dulles, supra; second, it proscribes punishment grossly disproportionate to the severity of the crime, e.g., Weems v. United States, supra; and third, it imposes substantive limits on what can be made criminal and punished as such, e.g., Robinson v. California, supra. We have recognized the last limitation as one to be applied sparingly.
"The primary purpose of [the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause] has always been considered, and properly so, to be directed at the method or kind of punishment imposed for the violation of criminal statutes. . . ."
Powell v. Texas, supra at 392 U. S. 531-532 (plurality opinion).
In the few cases where the Court has had occasion to confront claims that impositions outside the criminal process constituted cruel and unusual punishment, it has had no difficulty
Page 430 U. S. 668
finding the Eighth Amendment inapplicable. Thus, in Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U. S. 698 (1893), the Court held the Eighth Amendment inapplicable to the deportation of aliens on the ground that "deportation is not a punishment for crime." Id. at 149 U. S. 730; see Mahler v. Eby, 264 U. S. 32 (1924); Bugajewitz v. Adams, 228 U. S. 685 (1913). And in Uphaus v. Wyman, 360 U. S. 72 (1959), the Court sustained a judgment of civil contempt, resulting in incarceration pending compliance with a subpoena, against a claim that the judgment imposed cruel and unusual punishment. It was emphasized that the case involved "essentially a civil remedy designed for the benefit of other parties . . . exercised for centuries to secure compliance with judicial decrees.'" Id. at 360 U. S. 81, quoting Green v. United States, 356 U. S. 165, 356 U. S. 197 (1958) (dissenting opinion). [Footnote 36]
C
Petitioners acknowledge that the original design of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause was to limit criminal punishments, but urge nonetheless that the prohibition should be extended to ban the paddling of schoolchildren. Observing that the Framers of the Eighth Amendment could not have envisioned our present system of public and compulsory education, with its opportunities for noncriminal punishments, petitioners contend that extension of the prohibition against cruel punishments is necessary lest we afford greater protection
Page 430 U. S. 669
to criminals than to school children. It would be anomalous, they say, if school children could be beaten without constitutional redress, while hardened criminals suffering the same beatings at the hands of their jailers might have a valid claim under the Eighth Amendment. See Jackson v. Bishop, 404 F.2d 571 (CA8 1968); cf. Estelle v. Gamble, supra. Whatever force this logic may have in other settings, [Footnote 37] we find it an inadequate basis for wrenching the Eighth Amendment from its historical context and extending it to traditional disciplinary practices in the public schools.
The prisoner and the school child stand in wholly different circumstances, separated by the harsh facts of criminal conviction and incarceration. The prisoner's conviction entitles the State to classify him a a "criminal," and his incarceration deprives him of the freedom "to be with family and friends and to form the other enduring attachments of normal life." Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 408 U. S. 482 (1972); see Meachum v. Fano, 427 U. S. 215, 427 U. S. 224-225 (1976). Prison brutality, as the Court of Appeals observed in this case, is
"part of the total punishment to which the individual is being subjected for his crime and, as such, is a proper subject for Eighth Amendment scrutiny."
525 F.2d at 915. [Footnote 38] Even so, the protection afforded
Page 430 U. S. 670
by the Eighth Amendment is limited. After incarceration, only the "unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain,'" Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. at 429 U. S. 103, quoting Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. at 428 U. S. 173, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by the Eighth Amendment.
The school child has little need for the protection of the Eighth Amendment. Though attendance may not always be voluntary, the public school remains an open institution. Except perhaps when very young, the child is not physically restrained from leaving school during school hours; and at the end of the school day, the child is invariably free to return home. Even while at school, the child brings with him the support of family and friends, and is rarely apart from teachers and other pupils who may witness and protest any instances of mistreatment.
The openness of the public school and its supervision by the community afford significant safeguards against the kinds of abuses from which the Eighth Amendment protects the prisoner. In virtually every community where corporal punishment is permitted in the schools, these safeguards are reinforced by the legal constraints of the common law. Public school teachers and administrators are privileged at common law to inflict only such corporal punishment as is reasonably necessary for the proper education and discipline of the child; any punishment going beyond the privilege may result in both civil and criminal liability. See 430 U. S. supra. As long as the schools are open to public scrutiny, there is no reason to believe that the common law constraints will not effectively remedy and deter excesses such as those alleged in this case. [Footnote 39]
Page 430 U. S. 671
We conclude that, when public school teachers or administrators impose disciplinary corporal punishment, the Eighth Amendment is inapplicable. The pertinent constitutional question is whether the imposition is consonant with the requirements of due process. [Footnote 40]
Page 430 U. S. 672
IV
The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits any state deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Application of this prohibition requires the familiar two-stage analysis: we must first ask whether the asserted individual interests are encompassed within the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of "life, liberty or property"; if protected interests are implicated, we then must decide what procedures constitute "due process of law." Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. at 408 U. S. 481; Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 408 U. S. 569-572 (1972). See Friendly, Some Kind of Hearing, 123 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1267 (1975). Following that analysis here, we find that corporal punishment in public schools implicates a constitutionally protected liberty interest, but we hold that the traditional common law remedies are fully adequate to afford due process.
A
"[T]he range of interests protected by procedural due process is not infinite." Board of Regents v. Roth, supra at 408 U. S. 570. We have repeatedly rejected "the notion that any grievous loss visited upon a person by the State is sufficient to invoke the procedural protections of the Due Process Clause." Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. at 427 U. S. 224. Due process is required only when a decision of the State implicates an interest within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. And
"to determine whether due process requirements apply in the first place, we must look not to the 'weight,' but to the nature, of the interest at stake."
Roth, supra at 408 U. S. 570-571.
The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, later incorporated into the Fourteenth, was intended to give Americans
Page 430 U. S. 673
at least the protection against governmental power that they had enjoyed as Englishmen against the power of the Crown. The liberty preserved from deprivation without due process included the right "generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men." Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 262 U. S. 399 (1923); see Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 114, 129 U. S. 123-124 (1889). Among the historic liberties so protected was a right to be free from, and to obtain judicial relief for, unjustified intrusions on personal security. [Footnote 41]
While the contours of this historic liberty interest in the context of our federal system of government have not been defined precisely, [Footnote 42] they always have been thought to encompass
Page 430 U. S. 674
freedom from bodily restraint and punishment. See Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165 (1952). It is fundamental that the state cannot hold and physically punish an individual except in accordance with due process of law.
This constitutionally protected liberty interest is at stake in this case. There is, of course, a de minimis level of imposition with which the Constitution is not concerned. But at least where school authorities, acting under color of state law, deliberately decide to punish a child for misconduct by restraining the child and inflicting appreciable physical pain, we hold that Fourteenth Amendment liberty interests are implicated. [Footnote 43]
B
"[T]he question remains what process is due." Morrissey v. Brewer, supra at 408 U. S. 481. Were it not for the common law privilege permitting teachers to inflict reasonable corporal punishment on children in their care, and the availability of the traditional remedies for abuse, the case for requiring advance procedural safeguards would be strong indeed. [Footnote 44] But here we deal with a punishment -- paddling -- within that tradition,
Page 430 U. S. 675
and the question is whether the common law remedies are adequate to afford due process.
"'[D]ue process,' unlike some legal rules, is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place and circumstances. . . . Representing a profound attitude of fairness . . . , 'due process' is compounded of history, reason, the past course of decisions, and stout confidence in the strength of the democratic faith which we profess. . . ."
Anti-Fascist Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 341 U. S. 162-163 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). Whether, in this case, the common law remedies for excessive corporal punishment constitute due process of law must turn on an analysis of the competing interests at stake, viewed against the background of "history, reason, [and] the past course of decisions." The analysis requires consideration of three distinct factors:
"first, the private interest that will be affected . . . ; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest . . . and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the [state] interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail."
Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 424 U. S. 335 (1976). Cf. Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U. S. 134, 416 U. S. 167-168 (1974) (POWELL, J., concurring).
1
Because it is rooted in history, the child's liberty interest in avoiding corporal punishment while in the care of public school authorities is subject to historical limitations. Under the common law, an invasion of personal security gave rise to a right to recover damages in a subsequent judicial proceeding. 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *120-121. But the right of recovery was qualified by the concept of justification. Thus, there could be no recovery against a teacher who gave only "moderate correction" to a child. Id. at *120. To the
Page 430 U. S. 676
extent that the force used was reasonable in light of its purpose, it was not wrongful, but rather "justifiable or lawful." Ibid.
The concept that reasonable corporal punishment in school is justifiable continues to be recognized in the laws of most States. See 430 U. S. supra. It represents "the balance struck by this country," Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 367 U. S. 542 (1961) (Harlan, J., dissenting), between the child's interest in personal security and the traditional view that some limited corporal punishment may be necessary in the course of a child's education. Under that longstanding accommodation of interests, there can be no deprivation of substantive rights as long as disciplinary corporal punishment is within the limits of the common law privilege.
This is not to say that the child's interest in procedural safeguards is insubstantial. The school disciplinary process is not "a totally accurate, unerring process, never mistaken and never unfair. . . ." Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565, 419 U. S. 579-580 (1975). In any deliberate infliction of corporal punishment on a child who is restrained for that purpose, there is some risk that the intrusion on the child's liberty will be unjustified, and therefore unlawful. In these circumstances, the child has a strong interest in procedural safeguards that minimize the risk of wrongful punishment and provide for the resolution of disputed questions of justification.
We turn now to a consideration of the safeguards that are available under applicable Florida law.
2
Florida has continued to recognize, and indeed has strengthened by statute, the common law right of a child not to be subjected to excessive corporal punishment in school. Under Florida law, the teacher and principal of the school decide in the first instance whether corporal punishment is reasonably necessary under the circumstances in order to discipline
Page 430 U. S. 677
a child who.has misbehaved. But they must exercise prudence and restraint. For Florida has preserved the traditional judicial proceedings for determining whether the punishment was justified. If the punishment inflicted is later found to have been excessive -- not reasonably believed at the time to be necessary for the child's discipline or training -- the school authorities inflicting it may be held liable in damages to the child and, if malice is shown, they may be subject to criminal penalties. [Footnote 45]
Although students have testified in this case to specific instances of abuse, there is every reason to believe that such mistreatment is an aberration. The uncontradicted evidence suggests that corporal punishment in the Dade County schools was, "[w]ith the exception of a few cases, . . . unremarkable in physical severity." App. 147. Moreover, because paddlings are usually inflicted in response to conduct directly
Page 430 U. S. 678
observed by teachers in their presence, the risk that a child will be paddled without cause is typically insignificant. In the ordinary case, a disciplinary paddling neither threatens seriously to violate any substantive rights nor condemns the child "to suffer grievous loss of any kind." Anti-Fascist Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U.S. at 341 U. S. 168 (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
In those cases where severe punishment is contemplated, the available civil and criminal sanctions for abuse -- considered in light of the openness of the school environment -- afford significant protection against unjustified corporal punishment. See supra at 430 U. S. 670. Teachers and school authorities are unlikely to inflict corporal punishment unnecessarily or excessively when a possible consequence of doing so is the institution of civil or criminal proceedings against them. [Footnote 46]
It still may be argued, of course, that the child's liberty interest would be better protected if the common law remedies were supplemented by the administrative safeguards of prior notice and a hearing. We have found frequently that some kind of prior hearing is necessary to guard against arbitrary impositions on interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Page 430 U. S. 679
See, e.g., Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. at 408 U. S. 569-570; Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 418 U. S. 557-558 (1974); cf. Friendly, 123 U.Pa.L.Rev. at 1275-1277. But where the State has preserved what "has always been the law of the land," United States v. Barnett, 376 U. S. 681 (1964), the case for administrative safeguards is significantly less compelling. [Footnote 47]
There is a relevant analogy in the criminal law. Although the Fourth Amendment specifically proscribes "seizure" of a person without probable cause, the risk that police will act unreasonably in arresting a suspect is not thought to require an advance determination of the facts. In United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411 (1976), we reaffirmed the traditional common law rule that police officers may make warrantless public arrests on probable cause. Although we observed that an advance determination of probable cause by a magistrate would be desirable, we declined
"to transform this judicial preference into a constitutional rule when the judgment of the Nation and Congress has for so long been to authorize warrantless public arrests on probable cause. . . ."
Id. at 423 U. S. 423; see id. at 423 U. S. 429 (POWELL, J., concurring). Despite the distinct possibility that a police officer may improperly assess the facts and thus unconstitutionally deprive an individual of
Page 430 U. S. 680
liberty, we declined to depart from the traditional rule by which the officer's perception is subjected to judicial scrutiny only after the fact. [Footnote 48] There is no more reason to depart from tradition and require advance procedural safeguards for intrusions on personal security to which the Fourth Amendment does not apply.
3
But even if the need for advance procedural safeguards were clear, the question would remain whether the incremental benefit could justify the cost. Acceptance of petitioners' claims would work a transformation in the law governing corporal punishment in Florida and most other States. Given the impracticability of formulating a rule of procedural due process that varies with the severity of the particular imposition, [Footnote 49] the prior hearing petitioners seek would have to precede any paddling, however moderate or trivial.
Such a universal constitutional requirement would significantly burden the use of corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure. Hearings -- even informal hearings -- require time, personnel, and a diversion of attention from normal school pursuits. School authorities may well choose to abandon corporal punishment rather than incur the burdens of complying with the procedural requirements. Teachers, properly concerned with maintaining authority in the classroom, may well prefer to rely on other disciplinary measures -- which they may view as less effective -- rather than confront the
Page 430 U. S. 681
possible disruption that prior notice and a hearing may entail. [Footnote 50] Paradoxically, such an alteration of disciplinary policy is most likely to occur in the ordinary case, where the contemplated punishment is well within the common law privilege. [Footnote 51]
Elimination or curtailment of corporal punishment would be welcomed by many as a societal advance. But when such a policy choice may result from this Court's determination of an asserted right to due process, rather than from the normal processes of community debate and legislative action, the societal costs cannot be dismissed as insubstantial. [Footnote 52] We are reviewing here a legislative judgment, rooted in history and reaffirmed in the laws of many States, that corporal punishment serves important educational interests. This judgment must be viewed in light of the disciplinary problems commonplace in the schools. As noted in Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. at 419 U. S. 580: "Events calling for discipline are frequent occurrences, and sometimes require immediate, effective action." [Footnote 53] Assessment
Page 430 U. S. 682
of the need for, and the appropriate means of maintaining, school discipline is committed generally to the discretion of school authorities subject to state law.
"[T]he Court has repeatedly emphasized the need for affirming the comprehensive authority of the States and of school officials, consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in the schools."
Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 393 U. S. 507 (1969). [Footnote 54]
"At some point, the benefit of an additional safeguard to the individual affected . . . and to society in terms of increased assurance that the action is just, may be outweighed by the cost."
Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. at 424 U. S. 348. We think that point has been reached in this case. In view of the low incidence of abuse, the openness of our schools, and the common law safeguards that already exist, the risk of error that may result in violation of a school child's substantive rights can only be regarded a minimal. Imposing additional administrative safeguards as a constitutional requirement might reduce that risk marginally, but would also entail a significant intrusion into an area of primary educational responsibility. We conclude that the Due Process Clause does not require notice and a hearing prior to the imposition of corporal punishment in the public schools, as that practice is authorized and limited by the common law. [Footnote 55]
Page 430 U. S. 683
V
Petitioners cannot prevail on either of the theories before us in this case. The Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment is inapplicable to school paddlings, and the Fourteenth Amendment's requirement of procedural due process is satisfied by Florida's preservation of common law constraints and remedies. We therefore agree with the Court of Appeals that petitioners' evidence affords no basis for injunctive relief, and that petitioners cannot recover damages on the basis of any Eighth Amendment or procedural due process violation.
Affirmed.
[Footnote 1]
As Ingraham and Andrews were minors, the complaint was filed in the names of Eloise Ingraham, James' mother, and Willie Everett, Roosevelt's father.
[Footnote 2]
The District Court certified the class, under Fed.Rules Civ.Proc. 23(b)(2) and (c)(1), as follows:
"'All students of the Dade County School system who are subject to the corporal punishment policies issued by the Defendant, Dade County School Board. . . .'"
App. 17. One student was specifically excepted from the class by request.
[Footnote 3]
The complaint also named the Dade County School Board as a defendant, but the Court of Appeals held that the Board was not amenable to suit under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981-1988, and dismissed the suit against the Board for want of jurisdiction. 525 F.2d 909, 912 (CA5 1976). This aspect of the Court of Appeals' judgment is not before us.
[Footnote 4]
Petitioners had waived their right to jury trial on the claims for damages in counts one and two, but respondents had not. The District Court proceeded initially to hear evidence only on count three, the claim for injunctive relief. At the close of petitioners' case, however, the parties agreed that the evidence offered on count three (together with certain stipulated testimony) would be considered, for purposes of a motion for directed verdict, as if it had also been offered on counts one and two. It was understood that respondents could reassert a right to jury trial if the motion were denied. App. 142.
[Footnote 5]
The evidence does not show how many of the schools actually employed corporal punishment as a means of maintaining discipline. The authorization of the practice by the School Board extended to 231 of the schools in the 1970-1971 school year, but at least 10 of those schools did not administer corporal punishment as a matter of school policy. Id. at 137-139.
[Footnote 6]
In the 1970-1971 school year, § 232.27 provided:
"Each teacher or other member of the staff of any school shall assume such authority for the control of pupils as may be assigned to him by the principal and shall keep good order in the classroom and in other places in which he is assigned to be in charge of pupils, but he shall not inflict corporal punishment before consulting the principal or teacher in charge of the school, and in no case shall such punishment be degrading or unduly severe in its nature. . . ."
Effective July 1, 1976, the Florida Legislature amended the law governing corporal punishment. Section 232.27 now reads:
"Subject to law and to the rules of the district school board, each teacher or other member of the staff of any school shall have such authority for the control and discipline of students as may be assigned to him by the principal or his designated representative and shall keep good order in the classroom and in other places in which he is assigned to be in charge of students. If a teacher feels that corporal punishment is necessary, at least the following procedures shall be followed:"
"(1) The use of corporal punishment shall be approved in principle by the principal before it is used, but approval is not necessary for each specific instance in which it is used."
"(2) A teacher or principal may administer corporal punishment only in the presence of another adult who is informed beforehand, and in the student's presence, of the reason for the punishment."
"(3) A teacher or principal who has administered punishment shall, upon request, provide the pupil's parent or guardian with a written explanation of the reason for the punishment and the name of the other [adult] who was present."
Fla.Stat.Ann. § 232.27 (1977) (codifier's notation omitted). Corporal punishment is now defined as
"the moderate use of physical force or physical contact by a teacher or principal as may be necessary to maintain discipline or to enforce school rules."
§ 228.041(28). The local school boards are expressly authorized to adopt rules governing student conduct and discipline, and are directed to make available codes of student conduct. § 230.23(6). Teachers and principals are given immunity from civil and criminal liability for enforcing disciplinary rules, "[e]xcept in the case of excessive force or cruel and unusual punishment. . . ." § 232.275.
[Footnote 7]
In the 1970-1971 school year, Policy 5144 authorized corporal punishment where the failure of other means of seeking cooperation from the student made its use necessary. The regulation specified that the principal should determine the necessity for corporal punishment, that the student should understand the seriousness of the offense and the reason for the punishment, and that the punishment should be administered in the presence of another adult in circumstances not calculated to hold the student up to shame or ridicule. The regulation cautioned against using corporal punishment against a student under psychological or medical treatment, and warned that the person administering the punishment "must realize his own personal liabilities" in any case of physical injury. App. 15.
While this litigation was pending in the District Court, the Dade County School Board amended Policy 5144 to standardize the size of the paddles used in accordance with the description in the text, to proscribe striking a child with a paddle elsewhere than on the buttocks, to limit the permissible number of "licks" (five for elementary and intermediate grades and seven for junior and senior grades), and to require a contemporaneous explanation of the need for the punishment to the student and a subsequent notification to the parents. App. 126-128.
[Footnote 8]
498 F.2d 248, 255, and n. 7 (1974) (original panel opinion), vacated on rehearing, 525 F.2d 909 (1976); App. 48, 138, 146; Exhibits 14, 15.
[Footnote 9]
Stedman's Medical Dictionary (23d ed.1976) defines "hematoma" as
"[a] localized mass of extravasated blood that is relatively or completely confined within an organ or tissue . . . ; the blood is usually clotted (or partly clotted), and, depending on how long it has been there, may manifest various degrees of organization and decolorization."
[Footnote 10]
App. 3-4, 18-20, 68-85, 129-136.
[Footnote 11]
Id. at 4-5, 104-113. The similar experiences of several other students at Drew, to which they individually testified in the District Court, are summarized in the original panel opinion in the Court of Appeals, 498 F.2d at 257-259.
[Footnote 12]
We denied review of a third question presented in the petition for certiorari:
"Is the infliction of severe corporal punishment upon public school students arbitrary, capricious and unrelated to achieving any legitimate educational purpose, and therefore violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?"
Pet. for Cert. 2.
[Footnote 13]
See I. Falk, Corporal Punishment 11-48 (1941); N. Edwards & H. Richey, The School in the American Social Order 115-116 (1947).
[Footnote 14]
Public and compulsory education existed in New England before the Revolution, see id. at 50-68, 78-81, 97-113, but the demand for free public schools as we now know them did not gain momentum in the country as a whole until the mid-1800's, and it was not until 1918 that compulsory school attendance laws were in force in all the States. See Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 347 U. S. 489 n. 4 (1954), citing Cubberley, Public Education in the United States 408-423, 563-565 (1934 ed.); cf. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 406 U. S. 226, and n. 15 (1972).
[Footnote 15]
See Jackson v. Bishop, 404 F.2d 571, 580 (CA8 1968); Falk, supra at 85-88.
[Footnote 16]
See K. Larson & M. Karpas, Effective Secondary School Discipline 146 (1963); A. Reitman, J. Follman, & E. Ladd, Corporal Punishment in the Public Schools 2-5 (ACLU Report 1972).
[Footnote 17]
For samplings of scholarly opinion on the use of corporal punishment in the schools, see F. Reardon & R. Reynolds, Corporal Punishment in Pennsylvania 1-2, 34 (1975); National Education Association, Report of the Task Force on Corporal Punishment (1972); K. James, Corporal Punishment in the Public Schools 8-16 (1963). Opinion surveys taken since 1970 have consistently shown a majority of teachers and of the general public favoring moderate use of corporal punishment in the lower grades. See Reardon & Reynolds, supra at 2, 23-26; Delaware Department of Public Instruction, Report on the Corporal Punishment Survey 48 (1974); Reitman, Follman, & Ladd, supra at 34-35; National Education Association, supra at 7.
[Footnote 18]
See Falk, supra, 66-69; cf. Cooper v. McJunkin, 4 Ind. 290 (1853).
[Footnote 19]
See 1 F. Harper & F. James, Law of Torts § 3.20, pp. 288-292 (1956); Proehl, Tort Liability of Teachers, 12 Vand.L.Rev. 723, 734-738 (1959); W. Prosser, Law of Torts 136-137 (4th ed.1971).
[Footnote 20]
See cases cited n 28, infra. The criminal codes of many States include provisions explicitly recognizing the teacher's common law privilege to inflict reasonable corporal punishment. E.g., Ariz.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 13-246(A)(1) (1956); Conn.Gen.Stat. § 53a-18 (1977); Neb.Rev.Stat. § 28-840(2) (1975); N.Y. Penal Law § 35.10 (McKinney 1975 and Supp. 1976); Ore.Rev.Stat. § 161.205(1) (1975).
[Footnote 21]
See Proehl, supra at 726, and n. 13.
[Footnote 22]
Today, corporal punishment in school is conditioned on parental approval only in California. Cal.Educ.Code § 49001 (West Supp. 1977). Cf. Morrow v. Wood, 35 Wis. 59 (1874). This Court has held in a summary affirmance that parental approval of corporal punishment is not constitutionally required. Baker v. Owen, 423 U.S. 907 (1975), aff'g 395 F.Supp. 294 (MDNC).
[Footnote 23]
Cal.Educ.Code §§ 49000-49001 (West Supp. 1977); Del.Code Ann., Tit 14, § 701 (Supp. 1976); Fla.Stat.Ann. § 232.27 (1977); Ga.Code Ann. §§ 32-835, 32-836 (1976); Haw.Rev.Stat. §§ 298-16 (1975 Supp.), 703-309(2) (Spec. Pamphlet 1975); Ill.Ann.Stat., c. 122, §§ 24-24, 34-84a (1977 Supp.); Ind.Code Ann. § 28.1-5-2 (1975); Md.Ann.Code, Art. 77, § 98B (1975) (in specified counties); Mich.Comp.Laws Ann., § 340.756 (1970); Mont.Rev.Codes Ann. § 75-6109 (1971); Nev.Rev.Stat. § 392.465 (1973); N.C.Gen.Stat. § 115-146 (1975); Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 3319.41 (1972); Okla.Stat.Ann., Tit. 70, § 6-114 (1972); Pa.Stat.Ann., Tit. 24, § 13-1317 (Supp. 1976); S.C.Code § 59-63-260 (1977); S.D. Compiled Laws Ann. § 13-32-2 (1975); Vt.Stat.Ann., Tit. 16, § 1161 (Supp. 1976); Va.Code Ann. § 22-231.1 (1973); W.Va.Code, § 18A-5-1 (1977); Wyo.Stat. § 21.1-64 (Supp. 1975).
[Footnote 24]
Cal.Educ.Code § 49001 (West Supp. 1977) (requiring prior parental approval in writing); Fla.Stat.Ann. § 232.27(3) (1977) (requiring a written explanation on request); Mont.Rev.Codes Ann. § 75-6109 (1971) (requiring prior parental notification).
[Footnote 25]
Md.Ann.Code, Art. 77, § 98B (1975).
[Footnote 26]
Fla.Stat.Ann. § 232.27 (1977); Haw.Rev. Stats. § 298-16 (1975 Supp.); Mont.Rev.Codes Ann. § 75-6109 (1971).
[Footnote 27]
Mass.Gen.Laws Ann., c. 71, § 37G (Supp. 1976); N.J.Stat.Ann. § 18A:6-1 (1968).
[Footnote 28]
E.g., Suits v. Glover, 260 Ala. 449, 71 So.2d 49 (1954); La Frentz v. Gallagher, 105 Ariz. 255, 462 P.2d 804 (1969); Berry v. Arnold School Dist., 199 Ark. 1118, 137 S.W.2d 256 (1940); Andreozzi v. Rubano, 145 Conn.280, 141 A.2d 639 (1958); Tinkham v. Kole, 252 Iowa 1303, 110 N.W.2d 258 (1961); Carr v. Wright, 423 S.W.2d 521 (Ky.1968); Christman v. Hickman, 225 Mo.App. 828, 37 S.W.2d 672 (1931); Simms v. School Dist. No. 1, 13 Ore.App. 119, 508 P.2d 236 (1973); Marlar v. Bill, 181 Tenn. 100, 178 S.W.2d 634 (1944); Prendergast v. Masterson, 196 S.W. 246 (Tex.Civ.App. 1917). See generally sources cited n19, supra.
[Footnote 29]
See Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 428 U. S. 168-173 (1976) (joint opinion of STEWART, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ.) (hereinafter joint opinion); Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 408 U. S. 316-328 (1972) (MARSHALL, J., concurring); Granucci, "Nor Cruel and Unusual Punishments Inflicted:" The Original Meaning, 57 Calif.L.Rev. 839 (1969).
[Footnote 30]
See I. Brant, The Bill of Rights 155 (1965).
[Footnote 31]
See Granucci, supra, at 852-860.
[Footnote 32]
Id. at 855.
[Footnote 33]
The preamble reads in part:
"WHEREAS the late King James the Second, by the assistance of divers evil counselors, judges, and ministers employed by him, did endeavor to subvert and extirpate . . . the laws and liberties of this kingdom."
"* * * *"
"10. And excessive bail hath been required of persons committed in criminal cases, to elude the benefit of the laws made for the liberty of the subjects."
"11. And excessive fines have been imposed; and illegal and cruel punishments inflicted. . . ."
R. Perry & J. Cooper, Sources of Our Liberties 245-246 (1959).
[Footnote 34]
4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *297 (bail), *379 (fines and other punishments).
[Footnote 35]
Abraham Holmes of Massachusetts complained specifically of the absence of a provision restraining Congress in its power to determine "what kind of punishments shall be inflicted on persons convicted of crimes." 2 J. Elliot, Debates on the Federal Constitution 111 (1876). Patrick Henry was of the same mind:
"What says our [Virginia] bill of rights? -- 'that excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.' Are you not, therefore, now calling on those gentlemen who are to compose Congress, to prescribe trials and define punishments without this control? Will they find sentiments there similar to this bill of rights? You let them loose; you do more -- you depart from the genius of your country. . . ."
3 id. at 47.
[Footnote 36]
In urging us to extend the Eighth Amendment to ban school paddlings, petitioners rely on the many decisions in which this Court has held that the prohibition against "cruel and unusual" punishments is not "fastened to the obsolete, but may acquire meaning as public opinion becomes enlightened by a humane justice.'" Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. at 428 U. S. 171 (joint opinion); see, e.g., Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 356 U. S. 100-101 (1958) (plurality opinion); Weems v. United States, 217 U. S. 349, 217 U. S. 373, 217 U. S. 378 (1910). This reliance is misplaced. Our Eighth Amendment decisions have referred to "evolving standards of decency," Trop v. Dulles, supra at 356 U. S. 101, only in determining whether criminal punishments are "cruel and unusual" under the Amendment.
[Footnote 37]
Some punishments, though not labeled "criminal" by the State, may be sufficiently analogous to criminal punishments in the circumstances in which they are administered to justify application of the Eighth Amendment. Cf. In re Gault, 387 U. S. 1 (1967). We have no occasion in this case, for example, to consider whether or under what circumstances persons involuntarily confined in mental or juvenile institutions can claim the protection of the Eighth Amendment.
[Footnote 38]
Judge Friendly similarly has observed that the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause
"can fairly be deemed to be applicable to the manner in which an otherwise constitutional sentence . . . is carried out by an executioner, see Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U. S. 459 . . . (1947), or to cover conditions of confinement which my make intolerable an otherwise constitutional term of imprisonment."
Johnson v. Glick, 481 F.2d 1028, 1032 (CA2), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1033 (1973) (citation omitted).
[Footnote 39]
Putting history aside as irrelevant, the dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE WHITE argues that a "purposive analysis" should control the reach of the Eighth Amendment. Post at 430 U. S. 686-688. There is no support whatever for this approach in the decisions of this Court. Although an imposition must be "punishment" for the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause to apply, the Court has never held that all punishments are subject to Eighth Amendment scrutiny. See n 40, infra. The applicability of the Eighth Amendment always has turned on its original meaning, as demonstrated by its historical derivation. See Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. at 428 U. S. 169-173 (joint opinion); Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. at 408 U. S. 315-328 (MARSHALL, J., concurring).
The dissenting opinion warns that, as a consequence of our decision today, teachers may "cut off a child's ear for being late to class." Post at 430 U. S. 684. This rhetoric bears no relation to reality or to the issues presented in this case. The laws of virtually every State forbid the excessive physical punishment of school children. Yet the logic of the dissent would make the judgment of which disciplinary punishments are reasonable and which are excessive a matter of constitutional principle in every case, to be decided ultimately by this Court. The hazards of such a broad reading of the Eighth Amendment are clear.
"It is always time to say that this Nation is too large, too complex and composed of too great a diversity of peoples for any one of us to have the wisdom to establish the rules by which local Americans must govern their local affairs. The constitutional rule we are urged to adopt is not merely revolutionary -- it departs from the ancient faith based on the premise that experience in making local laws by local people themselves is by far the safest guide for a nation like ours to follow."
Powell v. Texas, 392 U. S. 514, 392 U. S. 547-548 (1968) (opinion of Black, J.).
[Footnote 40]
Eighth Amendment scrutiny is appropriate only after the State has complied with the constitutional guarantees traditionally associated with criminal prosecutions. See United States v. Lovett, 328 U. S. 303, 328 U. S. 317-318 (1946). Thus, in Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86 (1958), the plurality appropriately took the view that denationalization was an impermissible punishment for wartime desertion under the Eighth Amendment, because desertion already had been established at a criminal trial. But in Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U. S. 144 (1963), where the Court considered denationalization as a punishment for evading the draft, the Court refused to reach the Eighth Amendment issue, holding instead that the punishment could be imposed only through the criminal process. Id. at 372 U. S. 162-167, 372 U. S. 186, and n. 43. As these cases demonstrate, the State does not acquire the power to punish with which the Eighth Amendment is concerned until after it has secured a formal adjudication of guilt in accordance with due process of law. Where the State seeks to impose punishment without such an adjudication, the pertinent constitutional guarantee is the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
[Footnote 41]
See 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *134. Under the 39th Article of the Magna Carta, an individual could not be deprived of this right of personal security "except by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land." Perry & Cooper, supra, n 33, at 17. By subsequent enactments of Parliament during the time of Edward III, the right was protected from deprivation except "by due process of law." See Shattuck, The True Meaning of the Term "Liberty," 4 Harv.L.Rev. 365, 372-373 (1891).
[Footnote 42]
See, e.g., Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535, 316 U. S. 541 (1942) (sterilization); Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11 (1905) (vaccination); Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U. S. 250, 141 U. S. 251-252 (1891) (physical examinations); cf. ICC v. Brimson, 154 U. S. 447, 154 U. S. 479 (1894).
The right of personal security is also protected by the Fourth Amendment, which was made applicable to the States through the Fourteenth because its protection was viewed as "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty' . . . enshrined in the history and the basic constitutional documents of English-speaking peoples." Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, 338 U. S. 27-28 (1949). It has been said of the Fourth Amendment that its "overriding function . . . is to protect personal privacy and dignity against unwarranted intrusion by the State." Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, 384 U. S. 767 (1966). But the principal concern of that Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures is with intrusions on privacy in the course of criminal investigations. See Whalen v. Roe, 429 U. S. 589, 429 U. S. 604 n. 32 (1977). Petitioners do not contend that the Fourth Amendment applies, according to its terms, to corporal punishment in public school.
[Footnote 43]
Unlike Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565 (1975), this case does not involve the state-created property interest in public education. The purpose of corporal punishment is to correct a child's behavior without interrupting his education. That corporal punishment may, in a rare case, have the unintended effect of temporarily removing a child from school affords no basis for concluding that the practice itself deprives students of property protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Nor does this case involve any state-created interest in liberty going beyond the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of freedom from bodily restraint and corporal punishment. Cf. Meachum v. Fano, 427 U. S. 215, 427 U. S. 225-227 (1976).
[Footnote 44]
If the common law privilege to inflict reasonable corporal punishment in school were inapplicable, it is doubtful whether any procedure short of a trial in a criminal or juvenile court could satisfy the requirements of procedural due process for the imposition of such punishment. See United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. at 328 U. S. 317-318; cf. Breed v. Jones, 421 U. S. 519, 421 U. S. 528-529 (1975).
[Footnote 45]
See supra at 430 U. S. 655-657, 430 U. S. 661. The statutory prohibition against "degrading" or unnecessarily "severe" corporal punishment in former § 232.27 has been construed as a statement of the common law principle. See 1937 Op.Fla.Atty.Gen., Biennial Report of the Atty.Gen. 169 (1937-1938); cf. 1957 Op.Fla.Atty.Gen., Biennial Report of the Atty.Gen. 7, 8 (1957-1958). Florida Stat.Ann. § 827.03(3) (1976) makes malicious punishment of a child a felony. Both the District Court, App. 144, and the Court of Appeals, 525 F.2d at 915, expressed the view that the common law tort remedy was available to the petitioners in this case. And petitioners conceded in this Court that a teacher who inflicts excessive punishment on a child may be held both civilly and criminally liable under Florida law. Brief for Petitioners 33 n. 11, 34; Tr. of Oral Arg. 17, 52-53.
In view of the statutory adoption of the common law rule, and the unanimity of the parties and the courts below, the doubts expressed in MR. JUSTICE WHITE's dissenting opinion as to the availability of tort remedies in Florida can only be viewed as chimerical. The dissent makes much of the fact that no Florida court has ever "recognized" a damages remedy for unreasonable corporal punishment. Post at 430 U. S. 694 n. 11, 430 U. S. 700. But the absence of reported Florida decisions hardly suggests that no remedy is available. Rather, it merely confirms the common sense judgment that excessive corporal punishment is exceedingly rare in the public schools.
[Footnote 46]
The low incidence of abuse, and the availability of established judicial remedies in the event of abuse, distinguish this case from Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565 (1975). The Ohio law struck down in Goss provided for suspensions from public school of up to 10 days without "any written procedure applicable to suspensions." Id. at 419 U. S. 567. Although Ohio law provided generally for administrative review, Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2506.01 (Supp. 1973), the Court assumed that the short suspensions would not be stayed pending review, with the result that the review proceeding could serve neither a deterrent nor a remedial function. 419 U.S. at 419 U. S. 581 n. 10. In these circumstances, the Court held the law authorizing suspensions unconstitutional for failure to require "that there be at least an informal give-and-take between student and disciplinarian, preferably prior to the suspension. . . ." Id. at 419 U. S. 584. The subsequent civil and criminal proceedings available in this case may be viewed as affording substantially greater protection to the child than the informal conference mandated by Goss.
[Footnote 47]
"[P]rior hearings might well be dispensed with in many circumstances in which the state's conduct, if not adequately justified, would constitute a common law tort. This would leave the injured plaintiff in precisely the same posture as a common law plaintiff, and this procedural consequence would be quite harmonious with the substantive view that the fourteenth amendment encompasses the same liberties as those protected by the common law."
Monaghan, Of "Liberty" and "Property," 62 Cornell L.Rev. 405, 431 (1977) (footnote omitted). See Bonner v. Coughlin, 517 F.2d 1311, 1319 (CA7 1975), modified en banc, 545 F.2d 565 (1976), cert. pending, No. 76-6204.
We have no occasion in this case, see supra at 430 U. S. 659, and n. 12, to decide whether or under what circumstances corporal punishment of a public school child may give rise to an independent federal cause of action to vindicate substantive rights under the Due Process Clause.
[Footnote 48]
See also Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968). The reasonableness of a warrantless public arrest may be subjected to subsequent judicial scrutiny in a civil action against the law enforcement officer or in a suppression hearing to determine whether any evidence seized in the arrest may be used in a criminal trial.
[Footnote 49]
"[P]rocedural due process rules are shaped by the risk of error inherent in the truthfinding process as applied to the generality of cases, not the rare exceptions. . . ."
Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 424 U. S. 344 (1976).
[Footnote 50]
If a prior hearing, with the inevitable attendant publicity within the school, resulted in rejection of the teacher's recommendation, the consequent impairment of the teacher's ability to maintain discipline in the classroom would not be insubstantial.
[Footnote 51]
The effect of interposing prior procedural safeguards may well be to make the punishment more severe by increasing the anxiety of the child. For this reason, the school authorities in Dade County found it desirable that the punishment be inflicted as soon as possible after the infraction. App. 449.
[Footnote 52]
"It may be true that procedural regularity in disciplinary proceedings promotes a sense of institutional rapport and open communication, a perception of fair treatment, and provides the offender and his fellow students a showcase of democracy at work. But . . . [r]espect for democratic institutions will equally dissipate if they are thought too ineffectual to provide their students an environment of order in which the educational process may go forward. . . ."
Wilkinson, Goss v. Lopez: The Supreme Court as School Superintendent, 1975 Sup.Ct.Rev. 25, 71-72.
[Footnote 53]
The seriousness of the disciplinary problems in the Nation's public schools has been documented in a recent congressional report, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, Challenge for the Third Century: Education in a Safe Environment -- Final Report on the Nature and Prevention of School Violence and Vandalism, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (Comm.Print 1977).
[Footnote 54]
The need to maintain order in a trial courtroom raises similar problems. In that context, this Court has recognized the power of the trial judge "to punish summarily and without notice or hearing contemptuous conduct committed in his presence and observed by him." Taylor v. Hayes, 418 U. S. 488, 418 U. S. 497 (1974), citing Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289 (1888). The punishment so imposed may be as severe as six months in prison. See Codispoti v. Pennsylvania, 418 U. S. 506, 418 U. S. 513-515 (1974); cf. Muniz v. Hoffman, 422 U. S. 454, 422 U. S. 475-476 (1975).
[Footnote 55]
MR. JUSTICE WHITE's dissenting opinion offers no manageable standards for determining what process is due in any particular case. The dissent apparently would require, as a general rule, only "an informal give-and-take between student and disciplinarian." Post at 430 U. S. 693. But the dissent would depart from these "minimal procedures" -- requiring even witnesses, counsel, and cross-examination -- in cases where the punishment reaches some undefined level of severity. Post at 430 U. S. 700 n. 18. School authorities are left to guess at the degree of punishment that will require more than an "informal give-and-take" and at the additional process that may be constitutionally required. The impracticality of such an approach is self-evident, and illustrates the hazards of ignoring the traditional solution of the common law.
We agree with the dissent that the Goss procedures will often be, "if anything, less than a fair-minded school principal would impose upon himself." Post at 430 U. S. 700, quoting Goss, 419 U.S. at 419 U. S. 583. But before this Court invokes the Constitution to impose a procedural requirement, it should be reasonably certain that the effect will be to afford protection appropriate to the constitutional interests at stake. The dissenting opinion's reading of the Constitution suggests no such beneficial result and, indeed, invites a lowering of existing constitutional standards.
MR. JUSTICE WHITE, with whom MR JUSTICE BRENNAN, MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, and MR. JUSTICE STEVENS join, dissenting.
Today the Court holds that corporal punishment in public schools, no matter how severe, can never be the subject of the protections afforded by the Eighth Amendment. It also holds
Page 430 U. S. 684
that students in the public school systems are not constitutionally entitled to a hearing of any sort before beatings can be inflicted on them. Because I believe that these holdings are inconsistent with the prior decisions of this Court and are contrary to a reasoned analysis of the constitutional provisions involved, I respectfully dissent.
I
A
The Eighth Amendment places a flat prohibition against the infliction of "cruel and unusual punishments." This reflects a societal judgment that there are some punishments that are so barbaric and inhumane that we will not permit them to be imposed on anyone, no matter how opprobrious the offense. See Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660, 370 U. S. 676 (1962) (Douglas, J., concurring). If there are some punishments that are so barbaric that they may not be imposed for the commission of crimes, designated by our social system as the most thoroughly reprehensible acts an individual can commit, then, a fortiori, similar punishments may not be imposed on persons for less culpable acts, such as breaches of school discipline. Thus, if it is constitutionally impermissible to cut off someone's ear for the commission of murder, it must be unconstitutional to cut off a child's ear for being late to class. [Footnote 2/1] Although there were no ears cut off in this case, the
Page 430 U. S. 685
record reveals beatings so severe that, if they were inflicted on a hardened criminal for the commission of a serious crime, they might not pass constitutional muster.
Nevertheless, the majority holds that the Eighth Amendment "was designed to protect [only] those convicted of crimes," ante at 430 U. S. 664, relying on a vague and inconclusive recitation of the history of the Amendment. Yet the constitutional prohibition is against cruel and unusual punishments; nowhere is that prohibition limited or modified by the language of the Constitution. Certainly, the fact that the Framers did not choose to insert the word "criminal" into the language of the Eighth Amendment is strong evidence that the Amendment was designed to prohibit all inhumane or barbaric punishments, no matter what the nature of the offense for which the punishment is imposed.
No one can deny that spanking of school children is "punishment" under any reasonable reading of the word, for the similarities between spanking in public schools and other forms of punishment are too obvious to ignore. Like other forms of punishment, spanking of school children involves an institutionalized response to the violation of some official rule or regulation proscribing certain conduct and is imposed
Page 430 U. S. 686
for the purpose of rehabilitating the offender, deterring the offender and others like him from committing the violation in the future, and inflicting some measure of social retribution for the harm that has been done.
B
We are fortunate that, in our society, punishments that are severe enough to raise a doubt as to their constitutional validity are ordinarily not imposed without first affording the accused the full panoply of procedural safeguards provided by the criminal process. [Footnote 2/2] The effect has been that
"every decision of this Court considering whether a punishment is 'cruel and unusual' within the meaning of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments has dealt with a criminal punishment."
Ante at 430 U. S. 666. The Court would have us believe from this fact that there is a recognized distinction between criminal and noncriminal punishment for purposes of the Eighth Amendment. This is plainly wrong. "[E]ven a clear legislative classification of a statute as non-penal' would not alter the fundamental nature of a plainly penal statute." Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 356 U. S. 95 (1958) (plurality opinion). The relevant inquiry is not whether the offense for which a punishment is inflicted has been labeled as criminal, but whether the purpose of the deprivation is among those ordinarily associated
Page 430 U. S. 687
with punishment, such as retribution, rehabilitation, or deterrence. [Footnote 2/3] Id. at 356 U. S. 96. Cf. Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U. S. 144 (1963)
If this purposive approach were followed in the present case, it would be clear that spanking in the Florida public schools is punishment within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment. The District Court found that
"[c]orporal punishment is one of a variety of measures employed in the school system for the correction of pupil behavior and the preservation of order."
App 146. Behavior correction and
Page 430 U. S. 688
preservation of order are purposes ordinarily associated with punishment.
Without even mentioning the purposive analysis applied in the prior decisions of this Court, the majority adopts a rule that turns on the label given to the offense for which the punishment is inflicted. Thus, the record in this case reveals that one student at Drew Junior High School received 50 licks with a paddle for allegedly making an obscene telephone call. Brief for Petitioners 13. The majority holds that the Eighth Amendment does not prohibit such punishment, since it was only inflicted for a breach of school discipline. However, that same conduct is punishable as a misdemeanor under Florida law, Fla.Stat.Ann. § 365.18 (Supp. 177), and there can be little doubt that, if that same "punishment" had been inflicted by an officer of the state courts for violation of § 365.16, it would have had to satisfy the requirements of the Eighth Amendment.
C
In fact, as the Court recognizes, the Eighth Amendment has never been confined to criminal punishments. [Footnote 2/4] Nevertheless, the majority adheres to its view that any protections afforded by the Eighth Amendment must have something to do with
Page 430 U. S. 689
criminals, and it would therefore confine any exceptions to its general rule that only criminal punishments are covered by the Eighth Amendment to abuses inflicted on prisoners. Thus, if a prisoner is beaten mercilessly for a breach of discipline, he is entitled to the protection of the Eighth Amendment, while a school child who commits the same breach of discipline and is similarly beaten is simply not covered.
The purported explanation of this anomaly is the assertion that school children have no need for the Eighth Amendment. We are told that schools are open institutions, subject to constant public scrutiny; that school children have adequate remedies under state law; [Footnote 2/5] and that prisoners suffer the social stigma of being labeled as criminals. How any of these policy considerations got into the Constitution is difficult to discern, for the Court has never considered any of these factors in determining the scope of the Eighth Amendment. [Footnote 2/6]
Page 430 U. S. 690
The essence of the majority's argument is that school children do not need Eighth Amendment protection, because corporal punishment is less subject to abuse in the public schools than it is in the prison system. [Footnote 2/7] However, it cannot be reasonably suggested that, just because cruel and unusual punishments may occur less frequently under public scrutiny, they will not occur at all. The mere fact that a public flogging or a public execution would be available for all to see would not render the punishment constitutional if it were otherwise impermissible. Similarly, the majority would not suggest that a prisoner who is placed in a minimum security prison and permitted to go home to his family on the weekends should be any less entitled to Eighth Amendment protections than his counterpart in a maximum security prison. In short, if a punishment is so barbaric and inhumane that it goes beyond the tolerance of a civilized society, its openness to public scrutiny should have nothing to do with its constitutional validity.
Nor is it an adequate answer that school children may have other state and constitutional remedies available to them. Even assuming that the remedies available to public school students are adequate under Florida law, [Footnote 2/8] the availability of state remedies has never been determinative of the coverage or of the protections afforded by the Eighth Amendment. The reason is obvious. The fact that a person may have a
Page 430 U. S. 691
state law cause of action against a public official who tortures him with a thumbscrew for the commission of an antisocial act has nothing to do with the fact that such official conduct is cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Indeed, the majority's view was implicitly rejected this Term in Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97 (1976), when the Court held that failure to provide for the medical needs of prisoners could constitute cruel and unusual punishment even though a medical malpractice remedy in tort was available to prisoners under state law. Id. at 429 U. S. 107 n. 15.
D
By holding that the Eighth Amendment protects only criminals, the majority adopts the view that one is entitled to the protections afforded by the Eighth Amendment only if he is punished for acts that are sufficiently opprobrious for society to make them "criminal." This is a curious holding in view of the fact that the more culpable the offender, the more likely it is that the punishment will not be disproportionate to the offense, and consequently, the less likely it is that the punishment will be cruel and unusual. [Footnote 2/9] Conversely, a public school student who is spanked for a mere breach of discipline may sometimes have a strong argument that the punishment does not fit the offense, depending upon the severity of the beating, and therefore that it is cruel and unusual. Yet the majority would afford the student no protection no matter how inhumane and barbaric the punishment inflicted on him might be.
The issue presented in this phase of the case is limited to whether corporal punishment in public schools can ever be prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. I am therefore not
Page 430 U. S. 692
suggesting that spanking in the public schools is, in every instance, prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. My own view is that it is not. I only take issue with the extreme view of the majority that corporal punishment in public schools, no matter how barbaric, inhumane, or severe, is never limited by the Eighth Amendment. Where corporal punishment becomes so severe as to be unacceptable in a civilized society, I can see no reason that it should become any more acceptable just because it is inflicted on children in the public schools.
II
The majority concedes that corporal punishment in the public schools implicates an interest protected by the Due Process Clause -- the liberty interest of the student to be free from "bodily restraint and punishment" involving "appreciable physical pain" inflicted by persons acting under color of state law. Ante at 430 U. S. 674. The question remaining, as the majority recognizes, is what process is due.
The reason that the Constitution requires a State to provide "due process of law" when it punishes an individual for misconduct is to protect the individual from erroneous or mistaken punishment that the State would not have inflicted had it found the facts in a more reliable way. See, e.g., Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 424 U. S. 335, 344 (1976). In Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565 (1975), the Court applied this principle to the school disciplinary process, holding that a student must be given an informal opportunity to be heard before he is finally suspended from public school.
"Disciplinarians, although proceeding in utmost good faith, frequently act on the reports and advice of others, and the controlling facts and the nature of the conduct under challenge are often disputed. The risk of error is not at all trivial, and it should be guarded against if that may be done without prohibitive cost or interference
Page 430 U. S. 693
with the educational process."
Id. at 419 U. S. 580. (Emphasis added.) To guard against this risk of punishing an innocent child, the Due Process Clause requires not an "elaborate hearing" before a neutral party, but simply "an informal give-and-take between student and disciplinarian" which gives the student "an opportunity to explain his version of the facts." Id. at 419 U. S. 580, 419 U. S. 582, 419 U. S. 584.
The Court now holds that these "rudimentary precautions against unfair or mistaken findings of misconduct," id. at 419 U. S. 581, are not required if the student is punished with "appreciable physical pain," rather than with a suspension, even though both punishments deprive the student of a constitutionally protected interest. Although the respondent school authorities provide absolutely no process to the student before the punishment is finally inflicted, the majority concludes that the student is nonetheless given due process because he can later sue the teacher and recover damages if the punishment was "excessive."
This tort action is utterly inadequate to protect against erroneous infliction of punishment for two reasons. [Footnote 2/10] First, under Florida law, a student punished for an act he did not commit cannot recover damages from a teacher "proceeding
Page 430 U. S. 694
in utmost good faith . . . on the reports and advice of others," supra at 430 U. S. 692; the student has no remedy at all for punishment imposed on the basis of mistaken facts, at least as long as the punishment was reasonable from the point of view of the disciplinarian, uninformed by any prior hearing. [Footnote 2/11] The "traditional
Page 430 U. S. 695
common law remedies" on which the majority relies, ante at 430 U. S. 672, thus do nothing to protect the student from the danger that concerned the Court in Goss -- the risk of reasonable, good faith mistake in the school disciplinary process.
Second, and more important, even if the student could sue for good faith error in the infliction of punishment, the lawsuit occurs after the punishment has been finally imposed. The infliction of physical pain is final and irreparable; it cannot be undone in a subsequent proceeding. There is every reason to require, as the Court did in Goss, a few minutes of "informal give-and-take between student and disciplinarian"
Page 430 U. S. 696
as a "meaningful hedge" against the erroneous infliction of irreparable injury. 419 U.S. at 419 U. S. 583-584. [Footnote 2/12]
The majority's conclusion that a damages remedy for excessive corporal punishment affords adequate process rests on the novel theory that the State may punish an individual without giving him any opportunity to present his side of the story, as long as he can later recover damages from a state official if he is innocent. The logic of this theory would permit a State that punished speeding with a one-day jail sentence to make a driver serve his sentence first without a trial and then sue to recover damages for wrongful imprisonment. [Footnote 2/13] Similarly, the State could finally take away a prisoner's good-time credits for alleged disciplinary infractions and require him to bring a damages suit after he was eventually released. There is no authority for this theory, nor does the majority purport to find any, [Footnote 2/14] in the procedural due process
Page 430 U. S. 697
decisions of this Court. Those cases have
"consistently held that some kind of hearing is required at some time before a person is finally deprived of his property interests . . . , [and that] a person's liberty is equally protected. . . ."
Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 418 U. S. 557-558 (1974). (Emphasis added.)
The majority attempts to support its novel theory by drawing an analogy to warrantless arrests on probable cause, which the Court has held reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411 (1976). This analogy fails for two reasons. First, the particular requirements of the Fourth Amendment, rooted in the "ancient common law rule[s]" regulating police practices, id. at 423 U. S. 418, must be understood in the context of the criminal justice system for which that Amendment was explicitly tailored. Thus, in Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103 (1975), the Court, speaking through MR. JUSTICE POWELL, rejected the argument that procedural protections required in Goss and other due process
Page 430 U. S. 698
cases should be afforded to a criminal suspect arrested without a warrant.
"The Fourth Amendment was tailored explicitly for the criminal justice system, and its balance between individual and public interests always has been thought to define the 'process that is due' for seizures of person or property in criminal cases, including the detention of suspects pending trial. . . . Moreover, the Fourth Amendment probable cause determination is, in fact, only the first stage of an elaborate system, unique in jurisprudence, designed to safeguard the rights of those accused of criminal conduct. The relatively simple civil procedures (e.g., prior interview with school principal before suspension) presented in the [procedural due process] cases cited in the concurring opinion are inapposite and irrelevant in the wholly different context of the criminal justice system."
Id. at 420 U. S. 125 n. 27. (Emphasis in last sentence added.) While a case dealing with warrantless arrests is perhaps not altogether "inapposite and irrelevant in the wholly different context" of the school disciplinary process, such a case is far weaker authority than procedural due process cases such as Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565 (1975), that deal with deprivations of liberty outside the criminal context.
Second, contrary to the majority's suggestion, ante at 430 U. S. 680 n. 48, the reason that the Court has upheld warrantless arrests on probable cause is not because the police officer's assessment of the facts "may be subjected to subsequent judicial scrutiny in a civil action against the law enforcement officer or in a suppression hearing. . . ." The reason that the Court has upheld arrests without warrants is that they are the "first stage of an elaborate system" of procedural protections, Gerstein v. Pugh, supra at 420 U. S. 125 n. 27, and that the State is not free to continue the deprivation beyond this first stage without procedures. The Constitution requires the State to provide
Page 430 U. S. 699
"a fair and reliable determination of probable cause" by a judicial officer prior to the imposition of "any significant pretrial restraint of liberty" other than "a brief period of detention to take the administrative steps incident to [a warrantless] arrest." Id. at 420 U. S. 114, 420 U. S. 125. (Footnote omitted; emphasis added.) This "practical compromise" is made necessary because
"requiring a magistrate's review of the factual justification prior to any arrest . . . would constitute an intolerable handicap for legitimate law enforcement,"
id. at 420 U. S. 113; but it is the probable cause determination prior to any significant period of pretrial incarceration, rather than a damages action or suppression hearing, that affords the suspect due process.
There is, in short, no basis in logic or authority for the majority's suggestion that an action to recover damages for excessive corporal punishment "afford[s] substantially greater protection to the child than the informal conference mandated by Goss." [Footnote 2/15] The majority purports to follow the settled principle that what process is due depends on
"'the risk of an erroneous deprivation of [the protected] interest . . . and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards;' [Footnote 2/16]"
it recognizes, as did Goss, the risk of error in the school disciplinary process [Footnote 2/17] and concedes that "the child has a strong interest in procedural safeguards that minimize the risk of wrongful punishment . . . ," ante at 430 U. S. 676;
Page 430 U. S. 700
but it somehow concludes that this risk is adequately reduced by a damages remedy that never has been recognized by a Florida court, that leaves unprotected the innocent student punished by mistake, and that allows the State to punish first and hear the student's version of events later. I cannot agree.
The majority emphasizes, as did the dissenters in Goss, that even the "rudimentary precautions" required by that decision would impose some burden on the school disciplinary process. But those costs are no greater if the student is paddled, rather than suspended; the risk of error in the punishment is no smaller; and the fear of "a significant intrusion" into the disciplinary process, ante at 430 U. S. 682 (cf. Goss, supra at 419 U. S. 585 (POWELL, J., dissenting)), is just as exaggerated. The disciplinarian need only take a few minutes to give the student
"notice of the charges against him and, if he denies them, an explanation of the evidence the authorities have and an opportunity to present his side of the story."
419 U.S. at 419 U. S. 581. In this context, the Constitution requires, "if anything, less than a fair-minded school principal would impose upon himself" in order to avoid injustice. [Footnote 2/18] Id. at 419 U. S. 583.
I would reverse the judgment below.
[Footnote 2/1]
There is little reason to fear that, if the Eighth Amendment is held to apply at all to corporal punishment of school children, all paddlings, however moderate, would be prohibited. Jackson v. Bishop, 404 F.2d 571 (CA8 1968), held that any paddling or flogging of prisoners, convicted of crime and serving prison terms, violated the cruel and unusual punishment ban of the Eighth Amendment. But aside from the fact that Bishop has never been embraced by this Court, the theory of that case was not that bodily punishments are intrinsically barbaric or excessively severe, but that paddling of prisoners is "degrading to the punisher and to the punished alike." Id. at 580. That approach may be acceptable in the criminal justice system, but it has little if any relevance to corporal punishment in the schools, for it can hardly be said that the use of moderate paddlings in the discipline of children is inconsistent with the country's evolving standards of decency.
On the other hand, when punishment involves a cruel, severe beating or chopping off an ear, something more than merely the dignity of the individual is involved. Whenever a given criminal punishment is "cruel and unusual" because it is inhumane or barbaric, I can think of no reason why it would be any less inhumane or barbaric when inflicted on a school child, as punishment for classroom misconduct.
The issue in this case is whether spankings inflicted on public school children for breaking school rules is "punishment," not whether such punishment is "cruel and unusual." If the Eighth Amendment does not bar moderate spanking in public schools, it is because moderate spanking is not "cruel and unusual," not because it is not "punishment" as the majority suggests.
[Footnote 2/2]
By no means is it suggested that just because spanking of school children is "punishment" within the meaning of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, the school disciplinary process is in any way "criminal," and therefore subject to the full panoply of criminal procedural guarantees. See 430 U. S. infra. Ordinarily, the conduct for which school children are punished is not sufficiently opprobrious to be called "criminal" in our society, and even violations of school disciplinary rules that might also constitute a crime, see infra at 430 U. S. 688, are not subject to the criminal process. See Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U. S. 308 (1976), where the Court held that persons who violate prison disciplinary rules are not entitled to the full panoply of criminal procedural safeguards, even if the rule violation might also constitute a crime.
[Footnote 2/3]
The majority cites Trop as one of the cases that "dealt with a criminal punishment," but neglects to follow the analysis mandated by that decision. In Trop, the petitioner was convicted of desertion by a military court-martial and sentenced to three years at hard labor, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge. After he was punished for the offense he committed, petitioner's application for a passport was turned down. Petitioner was told that he had been deprived of the "rights of citizenship" under § 401(g) of the Nationality Act of 1940 because he had been dishonorably discharged from the Armed Forces. The plurality took the view that denationalization in this context was cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.
The majority would have us believe that the determinative factor in Trop was that the petitioner had been convicted of desertion; yet there is no suggestion in Trop that the disposition of the military court-martial had anything to do with the decision in that case. Instead, while recognizing that the Eighth Amendment extends only to punishments that are penal in nature, the plurality adopted a purposive approach for determining when punishment is penal.
"In deciding whether or not a law is penal, this Court has generally based its determination upon the purpose of the statute. If the statute imposes a disability for the purposes of punishment -- that is, to reprimand the wrongdoer, to deter others, etc. -- it has been considered penal. But a statute has been considered nonpenal if it imposes a disability not to punish, but to accomplish some other legitimate governmental purpose."
356 U.S. at 356 U. S. 96 (footnotes omitted). Although the quoted passage is taken from the plurality opinion of Mr Chief Justice Warren, joined by three other Justices, MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, in a concurring opinion, adopted a similar approach in concluding that § 401(g) was beyond the power of Congress to enact.
[Footnote 2/4]
Ante at 430 U. S. 669. In Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97 (1976), a case decided this Term, the Court held that "deliberate indifference to the medical needs of prisoners" by prison officials constitutes cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Such deliberate indifference to a prisoner's medical needs clearly is not punishment inflicted for the commission of a crime; it is merely misconduct by a prison official. Similarly, the Eighth Circuit has held that whipping a prisoner with a strap in order to maintain discipline is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Jackson v. Bishop, 404 F.2d 571 (1968) (Blackmun, J.). See also Knecht v. Gillman, 488 F.2d 1136, 1139-1140 (CA8 1973) (injection of vomit-inducing drugs as part of aversion therapy held to be cruel and unusual); Vann v. Scott, 467 F.2d 1235, 1241241 (CA7 1972) (Stevens, J.) (Eighth Amendment protects runaway children against cruel and inhumane treatment, regardless of whether such treatment is labeled "rehabilitation" or "punishment").
[Footnote 2/5]
By finding that bodily punishment invades a constitutionally protected liberty interest within the meaning of the Due Process Clause, the majority suggests that the Clause might also afford a remedy for excessive spanking independently of the Eighth Amendment. If this were the case, the Court's present thesis would have little practical significance. If, rather than holding that the Due Process Clause affords a remedy by way of the express commands of the Eighth Amendment, the majority would recognize a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for a deprivation of "liberty" flowing from an excessive paddling, the Court's opinion is merely a lengthy word of advice with respect to the drafting of civil complaints.
Petitioners in this case did raise the substantive due process issue in their petition for certiorari, ante at 430 U. S. 659 n. 12, but consideration of that question was foreclosed by our limited grant of certiorari. If it is probable that school children would be entitled to protection under some theory of substantive due process, the Court should not now affirm the judgment below, but should amend the grant of certiorari and set this case for reargument.
[Footnote 2/6]
In support of its policy considerations, the only cases from this Court cited by the majority are Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471 (1972), and Meachum v. Fano, 427 U. S. 215 (1976), both cases involving prisoners' rights to procedural due process.
[Footnote 2/7]
There is no evidence in the record that corporal punishment has been abused in the prison systems more often than in the public schools. Indeed, corporal punishment is seldom authorized in state prisons. See Jackson v. Bishop, supra at 580, where MR. JUSTICE (then Judge) BLACKMUN noted: "[O]nly two states still permit the use of the strap [in prisons]. Thus almost uniformly has it been abolished." By relying on its own view of the nature of these two public institutions, without any evidence being heard on the question below, the majority today predicates a constitutional principle on mere armchair speculation.
[Footnote 2/8]
There is some doubt that the state law remedies available to public school children are adequate. See n. 11, infra.
[Footnote 2/9]
For a penalty to be consistent with the Eighth Amendment "the punishment must not be grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime." Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 428 U. S. 173 (1976) (joint opinion of STEWART, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ.).
[Footnote 2/10]
Here, as in Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565, 419 U. S. 580-581, n. 9 (1975), the record suggests that there may be a substantial risk of error in the discipline administered by respondent school authorities. Respondents concede that some of the petitioners who were punished "denied misconduct," and that, "in some cases, the punishments may have been mistaken. . . ." Brief for Respondents 60-61. The Court of Appeals panel below noted numerous instances of students punished despite claims of innocence, 498 F.2d 248, 256-258 (CA5 1974), and was "particularly disturbed by the testimony that whole classes of students were corporally punished for the misconduct of a few." Id. at 268 n. 36. To the extent that the majority focuses on the incidence of and remedies for unduly severe punishments, it fails to address petitioners' claim that procedural safeguards are required to reduce the risk of punishments that are simply mistaken.
[Footnote 2/11]
The majority's assurances to the contrary, it is unclear to me whether and to what extent Florida law provides a damages action against school officials for excessive corporal punishment. Giving the majority the benefit of every doubt, I think it is fair to say that the most a student punished on the basis of mistaken allegations of misconduct can hope for in Florida is a recovery for unreasonable or bad faith error. But I strongly suspect that even this remedy is not available.
Although the majority does not cite a single case decided under Florida law that recognizes a student's right to sue a school official to recover damages for excessive punishment, I am willing to assume that such a tort action does exist in Florida. I nevertheless have serious doubts about whether it would ever provide a recovery to a student simply because he was punished for an offense he did not commit. All the cases in other jurisdictions cited by the majority, ante at 430 U. S. 663 n. 28, involved allegations of punishment disproportionate to the misconduct with which the student was charged; none of the decisions even suggest that a student could recover by showing that the teacher incorrectly imposed punishment for something the student had not done. The majority appears to agree that the damages remedy is available only in cases of punishment unreasonable in light of the misconduct charged. It states:
"In those cases where severe punishment is contemplated, the available civil and criminal sanctions for abuse . . . afford significant protection against unjustified corporal punishment."
Ante at 430 U. S. 678. (Emphasis added.)
Even if the common law remedy for excessive punishment extends to punishment that is "excessive" only in the sense that it is imposed on the basis of mistaken facts, the school authorities are still protected from personal liability by common law immunity. (They are protected by statutory immunity for liability for enforcing disciplinary rules "[e]xcept in the case of excessive force or cruel and unusual punishment." Fla.Stat.Ann. § 232.275 (1976).) At a minimum, this immunity would protect school officials from damages liability for reasonable mistakes made in good faith.
"Although there have been differing emphases and formulations of the common law immunity of public school officials in cases of student expulsion or suspension, state courts have generally recognized that such officers should be protected from tort liability under state law for all good faith, nonmalicious action taken to fulfill their official duties."
Wood v. Strickland, 420 U. S. 308, 420 U. S. 318 (1975) (adopting this rule for § 1983 suits involving school discipline) (footnote omitted); see id. at 420 U. S. 318 n. 9 (citing state cases). Florida has applied this rule to a police officer's determination of probable cause to arrest; the officer is not liable in damages for an arrest not based on probable cause if the officer reasonably believed that probable cause existed. Miami v. Albro, 120 So.2d 23, 26 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 1960); cf. Middleton v. Fort Walton Beach, 113 So.2d 431 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 1959) (police officer would be personally liable for intentional tort of making an arrest pursuant to warrant he knew to be void); Wilson v. O'Neal, 118 So.2d 101 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 1960) (law enforcement officer not liable in damages for obtaining an arrest warrant on the basis of an incorrect identification). There is every reason to think that the Florida courts would apply a similar immunity standard in a hypothetical damages suit against a school disciplinarian.
A final limitation on the student's damages remedy under Florida law is that the student can recover only from the personal assets of the official; the school board's treasury is absolutely protected by sovereign immunity from damages for the torts of its agents. Buck v. McLean, 115 So.2d 764 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 1959). A teacher's limited resources may deter the jury from awarding, or prevent the student from collecting, the full amount of damages to which he is entitled. Cf. Bonner v. Coughlin, 517 F.2d 1311, 1319 n. 23 (CA7 1975), modified en banc, 545 F.2d 565 (1976), cert pending, No. 76-6204 (state law remedy affords due process where no sovereign or official immunity bars tort suit for negligence by prison guard).
[Footnote 2/12]
Cf. G. M. Leasing Corp. v. United States, 429 U. S. 338, 429 U. S. 351-359 (1977). The Court there held that, in levying on a taxpayer's assets pursuant to a jeopardy assessment, revenue agents must obtain a warrant before searching the taxpayer's office, but not before seizing his property in a manner that involves no invasion of privacy. G. M. Leasing thus reflects the principle that the case for advance procedural safeguards (such as a magistrate's determination of probable cause) is more compelling when the Government finally inflicts an injury that cannot be repaired in a subsequent judicial proceeding (invasion of privacy) than when it inflicts a temporary injury which can be undone (seizure of property). The infliction of bodily punishment, like the invasion of privacy, presents this most compelling case for advance procedural safeguards
[Footnote 2/13]
To the extent that the majority attempts to find "a relevant analogy in the criminal law" -- warrantless arrests on probable cause -- to its holding here, ante at 430 U. S. 679-680 (and see infra at 430 U. S. 697-699), it has chosen the wrong analogy. If the majority forthrightly applied its present due process analysis to the area of criminal prosecutions, the police officer not only could arrest a suspect without a warrant, but also could convict the suspect without a trial and sentence him to a short jail term. The accused would get his due process in a tort suit for false imprisonment.
[Footnote 2/14]
For the proposition that the need for a prior hearing is "significantly less compelling" where the State has preserved "common law remedies," ante at 430 U. S. 679, 430 U. S. 678, the majority cites only one case, Bonner v. Coughlin, supra, dismissing an allegation by a prisoner that prison guards acting under color of state law had deprived him of property without due process of law by negligently failing to close the door of his cell after a search, with the foreseeable consequence that his trial transcript was stolen. The panel held that the right to recover under state law for the negligence of state employees provided the prisoner with due process of law. The decision is distinguishable from the instant case on two grounds. First, recovery was not barred by sovereign or official immunity, and the state remedy ensured that the prisoner would be "made whole for any loss of property." 517 F.2d at 1319, and n. 23. Cf. Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases, 419 U. S. 102, 419 U. S. 156 (1974). The point here, of course, is that the student cannot be made whole for the infliction of wrongful punishment. Second, the State cannot hold a pre-deprivation hearing where it does not intend to inflict the deprivation; the best it can do to protect the individual from an unauthorized and inadvertent act is to provide a damages remedy. 517 F.2d at 1319 n. 25. Here, the deprivation is intentional, and a prior hearing altogether feasible.
[Footnote 2/15]
Ante at 430 U. S. 678 n. 46.
[Footnote 2/16]
Ante at 430 U. S. 675, quoting Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 424 U. S. 335 (1976).
[Footnote 2/17]
Ante at 430 U. S. 676, quoting Goss, 419 U.S. at 419 U. S. 579-580. Elsewhere in its opinion the majority asserts that the risk of error is "typically insignificant" because "paddlings are usually inflicted in response to conduct directly observed by teachers in their presence." Ante at 430 U. S. 677-678. But it cites no finding or evidence in the record for this assertion, and there is no such restriction in the statute or regulations authorizing corporal punishment. See ante at 430 U. S. 655 n. 6, 430 U. S. 656 n. 7. Indeed, the panel below noted specific instances in which students were punished by an assistant to the principal who was not present when the alleged offenses were committed. 498 F.2d at 257, 259.
[Footnote 2/18]
My view here expressed that the minimal procedures of Goss are required for any corporal punishment implicating the student's liberty interest is, of course, not meant to imply that this minimum would be constitutionally sufficient no matter how severe the punishment inflicted. The Court made this reservation explicit in Goss by suggesting that more elaborate procedures such as witnesses, counsel, and cross-examination might well be required for suspensions longer than the 10-day maximum involved in that case. 419 U.S. at 419 U. S. 583-584. A similar caveat is appropriate here.
MR. JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.
MR. JUSTICE WHITE's analysis of the Eighth Amendment issue is, I believe, unanswerable. I am also persuaded that his analysis of the procedural due process issue is correct. Notwithstanding my disagreement with the Court's holding
Page 430 U. S. 701
on the latter question, my respect for MR. JUSTICE POWELL's reasoning in 430 U. S.
The constitutional prohibition of state deprivations of life, liberty, or property without due process of law does not, by its express language, require that a hearing be provided before any deprivation may occur. To be sure, the timing of the process may be a critical element in determining its adequacy -- that is, in deciding what process is due in a particular context. Generally, adequate notice and a fair opportunity to be heard in advance of any deprivation of a constitutionally protected interest are essential. The Court has recognized, however, that the wording of the command that there shall be no deprivation "without" due process of law is consistent with the conclusion that a post-deprivation remedy is sometimes constitutionally sufficient. [Footnote 3/1]
When only an invasion of a property interest is involved, there is a greater likelihood that a damages award will make a person completely whole than when an invasion of the individual's interest in freedom from bodily restraint and punishment has occurred. In the property context, therefore, frequently a post-deprivation state remedy may be all the process that the Fourteenth Amendment requires. It may also be true -- although I do not express an opinion on the point -- that an adequate state remedy for defamation may satisfy the due process requirement when a State has impaired an individual's interest in his reputation. On that hypothesis, the Court's analysis today gives rise to the thought that Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S. 693, may have been correctly decided on an incorrect rationale. Perhaps the Court will one day
Page 430 U. S. 702
agree with MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN s appraisal of the importance of the constitutional interest at stake in id. at 424 U. S. 720-723, 424 U. S. 734 (dissenting opinion), and nevertheless conclude that an adequate state remedy may prevent every state-inflicted injury to a person's reputation from violating 42 U.S.C. § 1983. [Footnote 3/2]
[Footnote 3/1]
Calero-Toledo v. Pearson Yacht Leasing Co., 416 U. S. 663; Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67, 407 U. S. 82, 407 U. S. 90-92; Ewing v. Mytinger & Casselberry, 339 U. S. 594, 339 U. S. 598-600; Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U. S. 589, 283 U. S. 595-599; Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133, 152 U. S. 140-142; cf. Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103, 420 U. S. 113-114.
[Footnote 3/2]
Cf. Bonner v. Coughlin, 517 F.2d 1311, 1318-1320 (CA7 1975), modified en banc, 545 F.2d 565 (1976), cert. pending, No. 76-6204; see also Judge Swygert's thoughtful opinion, id. at 569-578. ||||| The speech always began with one of a few variations.
"Do you know what's wrong with (Insert: this country, this state or this city) today?" then-Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford would say. "We just don't beat the kids like we used to."
Like a preacher from a pulpit, he'd give his testimony, telling everyone how his mother once caught him shoplifting cookies from a store after a barber snitched on him. She tied him to a bedpost with pantyhose and whipped him so badly with the cord from her iron that his stepfather had to take him to the hospital.
On the way home, Langford said, his stepfather drove by the Birmingham jail to show him where all the other crooks went.
Today Langford is in prison, having been convicted of federal corruption charges after he took money, clothes and jewelry in exchange for Jefferson County bond business. I guess he never learned better than to take things he shouldn't.
But I'm telling this story now because, while I heard Langford deliver that speech at least a half dozen times, every time he gave it, from somewhere out in the crowd came an "Amen!"
But here's the thing. That whole speech was a lie. In Alabama, we do still beat the kids like we used to, at least in places. And while the rest of the country has moved into the 21st century, Alabama has lingered in the past and been left behind.
I've heard variations of Langford's speech all my life, and not just from him.
Not long after I graduated, there was a fight at my high school that some folks in my hometown were even calling a "race riot."
This was 1997.
There were conflicting accounts of what happened, but the most congruent version of events was that a white kid had been wearing a rebel flag bandana and some black kids had been giving him grief about it in the high school parking lot. The white kid apparently called them the n-word. A fight ensued.
As it happened, I was home from college during fall break when the school board called an emergency meeting, so out of curiosity, I went. While the board members met in an executive session, I sat quietly among parents, white and black, who sat somewhat uncomfortably across from each other at cafetorium tables.
I'm not sure what I expected. Maybe some hand-wringing over whether the peaceful and successful integration of the school system was coming unwound.
But nah, instead, they were all talking about how the new principal didn't beat the kids.
Not only that, but a weird one-upmanship followed -- a nostalgia for borderline child abuse.
Our grandmama used to make us cut the switch.
My daddy had a belt this wide and this long.
My momma chased me around the house with a two-by-four.
A consensus crystallized. If the school board brought back paddling, everything would be fine.
But I had gone to that school, just a couple years before, when teachers and administrators did paddle, and I knew what all these parents were mouthing off about was wrong.
When I had been in junior high, our school had a weekend detention called Saturday school. If you've seen the Breakfast Club, you've pretty much got the picture.
Everybody hated Saturday school. Not just the students, but the administrators and teachers, most of all. So when faced with a punishment, most students got a choice -- three licks or three hours.
Everybody took the licks.
While I was still a student there, the school system ended Saturday school and the bargain changed -- three licks or three days suspension.
Everybody still took the licks.
So here's the thing -- if you're offering students a choice of punishment, doesn't it stand to reason that the option they avoid is the greater deterrent?
Ultimately, the school wasn't paddling students because it was an effective deterrent. They were paddling students because it was cheap and easy.
In college, I told classmates that my high school still paddled students and nobody believed me. It hadn't occurred to me before then that the educational environment I'd come up in was no longer considered normal.
Again, that was in 1997.
In the almost two decades since then, some schools in Alabama have moved away from corporal punishment. As Trisha Powell Crain reported for AL.com this week the state paddled nearly 40,000 students in 2000. Since then, that number has dropped by about half.
However, corporal punishment is still legal. And common.
It's not legal to paddle a grown person, mind you, even in an Alabama prison. But in schools, many still take the wood to even small children.
Take a step back -- figuratively from space -- and look at the the map of schools that do and don't strike their students, and one thing is clear -- there is no discernable benefit to striking students instead other forms of punishment, just as those states where corporal punishment is illegal haven't turned into lawless dystopian hellholes.
If corporal punishment did have any positive effect on student performance, Alabama wouldn't sit near the bottom of national academic rankings. It would be number two.
Right behind Mississippi. ||||| 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. ||||| 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. ||||| Alabama Corporal Punishment in Public Schools Laws
The term corporal punishment refers to the use of physical force, such as spanking or slapping, as a means of discipline or to control a potentially dangerous situation. Every state has its own approach to the use of corporal punishment in public schools, from outright bans to more localized control. States that allow corporal punishment in public schools usually provide statutory details of what is considered reasonable, including the circumstances in which it's used. But states that don't allow the practice typically make an exception for emergency situations.
See FindLaw's School Discipline section for related articles and resources, including School Discipline History.
What Are Alabama's Laws on Corporal Punishment in Public Schools?
Alabama legislation passed in 1995 allows the use of corporal punishment in public schools, but directs local school boards to adopt their own codes of conduct and disciplinary procedures. The statute doesn't provide much detail, but prohibits any "excessive force or cruel and unusual punishment."
Code Section 16-1-24.1 Punishment Allowed Local school boards to adopt code for conduct and discipline of students. Circumstances Allowable Except in the case of excessive force or cruel and unusual punishment, no certified or noncertified employee of the State Board of Education or any local board of education shall be civilly liable for any action carried out in conformity with state law and system or school rules regarding the control, discipline, suspension, and expulsion of students.
Note: State laws are constantly changing, usually through either new legislation, ballot initiatives, or court rulings. Make sure you contact an Alabama education attorney or conduct your own legal research to verify the state law(s) you are researching.
Examples of Corporal Punishment Policies in Alabama
The majority of public school districts in Alabama use corporal punishment as a regular part of the discipline process, often with the use of a wooden paddle. Most of these policies discourage the use paddling as the first response and allow parents to opt-out. Below are some examples of corporal punishment policies in Alabama:
Alexander City Schools: A maximum of "three licks administered to a student's buttocks" is reserved as a last resort before a student is suspended or expelled. A parent may ask that their child not be subject to corporal punishment, but the principal may use it without parental consent under some circumstances.
A maximum of "three licks administered to a student's buttocks" is reserved as a last resort before a student is suspended or expelled. A parent may ask that their child not be subject to corporal punishment, but the principal may use it without parental consent under some circumstances. Autagua County School System: Corporal punishment is allowed in elementary and secondary school for minor offenses, limited to "three licks to the buttocks." Refusal to be paddled can result in suspension or expulsion.
Corporal punishment is allowed in elementary and secondary school for minor offenses, limited to "three licks to the buttocks." Refusal to be paddled can result in suspension or expulsion. Brewton City Schools: Only the principal or assistant principal may apply corporal punishment, and parents may excuse their children from physical punishment through written request.
Research the Law
Alabama Law
Official State Codes - Links to the official online statutes (laws) in all 50 states and DC.
Alabama Laws on Corporal Punishment in Public Schools: Related Resources ||||| When advising families about discipline strategies, pediatricians should use a comprehensive approach that includes consideration of the parent–child relationship, reinforcement of desired behaviors, and consequences for negative behaviors. Corporal punishment is of limited effectiveness and has potentially deleterious side effects. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents be encouraged and assisted in the development of methods other than spanking for managing undesired behavior.
Parents often ask pediatricians for advice about the provision of appropriate and effective discipline. In fact, 90% of pediatricians report that they include advice about discipline when providing anticipatory guidance to families.1 The American Academy of Pediatrics held a consensus conference on corporal punishment, the report of which was published in Pediatricsand serves as one major source of information for this statement.2
The word discipline, which comes from the root word disciplinare—to teach or instruct—refers to the system of teaching and nurturing that prepares children to achieve competence, self-control, self-direction, and caring for others.3 An effective discipline system must contain three vital elements: 1) a learning environment characterized by positive, supportive parent–child relationships; 2) a strategy for systematic teaching and strengthening of desired behaviors (proactive); and 3) a strategy for decreasing or eliminating undesired or ineffective behaviors (reactive). Each of these components needs to be functioning adequately for discipline to result in improved child behavior.
As children grow older and interact with wider, more complex physical and social environments, the adults who care for them must develop increasingly creative strategies to protect them and teach them orderly and desirable patterns of behavior. As a result of consistent structure and teaching (discipline), children integrate the attitudes and expectations of their caregivers into their behavior. Preschoolers begin to develop an understanding of rules, and their behavior is guided by these rules and by the consequences associated with them. As children become school age, these rules become internalized and are accompanied by an increasing sense of responsibility and self-control. Responsibility for behavior is transferred gradually from the caregiving adult to the child, and is especially noticeable during the transition to adolescence. Thus, parents must be prepared to modify their discipline approach over time, using different strategies as the child develops greater independence and capacity for self-regulation and responsibility. The process can be more challenging with children who have developmental disabilities and may require additional or more intense strategies to manage their behavior.
The main parental discipline for infants is to provide generally structured daily routines but also to learn to recognize and respond flexibly to the infant's needs. As infants become more mobile and initiate more contact with the environment, parents must impose limitations and structure to create safe spaces for them to explore and play. Equally important, parents must protect them from potential hazards (eg, by installing safety covers on electric outlets and by removing dangerous objects from their reach) and introduce activities that distract their children from potential hazards. Such proactive behaviors are central to discipline for toddlers. Communicating verbally (a firm no) helps prepare the infant for later use of reasoning, but parents should not expect reasoning, verbal commands, or reprimands to manage the behavior of infants or toddlers.
The earliest discipline strategy is passive and occurs as infants and their caregivers gradually develop a mutually satisfactory schedule of feeding, sleeping, and awakening. Biologic rhythms tend to become more regular and adapt to family routines. Signals of discomfort, such as crying and thrashing, are modified as infants acquire memories of how their distress has been relieved and learn new strategies to focus attention on their emerging needs. 4
STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE DISCIPLINE
Effective discipline requires three essential components: 1) a positive, supportive, loving relationship between the parent(s) and child, 2) use of positive reinforcement strategies to increase desired behaviors, and 3) removing reinforcement or applying punishment to reduce or eliminate undesired behaviors. All components must be functioning well for discipline to be successful.
Promoting Optimal Parent–Child Relationships and Reinforcing Positive Behaviors For discipline techniques to be most effective, they must occur in the context of a relationship in which children feel loved and secure. In this context, parents' responses to children's behavior, whether approving or disapproving, are likely to have the greatest effect because the parents' approval is important to the children. Parental responses within the context of loving and secure relationships also provide children with a sense that their environment is stable and that a competent adult is taking care of them, which leads to the development of a sense of personal worth. As children respond to the positive nature of the relationship and consistent discipline, the need for frequent negative interactions decreases, and the quality of the relationship improves further for both parents and children. To this end, the best educators of children are people who are good role models and about whom children care enough to want to imitate and please. Certain conditions in the parent–child relationship have been found to be especially important in promoting positive child behavior, including: maintaining a positive emotional tone in the home through play and parental warmth and affection for the child 5 ;
providing attention to the child to increase positive behavior (conversely ignoring, removing, or withholding parent attention to decrease the frequency or intensity of undesirable behaviors). 6 For older children, attention includes being aware of and interested in their school and other activities;
providing consistency in the form of regular times and patterns for daily activities and interactions to reduce resistance, convey respect for the child, and make negative experiences less stressful 7 ;
responding consistently to similar behavioral situations to promote more harmonious parent– child relationships and more positive child outcomes 8 ; and
being flexible, particularly with older children and adolescents, through listening and negotiation to reduce fewer episodes of child noncompliance with parental expectations.8 Involving the child in decision-making has been associated with long-term enhancement in moral judgment.9 These factors are important in developing a positive, growth-enhancing relationship between parent and child. Even in the best relationships, however, parents will need to provide behavioral limits that their children will not like, and children will behave in ways that are unacceptable to parents. Disagreement and emotional discord occur in all families, but in families with reinforcing positive parent–child relationships and clear expectations and goals for behavior, these episodes are less frequent and less disruptive.
Rewarding Desirable or Effective Behaviors The word discipline usually connotes strategies to reduce or eliminate undesirable behaviors. However, more successful child-rearing systems use procedures to both increase desirable behaviors and decrease undesirable behaviors. Eliminating undesirable behavior without having a strategy to stimulate more desirable behavior generally is not effective. The most critical part of discipline involves helping children learn behaviors that meet parental expectations, are effective in promoting positive social relationships, and help them develop a sense of self-discipline that leads to positive self-esteem. Behaviors that the parents value and want to encourage need to be identified by the parents and understood by their children. Many desirable behavioral patterns emerge as part of the child's normal development, and the role of adults is to notice these behaviors and provide positive attention to strengthen and refine them. Other desirable behaviors are not part of a child's natural repertoire and need to be taught, such as sharing, good manners, empathy, study habits, and behaving according to principles despite the fact that immediate rewards for other behaviors (eg, lying or stealing) may be present. These behaviors must be taught to children through modeling by parents and shaping skills through parental attention and encouragement. It is much easier to stop undesired behaviors than to develop new, effective behaviors. Therefore, parents must identify the positive behaviors and skills that they want for their children and make a concerted effort to teach and strengthen these behaviors. Strategies for parents and other caregivers that help children learn positive behaviors include: providing regular positive attention, sometimes called special time (opportunities to communicate positively are important for children of all ages);
listening carefully to children and helping them learn to use words to express their feelings;
providing children with opportunities to make choices whenever appropriate options exist and then helping them learn to evaluate the potential consequences of their choice;
reinforcing emerging desirable behaviors with frequent praise and ignoring trivial misdeeds; and
modeling orderly, predictable behavior, respectful communication, and collaborative conflict resolution strategies.10 Such strategies have several potential benefits: the desired behavior is more likely to become internalized, the newly learned behavior will be a foundation for other desirable behaviors, and the emotional environment in the family will be more positive, pleasant, and supportive.
Reducing and Eliminating Undesirable Behavior When undesirable behavior occurs, discipline strategies to reduce or eliminate such behavior are needed.11 Undesirable behavior includes behavior that places the child or others in danger, is noncompliant with the reasonable expectations and demands of the parents or other appropriate adults (eg, teachers), and interferes with positive social interactions and self-discipline. Some of these behaviors require an immediate response because of danger or risk to the child. Other undesirable behaviors require a consistent consequence to prevent generalization of the behavior to other situations. Some problems, particularly those that involve intense emotional exchanges, may be handled best by taking a break from the situation and discussing it later when emotions have subsided, developing alternative ways to handle the situation (removing attention), or, in many cases, avoiding these situations altogether. Extinction including time-out and removal of privileges, and punishment are two common discipline approaches that have been associated with reducing undesired behavior. These different strategies, sometimes both confusingly called punishment, are effective if applied appropriately to specific behaviors. Although they both reduce undesired behavior, they work in very different ways and have very different short- and long-term effects. For both strategies, the following factors may increase the effectiveness: clarity on the part of the parent and child about what the problem behavior is and what consequence the child can expect when this behavior occurs;
providing a strong and immediate initial consequence when the targeted behavior first occurs;
consistently providing an appropriate consequence each time a targeted problematic behavior occurs;
delivering instruction and correction calmly and with empathy; and
providing a reason for a consequence for a specific behavior, which helps children beyond toddler age to learn the appropriate behavior12 and improves their overall compliance with requests from adults.13 Occasionally, the consequence for an undesired behavior is immediate, without parental involvement (eg, breaking one's own toy), and may be effective in teaching children to change their behavior. When this consequence is combined with parental reprimand, there is an increase in the likelihood that the child's behavior will be affected for future similar situations. ||||| By Trisha Powell Crain
This story was written for AL.com by independent journalist Trisha Powell Crain of Alabama School Connection.
While most of the nation long ago stopped striking children, Alabama principals continue to boast one of the highest batting percentages in the nation, paddling one child every four minutes.
Across Alabama public schools, nearly 19,000 students were paddled in the 2013-2014 school year, according to newly available data from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. The count is of individual students and does not indicate how many were paddled more than once.
Unlike in most of the developed world, Alabama law explicitly allows adults to administer corporal punishment, and education leaders in Alabama find no problem with paddling in schools.
"I don't anticipate this being the focus of change that Alabama needs to move our student achievement higher," said Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, chair of the Education Policy committee in the Alabama House of Representatives.
Collins said no one has brought up the subject of paddling in the legislature. "As a child paddled, and as a parent who paddled, I've not experienced the negative side of corporal punishment personally, only the positive side," Collins said in a statement.
While no studies exist showing improvement of student achievement after corporal punishment is banned, many studies show the negative impact paddling has on children's attitudes toward and achievement in school. After decades of research, all major children's advocacy and medical groups have called for an end to corporal punishment.
But the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of public schools to administer corporal punishment to students in 1977. The new federal data shows that most states decline to use the option, as Alabama is one of just 21 states to report any paddling in any public school.
Alabama is one of just 15 states with a state law that explicitly allows for corporal punishment. Another 29 states specifically ban the practice.
In Alabama, the new data also shows disproportionate usage, as boys are far more likely to be paddled than girls, and black and multi-race students are more likely to be paddled than white students. Though black males made up only 24 percent of the population in the schools that paddle, they accounted for 35 percent of the boys who were paddled.
While the number of total swings is far lower for girls, the racial disparity was higher. About a quarter of the girls in schools that paddle are African-American, but nearly half of the girls who were paddled were African-American.
Dr. Amir Whitaker, an attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center who has studied the effects of paddling, says that Alabama policy contradicts national research. "It's a very convenient and knee-jerk reaction to discipline. And it does nothing but harm the child. All the research shows that, and all the experts know that," Whitaker said.
"Research clearly says you're more likely to be aggressive if someone is aggressive with you. You're more likely to physically abuse someone if someone has physically abused you," he said.
Whitaker points out that if he, as an adult, hit a child with a board, he'd be charged with aggravated assault, yet Alabama law allows adult educators to hit children at school.
No debate in Alabama
Meanwhile, 49 nations, including most of Europe and South America, have outlawed the use of corporal punishment both in schools and in the home, according to the Global Initiative to End Corporal Punishment.
And while pressure has mounted on holdouts, such as France, there has been little public debate in Alabama or neighboring states.
"Proper corporal punishment isn't abuse, and we should be clear about that," said Mary Scott Hunter, a member of the state Board of Education.
Hunter said she had not reviewed any research on the subject, nor had she ever been asked about paddling while serving on the state board. But she said she knows many parents and school leaders who use corporal punishment on children, adding she defers to their judgment about its use in a school setting.
"We often see misbehavior in children that comes straight from the home, and I'd like to see some parents lined up and paddled for that," said Hunter. "Habitual tardiness and truancy comes to mind."
Heaviest hitters in the South
Of the 21 states that paddled in 2013-2014, a dozen are in the South.
And when it comes to frequency of paddling, seven of the top ten heaviest hitters are also in the South. Alabama lands at number three in the nation for percentage of students who are paddled, behind Mississippi and Arkansas.
In Alabama, federal data shows 18,749 students were paddled in 2013-2014. That's about 2.5% of all students in Alabama.
But the paddle is not invoked evenly across the state nor across school districts. More than half of all schools in Mississippi paddled students, but just under half in Alabama use corporal punishment.
This first map shows the number of students paddled at least once.
Meanwhile, American education and child advocacy groups, including the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Bar Association, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Association for Secondary School Principals, and the American Civil Liberties Union, continue to call for a ban, citing harmful long-term effects of paddling on children and the need to keep physical violence out of the educational environment.
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry policy statement against corporal punishment, reads in part: "Corporal punishment signals to the child that a way to settle interpersonal conflicts is to use physical force and inflict pain ... Supervising adults who willfully humiliate children and punish by force and pain are often causing more harm than they prevent."
The federal definition of corporal punishment is "paddling, spanking, or other forms of physical punishment imposed on a student". Alabama leaves its definition to local boards of education.
Here's what Alabama law says about corporal punishment:
"No student has a right to be unruly in his or her classroom to the extent that such disruption denies fellow students of their right to learn. The teacher in each classroom is expected to maintain order and discipline. Teachers are hereby given the authority and responsibility to use appropriate means of discipline up to and including corporal punishment as may be prescribed by the local board of education."
In practice, spanking largely falls to principals and assistant principals, rather than classroom teachers.
Alabama growing cautious
The Alabama Board of Education just hired a new state superintendent from Massachusetts, a state that banned corporal punishment in 1971. State Superintendent Michael Sentance, who starts work today, could not be reached for comment.
Requests for comment from the Alabama State Department of Education were not successful.
But Dr. Eric Mackey, director of the School Superintendents of Alabama (SSA), said he believes the decision to paddle belongs at the district and school level. Mackey has worked in school districts that paddled students and in those that don't. "I can certainly see both sides of the debate," he said.
Maintaining order in the classroom is necessary to ensure students have a good learning environment, Mackey said. He said he believes Alabama school officials have grown cautious about using corporal punishment due in part to the litigious nature of society, but also due to the national trend away from paddling.
For their part, he said, SSA cautions school superintendents to make certain teachers and administrators know what the local board policy allows and to ensure employees follow local board policy.
While the National Education Association has called for a ban on paddling, the Alabama Education Association has not done so. Efforts to reach AEA President Sheila Remington Hocutt to determine why AEA has remained silent on this issue were not successful.
Inside the numbers
In Alabama in 2013-2014, boys were paddled at a 4.5-to-1 rate over girls.
The federal data showed that 107 of Alabama's 133 school districts engaged in the practice. (Two small city school districts, Satsuma and Troy, were not included in the federal data.)
Here's a look at which districts paddled students. Use the drop-down menu to choose whether you want to see the actual number of students paddled or the rate (or percentage) of students paddled.
Even within districts, some schools paddled far more often than others.
Nearly half, or 657 of Alabama's 1,367 schools, saw at least one incident of paddling. More than 400 of those schools that used corporal punishment enrolled elementary-aged children.
Because grade levels vary widely within schools across Alabama, it's hard to say exactly at which grades most of the paddling happened, but 10,550, or 56% of the students who were paddled attended schools that enrolled kindergartners up to at least fifth graders.
Here's a map of all schools that paddled students during the 2013-2014 school year.
When looking at schools where paddling was practiced, black males received the highest rate of paddling, at 13 percent of black males enrolled. Though black males only made up 24 percent of the population, they accounted for 35 percent of the total male students that were paddled. Alabama's numbers mirror national numbers as black males make up 22 percent of the population nationwide and accounted for 38 percent of the total male students paddled nationwide.
Among males of two or more races, one in ten was paddled, double the rate for Hispanic males, and three times the rate for Asian males. Six percent of American Indian males were paddled.
About 8 percent of white males were paddled. Overall, white males made up 66 percent of the total student population in schools where students were paddled, and accounted for 60 percent of the students who were paddled.
Black girls are being paddled at even more disproportionate rates. Though they make up only a quarter of the population at schools where students are paddled, they accounted for 47 percent of all girls who were paddled. White girls, making up 66 percent of the population in schools where students are paddled, also accounted for 47 percent of girls who were paddled.
Students with disabilities were not paddled disproportionately more than students without disabilities statewide. Although within some schools, the numbers show students with disabilities were paddled at higher rates than those without disabilities.
Trending Downward
Though Alabama is still near the top of the list nationally when it comes to use of corporal punishment, the state's numbers have shown a long-term downward trend.
In 2000, nearly 40,000 students were paddled, according to federal data. That number was nearly 30,000 in the 2009-2010 school year, and in the latest data that number is below 20,000. (It should be noted that a representative sample of schools was used prior to the 2011-2012 collection, when every school was required to report discipline data to the U.S. Department of Education.)
Numbers are also trending downward in two Alabama districts that were among the heaviest users of the paddle in 2013-2014.
In Selma City Schools, the Middle CHAT Academy, now known as R.B. Hudson Middle School, landed at the top of the state list for the percentage of students being paddled. Nearly 65%, or 301 of the school's 464 students were paddled. Males took most of the corporal punishment, with 200 of the 234 male students being paddled. Still, out of 230 female students, 101 were paddled.
Throughout the Selma district as a whole, nearly one in four students was paddled. But that appears to have changed.
Dr. Angela Mangum became superintendent of Selma City Schools in April of 2015. When asked about these numbers, Mangum provided 2015-2016 numbers showing only 178 incidents of paddling for the 3,588 students in the district, or one in 20 students, a difference she called "dramatic".
"One of the primary priorities in our district this year is to improve the socio-emotional well-being of students," Mangum wrote in an email response. "We are addressing this priority through improving the climate and culture of our classrooms and schools, and by implementing advisory programs in grade K-12 that emphasizes character development and positive relationships with others."
"We are moving away from the use of corporal punishment," echoed Mackey with the Alabama Superintendent association.
The use of alternative strategies, such as positive behavioral intervention supports (known as PBIS), are showing promise, he said. However, funding has "decreased precipitously" for teacher training within school districts, and training for programs like PBIS is suffering, he said.
"As a state, we're not investing in those behavioral interventions and professional development like we were ten years ago," Mackey said.
Highest rate in Alabama
While Selma may have claimed the highest rate for a single school, Conecuh County saw the highest rate of paddling by an entire district.
Conecuh County Schools in south Alabama paddled more students at a higher rate than any other district in Alabama. Of the 1,463 students enrolled, 341, or 23.3%, were paddled during the 2013-2014 school year. That was just slightly higher than Selma.
That means all students in Conecuh stood roughly a one in four chance of being paddled. Leading the way in Conecuh, with a 43% rate of paddling, was Thurgood Marshall Middle School in Evergreen, Alabama.
Dr. Zickeyous Byrd, superintendent in Conecuh County Schools, said "Corporal punishment is allowed in Conecuh County Schools with several restrictions. The very first, and most important one, is that any parent can 'opt out' of corporal punishment for his or her child." Byrd said it only takes a simple note from home.
But Byrd also spoke of a move away from corporal punishment. He said since he became superintendent in March 2015, paddling is now used as a "last resort," adding "only after all other corrective actions have been tried do we administer corporal punishment."
Conecuh County's student code of conduct sets out guidelines for how paddling is to be done and specifies "the employee will use a Board issued paddle" and the number of "licks" will be determined by the principal or his/her designee." Also, "at no time more than three (3) licks will be administered."
This map shows the rate of Alabama students paddled at each school by gender. The rate is the percent of students in that school and of that gender that were paddled. https://public.tableau.com/views/CorporalPunishment2013-2014OCRData/RateofStudentsbySchool?:embed=y&:display_count=yes
Why 2013-2014 numbers?
Without the federal civil rights database on school discipline, it is difficult to see what has happened since the 2013-2014 school year. Though many states provide disciplinary actions through their state department of education web sites, Alabama does not.
Discipline data belongs to local school districts, and representatives from the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE) have said they do not have access to the data to be able to determine how many students were paddled during a school year.
But paddling students has a long history in Alabama. Much has been said about how southerners tend to spank their children, both at home and at school, more than those living in other areas of the country.
A recent study of all available research, called a "meta-analysis", on the effects of corporal punishment shows that paddling is not effective at controlling behaviors. "Instead of helping children to develop the desire and motivation to behave well of their own accord, corporal punishment teaches children that it is desirable not to get caught: rather than behaving differently next time, they are therefore likely to repeat the undesired behavior and use strategies to avoid being caught."
A recent international study linked corporal punishment with lower grades in school.
Whitaker at the Southern Poverty Law Center said that cultural acceptance of spanking children in the South makes it difficult to end the practice at school.
"As a society, we've acknowledged that bullying in schools should not be tolerated. Arming administrators and teachers with weapons and telling them it's okay to use their physical dominance on children, it's a form of bullying that shouldn't be tolerated," he said. "It sends a message that physical violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflict. In no other area is it acceptable to resolve conflict through violence. It shouldn't be tolerated in schools."
Data was extracted from the U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection for the 2013-2014 school year. Rates and proportions were calculated for purposes of this article.
More than 95,000 schools across the United States and its territories self-report the numbers on many topics including discipline, advanced course offerings and enrollment, chronic absenteeism among students and teachers. School officials must certify the accuracy of the data.
Data is collected every two years. ||||| Council voted to adopt the following resolution on corporal punishment:
Whereas the resort to corporal punishment tends to reduce the likelihood of employing more effective, humane, and creative ways of interacting with children;
Whereas it is evident that socially acceptable goals of education, training, and socialization can be achieved without the use of physical violence against children, and that children so raised, grow to moral and competent adulthood;
Whereas corporal punishment intended to influence "undesirable responses" may create in the child the impression that he or she is an "undesirable person"; and an impression that lowers self-esteem and may have chronic consequences;
Whereas research has shown that to a considerable extent children learn by imitating the behavior of adults, especially those they are dependent upon; and the use of corporal punishment by adults having authority over children is likely to train children to use physical violence to control behavior rather than rational persuasion, education, and intelligent forms of both positive and negative reinforcement;
Whereas research has shown that the effective use of punishment in eliminating undesirable behavior requires precision in timing, duration, intensity, and specificity, as well as considerable sophistication in controlling a variety of relevant environmental and cognitive factors, such that punishment administered in institutional settings, without attention to all these factors, is likely to instill hostility, rage, and a sense of powerlessness without reducing the undesirable behavior;
Therefore, be it resolved that the American Psychological Association opposes the use of corporal punishment in schools, juvenile facilities, child care nurseries, and all other institutions, public or private, where children are cared for or educated (Conger, 1975). | – An old-school form of discipline remains popular in Alabama. The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights has found that almost 19,000 children—2.5% of the state's students—got paddled in public schools during the 2013-2014 school year, reports AL.com. Boys get hit more than girls, and black children were paddled at a disproportionate rate compared to whites. It's a long-standing (and legal) disciplinary tradition in the state that locals don't seem terribly motivated to change: The National Education Association wants the practice banned, but the Alabama Education Association has stayed mum—despite the fact that it's illegal to paddle an adult in the state, per an opinion piece on AL.com. UNICEF's "Violence Against Children" report doesn't exactly support paddling enthusiasts, noting that studies have linked corporal punishment to poor mental health, social issues, and academic problems. And many educational and child advocacy groups, including the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, agree it's ill-advised. But a 1977 Supreme Court decision ruled corporal punishment was not cruel and unusual and that schools could decide whether to use it—and in 1995, Alabama lawmakers gave public schools the right to do so. Most of the states that allow paddling (21 states reported it in the 2013-'14 school year) are in the South. (Fifty years of spanking studies analyzed here.) |
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The Ruderman Family Foundation, a leading organization advocating for disability rights, spoke out against the film, accusing it of “crip-face” — a comparison to blackface — in having Baldwin portray the main role. The private philanthropic group is known for advocating on behalf of casting disabled actors.
“Alec Baldwin in ‘Blind’ is just the latest example of treating disability as a costume,” Jay Ruderman, the foundation’s president, said in a statement to the L.A. Times. “We no longer find it acceptable for white actors to portray black characters. Disability as a costume needs to also become universally unacceptable.”
Last summer, the foundation released findings that reveal although those with disabilities represent almost 20% of the country’s population, 95% of disabled characters on television are played by able-bodied performers. The Ruderman Family also criticized the 2016 romantic drama “Me Before You” for casting Sam Claflin as a young banker who was left paralyzed from an accident.
The trailer for “Blind” was released Wednesday, and co-stars Demi Moore as a married socialite who cares for Baldwin’s character as part of a plea bargain. The two develop a love affair, leaving Moore’s character to choose between Baldwin’s and her husband.
The film, directed by Michael Mailer, premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival on Oct. 13. It is scheduled to release worldwide on July 14 by Vertical Entertainment. | – A disability rights organization that often takes Hollywood to task for casting able-bodied actors to play the physically challenged is slamming the upcoming movie Blind. The Ruderman Family Foundation faulted Alec Baldwin's portrayal as a novelist who loses his sight in a car crash, reports the Los Angeles Times. Calling the casting of a blind character by an able-bodied actor "crip-face," President Jay Ruderman draws a direct parallel to blackface. Baldwin's casting "is just the latest example of treating disability as a costume," he says in a statement. "We no longer find it acceptable for white actors to portray black characters. Disability as a costume needs to also become universally unacceptable." Neither Baldwin nor director Michael Mailer have commented. Blind co-stars Demi Moore as a married socialite who falls for Baldwin after she begins reading to him as part of community service. Vertical Entertainment released the trailer Wednesday, notes Variety, and the film is set for release on July 14. Last July, the Ruderman foundation released a report showing that although disabled people comprise 20% of the US population, some 95% of disabled roles on TV go to able-bodied actors. Marlee Matlin later told a Ruderman-organized conference, "There is something wrong with this picture," she said, per the Times. "We as an industry keep talking about diversity … but, sadly, when we start speaking about diversity, disability seems to be left out far too often." (One very real struggle for Baldwin: Lyme disease.) |
GREENVILLE, Del. (AP) — A Delaware man wounded in an attack at a New Year's Eve celebration in Istanbul says he survived by playing dead.
William Jacob Raak told NBC News he stayed silent and motionless during the attack at a popular nightclub, even after being struck.
"When he shot me I didn't move — I just let him shoot me," he told NBC (http://nbcnews.to/2i2wzem ). "I was shot when I was already on the ground. He was shooting people that he had already shot."
Raak, 35, is a small-business owner from Greenville. The State Department said Monday that Raak was the only U.S. citizen injured in the attack in Turkey's largest city.
Raak told NBC he was with a group of nine people, seven of whom were shot. Raak said he was struck in the hip and the bullet traveled to his knee.
"I was probably the luckiest person in the whole thing," he said. "I do find myself very fortunate."
Istanbul Gov. Vasip Sahin has said the attacker, armed with a long-barreled weapon, killed a policeman and a civilian outside the Reina club before entering and firing at people partying inside. At least 39 people, mostly foreigners, were killed. Dozens were injured.
The Islamic State group on Monday claimed responsibility for the shooting. Turkish police, meanwhile, detained eight people in connection to the attack but were still hunting for the gunman, who disappeared amid the chaos.
Raak's mother, Grace Raak, told The Associated Press on Monday her son was visiting Istanbul to celebrate his birthday, which was Wednesday.
"We are praying for those that were injured, for their speedy recovery, and we're praying for the family and friends of those who lost loved ones," Grace Raak said.
She said it was her understanding that her son was to arrive home Tuesday night.
___
Associated Press journalist Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia contributed to this report. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
/ Updated By Richard Engel
ISTANBUL — An American shot during the Istanbul nightclub rampage told NBC News he survived the ordeal by playing dead, remaining silent and motionless even after the gunman shot him.
Jake Raak was one of about 60 people injured during a rampage in and around the Reina nightclub early New Year's Day. Thirty-nine people were killed — most of them foreigners.
Authorities were engaged in an international manhunt Monday for the suspect, who fled the scene after the shooting. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş told reporters Monday that investigators had recovered his fingerprints and expected to be able to identify him soon.
Kurtulmuş said eight people were already in custody as authorities pursued others connected to the gunman.
Raak, 35, of Greenville, Delaware, recalled that as the gunman moved through the club spraying bullets, he targeted people who were lying on the floor.
"When he shot me, I didn't move — I just let him shoot me," he said. "I was shot when I was already on the ground. He was shooting people that he had already shot."
ISIS claimed responsibility for the shooting Monday, identifying the attacker as "a heroic soldier of the caliphate." It said the attack had been carried out "in response to a call" from its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, although it didn't say whether it directed or merely inspired the perpetrator.
The gunman fired 120 rounds during his rampage in and around the nightclub about 1:30 a.m. Sunday (5:30 p.m. ET Saturday), police told NBC News. The incident lasted less than 10 minutes.
Raak was shot in the hip, and the bullet traveled to his knee. He added that he didn't move or make a sound even after he was hit, fearful that the gunman might realize he was alive.
"You just have to stay as calm as you can," he said. "I took a bullet."
Raak was with a group of nine people, he said, seven of whom were shot.
Raak said he came within inches of the shooter, who walked along a bench that he was lying underneath.
"I saw him coming, and he shot us all," he said. "Somebody said there were shots fired, and I initially did not believe it until I saw the gunman and he started shooting up the whole place."
Raak said he felt utterly helpless as the gunman fired his rounds.
The main suspect in the Istanbul nightclub attack in a video released by Turkish police and Dogan News Agency. Dogan News Agency via AFP - Getty Images
"As you'd imagine, you're looking at a guy with a gun, and you do not have a gun," he said. "You're thinking of ways you can take him down in some way, but there's not much you can really do — it's a terrorist."
Still, he said, "I was probably the luckiest person in the whole thing."
Police in Istanbul released what they said was an image of the suspect taken from security video.
Twenty-eight of the dead were foreigners, Turkish Health Ministry officials said. Canadian, Iraqi, Saudi, Indian, Lebanese, Tunisian, Kuwaiti and Syrian citizens are among the dead. ||||| ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Shot in the arm and slumped behind a table, Francois al-Asmar played dead as the gunman walked through the exclusive Istanbul nightclub shooting the wounded as they lay on the ground.
An injured woman is carried to an ambulance from a nightclub where a gun attack took place during a New Year party in Istanbul, Turkey. Murat Ergin/Ihlas News Agency via REUTERS
Like most of the 39 people killed at a New Year’s party in Reina, a hang-out for the Turkish jet set and moneyed foreigners, the Lebanese radio and TV graduate was a visitor to Istanbul, enjoying a city reputed in the Middle East for its diversity and tolerance.
“He shot one shot, so we thought - I thought - it was some angry or drunk man ... But a few seconds later, we heard a machine gun,” Asmar told Reuters from his hospital bed.
“I was hiding behind the table, sitting on the floor, but my shoulder must have been exposed. He was shooting us on the floor ... I acted dead so he didn’t keep shooting me,” he said.
The lone gunman, still at large, shot dead a police officer and a civilian at the door before walking in and opening fire at random. Witnesses said he shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest). Islamic State claimed responsibility.
“As soon as he entered the club he started firing and he didn’t stop. He fired non-stop for 20 minutes at least,” said Younis Turk, a French citizen of Turkish origin.
“We thought that there were several of them because it just didn’t stop. And there was some kind of bombing as well, he threw some explosives,” he said.
The club was a gathering point for many nationalities that night. Victims included an Indian Bollywood film producer, a Turkish waiter, a Lebanese fitness trainer and a Jordanian bar owner.
According to a forensics report quoted by the Milliyet newspaper, some of the victims were shot at very close distance or even at point-blank range.
Women who survived an attack by a gunman, react outisde the Reina nightclub by the Bosphorus, in Istanbul, Turkey, January 1, 2017. REUTERS/Huseyin Aldemir
Mehmet Yilan, 36, a barman at Reina for 12 years, said the attacker deliberately targeted the most crowded areas of the club, which sits on the shore of the Bosphorus in Ortakoy, an Istanbul neighborhood packed with cafes and restaurants.
“He stormed in and immediately headed for the people to the left, which is always more crowded ... I wonder if he came here before because he seemed to know where to go,” Yilan said, describing how his manager yelled at people to run.
“He was shooting randomly but aiming for their upper bodies. He didn’t want to just injure them.”
Yilan escaped into a back room with five customers and two other bar staff, then went downstairs to a terraced area on the edge of the water. Despite the icy, snowy weather, some people jumped into the water to escape the gunfire.
“He kept shooting all throughout. I called for our boat which transfers our customers, but he kept firing toward the sea too. The boat couldn’t approach,” Yilan said.
He spoke to Reuters at the funeral of his colleague, Fatih Cakmak, a security guard who worked at the club and had survived a suicide bombing targeting police at a soccer stadium a few kilometers away just three weeks earlier.
“ISTANBUL’S BEST NIGHT CLUB”
Lito German, 47, a Filipino living in Saudi Arabia who works in marketing, was in Istanbul for the first time with his wife and daughter and was approaching the club as the attack began.
“We were about 100 metres away and started seeing people fleeing toward us. Most were very well dressed, though many were barefoot and looking shaken and scared,” he said.
“We were actually meant to go to another club, but we didn’t want to be in a very big place due to security issues, and we found Reina by googling Istanbul’s best night club. We thought the most expensive club would have better security.”
Men lay flowers outisde the Reina nightclub by the Bosphorus, which was attacked by a gunman, in Istanbul, Turkey, January 1, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Armored police vehicles rushed to the scene as more and more people came running out, he said.
Among the dead were Abis Rizvi, 49, a Bollywood producer who was in the midst of making his second film, and Khushi Shah, a fashion designer in her 20s, both from Mumbai. The Indian government said it was making arrangements to help the families as they come to Turkey to collect the bodies.
Lebanon sent a plane to carry back the remains of three of its citizens who were among the dead.
Elias Wardini, 26, a personal trainer, had posted a picture on Instagram a few hours before the attack, posing in the Istanbul snow with another Lebanese victim in her twenties, Rita Shami.
The club’s owner, Mehmet Kocarslan, said police had taken extraordinary security measures in the run-up to the New Year in neighborhoods on the Bosphorus shore around Ortakoy.
The U.S. embassy had warned of potential attacks on areas frequented by foreigners, but Kocarslan said there had been no specific threat against his club in particular and that many of the warnings had been country-wide.
“I really don’t know how this demon, I can’t even call him a terrorist, was able to reach here despite all this intelligence and extraordinary security measures,” he said.
The incident bore echoes of an attack by militant Islamists on Paris’s Bataclan music hall in November 2015 that, along with assaults on bars and restaurants, killed 130 people.
“When they’re determined, they’re determined, and there’s nothing to do,” said Turk, who was visiting from France.
“That doesn’t mean that I won’t be coming anymore. For me Turkey, Istanbul, is one of the nicest cities in the world and I will keep on coming again and again.” | – Jake Raak calls himself "probably the luckiest person in the whole thing"—the "whole thing" being the New Year's Day massacre at a Turkish nightclub. The Greenville, Delaware, resident tells NBC News the shooter walked within inches of the bench he was under, and that when he was shot in the hip, he made no sound or movement so as not to alert the gunman he was still alive. It may have been a life-saving choice: Reuters reports the gunman, who ultimately killed 39, specifically went after the wounded at the Reina club in Istanbul. Raak says that among his group of nine, all but two were shot. The State Department has confirmed he was the only American injured. The bullet that struck him ended up in his knee. His mother tells the AP that her 35-year-old son had traveled to Istanbul to celebrate his birthday, which was last Wednesday. ISIS on Monday claimed responsibility for the massacre. While eight people have been detained, the gunman remains at large. |
Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant in ""Did You Hear About the Morgans?"View more photos HERE.
Pure, communal silence can be a wonderful thing, and if you haven't experienced any lately, I commend you to see the first available screening of the new romantic comedy "Did You Hear About the Morgans?" Each of its theoretical punch lines is preceded by an eerie second or two of dead air, followed by the jokelike "payoff," guiltily delivered by one of its game cast members, followed by a longer awkward pause. It's not just the sound of crickets you hear watching this movie. It's the sound of dead crickets.
Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker play the Morgans, a Manhattan power couple on the outs and the brink of divorce. He cheated on her, citing reasons of infertility-related stress; she is not in the forgiving vein and has already begun thinking about adoption on her own. He wants her back, and proposes a trial reconciliation dinner — after which they witness a murder, which makes them targets themselves.So, it's off to FishOutOfWaterville. Plonk, they're plonked into the federal witness protection program and these liberal blue-state weenies are mixing it up with the red-state, red-meat, red-blooded folk of Ray, Wyo. Grant's character is confronted by a grizzly and by a rodeo; Parker's character learns she's a dead-eye with a rifle. (Sam Elliott and Mary Steenburgen, dignity intact, portray their temporary hosts.) At one point the Morgans share a bull costume, otherwise known as writer-director Marc Lawrence's script.Rooting interest? Couldn't be lower. I like Parker and, even though Grant looks genuinely pained in "Morgans," I like him. For the premise to work, though, the Morgans' pathetic dependency on their BlackBerrys and general sense of privilege would have to be funny, so that we enjoy seeing them knocked down a few pegs. Lawrence made a respectably entertaining rom-com for Grant opposite Drew Barrymore, "Music and Lyrics." But when so many films in this battered genre make money, from "Bride Wars" to "The Proposal" to "The Ugly Truth," Hollywood really has no meaningful incentive to do better.
mjphillips@tribune.com
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11 more zero-star movies of the last decade
PG-13 (for some sexual references and momentary violence)Hugh Grant (Paul); Sarah Jessica Parker (Meryl); Sam Elliott (Clay); Mary Steenburgen (Emma); Elisabeth Moss (Jackie); Jesse Liebman (Adam); Michael Kelly (Vincent); Wilford Brimley (Earl)Written and directed by Marc Lawrence; produced by Martin Shafer and Liz Glotzer. A Columbia Pictures release. Running time: 1 43 ||||| Jeff Bridges and his Crazy Heart
Under the Eightball
GO CRAZY HEART Yesterday’s honky-tonk hero, Bad Blake, arrives at a Clovis, New Mexico, bowling alley. It’s another in a string of low-paying, low-turnout gigs with pickup bands half his age, grinding the Greatest Hits out of an old Fender Tremolux, including his breakout — with the chorus, “Funny how falling feels like flying ... for a little while.” Bad’s not flying these days; he’s dying slowly on a bourbon diet, holed up in motels, watching Spanish-language smut. Actor-turned-writer-director Scott Cooper adapted Crazy Heart from Thomas Cobb’s 1987 novel (the title is a Hank Williams B-Side). Cobb wanted Waylon Jennings for Bad Blake; Jeff Bridges got the part, though the now-deceased Jennings and Bad’s other inspirations hang over it. It’s easy to forget, as Billboard’s Country charts fill with faintly twangy pop and lazy paeans to dogs and trucks, that this music has an atavistic darkness. Bad has just about bottomed out when a small-time journalist, Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), meets him for a rare interview — and sticks around. Crazy Heart follows the slow recovery of atrophied emotional responses, which starts when Bad gets involved with Jean and her young son. The subject, rehabilitation, is old and resonant. (Says Waylon: “We’ve been the same way for years/We need to change.”) No scene feels obligatory, and Crazy Heart shows a pragmatic but tender understanding of the relationship between physical breakdown and the discovery of morality. It’s merely a well-done, adult American movie — that is to say, a rarity. (ArcLight Hollywood; AMC Century City)
GO DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS? Let’s be honest here: Did You Hear About the Morgans? is multiplex meringue compared to the meat-and-potatoes cinema at this most award-whoring time of year. Which is fine. Better than fine, frankly, as Hugh Grant yet again proves he’s the most reliable deadpan smart-ass this or that side of the Atlantic — and the actor Paul Rudd should aspire to be once he grows out of his bromantic period. Grant’s Paul Morgan is a Manhattan attorney who, along with his estranged wife (Sarah Jessica Parker as New York’s real estate goddess), witnesses a murder, is forced by U.S. Marshals into a relocation program, and learns how to love again. Their destination: Ray, Wyoming, where they share a log cabin with the sheriff (Sam Elliott and his mustache) and his deputy missus (Mary Steenburgen). At which point the comedy turns blue — as in, blue state versus red state, “real America” versus the one populated by liberal vegetarian New Yorkers and Brits who are probably real Jewish, too. While the story never strays from its formula (how will these battling Bickersons find love again after all that betrayal and ... oh, look, a bear’s chasing Grant!), it’s a thoroughly delightful throwaway — the kind of movie for which cable TV was made. Marc Lawrence writes and directs — as he did for Grant’s Music and Lyrics — and he sure knows his way ’round a snappy tune. (Citywide) (Robert Wilonsky)
DON’T FADE AWAY was not screened in advance of our publication deadline, but a review will appear here next week and can be found online at laweekly.com/movies. (Music Hall)
FALL DOWN DEAD A straightforward, old-fashioned exploitation movie, replete with the usual gratuitous sex scene featuring no-name actors, gory set pieces and some clever stunt casting, Fall Down Dead is reasonably entertaining if unexceptional. Dominique Swain is the damsel in distress, Udo Kier the art-crazy serial killer, and the late David Carradine a comic-relief security guard; if this movie receives any notoriety at all, it will likely be for the fact that Carradine’s character meets his demise in a manner that’s uncomfortably similar to real life. Shooting in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (which apparently has a Figueroa Street — who knew?), director John Keeyes (an Oscar nominee for the short Angela’s Body, and a maker of direct-to-DVD thrillers ever since) swiftly traps us in a downtown building during rolling blackouts, as a madman with a straight razor and love of Picasso corners a group of unlikely stragglers, none of whom — not even the plainclothes cops — seems to know how to use a gun properly. An unsatisfactory ending setting up for a sequel that will never happen is the most significant sour note; otherwise, there’s little here worth paying full price for or getting too upset about — unless you’ve read the press kit that tries to compare this schlock to Hitchcock. (Music Hall) (Luke Y. Thompson)
GO HOME The opening scenes of Home — a nighttime game of street hockey, a bathing session that turns into a five-way splash fight — establish the anarchic sense of play that defines the interactions of the film’s central family, while the casual nudity on display hints at the vaguely incestuous tensions in this uniquely insular clan. The rest of Ursula Meier’s confident, appealingly bizarre debut feature subjects these tensions to the hothouse environment of a self-willed isolation. When the five members of the family find their remote domestic paradise invaded by the reopening of the abandoned highway adjacent to their house, they resort to increasingly lunatic measures to block out the noise — it’s but a small step from earplugs to bricking up their house entirely. Eventually, paranoia and open hostility set in as a family defined from the start by too great a sense of closeness is forced into even closer proximity. Working with all-star DP Agnès Godard, Meier effectively communicates the sense of upended privacy, moving easily from the nighttime intrusion of brightly clad construction workers (the eye-straining oranges and yellows of their uniforms registering as a truly alien presence) to the incongruous sight of Isabelle Huppert tending her garden as blurry streaks of traffic zip by. (Monica 4-Plex) (Andrew Schenker) | – The highlight of Did You Hear About the Morgans? for most critics is their own joke that Sam Elliott's mustache deserves separate billing. Some reactions: The film is so "lumpish and crude" that Colin Covert saves most of his ire for a geographical offense. "The landscape around Yellowstone, where the film is supposedly set, is one of America's great scenic wonders," he writes in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "The movie was actually filmed in tax-break haven New Mexico, and it looks blah. Inexcusable." If you enjoy silence, Michael Phillips writes in the Chicago Tribune, then this is for you. "Each of its theoretical punch lines is preceded by an eerie second or two of dead air, followed by the jokelike 'payoff,' guiltily delivered by one of its game cast members, followed by a longer awkward pause." Oh, come on, Robert Wilonsky writes in LA Weekly. This "multiplex meringue" is a "thoroughly delightful throwaway," and Hugh Grant is "the most reliable deadpan smart-ass this or that side of the Atlantic." No, really, this is unbearable. Sarah Jessica Parker wears a look of "Dostoevskian unhappiness," while Grant acts as though "he just pulled an all-nighter in an emergency room," Michael O'Sullivan writes in the Washington Post. "If they're not having fun, how the heck are we supposed to?" |
Vacant lot at 53 New York Avenue NE in Washington, where a government permit has been granted for work connected with Elon Musk’s Hyperloop project. (Michael Laris/TWP)
It’s not much now, just a parking lot with a discarded gin bottle and an old exterminator receipt.
But the slice of pavement near the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in the District could be the gritty precursor to a tunnel network that could propel pods filled with people and speeding platforms topped with Teslas and Toyotas between the nation’s capital and New York in 29 minutes.
Or it could be just be a parking lot littered with dashed transportation dreams.
Electric-car pioneer and space entrepreneur Elon Musk has been touting his vision for a high-speed transportation system since his tweeted announcement last summer that he had received “verbal govt approval” for his tunnel-digging firm, the Boring Company, to build a “NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop.”
The Boring Company team has received an early, and vague, building permit from the D.C. government that will allow some preparatory and excavation work at the fenced-off parking lot at 53 New York Avenue NE beside a McDonald’s and amid the construction cranes of Washington’s booming NoMa neighborhood.
Asked about the permit, issued Nov. 29, a Boring Company spokesman said Friday that “a New York Avenue location, if constructed, could become a station” in a broad network of such stops across the new system.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) visited the Boring Company in California this month, walking in a tunnel to learn more about the technology the company says will make tunneling faster and cheaper.
The District’s Department of Transportation is figuring out what other permits the Boring Company would need to cut under city roads and other public spaces, according to Bowser’s chief of staff, John Falcicchio.
“We’re just beginning, in the mayor’s office, our conversation to get an understanding of what the general vision is for Hyperloop,” Falcicchio said. Asked whether the Bowser administration supports the project, he was somewhat upbeat but noncommittal, adding: “We’re open to the concept of moving people around the region more efficiently.”
Musk has received backing from the White House Office of American Innovation, led by President Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as well as Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), whose administration rolled out a welcome mat and provided a utility permit, though more permits are needed and no tunneling has begun. Maryland officials say the tunnel would run under Maryland Route 295. The Baltimore-Washington leg would be the initial stretch in the East Coast system.
The overall concept is that pods with perhaps 16 people in each could speed around on electric sleds. Those sleds could also carry individual cars to and from numerous stations. There would be a main artery, with spurs connecting to various stations.
Elevators would take people up and down to the tunnels. And those tunnels would be built relatively close to the surface without disturbing buildings and other structures.
The stations would be somewhat modest affairs, numerous but not grand in scale like Union Station.
“Stations in a Loop or Hyperloop system are small in size and widely distributed in a network — very different from large-station termini considered for train systems,” the company spokesman said.
“Hyperloop” refers to a vacuum-based, people- and car-moving system, which would get rid of wind resistance. Shorter hops within or between cities might have a non-vacuum system, hence the reference to a “Loop” system.
Tunnel experts say the digging part is technically feasible, if potentially slow and expensive. As for how to safely orchestrate the underground system of multiple superfast pods, transportation experts say the challenges are legion.
And the naysayers are numerous, though their views are varied. Some point to Musk’s history of overpromising, as with the slow production of his more-affordable Tesla Model 3. But others, even skeptics, say he has a vision and hard-to-beat record of breakthroughs on the road and in his rocket ventures.
Some transportation advocates worry that moving people and cars — rather than just people — in the high-speed system would undercut the benefits of more-traditional mass transit.
“We need to fix the Metro. Traffic is just bad,” said Mohamed Hussein, an Uber driver from Virginia who stopped for lunch beside the New York Avenue parking lot. Hussein was not enamored with the idea of being swept along at harrowing speeds. “It’s like a bullet. Woooom!” he said. “Too much.”
And he was, he said, realistic about time. “How long will it take them to build the tunnel?” he asked. “It will take a long time.”
But Mohamed Musa, director of housekeeping at the Hyatt Place hotel a couple doors down, can’t wait.
“Just the idea of going to New York to have lunch and come back, it’ll be awesome,” Musa said. ||||| First honed as a concept by Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk in 2012, hyperloop is touted as the future of passenger transport.
For the uninitiated, hyperloop is a high-speed passenger transport system that involves a sealed tube through which high-speed pods move, slashing travel times. For example, the journey from London to Edinburgh - which takes more than four hours on a train - would theoretically take just 30 minutes.
Musk has since encouraged startup firms and student-led projects to create their own versions of hyperloop. The high-speed system uses a version of magnetic levitation, but what is it and how does it work?
What is magnetic levitation?
Magnetic levitation, or maglev, is when an object is suspended in the air using only magnetic fields and no other support.
Along with super-fast maglev trains, magnetic levitation has various engineering uses including magnetic bearings. It can also be used for display and novelty purposes, such as floating speakers.
How does magnetic levitation work?
Magnetic levitation’s best-known use is in maglev trains. Currently only in operation in a handful of countries, including China and Japan, Maglev trains are the fastest in the world, with a record speed of 375 mph (603 km/h). However, the train systems are incredibly expensive to construct and often end up languishing as little-used vanity projects.
There are two main types of maglev train technology - electromagnetic suspension (EMS) and electrodynamic suspension (EDS).
EMS uses electronically controlled electromagnets in the train to attract it to a magnetic steel track, while EDS uses superconducting electromagnets on both the train and the rail to produce a mutually repellent force that makes the carriages levitate.
A variant of EDS technology - as used in the Inductrack system - uses an array of permanent magnets on the underside of the train, instead of powered electromagnets or cooled superconducting magnets. This is also known as passive magnetic levitation technology.
How does Hyperloop use magnetic levitation?
In Musk’s original concept, the pods floated on a layer of pressurised air, in a similar way to pucks floating on an air hockey table. However, a more recent version of the technology from Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) - one of two companies leading the hyperloop race - uses passive magnetic levitation to achieve the same effect.
The technology has been licensed to HTT from Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL), which developed it as part of the Inductrack system. This method is thought to be cheaper and safer than traditional maglev systems.
With this method, magnets are placed on the underside of the capsules in a Halbach array. This focuses the magnetic force of the magnets on one side of the array while almost entirely cancelling out the field on the other side. These magnetic fields cause the pods to float as they pass over electromagnetic coils embedded in the track. Thrust from linear motors propels the pods forward.
HTT’s main rival, Hyperloop One is also using a passive magnetic levitation system where pod-side permanent magnets repel a passive track, with the only input energy coming from the speed of the pod.
For both systems, air pressure in the tunnels is lowered using air pumps in order to aid the pods’ movement. The low air pressure dramatically reduces drag so that only a relatively small amount of electricity is needed to achieve top speeds.
When will hyperloop launch?
The hyperloop system does appear to be progressing with Hyperloop One recently managing to shoot a passenger pod through a test tube at 192mph (309km/h). But while impressive, it still falls well short of its 250mph (402km/h) goal.
A student team from the Technical University of Munich recently managed to reach an impressive top speed of 201mph (324km/h) on SpaceX’s custom-built 1.5km test track in Hawthorne, California. The extraordinary achievement was part of Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Pod Competition.
The first commercial hyperloop track could be built by Hyperloop One in the UAE, after the company agreed a feasibility study with the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA). The proposed system would connect Dubai and Abu Dhabi with a mere 12-minute journey. However, despite various proposed projects around the globe, critics claim that hyperloop infrastructure is far too costly to ever develop into a comprehensive transport system. ||||| A 29-minute trip from D.C. to New York may seem too good to be true. And it very well may be. But that isn’t stopping Elon Musk from pushing forward with plans to build a Hyperloop along the eastern corridor.
And while it’s a very small, very vague step forward, Musk’s Boring Company has received a permit for preparation and preliminary excavation of a site in the nation’s capital. The exact location is 53 New York Avenue NE, next to a McDonald’s and near the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to The Washington Post.
In July, Elon Musk tweeted that he had received verbal government approval to build a multi-state underground Hyperloop on the East Coast. While such approval doesn’t formally exist, Bloomberg confirmed that the White House had had positive conversations with The Boring Company over the proposed tunnel.
Just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2017
This latest permit is far from what’s required to actually begin building the tunnel — which would run from New York to Philadelphia to Baltimore to D.C. — but it’s a start. Musk recently received a conditional permit to start operations in Hawthorne, Maryland for a 10.3 mile route. Maryland officials told WaPo that the tunnel would run under Maryland Route 295, with the D.C.-Baltimore leg being built first.
Stations for the Hyperloop would be relatively small and toned down compared to the stations we’re used to, such as Union Station and Penn Station. There would be a main line running between the four aforementioned cities, with smaller lines spurring out from the city’s central station for other potential destinations.
Right now, the trip from NY to D.C. takes more than three hours. It would certainly be nice to pop down for a meeting with just an hour of travel time, but this first permit is comparable to an athlete stretching before a race. We have not yet begun. | – Elon Musk's dream of building a hyperloop that can move people between Washington, DC, and New York City in 29 minutes may be a small step closer to becoming a distant reality. A Nov. 29 permit issued by DC's Department of Transportation allows Musk's Boring Company to dig at an abandoned lot beside a McDonald's in northeast Washington that the company says might eventually become a station on a hyperloop connecting NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. The system would speed up travel times, using electricity and electromagnetic levitation to send people and cars whipping through tunnels in pods. But before you ditch your car, the Washington Post points out the permit is only for "some preparatory and excavation work" at the site, and more permits are needed before any real construction begins. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has visited a test tunnel Musk is constructing under Los Angeles. But though "we're open to the concept of moving people around the region more efficiently ... we're just beginning, in the mayor's office, our conversation to get an understanding of what the general vision is for Hyperloop," says Bowser's chief of staff, John Falcicchio. Still, the permit "is comparable to an athlete stretching before a race" and shows Musk is serious about moving forward with his plans for high-speed travel since claiming "verbal" government support for an East Coast hyperloop last July, reports TechCrunch. He's also received a conditional permit to build a tunnel beneath Maryland Route 295 in Hawthorne, per the Post, with Maryland officials saying a leg linking Washington and Baltimore will come first. (Read about the hyperloop pod's first test.) |
A few of you might've missed the boat on The History Channel's reality series "Swamp People," and unfortunately are only realizing it in light of "Swamp People" star Mitchell Guist's death.
The series is set in Louisiana's Atchafalaya Swamp, and focuses on Cajun alligator hunters, like the late Mitchell Guist and his brother Glenn, during the 30-day hunting season that the History Channel notes is "crucial to their survival."
It may sound like a simple concept, but fans will tell you that's also its draw.
Now in its third season, "Swamp People" is a ratings win for The History Channel in its Thursday night timeslot. Last week, "Swamp People" was the top original cable program, pulling in 3.8 million viewers, according to TV by the Numbers.
At the heart of the show are "Swamp People's" cast of characters, and Mitchell and his brother were among fans' favorites.
The pair are described by The History Channel as "swampers through and through," two brothers living "entirely off the land" and "making use of everything nature has to offer."
That lifestyle resonated with many, as seen in the response of CNN.com commenters like thammu, who viewed Mitchell as "an original on the show, and it brought me renewed respect for people living off the land(and waters) they love."
Entertainment Weekly has called "Swamp People" a "refreshing departure from the over-produced, glossy fare that dominates much of the reality TV landscape," and its millions of viewers have welcomed that change.
"'Swamp People' is one of the only Reality TV shows I have ever enjoyed," said CNN.com commenter stonecrow of Guist's passing. "The reason being that the people they show are genuine, hospitable and decent. While it can become repetitive seeing the same hunt scenario every week, the Guist brothers, Troy and all the rest don't appear to be celebrity w****s like so many others in the reality TV circuit. For the folks that don't understand that, feel free to get your fill of Snookie [sic] instead. I'll take the Cajuns any day. RIP Mitchell." ||||| Posted: May 14, 2012 11:51 AM
Updated: May 14, 2012 2:55 PM
Source: Assumption Parish
Photos
Video
Continuing Coverage: Swamp People star's death
BELLE RIVER - Deputies in Assumption Parish confirmed that Mitchell Guist from The History Channel's show "Swamp People" died this morning.
Sheriff Mike Waguespack said the incident occurred around 9 a.m. in St. Martin Parish along the Belle River. Waguespack said Guist suffered a fall in the boat shortly after it launched into the Belle River.
Witnesses told News 2 people on the boat waved others over for help, and Guist was having what appeared to be seizures. They called 911 and a responder trained in CPR, but attempts to resuscitate the reality TV star were unsuccessful.
The cause of death is not known.
A spokesperson at The History Channel released the following statement this afternoon:
"We are extremely saddened to report that our friend and beloved member of the Swamp People family, Mitchell Guist, has passed away earlier today. Mitchell passed on the swamp, doing what he loved. We appreciate your respect for the Guist family's privacy and hope you join us in sending our thoughts and prayers to his brother, Glenn, and the rest of the Guist family. "
The spokesperson said all planned episodes of "The Swamp People" would air normally and as scheduled, and they were working on how "to honor to his memory."
News 2 will have more details as they become available.
Photo Courtesy: The History Channel | – A tough-as-nails Cajun star of the History Channel's Swamp People dropped dead in his boat yesterday. The cause of death was not immediately known, but witnesses said Mitchell Guist, who would have turned 49 on Friday, appeared to suffer a seizure shortly after launching his boat for another day of plying the Louisiana bayous for food. Paramedics responding to the scene on Belle River near Baton Rouge were unable to revive him, reports WBRZ-TV. Guist and his brother, Glenn, became unlikely reality stars of the Swamp People series, which follows alligator, snake, frog, squirrel and catfish hunters in Louisiana's Atchafalaya swamp country. "We are extremely saddened to report that our friend and beloved member of the Swamp People family, Mitchell Guist, has passed away," said a History Channel statement. "Mitchell passed on the swamp, doing what he loved." |
Credit: NASA
SYDNEY: Water originating from solar winds has been found in the Moon’s soil, U.S. researchers have announced.
Water on the Moon is not a new discovery – there are known sources in craters at the polar regions – but this finding has revealed a new source: the solar winds.
In a report published in Nature Geoscience, researchers claimed that hydrogen ejected from the Sun’s atmosphere is carried in solar winds and implanted in the lunar soil, where it reacts with oxygen already present on the Moon’s surface.
Colonising the Moon
The finding could be a useful resource for future human settlement on the Moon, according to Yang Liu from the University of Tennessee, lead author of the paper.
“Now we have ready sources of water that can not only be consumed by plants and humans, but also electrolysed into its constituent elements – hydrogen and oxygen – to make rocket fuel,” she said.
However, geochemist Ross Taylor from the Australian Academy of Science, who was not involved in the research, said harvesting water from lunar soil would be complicated and using it for human settlement probably unrealistic.
“I think it’s a pretty long shot, extracting the water might be as much trouble as it’s worth,” he said.
Water origin unknown until now
With no atmosphere to protect it, the lunar surface is buffeted by solar winds and comet collisions, which create a soil of crushed materials called the ‘regolith’.
Researchers analysed a collection of cemented regolith grains – a glass-like material – to find reacting hydrogen and oxygen molecules which they attributed to solar winds.
Three independent studies observed water on the surface of the Moon in 2009, but the origin was unknown until now, said Liu.
“We did have the understanding that the Moon is a very dry place, what this work has done is look at a new source of lunar water,” added planetary scientist Michele Bannister from Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, who was not involved in the study.
“The researchers have proved you can generate water on the surface of the Moon purely from the impact of the wind of the Sun,” she said.
Beyond the snow line
Initially, it was believed all water in the inner Solar System was delivered via icy bodies such as micrometeorites or comets that came from further out in space – beyond the ‘snow line’ where it is cold enough for water to condense.
Having established another source of water that originates at the centre of the Solar System, the report said it “reshapes this perspective”.
It is also not known what percentage of the lunar soil contains water, and Bannister said a bigger sample is needed.
“What they’re working with is a tiny fraction of lunar soil brought back by the Apollo missions, so it’s very hard to generalise from a couple of grains of sand – or glass, which is essentially what they have,” she said.
Water in the Universe
Liu said a source of water in the solar winds “emphasises the possibility of finding water on the surface of other similar airless bodies”.
“It extends our concept of the presence of water in the inner Solar System,” she said.
Although the study has introduced a new source of water relevant to the wider universe, Taylor explained it is really just chemistry.
“It’s a very interesting scientific finding and it takes a lot of modern technology and instrumentation to reach that, but it doesn’t alter the overall picture,” he said.
“The reason everyone’s interested in water is partly because water has a sort of ‘sacred cow’ status. It’s essential to life as we know it and this gives it importance, but it’s just another chemical compound.” ||||| SPACE.com reader George Garcia sent in his photo of the September 2012 harvest moon taken on Sept. 29, 2012, in Montebello, CA.
Glass beads within moon rocks suggest that water seen on the lunar surface originates from the solar wind, researchers say.
These findings suggest that other airless bodies in the solar system may also possess water on their surfaces, investigators added.
Arguments raged for years as to whether the moon harbored frozen water or not. Recent findings confirmed that water does wet the moon, although its surface remains drier than any desert on Earth.
"With the cost of $25,000 for taking one pint of water to the moon, it is essential that we develop processes of producing water from the materials on the moon," said the study's lead author, Yang Liu, at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. "This is paramount to human settlement of the moon in the near future." [Gallery: Our Changing Moon]
"This water would be of most value as rocket fuel — liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen," Liu added. "Until the recent discovery of water in and on the moon, this was going to be a very energy-intensive endeavor to separate these elements from the lunar rocks and soil. Now we have ready sources of water that can be consumed by plants and humans, but also broken up into its constituent elements — oxygen and hydrogen. Thus, we could use the moon as a jump-board for missions to Mars and beyond."
It remained uncertain where all of this water might come from, although some apparently came from ice-rich comets. To find out more, scientists analyzed lunar surface dust, or regolith, that astronauts on the Apollo missions brought from the moon.
"Most samples actually come from an Apollo 11 soil collected by Neil Armstrong," Liu told SPACE.com.
Lunar regolith is created by meteoroids and charged particles constantly bombarding lunar rock. The researchers focused on grains of glass in the samples that were created in the heat of countless micrometeoroid impacts on the moon. They reasoned this glass might have captured any water in the regolith before it cooled and solidified.
The investigators found that a large percentage of this glass contained traces of wetness — between 200 and 300 parts per million of water and the molecule hydroxyl, which is much like water, save that each of its molecules possesses just one hydrogen atom, not two.
To figure out where this water and hydroxyl originated from, the scientists looked at their hydrogen components. Hydrogen atoms come in a variety of isotopes, each with a different number of neutrons in their nuclei — regular hydrogen has no neutrons, while the isotope known as deuterium has one in each atomic nucleus.
The sun is naturally low in deuterium because its nuclear activity rapidly consumes the isotope. All other objects in the solar system possess relatively high levels of it, remnants of deuterium that existed in the nebula of gas and dust that gave birth to the solar system.
The researchers found that the water and hydroxyl seen in the lunar glass were both low in deuterium. This suggests their hydrogen came from the sun, probably blasted onto the moon via winds of charged particles from the sun, which continuously streams from the sun at a rate of 2.2 billion pounds (1 billion kilograms) per second. The moon, lacking a significant atmosphere or magnetic field, slowly captures all the particles striking it. The hydrogen particles then bonded with oxygen bound in rocks on the lunar surface.
"The origin of surface water on the moon was unclear," Liu said. "We provide robust evidence for a solar wind origin. This finding emphasizes the potential in finding such water on the surface of other similar airless bodies, such as Eros, Deimos, Vesta."
The scientists detailed their findings online Sunday (Oct. 14) in the journal Nature Geoscience.
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For most of human history, the moon was largely a mystery. It spawned awe and fear and to this day is the source of myth and legend. But today we know a lot about our favorite natural satellite. Do you? Start the Quiz 0 of 10 questions complete | – There is water on the moon, and it comes from an unlikely source: the sun. That's the conclusion of a new study, after studying soil samples brought back from the original Apollo 11 mission, Cosmos reports. While studies dating back to 2008 have pointed to the existence of water on the moon, until now no one was sure where it came from. Now, University of Tennessee researchers believe that solar winds carry hydrogen ejected from the sun's atmosphere to the moon. The study will force scientists to rethink the conventional wisdom that water in the inner solar system generally comes from icy meteors or comets. This more reliable source of water could make a lunar colony more feasible, the lead author says. "This water would be of most value as rocket fuel—liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen," she tells Space.com. "We could use the moon as a jump-board for missions to Mars and beyond." Others aren't as sure. "Extracting the water might be as much trouble as it's worth," one independent geochemist warns. |
Among the criteria the state has used to isolate prisoners are certain tattoos, possession of artwork with gang symbolism and statements from informants. And until recently, the only way out of solitary was to become an informant, a policy that critics said endangered inmates' lives. ||||| SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California agreed Tuesday to end its unlimited isolation of imprisoned gang leaders, restricting a practice that once kept hundreds of inmates in notorious segregation units for a decade or longer.
This May 27, 2009, photo provided by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shows Todd Ashker, a validated leader of the Aryan Brotherhood, who has been in the Security Housing Unit... (Associated Press)
This April 26, 2002 file photo provided by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, shows Todd Ashker, a validated leader of the Aryan Brotherhood, who has been in the Security Housing... (Associated Press)
No other state keeps so many inmates segregated for so long, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights. The New York City-based nonprofit center represents inmates in a class-action federal lawsuit settled on behalf of nearly 3,000 California inmates held in segregation statewide.
The state is agreeing to segregate only inmates who commit new crimes behind bars and will no longer lock gang members in soundproofed, windowless cells solely to keep them from directing illegal activities by gang members.
"It will move California more into the mainstream of what other states are doing while still allowing us the ability to deal with people who are presenting problems within our system, but do so in a way where we rely less on the use of segregation," Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Jeffrey Beard told The Associated Press.
The conditions triggered intermittent hunger strikes by tens of thousands of inmates throughout the prison system in recent years. Years-long segregation also drew criticism this summer from President Barack Obama and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.
"I think there is a deepening movement away from solitary confinement in the country and I think this settlement will be a spur to that movement," Jules Lobel, the inmates' lead attorney and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a telephone interview.
The lawsuit was initially filed in 2009 by two killers serving time in the security housing unit at Pelican Bay. By 2012, Todd Ashker and Danny Troxell were among 78 prisoners confined in Pelican Bay's isolation unit for more than 20 years, though Troxell has since been moved to another prison.
More than 500 had been in the unit for more than 10 years, though recent policy changes reduced that to 62 inmates isolated for a decade or longer as of late July.
The suit contended that isolating inmates in 80-square-foot cells for all but about 90 minutes each day amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
About half the nearly 3,000 inmates held in such units are in solitary confinement. Inmates have no physical contact with visitors and are allowed only limited reading materials and communications with the outside world.
The settlement will limit how long inmates can spend in isolation, while creating restrictive custody units for inmates who refuse to participate in rehabilitation programs or keep breaking prison rules.
They will also house those who might be in danger if they live with other inmates. For instance, 71-year-old Hugo Pinell was killed by fellow inmates in August just days after he was released from isolation, decades after he became infamous for his role in a failed 1971 San Quentin State Prison escape attempt that killed six.
Lobel said the new units, by giving high-security inmates more personal contact and privileges, should be an example to other states to move away from isolation policies that he said have proven counterproductive in California.
Marie Levin, sister of 57-year-old reputed gang leader Ronnie Dewberry, read a statement from her brother, who goes by the name Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa, and other plaintiffs hailing the "monumental victory for prisoners and an important step toward our goal of ending solitary confinement in California and across the country."
With the pending policy changes, this will be the "first time Marie will be able to hold her brother, touch her brother, for 31 years," Lobel said on a teleconference call with Levin and other advocates.
Nichol Gomez, a spokeswoman for the union representing most prison guards, said it was disappointing that "the people that actually have to do the work" weren't involved in the negotiations, so she couldn't immediately comment.
Beard said he will work to ease the unions' previously expressed concerns that guards could face additional danger. He said the settlement expands on recent changes that have reduced the number of segregated inmates statewide from 4,153 in January 2012 to 2,858 currently.
Until recently, gang members could serve unlimited time in isolation. Under the settlement, they and other inmates can be segregated for up to five years for crimes committed in prison, though gang members can receive another two years in segregation.
Beard said the segregation system was adopted about 35 years ago after a series of slayings of inmates and guards and wasn't reconsidered until recently because California corrections officials were consumed with other crises, including severe crowding.
"We probably had too many people locked up too long, because over 70 percent of the people that were reviewed were actually released, and we've had very, very few problems with those releases," Beard said. | – Thousands of inmates will soon be moved out of solitary confinement in California, after years of court battles and hunger strikes against the controversial practice. The state's decision was revealed in a legal settlement filed today—which still must be accepted by the court—with a group of inmates who have been isolated at Pelican Bay State Prison for 10 years or more, the Los Angeles Times reports. The settlement applies to a class-action federal lawsuit covering almost 3,000 inmates, a lawsuit originally filed in 2009 by Todd Ashker and Danny Troxell, two murderers serving sentences in Pelican Bay. California has agreed to stop using solitary confinement as a means of controlling prison gangs; instead, the most dangerous prisoners will be held in a group setting and will have many of the same privileges as other inmates. As the AP notes, California's previously unlimited isolation of gang leaders had been used to keep hundreds of prisoners segregated (often in soundproofed, windowless cells of just 80 square feet, for all but an hour and a half per day, with no access to visitors, communication, or even reading materials) for 10 years or more. Now, California will release many of the affected prisoners back into the general prison population and will limit the amount of time prisoners can spend in isolation. New "restrictive custody units" will be used for inmates who commit new crimes while in prison, refuse to participate in rehab, or who may be in danger from other inmates, but those units will allow prisoners more personal contact and other privileges. The union that represents most prison guards has expressed safety concerns, with the spokesperson noting that the state could "return to the prison environment of the '70s and '80s, when inmate-on-inmate homicides were at the highest levels and staff were killed." |
Susan Olsen, who played Cindy Brady on “The Brady Bunch” has been fired from her job as a Los Angeles-based radio DJ after she posted a homophobic rant on Facebook, reports Rob Shuter of naughtygossip.
Olsen interviewed openly gay actor Leon Acord-Whiting as she co-hosted LA Talk Radio’s “Two Chicks Talkin’ Politics” segment on Wednesday, December 7.
After the show, Acord-Whiting went on Facebook to accuse the 55-year-old former child star of being “dangerous” and “unprofessional.”
"It is wildly irresponsible for LA Talk Radio to allow a Trump fanatic to co-host one of their programs, where she can spew her idiotic lies unchecked,” he wrote. “(Being a liberal and a patriot are mutually exclusive? Hillary is causing the protests & hate crimes? The Koran is a political tract. As much as I love [cohost]
Sheena Metal, I think LA Talk Radio needs to give 'Cindy Brady' her walking papers. I will not listen to or appear on any shows there from this point forward until she's gone. This isn't just disagreeing on, say, tax plans or foreign policy. Susan Olsen spreads outrageous misinformation & it is dangerous and unprofessional."
The next day Olsen replied on her Facebook page writing, "This is the little piece of human waste. He blocked himself from me before I could even get one hit in. If you can find him, please send him my love."
And that’s when things got really nasty.
Acord-Whiting shared a screenshot of an expletive-laden private message that Olsen reportedly sent him on Facebook, which read: "Hey there little p--sy, let me get my big boy pants on and Reallly take you on!!! What a snake in the grass you are you lying piece of s--t too cowardly to confront me in real life so you do it on Facebook. You are the biggest f----t ass in the world the biggest p--sy! My D--k is bigger than yours Which ain't sayin much! What a true piece of s--t you are! Lying f----t! I hope you meet your karma SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY."
LA Talk Radio announced that Olsen was fired on Friday, December 9.
"LA Talk Radio takes pride in its close and collaborative relationship with the LGBT community, and will continue to provide a home for those who have hopeful and positive messages of togetherness and tolerance to share with our listeners," the station wrote in a statement on Facebook. "We will not tolerate hateful speech by anyone associated with our radio station and have severed our ties with a host that veered off the direction in which we are going." ||||| Susan Olsen, who played the youngest daughter, Cindy Brady, on The Brady Bunch, was fired from her hosting gig on a Los Angeles–based radio show after she posted a homophobic rant on Facebook.
The 55-year-old former child star spoke with openly gay actor Leon Acord-Whiting as she cohosted LA Talk Radio's Two Chicks Talkin' Politics segment on Wednesday, December 7. After the show, Acord-Whiting took to Facebook to accuse Olsen of spreading "outrageous misinformation."
Michael Tullberg/Getty Images
"It is wildly irresponsible for LA Talk Radio to allow a Trump fanatic to co-host one of their programs, where she can spew her idiotic lies unchecked. (Being a liberal and a patriot are mutually exclusive? Hillary is causing the protests & hate crimes? The Koran is a political tract?)," he wrote, referencing the numerous topics discussed on Wednesday's episode. "As much as I love [cohost] Sheena Metal, I think LA Talk Radio needs to give 'Cindy Brady' her walking papers. I will not listen to or appear on any shows there from this point forward until she's gone. This isn't just disagreeing on, say, tax plans or foreign policy. Susan Olsen spreads outrageous misinformation & it is dangerous and unprofessional."
A day later, Olsen responded on her Facebook page, writing, "This is the little piece of human waste. He blocked himself from me before I could even get one hit in. If you can find him, please send him my love."
Acord-Whiting then took the feud a step further and shared a screenshot of an expletive-filled private message that Olsen allegedly sent him on Facebook, which read: "Hey there little p--sy, let me get my big boy pants on and Reallly take you on!!! What a snake in the grass you are you lying piece of s--t too cowardly to confront me in real life so you do it on Facebook. You are the biggest f----t ass in the world the biggest p--sy! My D--k is bigger than yours Which ain't sayin much! What a true piece of s--t you are! Lying f----t! I hope you meet your karma SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY."
LA Talk Radio announced on Friday, December 9, it had fired the actress in the wake of her homophobic rant. "LA Talk Radio takes pride in its close and collaborative relationship with the LGBT community, and will continue to provide a home for those who have hopeful and positive messages of togetherness and tolerance to share with our listeners," the station wrote in a statement on Facebook. "We will not tolerate hateful speech by anyone associated with our radio station and have severed our ties with a host that veered off the direction in which we are going."
Want stories like these delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter! | – Here's a story about a former child star who grew up to be a talk show host with apparently poor impulse control: Susan Olsen, better known as Cindy Brady of the eponymous Brady Bunch, is out of a job after a feud with actor Leon Acord-Whiting, who is gay. How it went down, via US Magazine and Fox News: Acord-Whiting appeared on an LA Talk Radio politics show co-hosted by Olsen, then took to Facebook to complain that "Susan Olsen spreads outrageous misinformation & it is dangerous and unprofessional." Apparently one does not cross Cindy Brady, because Olsen posted this to her own Facebook page: "This is the little piece of human waste. He blocked himself from me before I could even get one hit in. If you can find him, please send him my love." From there, it was war: Acord-Whiting then posted a screenshot of a less-than-Brady-like personal message allegedly from Olsen, reading thusly: "Hey there little p--sy, let me get my big boy pants on and Reallly take you on!!! What a snake in the grass you are you lying piece of s--t too cowardly to confront me in real life so you do it on Facebook. You are the biggest f----t ass in the world the biggest p--sy! My D--k is bigger than yours Which ain't sayin much! What a true piece of s--t you are! Lying f----t! I hope you meet your karma SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY." And per LA Talk Radio, as of Friday: "We will not tolerate hateful speech by anyone associated with our radio station and have severed our ties with a host that veered off the direction in which we are going." |
In the United States, youth have the highest burden of nonfatal self-inflicted injury (ie, deliberate physical harm against oneself, inclusive of suicidal and nonsuicidal intent) requiring medical attention.1 One study found that emergency department (ED) visits for these injuries during the 1993 to 2008 period varied by age group, ranging from 1.1 to 9.6 per 1000 ED visits, with adolescents aged 15 to 19 years exhibiting the highest rates.1 Self-inflicted injury is one of the strongest risk factors for suicide—the second-leading cause of death among those aged 10 to 24 years during 2015.2 This study examined trends in nonfatal self-inflicted injuries treated in hospital EDs among US children, adolescents, and young adults aged 10 to 24 years (hereafter referred to as youth).
Methods
The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System—All Injury Program (NEISS-AIP) collects data on all first-time visits for nonfatal injuries treated in 66 US hospital EDs through stratified probability sampling, allowing for the derivation of national estimates.3 Self-inflicted injuries were identified by reviewing injury cause narratives and other coded data within ED records. This study used publicly available secondary data and was exempted by the CDC from institutional review board review.
Self-inflicted injury ED visit rates were calculated from 2001 through 2015 by sex, age (10-14, 15-19, and 20-24 years), along with injury method (poisoning, sharp object, blunt object), and 95% CIs using US Census population estimates as denominators. Rates were weighted to obtain nationally representative estimates and age-adjusted to the 2000 US Census population. Trends in self-inflicted injury ED visit rates were assessed using joinpoint regression software (Surveillance Research Program, National Cancer Institute), version 4.3.1.0. The annual percentage change described the rate of change for each linear segment.
Results
From 2001 to 2015, NEISS-AIP captured 43 138 youth self-inflicted injury ED visits. The overall weighted age-adjusted rate for this group showed no statistically significant trend until 2008, increasing 5.7% (95% CI, 3.0%-8.4%) annually thereafter and reaching 303.7 per 100 000 population (95% CI, 254.1-353.3) in 2015 (Table). Age-adjusted trends for males overall and across age groups remained stable throughout 2001-2015 (Figure, Table). Overall age-adjusted rates for females demonstrated no statistically significant trend before 2009, yet increased 8.4% (95% CI, 5.6%-11.2%) yearly from 2009 to 2015. After 2009, rates among females aged 10 to 14 years increased 18.8% (95% CI, 12.1%-25.8%) per year—from 109.8 (95% CI, 69.9-149.7) in 2009 to 317.7 (95% CI, 230.3-405.1) per 100 000 population in 2015. Rates among females aged 15 to 19 years showed a 7.2% (95% CI, 3.8%-10.8%) increase per year during 2008-2015. Rates among females aged 20 to 24 years exhibited a 2.0% (95% CI, 0.8%-3.1%) increase per year throughout 2001-2015 (Figure, Table).
Trends for all self-inflicted injury methods were stable for males. Poisoning was the most common method of self-inflicted injury for females, with rates remaining stable until 2007 and increasing 5.3% (95% CI, 0.5%-10.4%) annually thereafter. Female rates for self-inflicted injuries by sharp object increased 7.1% (95% CI, 5.2%-8.9%) annually throughout 2001-2015; female rates for blunt object injuries were stable during 2006-2015 (Table).
Discussion
Youth self-inflicted injury ED visit rates were relatively stable before 2008. However, rates among females significantly increased thereafter—particularly among females aged 10 to 14 years, who experienced an 18.8% annual increase from 2009 to 2015. This study only included ED cases; thus, rates were underestimated. Also, limited statistical power could have resulted in some trends not showing statistical significance. Findings are consistent with previously reported upward trends in youth suicide rates during 1999-2014, in which rates increased most notably after 2006 with females aged 10 to 14 years experiencing the greatest increase.4 Findings also coincide with increased reports of depression among youth, especially young girls.5 Other potential underlying reasons for the observed increasing trends, particularly among young females, warrant further study.
These findings underscore the need for the implementation of evidence-based, comprehensive suicide and self-harm prevention strategies within health systems and communities. These strategies include strengthening access to and delivery of care for suicidal youth within health systems and creating protective environments, promoting youth connectedness, teaching coping and problem-solving skills, and identifying and supporting at-risk youth within communities.6
Section Editor: Jody W. Zylke, MD, Deputy Editor.
Back to top Article Information
Correction: This article was corrected for an error in the Figure title on December 26, 2017.
Accepted for Publication: August 16, 2017.
Corresponding Author: Melissa C. Mercado, PhD, MSc, MA, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Hwy NE, Mailstop F-64, Atlanta, GA 30341-3717 (cju8@cdc.gov).
Author Contributions: Dr Mercado had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.
Concept and design: Mercado, Holland, Leemis, Stone.
Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: Mercado, Holland, Leemis, Wang.
Drafting of the manuscript: Mercado, Holland, Leemis, Wang.
Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: All authors.
Statistical analysis: Holland, Wang.
Administrative, technical, or material support: Mercado, Holland, Leemis.
Supervision: Mercado.
Other - subject matter expertise: Stone.
Conflict of Interest Disclosures: All authors have completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest and none were reported.
Funding/Support: This secondary data analysis study was conducted as part of the regular roles and responsibilities of all coauthors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Role of the Funder/Sponsor: The CDC was involved in the design and conduct of the study; management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication. Data was secondarily analyzed by the CDC, who was not involved in the data collection process.
Disclaimer: The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the CDC.
Additional Contributions: The data used in this report originated from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System All Injury Program, operated by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and whose data are made available by CDC’s web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System, supported by CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. We thank Tadesse Haileyesus, MS (CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control), for providing technical support. He did not receive compensation for his contribution.
References ||||| CHICAGO (AP) — Attempted suicides, drug overdoses, cutting and other types of self-injury have increased substantially in U.S. girls, a 15-year study of emergency room visits found.
It's unclear why, but some mental health experts think cyberbullying, substance abuse and economic stress from the recent recession might be contributing.
The rising rates "should be of concern to parents, teachers, and pediatricians. One important reason to focus on reducing self-harm is that it is key risk factor for suicide," said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor who was not involved in the study.
The sharpest increase occurred among girls aged 10 to 14, nearly tripling from 2009 to 2015, from about 110 visits per 100,000 to almost 318 per 100,000.
Older teen girls had the highest rates — 633 visits per 100,000 in 2015, but the increase after 2008 was less steep.
Drug overdoses and other self-poisonings were the most common method among girls and boys, followed by intentional cutting with sharp objects. The study doesn't include information on which methods were most common by age nor on how many injuries were severe or required hospitalization.
All the injuries were intentional, but not all were suicide attempts, said lead author Melissa Mercado, a behavioral scientist.
The study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The trend parallels rising reports of teen depression and suicide, the researchers noted..
The researchers analyzed 2001-2015 data on nonfatal self-inflicted injuries treated in emergency rooms among ages 10 to 24. Nearly 29,000 girls with self-inflicted injuries and about 14,000 boys were treated in emergency rooms during the study years.
Rates among boys didn't change much during those years. Rates in girls were also stable until around 2008. ER visits for self-injury among young women aged 20 to 24 also increased but at a slower pace, rising from 228 per 100,000 in 2001 to 346 per 100,000 in 2015.
The results underestimate the problem since they don't include self-injuries treated in doctors' offices or elsewhere, Mercado said.
Researchers said the findings underscore the need to beef up prevention efforts including finding ways to help at-risk kids feel less isolated and more connected to their peers, and teaching coping and problem-solving skills.
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Follow Lindsey Tanner on Twitter: @LindseyTanner. Her work can be found here .
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This story has been updated to correct that only intentional injuries were included in the study. | – Attempted suicides, drug overdoses, cutting, and other types of self-injury have increased substantially in US girls, a 15-year study of ER visits found. It's unclear why, but some mental health experts think cyberbullying, substance abuse, and economic stress from the recent recession might be contributing, the AP reports. The sharpest increase occurred among girls aged 10 to 14, nearly tripling from 2009 to 2015, from about 110 visits per 100,000 to almost 318. Older teen girls had the highest rates—633 visits per 100,000 in 2015, but the increase after 2008 was less steep. The rising rates "should be of concern to parents, teachers, and pediatricians," says Dr. Mark Olfson, a psychiatry professor not involved in the CDC study published in JAMA. "One important reason to focus on reducing self-harm is that it is [a] key risk factor for suicide." Researchers analyzed 2001-2015 data on nonfatal self-inflicted injuries treated in ERs among ages 10 to 24. Nearly 29,000 girls with self-inflicted injuries and about 14,000 boys were treated in ERs during the study years. Rates among boys didn't change much; rates in girls were stable until around 2008. The results underestimate the problem, though, since they don't include self-injuries treated in doctors' offices or elsewhere, says lead author Melissa Mercado. Drug overdoses and other self-poisonings were the most common method for all, followed by intentional cutting with sharp objects. All injuries were intentional, but not all were suicide attempts, says Mercado. |
Romney: My views on abortion rights are clear
(CBS News) In an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, Mitt Romney said his views on abortion rights are more lenient than those put forward in the Republican party platform.
"My position has been clear throughout this campaign," Romney said. "I'm in favor of abortion being legal in the case of rape and incest, and the health and life of the mother."
The Republican Party is gathering in Tampa, Fla., this week for its national convention, where in addition to nominating Romney for president, the party will officially adopt its national platform. Last week, the party added language to the platform calling for a constitutional amendment banning abortion, with no mention of making exceptions for victims of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother.
Republican Convention 2012: complete coverage
President Obama in an interview Saturday said that if Romney were president, the Republican would not "stand in the way" if Congress attempted to strip women of their reproductive health rights. Democrats have recently stepped up their attacks against the GOP ticket on the issue of reproductive rights, in part because of the strong views held by Romney's running mate Rep. Paul Ryan, and in part because of the controversial remarks GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin made on rape and abortion.
Romney, however, told Pelley that the issue amounts to a distraction.
"Recognize this is the decision that will be made by the Supreme Court," he said. "The Democrats try and make this a political issue every four years, but this is a matter in the courts. It's been settled for some time in the courts."
More from the interview:
Romney says "birther" joke wasn't a swipe at Obama
Romney: Nuclear Iran "unacceptable"
Pelley also asked Romney about changes in the Republican party since the height of his father, George Romney's, political career and about how Romney is confronting the perceived enthusiasm gap in the GOP.
Watch the full interview segment below. Additional excerpts will air during CBS News' primetime coverage of the Republican National Convention, Tuesday, August 28 through Thursday, August 30, beginning at 10 p.m. ET each night. ||||| Republican Mitt Romney said Monday that he is in favor of abortion in cases of rape, incest and the health and life of the mother.
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and his wife Ann, arrive at Brewster Academy, for convention preparations in Wolfeboro, N.H., Aug. 27, 2012. The Romneys envision... (Associated Press)
The presidential candidate's addition of the health of the mother is certain to raise questions about his position among conservatives. Health can be broadly defined and, in fact, running mate Paul Ryan has challenged the health exception as a major loophole.
Romney commented in an interview Monday with CBS News.
Romney's position on abortion rights has evolved. When he ran for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, he backed abortion rights. As a presidential candidate, he has opposed abortion rights and says the Supreme Court should reverse the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
In a statement, Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said Romney's position is clear _ that he opposes abortion except for cases of rape, incest and where the life of the mother is threatened. | – On the eve of his nomination, Mitt Romney restated his position on abortion—and it's not the same as that of his party or his running mate. "My position has been clear throughout this campaign," he told CBS. "I'm in favor of abortion being legal in the case of rape and incest, and the health and life of the mother." At its storm-shortened convention this week, the Republican Party will officially adopt a national platform calling for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, with none of the exceptions Romney currently favors. Romney's position on abortion rights has evolved over the years, notes AP. He favored abortion rights during his bid for a US Senate seat, but opposed them during the Republican primaries. He described the issue as a distraction in last night night's interview. "Recognize this is the decision that will be made by the Supreme Court," he said. "The Democrats try and make this a political issue every four years, but this is a matter in the courts. It's been settled for some time in the courts." |
0 Concord mother attacked by shark: 'He had my whole arm in his mouth'
CONCORD, N.C. - A mother of three in Concord is now a shark attack survivor, and she said she hopes her story will inspire others.
“I’ll have another chance,” Tiffany Johnson said. “I’m just so thankful. I’m thankful to be here.”
Tiffany and her husband James were on the last stop of a cruise last week in the Bahamas when they decided to go snorkeling in a shallow reef. Tiffany said she felt a bump from behind.
(Photo courtesy: Tiffany and James Johnson)
“I wasn’t in pain, it just felt like I had bumped into something so I just casually turned to my right to look to see and that’s when I was face to face with the shark,” Tiffany said. “He had my whole arm in his mouth and he was just floating there, just staring at me.”
Tiffany said she tried to pull her arm out, but the shark clamped down and they struggled for a couple of minutes before she got away.
“I kept trying to yank my hand back and the last time I yanked he had cut it clean off so I was able to actually get free,” Tiffany said.
James heard her screams and jumped in to help. Meanwhile, Tiffany said she was already praying.
“I felt this tangible peace on me and it was so thick, that I was just calm,” Tiffany said.
Doctors in the Bahamas were able to stop the bleeding, but issues with passports and customs had the Johnson’s stuck in the Bahamas.
A Medevac flight to Carolinas Medical Center would cost $16,000 out of pocket. But with no guarantees insurance would pay for it, the Medevac company called and agreed to pick up the cost.
“He hung up the phone and we just started weeping,” said the Johnsons.
“I’m thankful to be able to share this story and I hope, and I know, that it’s going to change people’s lives because you can’t hear this story and not see God in it,” Tiffany said.
Tiffany will have another surgery Friday to prepare the arm for a prosthetic.
Read more top trending stories on wsoctv.com:
© 2018 Cox Media Group. ||||| She said that the shark held on to her for a few minutes before completely severing part of her limb, but that she survived after being given "supernatural God-given strength" and her husband jumped into the water to help. ||||| Hey Everyone..
For those who may not know, JJ and Tiffany Johnson were recently on a Caribbean Cruise at the end of May, beginning of June.
On Friday, June 2nd, they were on a snorkeling excursion in the Bahamas where Tiffany was attacked by a shark. This incident proceeded with the loss of her hand and part of her arm.
We serve a Big God and He has been working in and through Tiffany and JJ during this unfathomable accident.
During this time they have been flown from Nassau back to The States where Tiffany has undergone multiple surgeries and has been assessed by a prostethic team in her local area.
Doctor's continue to provide overexceedingly good reports--highly favored by God!
This is a time of transition for The Johnson Family so I encourage you to take this opporunity and lift them up in prayer, and if able financially bless them--this will contribute to relieve some of their medical expenses.
"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful"
Hebrews 10:23
Share Tweet 3.2k shares on Facebook shares on Facebook | – While snorkeling on vacation in the Bahamas, a North Carolina woman survived a terrifying ordeal when she encountered the one creature most swimmers never hope to see up close: a shark. Tiffany Johnson, 32, was snorkeling with her husband, reports the NY Daily News, when she felt something bump her from behind. When she turned around, she saw what is believed to be a tiger shark, which promptly clamped onto her limb, biting off part of the mother of three’s arm. “He had my whole arm in his mouth, and he was just floating there staring at me,” she says in an interview with WSOC. Her husband jumped into the water to help after hearing her screams. "I kept trying to yank my hand back and the last time I yanked he had cut it clean off so I was able to actually get free," she says of the June 2 ordeal. A GoFundMe page has raised more than $18,000 to help with Johnson's medical expenses. |
@MarcACaputo
U.S. Rep. Trey Radel, the tea party freshman Republican from Fort Myers, was arrested Oct. 29 for cocaine possession in Washington D.C, Politico reported.
Radel, who faces a maximum of 180 days in jail and a fine of up to $1,000, was charged Tuesday in D.C. Superior Court with misdemeanor cocaine possession and is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday.
“I'm profoundly sorry to let down my family, particularly my wife and son, and the people of Southwest Florida," the 37-year-old Republican, whose legal name is Henry Jude Radel III, said in a statement. "I struggle with the disease of alcoholism, and this led to an extremely irresponsible choice. As the father of a young son and a husband to a loving wife, I need to get help so I can be a better man for both of them.”
Radel was arrested in a Drug Enforcement Agency bust when his alleged dealer, arrested in a separate case, led authorities to the congressman, officials said.
Radel then allegedly bought cocaine from an undercover agent in Washington's Dupont Circle neighborhood. Afterward, authorities visited the congressman's apartment and informed him he would be charged with misdemeanor cocaine possession.
More here ||||| Rep. Trey Radel, a Florida Republican elected in 2012, will be in court Wednesday on charges that he possessed cocaine.
Radel, 37, was charged with misdemeanor possession of cocaine in D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday.
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He faces a maximum of 180 days in jail, as well as a fine of up to $1,000. Several sources with direct knowledge say it was the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration who were involved in the charges.
(Also on POLITICO: 10 things to know about Trey Radel)
Radel has missed all four votes in the House this week.
Radel, in a statement released by his office, made no mention of resigning from the House. He said he struggles “with the disease of alcoholism, and this led to an extremely irresponsible choice. As the father of a young son and a husband to a loving wife, I need to get help so I can be a better man for both of them.”
A spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said, “Members of Congress should be held to the highest standards, and the alleged crime will be handled by the courts. Beyond that, this is between Rep. Radel, his family, and his constituents.”
(PHOTOS: Top congressional scandals)
The U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia declined to comment on Radel’s arrest and case.
The Associated Press, citing an unnamed DEA official, said Radel allegedly bought cocaine from a dealer in the Dupont Circle area who had been previously arrested as part of a federal probe. “Later that night, federal authorities went to his apartment and informed him that he would be facing criminal charges related to his purchase of cocaine,” the AP said.
The Florida Republican, who holds a district on the western coast of Florida that includes the tony Marco Island, is a former journalist, TV anchor and radio talk-show host. He never held elective office before winning his House seat last November. His district was vacated by former Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.), who ran for the Senate.
(Earlier on POLITICO: New members of Congress in 2013)
In the statement, Radel said he realizes “the disappointment my family, friends and constituents must feel. Believe me, I am disappointed in myself, and I stand ready to face the consequences of my actions.”
The arrest, he said, has a “positive side.”
“It offers me an opportunity to seek treatment and counseling,” he said. “I know I have a problem and will do whatever is necessary to overcome it, hopefully setting an example for others struggling with this disease.” ||||| U.S. Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fort Myers, is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday one day after the D.C. Superior Courts charged him with possession of a controlled substance, a misdemeanor.
Radel was arrested on Oct. 29 for possession of cocaine.
According to the Associated Press a Drug Enforcement Administration official said Radel was arrested after buying cocaine from an undercover law enforcement officer. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release details of the case in his own name, said Radel was identified to authorities as a cocaine buyer by his suspected dealer. The dealer had been previously arrested as part of a separate drug investigation led by a federal task force.
Congressman Trey Radel released the following statement:
“I'm profoundly sorry to let down my family, particularly my wife and son, and the people of Southwest Florida. I struggle with the disease of alcoholism, and this led to an extremely irresponsible choice. As the father of a young son and a husband to a loving wife, I need to get help so I can be a better man for both of them."
“In facing this charge, I realize the disappointment my family, friends and constituents must feel. Believe me, I am disappointed in myself, and I stand ready to face the consequences of my actions.”
“However, this unfortunate event does have a positive side. It offers me an opportunity to seek treatment and counseling. I know I have a problem and will do whatever is necessary to overcome it, hopefully setting an example for others struggling with this disease.”
“Please keep my family in your prayers.”
Click here to view social media reactions to Rep. Radel's arrest.
Radel, a freshman Republican, was elected in November. He is a former journalist and radio talk show host. This is his first time holding an elected position.
Naples Mayor John Sorey said he was "surprised" by the allegations.
“If it’s correct, I’m very disappointed,” Sorey said.
Sorey, who has supported Radel, said he didn’t know anything about the arrest and court case, but said people should let the criminal justice department play out. Still, Sorey said, this could make Radel’s re-election bid more difficult.
“I think it’s definitely a negative,” he said. “I think it puts him under some (pressure).”
“I was shocked by the allegations, and I stress the word allegations,” said Terry Miller, who ran Republican congressional candidate Gary Aubuchon’s campaign in 2012.
Miller said he has known Radel for a number of years dating “back to his radio days.” He said he never expected something like this from Radel, and said he was stunned when he heard the news.
“My heart sank,” he said.
Florida Sen. Garrett Richter, R-Naples, said he was disappointed by the news.
“I was shocked to hear about it … It’s just really sad news because Trey has been a really good representative," Richter said. "My thoughts and prayers go out to Trey’s family, and I know he’s got some challenges in front of (him) that I hope he can reconcile and overcome.”
Miami-based Republican U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart said he was saddened by the news.
"I am both shocked and saddened to hear the news about my friend and colleague Congressman Trey Radel. Every person must take responsibility for their own actions, as Trey will. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife Amy and his son Jude."
State Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, said she was “obviously surprised” by the arrest.
“I don’t know Trey that well, just have seen him as someone very active in the community,” she said. “I just wish he and his family well.”
Rep. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, said he considers Radel a friend but has never suspected him of substance abuse.
“Right now, the only thing I’m concerned with is I hope Trey gets treatment,” Rodrigues said. “He has a family that needs him.”
A John Boehner spokesman had this response to Radel's arrest.
"Members of Congress should be held to the highest standards, and the alleged crime will be handled by the courts. Beyond that, this is between Rep. Radel, his family, and his constituents," the spokesman said.
This story was first reported by POLITICO. Stay with us for more updates to this breaking story.
NewsMakers - Trey Radel What's ahead for the GOP?
Trey Radel's first six months in office On his favorite Washington moments.
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Are you viewing this story on our mobile or tablet app? Click here to read this story on our full site to see a video report and to vote in our online poll: Should Rep. Trey Radel resign? | – A freshman Republican in the House now has much bigger worries than a re-election campaign. Rep. Trey Radel, who represents Florida's Fort Myers area, has been charged with misdemeanor cocaine possession in DC, reports Politico. The Miami Herald describes Radel as a "libertarian-leaning" Republican in line with the Tea Party and says the 37-year-old might have caught a break by getting busted in Washington: He would have faced felony charges in Florida. His maximum penalty in DC would be 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine if convicted. “I'm profoundly sorry to let down my family, particularly my wife and son, and the people of Southwest Florida," Radel says in a statement picked up by the Naples Daily News. "I struggle with the disease of alcoholism, and this led to an extremely irresponsible choice. As the father of a young son and a husband to a loving wife, I need to get help so I can be a better man for both of them." Radel, a self-described rap fan and "hip hop conservative," once co-sponsored a bill to ease up on mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, notes the Herald. |
This Administration has consistently taken steps to make our criminal justice system fairer and more effective and to address the vicious cycle of poverty, criminality, and incarceration that traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities. Today, in Newark, New Jersey, President Obama will continue to promote these goals by highlighting the reentry process of formerly-incarcerated individuals and announce new actions aimed at helping Americans who’ve paid their debt to society rehabilitate and reintegrate back into their communities.
Each year, more than 600,000 individuals are released from state and federal prisons. Advancing policies and programs that enable these men and women to put their lives back on track and earn their second chance promotes not only justice and fairness, but also public safety. That is why this Administration has taken a series of concrete actions to reduce the challenges and barriers that the formerly incarcerated confront, including through the work of the Federal Interagency Reentry Council, a cabinet-level working group to support the federal government's efforts to promote public safety and economic opportunity through purposeful cross-agency coordination and collaboration.
The President has also called on Congress to pass meaningful criminal justice reform, including reforms that reduce recidivism for those who have been in prison and are reentering society. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015, which recently received a strong bipartisan vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, would be an important step forward in this effort, by providing new incentives and opportunities for those incarcerated to participate in the type of evidence-based treatment and training and other programs proven to reduce recidivism, promote successful reentry, and help eliminate barriers to economic opportunity following release. By reducing overlong sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, the bill would also free up additional resources for investments in other public safety initiatives, including reentry services, programs for mental illness and addiction, and state and local law enforcement.
Today, the President is pleased to announce the following measures to help promote rehabilitation and reintegration:
Adult Reentry Education Grants . The Department of Education will award up to $8 million (over 3 years) to 9 communities for the purpose of supporting educational attainment and reentry success for individuals who have been incarcerated. This grant program seeks to build evidence on effective reentry education programs and demonstrate that high-quality, appropriately designed, integrated, and well-implemented educational and related services in institutional and community settings are critical in supporting educational attainment and reentry success.
. The Department of Education will award up to $8 million (over 3 years) to 9 communities for the purpose of supporting educational attainment and reentry success for individuals who have been incarcerated. This grant program seeks to build evidence on effective reentry education programs and demonstrate that high-quality, appropriately designed, integrated, and well-implemented educational and related services in institutional and community settings are critical in supporting educational attainment and reentry success. Arrests Guidance for Public and other HUD-Assisted Housing. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will release guidance today to Public Housing Authorities and owners of HUD-assisted housing regarding the use of arrests in determining who can live in HUD-assisted properties. This Guidance will also clarify the Department’s position on “one strike” policies and will include best practices from Public Housing Authorities.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will release guidance today to Public Housing Authorities and owners of HUD-assisted housing regarding the use of arrests in determining who can live in HUD-assisted properties. This Guidance will also clarify the Department’s position on “one strike” policies and will include best practices from Public Housing Authorities. Banning the Box in Federal Employment. The President has called on Congress to follow a growing number of states, cities, and private companies that have decided to “ban the box” on job applications. We are encouraged that Congress is considering bipartisan legislation that would “ban the box” for federal hiring and hiring by federal contractors. In the meantime, the President is directing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to take action where it can by modifying its rules to delay inquiries into criminal history until later in the hiring process. While most agencies already have taken this step, this action will better ensure that applicants from all segments of society, including those with prior criminal histories, receive a fair opportunity to compete for Federal employment.
The President has called on Congress to follow a growing number of states, cities, and private companies that have decided to “ban the box” on job applications. We are encouraged that Congress is considering bipartisan legislation that would “ban the box” for federal hiring and hiring by federal contractors. In the meantime, the President is directing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to take action where it can by modifying its rules to delay inquiries into criminal history until later in the hiring process. While most agencies already have taken this step, this action will better ensure that applicants from all segments of society, including those with prior criminal histories, receive a fair opportunity to compete for Federal employment. TechHire : Expanding tech training and jobs for individuals with criminal records. As a part of President Obama’s TechHire initiative, over 30 communities are taking action – working with each other and national employers – to expand access to tech jobs for more Americans with fast track training like coding boot camps and new recruitment and placement strategies. Today we are announcing the following new commitments: Memphis, TN and New Orleans, LA are expanding TechHire programs to support people with criminal records. Newark, NJ, working with the New Jersey Institute of Technology and employers like Audible, Panasonic, and Prudential, will offer training through the Art of Code program in software development with a focus on training and placement for formerly incarcerated people. New Haven, CT, Justice Education Center, New Haven Works, and others will launch a pilot program to train and place individuals with criminal records, and will start a program to train incarcerated people in tech programming skills. Washington, DC partners will train and place 200 formerly incarcerated people in tech jobs. They will engage IT companies to develop and/or review modifications to hiring processes that can be made for individuals with a criminal record.
As a part of President Obama’s TechHire initiative, over 30 communities are taking action – working with each other and national employers – to expand access to tech jobs for more Americans with fast track training like coding boot camps and new recruitment and placement strategies. Today we are announcing the following new commitments: Establishing a National Clean Slate Clearinghouse. In the coming weeks, the Department of Labor and Department of Justice will partner to establish a National Clean Slate Clearinghouse to provide technical assistance to local legal aid programs, public defender offices, and reentry service providers to build capacity for legal services needed to help with record-cleaning, expungement, and related civil legal services.
In the coming weeks, the Department of Labor and Department of Justice will partner to establish a National Clean Slate Clearinghouse to provide technical assistance to local legal aid programs, public defender offices, and reentry service providers to build capacity for legal services needed to help with record-cleaning, expungement, and related civil legal services. Permanent Supportive Housing for the Reentry Population through Pay for Success. The Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Bureau of Justice Assistance at the Department of Justice have launched an $8.7 million demonstration grant to address homelessness and reduce recidivism among the justice-involved population. The Pay for Success (PFS) Permanent Supportive Housing Demonstration will test cost-effective ways to help persons cycling between the criminal justice and homeless service systems, while making new Permanent Supportive Housing available for the reentry population. PFS is an innovative form of performance contracting for the social sector through which government only pays if results are achieved. This grant will support the design and launch of PFS programs to reduce both homelessness and jail days, saving funds to criminal justice and safety net systems.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Bureau of Justice Assistance at the Department of Justice have launched an $8.7 million demonstration grant to address homelessness and reduce recidivism among the justice-involved population. The Pay for Success (PFS) Permanent Supportive Housing Demonstration will test cost-effective ways to help persons cycling between the criminal justice and homeless service systems, while making new Permanent Supportive Housing available for the reentry population. PFS is an innovative form of performance contracting for the social sector through which government only pays if results are achieved. This grant will support the design and launch of PFS programs to reduce both homelessness and jail days, saving funds to criminal justice and safety net systems. Juvenile Reentry Assistance Program Awards to Support Public Housing Residents. With funding provided by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the Department of Justice, the Department of Housing and Urban Development will provide $1.75 million to aid eligible public housing residents who are under the age of 25 to expunge or seal their records in accordance with their applicable state laws. In addition, the National Bar Association – the nation’s oldest and largest national association of predominantly African-American lawyers and judges – has committed to supplementing this program with 4,000 hours of pro bono legal services. Having a criminal record can result in major barriers to securing a job and other productive opportunities in life, and this program will enable young people whose convictions are expungable to start over.
Many of the announcements being made today stem from the President’s My Brother’s Keeper Task Force, which is charged with addressing persistent opportunity gaps facing boys and young men of color and ensuring all young people can reach their full potential. In May of 2014, the Task Force provided the President with a series of evidence-based recommendations focused on the six key milestones on the path to adulthood that are especially predictive of later success, and where interventions can have the greatest impact, including Reducing Violence and Providing a Second Chance. The Task Force, made up of key agencies across the Federal Government, has made considerable progress towards implementing their recommendations, many times creating partnerships across agencies and sectors. Today’s announcements respond to a wide range of recommendations designed to “eliminate unnecessary barriers to giving justice-involved youth a second chance.”
These announcements mark a continuation of the Obama Administration’s commitment to mitigating unnecessary collateral impacts of incarceration. In particular, the Administration has advanced numerous effective reintegration strategies through the work of the Federal Interagency Reentry Council, whose mission is to reduce recidivism and victimization; assist those returning from prison, jail or juvenile facilities to become productive citizens; and save taxpayer dollars by lowering the direct and collateral costs of incarceration.
Through the Reentry Council and other federal agency initiatives, the Administration has improved rehabilitation and reintegration opportunities in meaningful ways, including recent initiatives in the following areas:
Reducing barriers to employment.
Last month, the Department of Justice awarded $3 million to provide technology-based career training for incarcerated adults and juveniles. These funds will be used to establish and provide career training programs during the 6-24 month period before release from a prison, jail, or juvenile facility with connections to follow-up career services after release in the community.
The Department of Justice also announced the selection of its first-ever Second Chance Fellow, Daryl Atkinson. Recognizing that many of those directly impacted by the criminal justice system hold significant insight into reforming the justice system, this position was designed to bring in a person who is both a leader in the criminal justice field and a formerly incarcerated individual to work as a colleague to the Reentry Council and as an advisor to the Bureau of Justice Assistance Second Chance programs.
In addition, the Department of Labor awarded a series of grants in June that are aimed at reducing employment barriers, including:
Face Forward: The Department awarded $30.5 million in grants to provide services to youth, aged 14 to 24, who have been involved in the juvenile justice system. Face Forward gives youth a second chance to succeed in the workforce by removing the stigma of having a juvenile record through diversion and/or expungement strategies.
The Department awarded $30.5 million in grants to provide services to youth, aged 14 to 24, who have been involved in the juvenile justice system. Face Forward gives youth a second chance to succeed in the workforce by removing the stigma of having a juvenile record through diversion and/or expungement strategies. Linking to Employment Activities Pre-Release (LEAP): The Department awarded $10 million in pilot grants for programs that place One Stop Career Center/American Job Centers services directly in local jails. These specialized services will prepare individuals for employment while they are incarcerated to increase their opportunities for successful reentry.
The Department awarded $10 million in pilot grants for programs that place One Stop Career Center/American Job Centers services directly in local jails. These specialized services will prepare individuals for employment while they are incarcerated to increase their opportunities for successful reentry. Training to Work: The Department awarded $27.5 million in Training to Work grants to help strengthen communities where formerly incarcerated individuals return. Training to Work provides workforce-related reentry opportunities for returning citizens, aged 18 and older, who are participating in state and/or local work-release programs. The program focuses on training opportunities that lead to industry-recognized credentials and job opportunities along career pathways.
Increasing access to education and enrichment.
High-quality correctional education — including postsecondary correctional education — has been shown to measurably reduce re-incarceration rates. In July, the Departments of Education and Justice announced the Second Chance Pell Pilot Program to allow incarcerated Americans to receive Pell Grants to pursue postsecondary education and trainings that can help them turn their lives around and ultimately, get jobs, and support their families. Since this pilot was announced, over 200 postsecondary institutions across the nation have applied for consideration.
In June, the Small Business Administration published a final rule for the Microloan Program that provides more flexibility to SBA non-profit intermediaries and expands the pool of microloan recipients. The change will make small businesses that have an owner who is currently on probation or parole eligible for microloan programs, aiding individuals who face significant barriers to traditional employment to reenter the workforce.
Expanding opportunities for justice-involved youth to serve their communities.
In October, the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the Department of Justice announced a new round of Youth Opportunity AmeriCorps grants aimed at enrolling at-risk and formerly incarcerated youth in national service projects. These grants, which include $1.2 million in AmeriCorps funding, will enable 211 AmeriCorps members to serve through organizations in Washington, D.C. and four states: Maine, Maryland, New York, and Texas.
In addition, the Department of Labor partnered with the Department of Defense’s National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program and awarded three $4 million grants in April of this year to provide court-involved youth with work experiences, mentors, and vocational skills training that prepares them for successful entry into the workforce.
Increasing access to health care and public services.
In October, the Department of Justice announced $6 million in awards under the Second Chance Act to support reentry programming for adults with co-occurring substance abuse and mental disorders. This funding is aimed at increasing the screening and assessment that takes place during incarceration as well as improving the provision of treatment options.
In September, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) at HHS announced the winners of its reintegration toolkit challenge to develop software applications aimed at transforming existing resources into user-friendly tools with the potential to promote successful reentry and reduce recidivism. And in October, HHS issued a “Guide for Incarcerated Parents with Children in the Child Welfare System” in order to help incarcerated parents who have children in the child welfare system, including in out-of-home-care, better understand how the child welfare system works so that they can stay in touch.” The information can be found at: http://youth.gov/youth-topics/children-of-incarcerated-parents.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) finalized written statewide prerelease agreements in September with the Department of Corrections in Iowa and Kansas. These agreements – now covering the majority of states – ensure continuity of services for returning citizens. SSA also has prisoner SSN replacement card MOUs in place with 39 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. A dedicated reentry webpage is accessible at www.socialsecurity.gov/reentry.
Increasing reentry service access to incarcerated veterans.
In September, the Department of Labor's Veterans' Employment and Training Service announced the award of $1.5 million in grants to help once incarcerated veterans considered "at risk" of becoming homeless. In all, seven grants will serve more than 650 formerly incarcerated veterans in six states.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) also has developed a web-based system – the Veterans Reentry Search Service (VRSS) – that allows prison, jail, and court staff to quickly and accurately identify veterans among their populations. The system also prompts VA field staff – automatically – so that they can efficiently connect veterans with services. As of this summer, more than half of all state prison systems, and a growing number of local jails, are now using VRSS to identify veterans in their populations.
Improving opportunities for children of incarcerated parents and their families.
In October, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took action to make it easier for incarcerated individuals to stay in touch with their families by capping all in-state and interstate prison phone rates. The FCC also put an end to most of the fees imposed by inmate calling service providers. Studies have consistently shown that inmates who maintain contact with their families experience better outcomes and are less likely to return to prison after they are released. Reduced phone rates will make calls significantly more affordable for inmates and their families, including children of incarcerated parents, who often live in poverty and were at times charged $14 per minute phone rates.
In October, the Department of Justice announced new grant awards to fund mentoring services for incarcerated fathers who are returning to their families. These awards will fund mentoring and comprehensive transitional services that emphasize development of parenting skills in incarcerated young fathers.
Moreover, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the Department of Justice has awarded $1 million to promote and expand services to children who have a parent who is incarcerated in a Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) correctional facility. This program aims to provide opportunities for positive youth development, and to identify effective strategies and best practices that support children of incarcerated parents, including mentoring and comprehensive services that facilitate healthy and positive relationships. In addition to engaging the parent while he or she is incarcerated, this solicitation also supports the delivery of transitional reentry services upon release.
Private Sector Commitments to Support Reentry.
The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), an organization that provides comprehensive employment services to people with recent criminal convictions, has committed to more than double the number of people served from 4,500 to 11,000 across existing geographies and 3-5 new states. This winter, CEO will open in San Jose with support from Google and in the next year, the team will launch in Los Angeles. This growth has been catalyzed by federal investments, including support from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Social Innovation Fund, and a Department of Labor Pay for Success Project.
In addition, Cengage Learning will roll out Smart Horizons Career Online Education in correctional facilities in up to four new states over the next 12 months, providing over 1,000 new students with the opportunity to earn a high-school diploma and/or career certificate online. Smart Horizons Career Online Education is the world’s first accredited online school district, with a focus on reaching underserved populations. The program has been piloted in Florida with 428 students who have received diplomas or certificates. ||||| Washington (CNN) The White House and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took turns lambasting each others' records on criminal justice Monday, as President Barack Obama traveled to Christie's state to promote new initiatives to rehabilitate former prison inmates.
Speaking on CNN's "New Day," Christie claimed his own policing reforms in the Garden State had led to falling murder rates, adding later Obama "has not supported law enforcement in this country."
Christie later said Obama was attempting to take credit for reforms he wasn't party to.
"All of these criminal justice reforms, none of them are his," Christie told reporters outside Camden, New Jersey, suggesting Obama was taking a "victory lap" at Integrity House, a drug rehabilitation center and halfway house in Newark the president stopped at Monday.
Speaking aboard Air Force One, White House press secretary Josh Earnest countered that Christie was simply seeking to elevate his standing in the 2016 GOP primary contest, where he's currently running near the back of a crowded field of candidates.
"Gov. Christie's comments in this regard have been particularly irresponsible, but not surprising for somebody whose poll numbers are close to an asterisk," Earnest said. "Clearly this is part of his strategy for turning that around. We'll see if it works."
In Newark, Obama made his latest push for criminal justice reform, which has become a key domestic priority for the White House. The new actions include "banning the box" requiring applicants to disclose their criminal background on job applications at federal agencies.
At Integrity House, Obama met with a former inmate and staff at the residential facility. Later he participated in a roundtable on prisoner re-entry into society at Rutgers University, where he addressed the hardships former inmates face when applying for jobs.
"That's bad not only for those individuals, but for our economy," he said. "It's bad for those communities that desperately need more role models who are gainfully employed. We've got to make sure Americans who have paid their debt to society can earn their second chance."
The White House Monday announced new actions to promote rehabilitation and reintegration, including $8 million in education grants from the Department of Education and tech training and jobs for individuals with a criminal record.
Obama is also calling on Congress to "ban the box" on federal job applications that requires job applicants to state if they have a criminal record.
"Each year, more than 600,000 individuals are released from state and federal prisons," the White House said in a statement. "Advancing policies and programs that enable these men and women to put their lives back on track and earn their second chance promotes not only justice and fairness, but also public safety."
The Federal Bureau of Prisons announced in October that they would grant early release to about 6,000 inmates between October 30 and November 2.
The prisoners have served an average of nine years and were due to be released in about 18 months, according to a Justice Department official. Many were already in half-way houses.
This is the latest push for criminal just reform from the Obama administration. In July, Obama became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison and met with six inmates.
Obama told NBC's Lester Holt in an exclusive interview clip airing Monday that he's proud of the work he's been able to do on behalf of racial injustice, but said it must continue under the next president. ||||| NEWARK -- President Obama, who has embraced the cause of overhauling the nation's criminal justice system, used New Jersey's largest city as the backdrop Monday to call attention to programs designed to successfully return ex-prisoners to society.
Obama, making his third trip to the Garden State in a year, visited a Newark facility that provides services to 2,400 people each year, including drug treatment and help with housing and jobs. He held a roundtable discussion at Rutgers-Newark's Center for Law and Justice before speaking at the campus.
"There are people across the board -- folks who work inside the criminal justice system, folks who are affected by the criminal justice system, who are saying, 'There's got to be a better way,'" Obama told a crowd of 226 at the university.
RELATED: Obama's Newark trip highlights Booker's criminal justice efforts
The president announced several steps along those lines, including naming Newark one of five new municipalities that will work with local colleges and employers to offer job training and placement for former prisoners.
He announced programs to help juveniles seal criminal records and to improve the chances of former prisoners to get government jobs, and grants to provide education and other help for ex-convicts returning to society.
"We need to make sure Americans who paid their debt to society can earn a second chance," Obama said. "We have seen people who are doing just that."
While Obama, a Democrat, was announcing his initiatives in Newark, Gov. Chris Christie -- a Republican presidential candidate -- was highlighting his own efforts to overhaul the criminal justice system in Camden, which the president visited in May to discuss its progress in improving relations between police and the communities they are sworn to protect. Obama's trip came after several deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police.
Unlike during Obama's December visit to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, Christie was not at the airport to welcome the president.
Obama's first step on his N.J. trip was Integrity House, a non-profit rehabilitation organization that works with drug-and alcohol-addicted criminals. Accompanied by Robin Shorter, director of the Women's Outpatient Programs and director of the Women's Halfway House, he met with three of the residents.
He then discussed criminal justice issues at Rutgers-Newark around a horseshoe-shaped table with some former prisoners and others involved in helping them return to society.
Rutgers-Newark's School of Criminal Justice hosts the New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons program, which provides courses for prisoners and then helps them continue their education once released. The program works with the state Department of Corrections and State Parole Board.
In Newark, they are doing "extraordinary work," Obama said, singling out by name some of the people he met on his visit, both those who are trying to become productive members of society and those who are helping them do it.
Accompanying the president on his trip was Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who has made criminal justice a signature issue since being elected to the Senate. Booker, a former Newark mayor, helped broker a deal with Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and other senators of both parties on a compromise bill that reduces some mandatory sentences and provides certain federal inmates with job training, drug treatment and a chance to be released from prison early.
Obama endorsed that legislation. "This is an area where we have really seen some strong bipartisan work," he said.
Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. ||||| NEWARK — President Obama ordered federal agencies on Monday to stop asking most prospective employees about their criminal histories at the beginning of the application process, a change long sought by activists to help reintegrate former inmates into society.
During a trip to Newark, where he visited a residential drug treatment center, Mr. Obama said that America would be stronger if it found ways to move criminals emerging from prison into paying jobs, but that too many employers dismiss applicants out of hand if they are honest and check the box asking whether they have been convicted of a crime.
“It’s not too late,” Mr. Obama told an audience at the Newark campus of Rutgers University that included a few ex-offenders who had turned their lives around. “There are people who have gone through tough times, they’ve made mistakes, but with a little bit of help, they can get on the right path. And that’s what we have to invest in. That’s what we have to believe. That’s what we have to promote.”
Mr. Obama directed the federal Office of Personnel Management to delay inquiries into criminal history until later in the hiring process for most competitive federal jobs so applicants are not rejected before having a chance to make a positive impression. Most federal agencies have already taken this step, but officials said new rules would be published in the new year banning requests for criminal backgrounds until the most qualified applicants are sent to a hiring manager. Exceptions will be made for law enforcement, national security and other sensitive positions. | – President Obama visited New Jersey today to promote his new efforts to help prisoners re-integrate into society, the Star-Ledger reports. Visiting a facility that helps former inmates and joining a roundtable on the topic at Rutgers University, the president made his case. "There are people across the board—folks who work inside the criminal justice system, folks who are affected by the criminal justice system, who are saying, "There's got to be a better way,'" he told 226 people in attendance at Rutgers. Among his plans, which the New York Times calls "relatively modest": Job applicants with the federal government won't have to reveal their criminal history right away—so they can make an impression first. Obama has also called on Congress to "ban the box" that requires applicants to disclose any past criminal conviction. New education grants and tech training programs will be made available to help former prisoners, the White House said today. A new "National Clean Slate Clearinghouse" will allow certain released prisoners to seal or wipe clean their records. Residents of public housing under the age of 25 will be given the same chance. Obama's visit sparked partisan rancor between Gov. Chris Christie and the White House, CNN reports. Christie accused Obama of piggybacking on criminal-justice reforms that aren't his, and White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest called Christie's remarks "particularly irresponsible, but not surprising for somebody whose poll numbers are close to an asterisk." |
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has climbed the country's highest mountain, state-run media has reported.
Photos were released of the smiling and windswept 32-year-old standing on snow-covered ground at the top of Mount Paektu, with the sun rising behind him.
One image shows dozens of troops cheering deliriously as the leader greets them at the peak.
"Climbing Mount Paektu provides precious mental pabulum more powerful than any kind of nuclear weapon," the Rodong newspaper quoted Mr Kim as saying.
State-run news service KCNA reported the young ruler of the impoverished but nuclear-armed North scaled the mountain on Saturday morning along with hundreds of fighter pilots, and top army and party officials.
1 / 29 Gallery: 2014: Kim Jong-Un Inspecting Things North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un makes regular public appearances across the country
The story is the latest run by state media on the feats of the Kim dynasty, which has ruled for more than six decades with an iron fist and pervasive personality cult.
Just last week the regime insisted Mr Kim could drive by the time he was three years old.
Among the claims made about his late father, Kim Jong-Il, was the suggestion he had scored an incredible 11 holes-in-one the first time he ever played golf.
The 2,750-metre peak of the volcanic mountain, which is on the border with China, is considered a sacred place in Korean folklore and is key to propaganda glorifying the Kim family.
Pyongyang has always insisted Kim Jong-Il was born on the mountain - although many historians say he was born in Russia - and praised the family for their "Mount Paektu bloodline".
Mr Kim, like his predecessors, has made frequent "field guidance trips" to industrial plants, army bases, and sacred sites across the country in what analysts say is an attempt at forging an image as an energetic man of the people. ||||| Kim Jong-un has climbed the highest mountain in North Korea, state-run media claims.
Photos of the country's leader show him standing on a snowy mountaintop, with the sun behind him.
His father, Kim Jong-il, is said by the state to have been born on the mountain, however many historians say he was actually born in Russia.
Reports say Kim Jong-un reached the 2,750-metre peak alongside hundreds of fighter pilots and party officials.
"Climbing Mount Paektu provides precious mental pabulum more powerful than any kind of nuclear weapon," the Rodong newspaper quoted him as saying to troops.
The purpose of the visit is said to have been to see pilots from the Korean People's Army who have completed a tour of battle sites in the area.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines "pabulum" as "bland or insipid intellectual matter, entertainment".
The peak of the volcanic mountain, lying on the border with China, is considered a sacred place in Korean folklore.
It is also part of the propaganda which glorifies the Kim family, who are said to have a "mount Paektu bloodline".
Recently it has been claimed that Mr Kim could drive by the time he was three years old.
The regime also says that Kim Jong-il, who ruled until his death in 2011, scored 11 holes-in-one the first time he ever played golf.
Like his father before him, Mr Kim makes many "field guidance trips" to army bases, factories and other important sites.
Analysts say this is his way of showing himself as an energetic man of the people.
North Korea has a troubled economy, with two-thirds of the population, approximately 16 million people, not knowing where their next meal is coming from, according to the UN.
It is keen to develop its nuclear weapons with their last test taking place in February 2013.
North Korea has built up its military arsenal and nuclear programme instead of helping feed its people, according to another United Nations report.
Earlier this year, Michael Kirby, who led a UN commission of inquiry into North Korean human rights violations, claimed to the BBC World Service that some families were even forced to use the ashes of relatives as fertiliser to help grow crops.
Meanwhile large amounts of government money is understood to be spent on the "supreme leader" and "the advancement of his personality cult".
Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter, BBCNewsbeat on Instagram, Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube and you can now follow BBC_Newsbeat on Snapchat | – Today, being the seventh day, presumably Kim Jong Un is resting. But yesterday, the North Korean despot was busily scaling the snowswept 9,000-foot tallest peak in his kingdom, and state media is reporting everything but that he did it in a single bound, reports the BBC. "Climbing Mount Paektu provides precious mental pabulum more powerful than any kind of nuclear weapon," gushed Rodong; the BBC helpfully notes that "The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'pabulum' as 'bland or insipid intellectual matter, entertainment.' " Kim is pictured with dozens of members of the military atop Paektu. It's the latest heroic exploit for Dear Leader, who last week was reported as having learned to drive by the tender age of three. Mount Paektu is significant to the Kim dynasty, adds Sky News: The regime has long claimed that Kim Jong Il was born on the mountain, giving them a "Mount Paektu bloodline." Others more rooted in things like history and reality say he was born in Russia. The BBC has all the photos here. |
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