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GOP Eyes Gains As Voters In 11 States Pick Governors
Enlarge this image toggle caption Jim Cole/AP Jim Cole/AP
Voters in 11 states will pick their governors tonight, and Republicans appear on track to increase their numbers by at least one, with the potential to extend their hold to more than two-thirds of the nation's top state offices.
Eight of the gubernatorial seats up for grabs are now held by Democrats; three are in Republican hands. Republicans currently hold 29 governorships, Democrats have 20, and Rhode Island's Gov. Lincoln Chafee is an Independent.
Polls and race analysts suggest that only three of tonight's contests are considered competitive, all in states where incumbent Democratic governors aren't running again: Montana, New Hampshire and Washington.
While those state races remain too close to call, Republicans are expected to wrest the North Carolina governorship from Democratic control, and to easily win GOP-held seats in Utah, North Dakota and Indiana.
Democrats are likely to hold on to their seats in West Virginia and Missouri, and are expected to notch safe wins in races for seats they hold in Vermont and Delaware.
Holding Sway On Health Care
While the occupant of the governor's office is historically far less important than the party that controls the state legislature, top state officials in coming years are expected to wield significant influence in at least one major area.
And that's health care, says political scientist Thad Kousser, co-author of The Power of American Governors.
"No matter who wins the presidency, national politics is going to be stalemated on the Affordable Care Act," says Kousser, of the University of California, San Diego.
A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision giving states the ability to opt out of the law's expansion of Medicaid, the federal insurance program for poor, disabled and elderly Americans, confers "incredible power" on the states and their governors, Kousser says.
Just look at what happened when the Obama administration in 2010 offered federal stimulus money to states to begin building a high-speed rail network. Three Republican governors, including Rick Scott of Florida and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, rejected a share of the money citing debt and deficit concerns.
"A [Mitt] Romney victory would dramatically empower Republican governors," Kousser says.
State-By-State View
North Carolina: One-term incumbent Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue, the first woman to hold the state's top office, announced in January that she would not seek re-election after polls showed her with high disapproval ratings and trailing Republican candidate Pat McCrory.
The seat is expected to be won by McCrory, a former Charlotte mayor, who is facing Perdue's lieutenant governor, Walter Dalton. McCrory lost a close race to Perdue in 2008, when then-presidential candidate Barack Obama became the first Democrat to win North Carolina in more than three decades. The Real Clear Politics average for the race has McCrory maintaining a 14.3 percentage point lead.
Montana: Popular Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer — he won his last election with 65 percent of the vote — has reached his two-term limit. The state's Democratic Attorney General Steve Bullock is trying to keep the seat in his party's column by associating himself with Schweitzer's legacy. He's in a tough race with former two-term GOP Rep. Rick Hill.
New Hampshire: Former Democratic state Sen. Maggie Hassan has also promised a continuation of the policies of her predecessor, retiring Democratic Gov. John Lynch. Her opponent is lawyer Ovide Lamontagne, a Tea Party conservative who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1996 and for the U.S. Senate in 2010. The national parties have invested in the campaigns, which have focused on fiscal and women's health care issues.
Washington: The state's governorship has been in Democratic hands for 32 years, and former U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee is in a dead-heat battle to keep it that way. His opponent is the state's Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna. McKenna has a proven ability to win statewide, but working in Inslee's favor are Obama's poll numbers. The Real Clear Politics average shows Obama with an average 13.6 percentage point lead over Romney; Inslee is leading McKenna by an average of 1 percentage point.
Pretty Much Sure Things
Republican Govs. Jack Dalrymple in North Dakota and Gary Herbert in Utah, and GOP Rep. Mike Pence in Indiana are expected to win. So are Democratic Govs. Peter Shumlin in Vermont and Jack Markell in Delaware.
Democrats are also hoping to hold on to the governorship in Missouri, where Jay Nixon is running for a second term against Republican Dave Spence; and in West Virginia, where Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, former state senate president, is running for his first full term after winning a special election in 2011. GOP businessman Bill Maloney is his opponent, as he was last year.
Nixon has been consistently outpolling Spence by an average of about 7 points in Missouri. Tomblin is seen as likely to retain his seat, even in a state where Romney is leading Obama by double digits. ||||| GOP Eyes Gains As Voters In 11 States Pick Governors
Jim Cole / AP i Jim Cole / AP
Voters in 11 states will pick their governors tonight, and Republicans appear on track to increase their numbers by at least one, and with the potential to extend their hold to more than two-thirds of the nation's top state offices.
Eight of the gubernatorial seats up for grabs today are now held by Democrats; three are in Republican hands. Republicans currently hold 29 governorships, Democrats have 20; and Rhode Island's Gov. Lincoln Chafee is an Independent.
Polls and race analysts suggest that only three of tonight's contests are considered competitive, all in states where incumbent Democratic governors aren't running again: Montana, New Hampshire and Washington.
While those state races remain too close to call, Republicans are expected to wrest the North Carolina governorship from Democratic control, and to easily win GOP-held seats in Utah, North Dakota and Indiana.
Democrats are likely hold on to their seats in West Virginia and Missouri; and expected to notch safe wins in races for seats they hold in Vermont and Delaware.
Holding Sway On Health Care
While the occupant of the governor's office is historically far less important than the party that controls the state legislature, top state officials in coming years are expected to wield significant influence in at least one major area.
And that's health care, says political scientist Thad Kousser, co-author of The Power of American Governors.
"No matter who wins the presidency, national politics is going to be stalemated on the Affordable Care Act," says Kousser, of the University of California-Berkeley.
A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision giving states the ability to opt out of the law's expansion of Medicaid, the federal insurance program for poor, disabled and elderly Americans, confers "incredible power" on the states and their governors, Kousser says.
Just look at what happened when the Obama administration in 2010 offered federal stimulus money to states to begin building a high-speed rail network. Three Republican governors, including Rick Scott of Florida and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, rejected a share of the money citing debt and deficit concerns.
"A [Mitt] Romney victory would dramatically empower Republican governors," Kousser says.
State-by-State View
North Carolina: One-term incumbent Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue, the first woman to hold the state's top office, announced in January she would not seek re-election after polls showed her with high disapproval ratings and trailing Republican candidate Pat McCrory.
The seat is expected to be won by McCrory, a former Charlotte mayor, who is facing Perdue's lieutenant governor, Walter Dalton. McCrory lost a close race to Perdue in 2008, when then-presidential candidate Barack Obama became the first Democrat to win North Carolina in more than three decades. The Real Clear Politics average for the race has McCrory maintaining a 14.3 percentage point lead.
Montana: Popular Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer — he won his last election with 65 percent of the vote — has reached his two-term limit. The state's Democratic Attorney General Steve Bullock is trying to keep the seat in his party's column by associating himself with Schweitzer's legacy. He's in a tough race with former two-term GOP Rep. Rick Hill.
New Hampshire: Former Democratic state Sen. Maggie Hassan has also promised a continuation of the policies of her predecessor, retiring Democratic Gov. John Lynch. Her opponent is lawyer Ovide Lamontagne, a Tea Party conservative who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1996 and for the U.S. Senate in 2010. The national parties have invested in the campaigns, which have focused on fiscal and women's health care issues.
Washington: The state's governorship has been in Democratic hands for 32 years, and former Rep. Jay Inslee is in a dead-heat battle to keep it that way. His opponent is the state's Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna. McKenna has a proven ability to win statewide, but working in Inslee's favor are Obama's poll numbers. The Real Clear Politics average shows Obama with an average 13.6 point lead over Romney; Inslee's leading McKenna by an average of 1 percentage point.
Pretty Much Sure Things
Republican governors Jack Dalrymple in North Dakota and Gary Herbert in Utah, and GOP Rep. Mike Pence in Indiana are expected to win. So are Democratic governors Peter Shumlin in Vermont and Jack Markell in Delaware.
Democrats are also hoping to hold on to the governorship in Missouri, where Jay Nixon is running for a second term against Republican Dave Spence; and in West Virginia, where Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, former state senate president, is running for his first full term after willing a special election in 2011. GOP businessman Bill Maloney is his opponent, as he was last year.
Nixon has been consistently out-polling Spence by an average of about 7 points in Missouri. Tomblin is seen as likely to retain his seat, even in a state where Romney is leading Obama by double digits. | – It's a race for the governor's mansion in 11 states today, and the GOP could end the night at the helm of more than two-thirds of the 50 states. The GOP currently controls 29 of the country's top state offices; it's expected to keep the three Republican ones that are up for grabs (Utah, North Dakota, and Indiana), and wrest North Carolina from the Dems. That brings its toll to 30, with the potential to take three more, reports NPR. Races in Montana, New Hampshire, and Washington are still too close to call, and in all three, Democrat incumbents aren't seeking reelection. The results could have a big impact on health care, since a Supreme Court ruling grants states the ability to opt out of ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion. "A Romney victory would dramatically empower Republican governors," said one analyst. Click for NPR's state-by-state breakdown of what could happen. |
UPDATE: 4/19/2001 Read Richard Metzger: How I, a married, middle-aged man, became an accidental spokesperson for gay rights overnight on Boing Boing
It’s time to clarify a few details about the controversial “Hey Facebook what’s SO wrong with a pic of two men kissing?” story, as it now beginning to be reported in the mainstream media, and not always correctly.
First of all, with regards to the picture:
The photo which was used to illustrate my first post about the John Snow Kiss-In is a promotional still from the British soap opera “Eastenders.” It features one of the main characters from the show (Christian Clarke, played by the actor John Partridge- left) and someone else who I don’t know. I am not a regular viewer so I can’t say if the man on the right is an extra or an actual character.
This picture has itself caused scandal in the UK, as it was a gay kiss that was broadcast before the watershed, and as such led to a number of complaints to the BBC. However, since this episode aired (October 2008) Christian now has a boyfriend and a few more gay kisses have taken place.
In relation to the John Snow Kiss-In event, I used this particular photo because I considered it to be quite mild (no groping, no tongues). The photos I had considered using before I chose that one are much more racy. Oh the irony!
Secondly, the removal of the Facebook John Snow Kiss-In event:
It turns out that the Facebook event for the John Snow Kiss-In was not blocked by Facebook, but made private by the creator of the event itself. Paul Shetler, the organizer, left this comment on the previous thread:
“Hey I just saw this. Before it goes too far, I just want people to know that FB have NOT removed the kiss-in event page; it’s still there, but _I made the event private after the event_ was over and only visible to those who had been invited as there were starting to be trolls posting abusive nonsense on it.”
Thanks for clearing that up, Paul. Now if Facebook will only reply to Richard’s query about why they removed my original post and photo when he put it up on his wall…
It has been erroneously reported in the media that our own Richard Metzger (who lives in Los Angeles) organized the London “Kiss-In” event, which is untrue, and also unfair to Paul Shetler and the actual organizers. Also, Richard did not state in his post that Facebook HAD taken the event page down, he just questioned IF this was the case and IF there was a connection with MY post about the event being removed from his own wall. This seems to have confused some people.
Here is a report on the John Snow Kiss-In from the Guardian, featuring an interview with Mr Shetler:
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UPDATED: A photo of two men kissing that was posted on a Facebook page protesting a London pub’s decision to eject a same-sex couple for kissing has been removed by the social networking site, an error, according to a rep for the company.
"The photo in question does not violate our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and was removed in error," the statement, obtained by America Blog, says. We apologize for the inconvenience"
The Dangerous Minds Facebook page was set up to promote a “gay kiss-in” demonstration in London to protest the pub. The page used a photo of two men kissing to promote the event.
According to NYULocal.com, the photo was quickly removed and the following e-mail was sent to administrators of the Facebook page: “Shares that contain nudity, or any kind of graphic or sexually suggestive content, are not permitted on Facebook.”
The decision to remove the photo has prompted scores of people to post their own pictures of same-sex couples kissing in protest — dozens in the last few hours alone. | – It turns out Facebook is only guilty of about half of what it’s been accused of in the gay kiss incident. The social networking site apologized yesterday for taking down an image used to promote a “kiss-in” event in London. “The photo in question does not violate our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, and was removed in error,” the site said in a statement, according to the Advocate. But Facebook did not, as has been reported in several places, take down the kiss-in event itself. Here’s what happened: The photo Facebook took down was posted by the Dangerous Minds blog to promote the event. In its initial write-up about the incident, the blog observed that the page organizing the protest had been taken down. But it was actually the organizer himself who "removed" the event, Dangerous Minds clarified. Organizer Paul Shetler explains that he decided to switch it from a public event to a private one, as "there were starting to be trolls posting abusive nonsense on it." |
It's the Golden State's latest version of the Great Secession.
Fed up by Sacramento's regulations and Southern California's political sway, residents in one rural Northern California county are taking steps to leave the state.
The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted, 4-1, on Tuesday to pursue seceding from California, the Redding Record Searchlight reported. Proponents say Siskiyou should form a new state -- called Jefferson -- with other counties in Northern California and Southern Oregon they believe share similar interests.
On Tuesday more than 100 people filled the supervisors' chambers, many of whom indicated support for the declaration, the Searchlight reported. When a speaker asked those in the audience who was in favor, "nearly every hand in the room was raised," the newspaper said.
"Many proposed laws are unconstitutional and deny us our God-given rights," said Happy Camp resident Gabe Garrison. "We need our own state so we can make laws that fit our way of life."
"The state of Jefferson is the place I want to raise my son," Kayla Brown said.
Resident complaints include a lack of representation in Sacramento and insufficient attention to major issues for the county, such as water rights and a rural fire prevention fee, the Searchlight reported.
"We have to have government that's local, understands our issues and has empathy," said Mark Baird, a rancher who the Searchlight said was heading the effort.
Supervisor Marcia Armstrong cited restoration of limited government as one of the reasons she supported the declaration.
"We also have this enormous bureaucracy of unelected officials making decisions for us," she said.
Supervisor Ed Valenzuela, who chairs the board, was the only vote against the decision, the Searchlight said. He cited the oath he took upon his reelection to "uphold the Constitution and uphold the constitution of the state of California."
"I signed on to work within the system I know," he said. "I don't like it, I don't agree with it all the time, but ... I did sign up for that and I will continue to do so."
Neighboring counties, which would be invited to join Jefferson, are also weighing secession. Humboldt County Supervisor Rex Bohn told the Times-Standard that his board would probably meet to consider their options.
"I was one of the people who thinks the state of Jefferson wasn't a bad idea," he told the newspaper. "There has been a total lack of respect of our water rights and the fire fee. Those things may not be important to the rest of the state, but it's important to us."
Secession efforts within California date back to the 1800s. The most recent high-profile attempt came in 2011, when Riverside County officials weighed a proposal to pursue the establishment of "South California," which would have seen 13 counties leave the Golden State.
[For the Record, 1:50 p.m. PDT Sept. 4: An earlier version of this post incorrectly attributed Humboldt County Supervisor Rex Bohn's comments on the state of Jefferson to the Redding Record Searchlight. They were made to the Times-Standard.]
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kate.mather@latimes.com ||||| The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 on Tuesday to support the county's split from the state of California.
It's the first in a long series of steps to form the proposed state of Jefferson, which proponents of the effort say would bring representation to rural North State counties that currently are beholden to the whims of representatives of the more heavily populated Southern California and free them from burdensome state regulations.
”We have to have government that's local, understands our issues and has empathy” for those affected, said Mark Baird, a Scott Valley rancher who's also president for Scott Valley Protect Our Water and vice president of the Siskiyou Water User's Association.
Baird is leading the charge to form a new state from rural counties in Northern California and Southern Oregon, though he certainly wasn't the only voice in support of the move.
More than 100 people packed the supervisors' chambers Tuesday for the discussion on whether the county should issue a declaration that it wants to secede from the state. Nearly all those in attendance appeared to be for the move and about a dozen spoke in support of it.
”Many proposed laws are unconstitutional and deny us our God-given rights,” said Gabe Garrison of Happy Camp. “We need our own state so we can make laws that fit our way of life.”
Among those in attendance was Erin Ryan, field representative for Rep.
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Doug LaMalfa. When asked for the congressman's opinion, she said that she and other LaMalfa staff members supported the effort to secede, but she did not know LaMalfa's thoughts on it.
She also said there's support for the split in Sacramento.
The discussion also attracted members of groups from Shasta and Tehama counties who are looking for their own supervisors to pass similar declarations.
”It would be the only way I could see everyone coming together in a positive manner,” said Tom Moller of Red Bluff.
Also there was Kayla Brown, a mother in her early 20s, who said she didn't want to raise her child in California.
”The state of Jefferson is the place I want to raise my son,” she said.
At one point in the meeting a speaker asked for a show of hands from those in attendance who supported the split. Nearly every hand in the room was raised.
And supervisors echoed much of that enthusiasm in their own comments.
”I haven't had one contact in regard to this issue, that's in opposition,” Supervisor Michael Kobseff said.
Supervisor Marcia Armstrong said the issues were about regulation, restriction of rights, lack of representation, regionalism and restoration of limited government.
”We also have this enormous bureaucracy of unelected officials making decisions for us,” she said.
Board Chair Ed Valenzuela was the sole vote against the declaration. He said he was elected to solve problems within the system.
”It comes down to because I took an oath. I took an oath when I ran for re-election, which I just did, and that was to uphold the Constitution, and uphold the constitution of the state of California,” he said. “And within that, and because knowing what it's like to be a minority, I know the value of having to work from the other side without the numbers and without support. I signed on to do that, I signed on to work within the system I know. I don't like it, I don't agree with it all the time but at the same token, I did sign up for that and I will continue to do so.”
In August, county residents lobbied the board to consider separating from the state over a laundry list of complaints including a lack of representation in Sacramento for the Republican-majority county, issues pertaining to water rights and the rural fire prevention fee.
If the county were to split from the state, any action taken today would be the first step in a long process that would require approval from the state Legislature and the U.S. Congress.
Siskiyou County would also invite other neighboring counties in California and Southern Oregon to join in the effort to create a new state.
The U.S. Constitution allows for the formation of new states, though land can't be taken from existing states without the consent of state and federal governments.
Humboldt County 1st District Supervisor Rex Bohn said he can understand the frustration in Siskiyou County and that he tends to agree with most of the issues that were brought up by the board.
”I was one of the people who thinks the State of Jefferson wasn't a bad idea,” Bohn said. “There has been a total lack of respect in terms of our water rights and the fire fee. Those things may not be important to the rest of the state, but it's important to us. This is a major thing for everyone that lives rurally.”
Bohn said the problem is that only 16 percent of the state is rural, and decisions in Sacramento are sometimes based on the needs or realities of more urban areas.
”It's kind of a drastic measure to get someone to listen to you, but I guess they feel like they're not getting heard,” he said.
Bohn added that the Humboldt County supervisors will likely meet to discuss the issue.
Humboldt County 3rd District Supervisor Mark Lovelace said he took the talk of secession as a statement of frustration.
”There has to be basic economic underpinnings to make a state work,” Lovelace said. “There is a certain romantic appeal and allure to the state of Jefferson, this entire idea of what could have been, but in reality it would not be good economically.”
He said one of the problems with a rural county seceding is that the tax base starts small.
”Siskiyou is one of the largest counties with one of the smallest populations,” he said. “It is also full of state roads that they won't be able to maintain, and federal land.”
Times-Standard staff writer Catherine Wong contributed to this report. | – Not a big fan of Southern California? Neither is Northern California, apparently. Supervisors in rural Siskiyou County voted 4-1 Tuesday in favor of seceding from the state, reports the Times-Standard. The county thinks state officials in Sacramento are too focused on the big metro areas of the south and thus want to form a state of its own—to be called Jefferson. Supporters want to invite other northern counties, and perhaps a few from Oregon, to join, too, notes the Los Angeles Times. ”We have to have government that's local, understands our issues, and has empathy,” says one local rancher. It's clearly a very long-shot bid, one that would eventually require the blessing of both the state legislature and the US Congress. Still, neighboring Humboldt County is expected to meet soon to consider the idea. (Meanwhile, some counties in Colorado want to form a new state of their own.) |
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The WARC files associated with this crawl are not currently available to the general public. ||||| Summary: Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia is aimed at building a devices and services strategy, but the joint company won't take the same form as Apple.
Microsoft has been working on its evolution into a devices and services company, away from the services business it has traditionally been, for several years now with limited success.
Its acquisition of most of Nokia is the latest acceleration of that strategy — to move further away from the moribund world of the beige desktop and towards the sunlit world of smartphones and tablets.
Owning the desktop (via Windows) and building additional services on top, like Office or search, has been vital for Microsoft's strategy until now, so as our interest shifts from the desktop to the tablet or smartphone it's essential to Microsoft's broader business (even Azure) that it can retain that connection in some form. To be a winner in the business market it also has to be a winner in the consumer market, something that wasn't the case a decade ago.
As Microsoft's own presentation about the deal, announced on Monday, notes: "With the consumerisation of IT user matter at both home and work... We cannot risk having Apple or Google foreclose app innovation, integration, distribution or economics."
Nokia lashed itself to Microsoft's mast after losing out to iOS and Android in the smartphone market share stakes and with the limited success of the Lumia range so far enough to keep interest in Windows Phone alive, most analysts are seeing a certain amount of inevitability to the acquisition, even if they are split on what its biggest implications are.
Forrester mobile analyst Charles Golvin said the steadily diminishing investments by other Windows Phone licensees has left Microsoft with just Nokia as its standard bearer and added Microsoft now appears "poised to adopt a vertically integrated strategy more akin to Apple's".
But he said Microsoft's challenge remains how to unite the myriad services and brands — Windows, Nokia, Live, Surface, Xbox, Bing and more — into a cohesive experience that will command and cement customer loyalty.
"That's a tall order and one that should weigh strongly on the board's choice of a new CEO," he said.
Richard Holway, chairman of analyst TechMarketView, said given that Microsoft paid $8.5bn for Skype in 2011, the price it is paying for Nokia "seems extremely reasonable".
However, he added: "Our only 'surprise' now is the timing of the announcement. For such a big deal to come just days after Ballmer stood down seems mighty strange."
For Holway, there is also an opportunity for the enlarged Microsoft to step up its business mobility efforts: "There is undoubtedly a market opportunity for the creation of a provider of mobile solutions for the enterprise. Taking Office onto various mobile platforms. Providing secure emailing in a sector once occupied by BlackBerry."
But such a move carries its own risks — Microsoft's success has been build on being hardware agnostic and persuading device manufacturers to support it. Already its move into the tablet market with Surface will have unsettled its manufacturers which have struggled to come up with convincing form factors to tackle the decline of the PC. If Nokia's rumoured tablet appears too, this will further complicate Microsoft's relations with these partners who are essential for the success of Windows 8 (as well as Office and other products).
But, as Holway points out, "on balance, Microsoft needed to make a bold move into mobile. Not doing so would mean certain terminal decline. This way at least holds out some chance of survival."
Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at analyst Gartner, said by buying rather than just partnering with Nokia, Microsoft gets deeper integration, the benefit of its patents and removes any risk of Nokia either going Android or being acquired by someone else.
But success against iOS and Android will depend on how the companies integrate.
"Nokia benefits from higher R&D spend as well as more marketing budget. Microsoft benefits from a good relationship with carriers, good direct channel presence in emerging markets, the potential of going after more aggressively to the business market," she told ZDNet.
But for Milanesi, business is a secondary concern, even if it is an attractive target where Microsoft, and to a less extent Nokia, have experience: "First and foremost it needs to be about consumers. Enterprise are certainly a target especially considering the state BlackBerry is in but consumers make or break a phone vendor today."
From Milanesi's point of view, emerging markets need to be a longer term target for Microsoft — but the battle needs to be won in the mature markets first.
For Forrester principal analyst Thomas Husson, Nokia adds to Microsoft's developing market strategy. It's looking increasingly likely that the US and western European smartphone market is reaching saturation, so that most growth will come from emerging markets. Here Nokia's Asha devices could play a neat role as an 'on-ramp' for consumers buying their first smartphone. Tied in with a revamped tablet strategy this could open up a new front against Android in particular.
But Husson cautioned: "This is going to be a long journey. In some countries, Windows Phone 8 market share is now above five percent and close to 10 percent. It thus still offers a limited reach for developers and marketers.
"Nokia is indeed still massivley popular in some emerging countries but competition is very high with Far East manufacturers and low-cost Android devices. I think it will depend on Microsoft's new strategy for emerging markets beyond just mobile phones."
All of this shows the number of competing — and occasionally contradictory — demands upon Microsoft's management.
As the incumbent player in a fading market, Microsoft has a take into account those differing requirements as it tries to build for the future. For example, balancing Microsoft's business customers against the need to get into consumer tech, the need to build its own hardware business against the need to keep manufacturers onside, and building up a mobile business while protecting its PC heritage.
It's easy to look at Apple's integrated hardware and software model and the rich ecosystem that sits around it, but it's much harder to emulate.
Global coverage: Nokia Interim CEO: Microsoft deal makes us stronger | Even with Nokia devices, Microsoft wants to license Windows Phone to other makers | Does its Nokia buy thwart or fuel a possible Microsoft break-up? | Microsoft shows how to flush decades of Nokia goodwill away | Microsoft gets less than $10 per Windows Phone unit | Microsoft-Nokia deal: Reaction from the Twitter trenches | Elop drops Nokia CEO role to lead devices team under Microsoft deal
Further reading ||||| Microsoft is buying Nokia's cell phone business and licensing its patent portfolio, according to both companies.
In 2003, Nokia's cell phone market share exceeded 35%. That same year, its phone business alone posted an operating profit of 5.48 billion euros. Today's sale price, which includes 1.65 billion euros in patents, is just 5.44 billion euros. It's been a rough decade.
Nokia's cell phone collapse has been a spectacular one. The Finnish giant dominated the dumbphone era after Motorola, another faded star that recently fell into the hands of a comparative upstart. But it was blindsided by Apple, then deprived of a chance to regain its footing by an even more aggressive Google, which followed close behind.
The story, in hindsight, is simple: Nokia did not have a truly compelling smartphone ready when a large segment of the developed world was first compelled by smartphones. Whether this was the result of complacency — Nokia was, in the mid-2000s, the leader of the niche smartphone category — doesn't matter now.
Nokia's miscalculations became impossible to ignore in 2008, the same year Microsoft decided, internally at least, to scrap its ancient and inadequate Windows Mobile platform in favor of something entirely new. Under these circumstances, it's easy to imagine how a sort of camaraderie might have emerged at the time, or at least a mutual sympathy. Certainly a shared interest: to break back into the market from which they had been unceremoniously expelled.
During the next two years, while Microsoft readied Windows Phone 7 and Nokia floundered on, the seeds of Sunday's deal were sewn. A chastened Nokia was a natural partner for the tardy but determined Microsoft; it needed a software solution and Microsoft needed help with hardware. The 2009 vision of 2013 renders clearly: Two giants, united after some missteps, regain their rightful place. By 2010, when the head of Microsoft's Business division left to take the helm at Nokia, the gears were moving. Many at the time wondered if Stephen Elop's time at Nokia would be spent grooming the company for purchase — a foreigner in all possible ways, he began his time at the company with a memo rightly but offensively declaring Nokia's proud platform a failure, and quickly pledged the company's commitment to the still-tiny Windows Phone. It felt like a radical about-face, but no matter: Nokia and Microsoft were going to save each other.
Now, with Elop returning to Microsoft after a job well done — well, a job, done —that plan has come to fruition. The only problem is that there's little left to save. Windows Phone has barely dented the now much larger smartphone market. Nokia hasn't had a Windows Phone hit. This incongruity — between a successfully executed, slyly strategic long-term merger plan and a much grander, more general sense of failure — might explain Microsoft's deeply strange and somewhat sad stated goals for its Nokia acquisition.
Microsoft' s "Strategic Rationale," titled "Accelerating Growth," is a disjointed and bizarre document. It manages to sound both insane and uninspiring, outlining modest goals that still sound unrealistic.
For example, it lays out a plan to pull in over $45 billion dollars in smartphone revenue by 2018. But it plans on doing this by securing just 15% of the projected global smartphone market — not exactly a world-beating plan, keeping in mind the time frame. Consider: 2018 is five years away. Five years ago was the year the App Store first opened. ||||| Hello there,
There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform's edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.
As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a "burning platform," and he needed to make a choice.
He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times - his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a "burning platform" caused a radical change in his behaviour.
We too, are standing on a "burning platform," and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.
Over the past few months, I've shared with you what I've heard from our shareholders, operators, developers, suppliers and from you. Today, I'm going to share what I've learned and what I have come to believe.
I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform.
And, we have more than one explosion - we have multiple points of scorching heat that are fuelling a blazing fire around us.
For example, there is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected. Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone and attracting developers to a closed, but very powerful ecosystem.
In 2008, Apple's market share in the $300+ price range was 25 percent; by 2010 it escalated to 61 percent. They are enjoying a tremendous growth trajectory with a 78 percent earnings growth year over year in Q4 2010. Apple demonstrated that if designed well, consumers would buy a high-priced phone with a great experience and developers would build applications. They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.
And then, there is Android. In about two years, Android created a platform that attracts application developers, service providers and hardware manufacturers. Android came in at the high-end, they are now winning the mid-range, and quickly they are going downstream to phones under €100. Google has become a gravitational force, drawing much of the industry's innovation to its core.
Let's not forget about the low-end price range. In 2008, MediaTek supplied complete reference designs for phone chipsets, which enabled manufacturers in the Shenzhen region of China to produce phones at an unbelievable pace. By some accounts, this ecosystem now produces more than one third of the phones sold globally - taking share from us in emerging markets.
While competitors poured flames on our market share, what happened at Nokia? We fell behind, we missed big trends, and we lost time. At that time, we thought we were making the right decisions; but, with the benefit of hindsight, we now find ourselves years behind.
The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don't have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable.
We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Nokia, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough. We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market.
At the midrange, we have Symbian. It has proven to be non-competitive in leading markets like North America. Additionally, Symbian is proving to be an increasingly difficult environment in which to develop to meet the continuously expanding consumer requirements, leading to slowness in product development and also creating a disadvantage when we seek to take advantage of new hardware platforms. As a result, if we continue like before, we will get further and further behind, while our competitors advance further and further ahead.
At the lower-end price range, Chinese OEMs are cranking out a device much faster than, as one Nokia employee said only partially in jest, "the time that it takes us to polish a PowerPoint presentation." They are fast, they are cheap, and they are challenging us.
And the truly perplexing aspect is that we're not even fighting with the right weapons. We are still too often trying to approach each price range on a device-to-device basis.
The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren't taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we're going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem.
This is one of the decisions we need to make. In the meantime, we've lost market share, we've lost mind share and we've lost time.
On Tuesday, Standard & Poor's informed that they will put our A long term and A-1 short term ratings on negative credit watch. This is a similar rating action to the one that Moody's took last week. Basically it means that during the next few weeks they will make an analysis of Nokia, and decide on a possible credit rating downgrade. Why are these credit agencies contemplating these changes? Because they are concerned about our competitiveness.
Consumer preference for Nokia declined worldwide. In the UK, our brand preference has slipped to 20 percent, which is 8 percent lower than last year. That means only 1 out of 5 people in the UK prefer Nokia to other brands. It's also down in the other markets, which are traditionally our strongholds: Russia, Germany, Indonesia, UAE, and on and on and on.
How did we get to this point? Why did we fall behind when the world around us evolved?
This is what I have been trying to understand. I believe at least some of it has been due to our attitude inside Nokia. We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven't been delivering innovation fast enough. We're not collaborating internally.
Nokia, our platform is burning.
We are working on a path forward -- a path to rebuild our market leadership. When we share the new strategy on February 11, it will be a huge effort to transform our company. But, I believe that together, we can face the challenges ahead of us. Together, we can choose to define our future.
The burning platform, upon which the man found himself, caused the man to shift his behaviour, and take a bold and brave step into an uncertain future. He was able to tell his story. Now, we have a great opportunity to do the same.
Stephen. | – Why did Microsoft buy Nokia's phone business? We now know Microsoft's answer: The computing giant released a 30-slide presentation today arguing that the move will improve Microsoft's margins on Windows phones, which will allow it to invest more in the platform, which will accelerate sales and market share growth, the Washington Post reports. But John Herrman at Buzzfeed has another explanation: "Fear of dying alone." Here's what he and other pundits are saying: The presentation "manages to sound both insane and uninspiring, outlining modest goals that still sound unrealistic," Herman argues—like capturing a whole 15% of the smartphone market. "It's a fitting end for the close of Microsoft's Ballmer era, during which the company … missed out on the most important change in consumer electronics in decades" while remaining profitable in unglamorous ways. Like everyone, Microsoft is trying to ape the Apple model, MobileOpportunity observes. But it's not so sure that's a good idea. "There already is an apple," the blog points out, and other software/hardware hybrid companies, like Palm and BlackBerry, have been crushed under its heel. Maybe Microsoft should have tried to patch up its tried-and-true strategy of licensing its OS. The move risks complicating Microsoft's crucial relationships with other PC and device manufacturers, one analyst tells ZDNet. But he adds that "Microsoft needed to make a bold move" or face "certain terminal decline," and that the price it paid for Nokia "seems extremely reasonable." Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias at Slate digs up a fairly interesting memo from Nokia CEO (and, perhaps, Microsoft heir apparent) Stephen Elop, in which he uses the story of a Deepwater Horizon worker leaping from the burning oil platform—a seemingly desperate, yet necessary move—to explain the company's shift from its own failed OS to Windows Phone. Of course, Yglesias notes, that move "was basically a total failure." To read the full parable, click here. |
After a year in which liberals scored impressive, high-profile Supreme Court victories, conservatives could be in line for wins on some of this term's most contentious issues, as the justices consider cases that could gut public sector labor unions and roll back affirmative action at state universities.
However, as the court's new term kicks off Monday, uncertainty surrounds several other politically potent cases that could wind up on the court’s agenda.
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Litigation over state efforts to limit abortion by regulating clinics and doctors is making its way to the high court. And the justices are already facing a batch of petitions involving the rights of religious institutions to opt out of providing contraception under Obamacare.
Both issues seem likely to land on this term's docket, although the justices haven’t formally taken up either.
Many in the Obama administration would also like to see the court weigh in on immigration in coming months, upholding the president’s right to grant quasi-legal status and work permits to millions of immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally as children.
But it’s unclear whether that fight will get to the justices in time for a decision this term or whether Obama’s effort to expand his executive actions on immigration will remain blocked by a lower court order until the president leaves office.
Here’s POLITICO’s look at five of the most important cases the justices could grapple with soon:
A potential body blow to labor
Public-employee unions and politicians of both parties are keenly focused on a California dispute about whether states can compel government employees to pay union dues. A loss for the unions could sharply diminish the clout of a movement already struggling with its political relevance.
The case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, was brought by Orange County, Calif. schoolteacher Rebecca Friedrichs and other teachers, who are arguing that forcing them to pay union dues violates their First Amendment rights. They also contend that unions should have to get permission before collecting dues used for political purposes, as opposed to the current system that requires objecting employees to opt out.
“The significance is substantial, either way it comes out,” said University of California at Irvine Law Professor Catherine Fisk. “The reason why conservative lawyers are bringing these case is the hope that a significant number of government employees choose not to join the union and certain government employee unions will be weaker.”
The Roberts court has not been friendly to unions, issuing a 5-4 ruling last year that prohibited mandatory union fees for home health workers but stopped short of banning so-called “agency shops” in government.
The new case directly asks the justices to overturn a 38-year-old precedent that allows all workers covered by union negotiations to be charged for representation.
How the case will be resolved is unclear, partly because the conservative justices often see limits on government employee’s First Amendment rights when their speech is at issue. Fisk said the unions are “rationally fearful” about what the court will do, but she thinks the justices might end up dumping the case after it’s heard. “I think the case raises so many doctrinal problems for them,” she said.
Higher ed affirmative action back in the crosshairs
Two years after punting the case back to an appeals court, the justices will take a second crack at resolving a dispute about the constitutionality of the University of Texas at Austin's affirmative action program. The case was brought by rejected applicant Abigail Fisher, who contends she was rejected because of her race.
The last time Fisher’s case went before the high court, affirmative action opponents hoped it would serve as a vehicle to pare back preferences for racial and ethnic groups at government-run schools. However, the justices instead told the 5th Circuit it had been too deferential to the University of Texas’s claims that the programs were narrowly tailored to promote diversity. Justice Anthony Kennedy won the support of six other justices for a decision that said such programs must be handled with "strict scrutiny,” but the decision did not suggest they were automatically unconstitutional.
Justice Elena Kagan has recused herself because she was involved in the case during her previous service as solicitor general. The real question is whether Kennedy will join the four other Republican appointees in setting such a high bar for affirmative action that many public colleges will abandon the preferences and admissions practices they use to achieve racial and ethnic diversity.
The meaning of "one person, one vote’
A Texas case has the potential to deal a blow to Latino political clout, tilting the balance of power away from urban areas and towards suburban and rural areas with more white voters. Evenwel v. Abbott presents the question of whether state legislative districts can be apportioned using a count of eligible voters rather than a count of all people.
If immigrants (both illegal and legal) as well as children can be left out of the count, “the rural areas where voters tend to have fewer non-citizens or where there are fewer young people concentrated would necessarily gain,” said New York University Law Professor Rick Pildes. “It’s a reasonable inference if the urban areas are more Democratic leaning that they would lose power to more Republican rural areas.”
Congressional redistricting shouldn’t be directly affected by the case, Pildes said, because the Constitution says the U.S. census used for that reapportionment should be based on each state's population. But others say the ruling could spill over into Congressional redistricting down the line.
Religious nonprofits and Obamacare
In the Hobby Lobby case last year, the justices allowed for-profit companies to seek religious exemptions from Obamacare’s coverage requirements. But now, several religious-affiliated schools and institutions –including the Little Sisters of the Poor nursing home in Denver – have filed lawsuits, too.
They argue that the administration’s process for allowing religious nonprofits to opt out of the contraception requirement requires them to violate their religious beliefs. The Supreme Court has eight petitions – including one that just arrived from the federal government — on this issue.
Some prominent judges are effectively begging the Supreme Court to jump in by lamenting the refusal of some courts to protect the largely-Catholic religious entities from sanctions for failing to fill out paperwork that triggers the contraception exemption but also sets in motion coverage from others.
“How ironic that this most consequential claim of religious free exercise, with literally millions of dollars in fines and immortal souls on the line, should be denied when nearly every other individual religious freedom claim has been upheld by this court,” 5th Circuit Judge Edith Jones complained in a dissent last week. “How tragic to see the humiliation of sincere religious practitioners, which, coming from the federal government and its courts, implicitly denigrates the orthodoxy to which their lives bear testament. And both ironic and tragic is the harm to the Judeo-Christian heritage whose practitioners brought religious toleration to full fruition in this nation. Undermine this heritage, as our founders knew, and the props of morality and civic virtue will be destroyed.”
The justices haven’t signaled which of the challenges, if any, they’ll consider but are expected to do so in the coming weeks.
Testing when abortion clinic regulations go too far
Two of the latest tactics in the abortion wars could wind up before the justices this term: requirements that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and that abortion clinics meet standards for hospitals or surgical centers.
An appeals court has upheld most such limits in Texas, but in June the Supreme Court voted, 5-4, to block key parts of the law until the justices decide whether to weigh in. Petitions to take up that case and a similar law in Mississippi are already pending at the Supreme Court.
Supporters of the laws say they are designed to protect women's health, but abortion providers and abortion rights advocates say the laws would force many clinics to close and penalize poor women who could not afford travel to distant clinics.
A similar Wisconsin law led to combative oral arguments in front of the 7th Circuit last week. Judge Richard Posner suggested the law was a transparent effort to prevent abortions, not aid women.
“Governor Walker, before he withdrew from the presidential competition, said he thought abortion should be forbidden even if the mother dies as a result, " Judge Richard Posner said to a lawyer for the state, in remarks first reported by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "Is that kind of official Wisconsin policy?"
“That perhaps is Governor Walker’s personal view, but it’s not a state policy,” Assistant Attorney General Brian Keenan replied. Keenan insisted requiring doctors to have admitting privileges was a reasonable precaution to aid women.
“The admitting privileges would benefit the continuity of care for the woman when she goes to that hospital,” he said.
Posner said the fact that the law was intended to kick in one business day after it was passed made clear the authors' intentions. “That statute can’t be justified in terms of women’s health,” the judge said.
Jennifer Haberkorn contributed to this report.
||||| The new term’s biggest rulings will land in June, as the 2016 presidential campaign enters its final stretch, and they will help shape the political debate.
“Constitutional law and politics are certainly not the same thing, but they are interrelated, never more so than in a presidential election year that will likely determine who gets to appoint the next justice or two or three,” said Vikram D. Amar, dean of the University of Illinois College of Law.
By the time the next president is inaugurated, Justice Stephen G. Breyer will be 78, Justices Scalia and Kennedy will be 80, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be 83.
“This coming term will again put into focus that the court is divided along partisan lines and that the 2016 presidential elections will be hugely consequential in shaping constitutional and other law for perhaps a generation or more,” said Neal E. Devins, a law professor at William & Mary.
The current court is the first in history split along partisan lines, where the party of the president who appointed each justice is a reliable predictor of judicial ideology. Put another way, all five Republican appointees are to the right of all four Democratic appointees. It was not long ago that Republican appointees like Justices John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter routinely voted with the court’s liberal wing.
As a consequence of the current alignment, Professor Devins said, “the Roberts court has generated more marquee decisions divided by party alignment than all other courts combined.”
The last term’s big cases did not for the most part follow that pattern because Justice Kennedy, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and sits at the court’s ideological fulcrum, voted with the court’s liberal wing at an unusually high rate.
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“The story of the last term is that the left side of the court did a lot of winning,” said Irving L. Gornstein, the executive director of Georgetown’s Supreme Court Institute.
“This term,” he added, “I would expect a return to the norm, with the right side of the court winning a majority but by no means all of the big cases, with Justice Kennedy again the key vote.”
The cases on unions and affirmative action, for instance, were almost certainly added to the docket by the more conservative justices in the confidence that they would be able to move the law to the right. Both cases were created by legal entrepreneurs and brought on behalf of plaintiffs recruited by conservative groups.
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The case on unions, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, No. 14-915, may deal a blow to organized labor. “It could set the stage for a Citizens United-style reconsideration in the area of union dues,” said John P. Elwood, a lawyer at Vinson & Elkins, referring to the 2010 decision that transformed campaign finance law.
The new case takes aim at a compromise fashioned by the court in 1977 in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.
In Abood, the court said public workers who decline to join a union can nevertheless be required to pay for the union’s collective bargaining efforts to prevent freeloading and ensure “labor peace.” But nonmembers, the court went on, cannot be forced to pay for the union’s purely political activities, as that would amount to forbidden compelled speech under the First Amendment.
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The California teachers who brought the new case say t collective bargaining is itself political, as it concerns public policy on spending, seniority, class size and the like. Unions respond that the case is a First Amendment Trojan horse designed to further weaken the power of organized labor.
The unions have reason to be nervous. The court has twice signaled that it may be ready to overrule Abood notwithstanding the doctrine of stare decisis, Latin for “to stand by things decided.” Justice Alito, the court’s leading critic of Abood, offered a joking alternative definition in public remarks last month.
“It is a Latin phrase,” he said. “It means ‘to leave things decided when it suits our purposes.’ ”
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The case on unions is not the only sequel on the docket.
In Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, No. 14-981, the court will return to the subject of whether the Constitution permits public colleges and universities to take account of race in admissions decisions.
In 2013, in a short, vague compromise ruling in the case, the court refused to decide whether the admissions plan at the University of Texas at Austin — which combines race-neutral and race-conscious tools to achieve diversity — is constitutional. The court’s return to the subject after an appeals court sustained the hybrid plan has struck many supporters of affirmative action as an ominous sign.
The case was brought by the Project on Fair Representation, a small conservative advocacy group that successfully mounted a challenge to the Voting Rights Act in 2013. The group is also behind this term’s most important case on voting, Evenwel v. Abbott, No. 14-940, which asks the court to address the meaning of “one person, one vote.”
The court has never resolved whether state voting districts should have the same number of people, including unauthorized immigrants, children and others not eligible to vote, or the same number of voters. Allowing states to count only voters would in many parts of the country shift political power from cities to rural areas, a move that would generally benefit Republicans.
On the last day of the term in June, Justices Breyer and Ginsburg announced that they had grave doubts about the constitutionality of the death penalty and seemed to invite a broad challenge. It has not yet arrived, and it is hardly clear that a majority would be receptive to such a challenge.
The new term does have an unusually high number of capital cases presenting more focused issues, including a challenge to Florida’s sentencing scheme, Hurst v. Florida, No. 14-7505, and a case on race discrimination in jury selection, Foster v. Chatman, No. 14-8349.
The court has not heard an abortion case since 2007, when it upheld the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. That seems about to change.
The most likely candidate is a challenge to a Texas law that threatens to reduce the number of abortion clinics in the state to about 10, down from more than 40. Should the court agree to hear the case, Whole Woman’s Health Center v. Cole, No. 15-274, it is likely to produce the most important abortion ruling since 1992, when Planned Parenthood v. Casey reaffirmed the constitutional right to abortion identified in Roe v. Wade in 1973.
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The question in the Texas case is whether two parts of a 2013 state law imposed an “undue burden” on the constitutional right to abortion. One part of the law requires all clinics in the state to meet the standards for “ambulatory surgical centers,” including regulations concerning buildings, equipment and staffing. The other requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
An appeals court largely upheld the contested provisions, but the Supreme Court in June, by a 5-to-4 vote, stepped in to block the ruling while it considered whether to hear the case.
That suggests three things: that the court is likely to hear the case, that its decision will be closely divided and that the ruling will land in June, thrusting a volatile and divisive issue into the middle of the presidential race. ||||| WASHINGTON—The death penalty is shaping up to be a big issue for the Supreme Court as it begins a new term Monday, with at least six capital-punishment cases on the docket and a recent wave of executions keeping the justices up late to field last-minute appeals.
In the weeks ahead, the court is set to hear arguments over the constitutionality of capital sentences in Florida, Georgia, Kansas and Pennsylvania. The focus on execution issues follows a 5-4 ruling last term involving a sedative used for lethal injections. The split... | – The Supreme Court is facing a docket of high-profile political cases that will test whether recent liberal victories were more fluke or firm conviction, the New York Times reports. The court—which is divided 5-4 for conservatives, but saw Justice Roberts vote liberal on Obamacare and same-sex marriage—will look at cases including unions, affirmative action, and possibly abortion. A primer: Unions: Since 1977, unions have been allowed to charge non-union workers for dues that go to collective bargaining efforts, but not political ones. Now California teachers have brought a case saying collective bargaining is itself political. "It could set the stage for a Citizens United-style reconsideration in the area of union dues," a lawyer says. Affirmative Action: Abigail Fisher says that being white played a role in the University of Texas denying her admission back in 2008. The Supreme Court punted on her case in 2013, and now it's back on the docket. Like the unions case, this was brought by a conservative group that recruited the plaintiffs. The death penalty: Justices will decide on capital-punishment cases in Pennsylvania, Kansas, Georgia, and Florida, the Wall Street Journal reports. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer have already expressed doubts about whether capital punishment is constitutional. "One person, one vote": Should state legislative districts be drawn based on their number of people or eligible voters? If justices choose the latter—leaving out immigrants and children—Latinos could lose political clout and rural areas will gain, Politico reports. Abortion: Justices may opt to revisit a Texas law that could reduce the state's abortion clinics from more than 40 to roughly 10. At issue is whether new clinic requirements are an "undue burden" on women's right to an abortion. One commentator believes this Supreme Court session will be ugly for liberals. |
If True, Building Set For Demolition Could Be Manhattan's Oldest October 15, 2013 5:39 PM
Preservationist Adam Woodward discovered a cellar that he believes could be the foundation of the Revolutionary War-era Bull’s Head Tavern. (credit: Adam Woodward)
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A preservationist says he has found evidence that a Manhattan building is the former site of an 18th-century tavern where George Washington is believed to have enjoyed a celebratory drink during the American Revolution.
If it is indeed the home of the legendary watering hole, the discovery could mean that the building that is perhaps Manhattan’s oldest is slated to demolished.
“After the English had marched up the Bowery and out of the city (in 1783), George Washington and Governor (George) Clinton stopped at the Bull’s Head (tavern),” preservationist Adam Woodward told WCBS 880’s Alex Silverman.
play pause Preservationist Believes He's Found Tavern Where George Washington Visited
WCBS 880's Alex Silverman...
The building at 50 Bowery, which has had many faces since, is being prepared for demolition so a hotel can be built at the site. Legend had it that “the Bull’s Head’s structure, cellar, bones” were still inside, Woodward said.
He decided to poke around and, in the basement, Woodward found what he believes are Colonial-era, hand-hewn and hand-planed joists and foundation walls.
“Found myself in what I am pretty certain is the 1750s historic tavern,” he said.
Woodward said he felt compelled to investigate in the building, which once housed a chain drugstore and the Atlantic Garden beer garden, because time was running out.
“I just realized that it would be the last chance to solve one of the great mysteries of New York City history,” he said.
“It was pretty incredible walking back in time 250 years.”
Historian and author David Freeland told Silverman that the find “would make it very likely the oldest building remaining in Manhattan.”
That has Woodward hoping city officials will act quickly to preserve the site.
“What an incredible opportunity that the city suddenly has for this thing to re-emerge,” he said.
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Maybe George Washington slept there, or maybe he only watered his horse and ordered stronger stuff for himself. Either way, David Freeland sounded excited as he crossed the threshold where a famous Colonial-era tavern, the Bull’s Head, once welcomed thirsty out-of-towners.
“There are treasures inside,” said Mr. Freeland, an author and a historian who researched the site for a book about a beer garden that later occupied the tavern’s place on the Bowery.
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But all he saw was debris from the building’s most recent life, as a chain drugstore with a Chinese restaurant upstairs. He did not reach the treasures that thrilled local-history aficionados over the weekend — namely, some old-looking joists and foundation walls in the basement — because the steps were blocked by rubble. The site is to be cleared for a hotel.
The joists were discovered by a photographer and preservationist, Adam Woodward, who suspects that structural elements of the Colonial-era tavern were used in the construction of the much larger beer hall, the Atlantic Garden. It reigned as “one of the show places of New York” from 1858 on, The New York Times said when it finally shut down in 1911.
But what about the tavern where Washington established his temporary headquarters in November 1783 as the British withdrew?
“The whole issue of whether the Bull’s Head was buried inside the Atlantic Garden was one of the great mysteries of New York,” Mr. Woodward said.
Until, apparently, the other day, when he got a look inside. He saw iron work from the 19th century and I-beams from later on. And then he saw a stairway to the basement, and headed down.
“At one point there was a distinct change in the building material, from cinder block to a brick-and-stone foundation wall,” he said. “I followed that wall and found myself at the front of the building, under the sidewalk at the Bowery, and looked up and saw what looked to me like 18th-century hand-hewn and hand-planed joists and beams with extremely wide floorboards right above them.”
He said, “I was thinking, I am standing in the cellar of the Bull’s Head.”
The Bull’s Head opened around 1750 on the fringe of what was a still-young city concentrated below the Bowery. Washington and his troops marched down the Bowery and stopped there in 1783 before making “their official entrance into the city proper,” said Kerri Culhane, a historian who wrote the application that won the Bowery a place on the National Register of Historic Places.
The neighborhood “was a butchers’ district in the 18th century and the 19th century,” Ms. Culhane said. “People drove livestock down from the hinterland and the slaughterhouse was behind the Bowery. That’s where the trading took place.”
It was also a home to the ancestors of future V.I.P.’s. “The Astors started out as butchers,” she said, but began snapping up land. They even owned the Bull’s Head site.
But the tavern closed. Mr. Freeland wrote that the building became a store that sold stoves until the Atlantic Garden opened as a beer garden.
It was a popular gathering place for German immigrants in its early days, and in the 1870s and 1880s, the Atlantic Garden was raided repeatedly for selling beer on Sundays, when the city’s excise laws appeared to forbid that. Mr. Freeland noted that the laws did not mention beer, only “intoxicating liquors or wines.” The Atlantic Garden’s owner got off after one raid because the judge sampled the beer the police had seized and complained it was so watered down that “a man might drink by the gallon without getting drunk.”
Later still, the Atlantic Garden became “a place where Tin Pan Alley songwriters would go to plug their songs,” Mr. Freeland said. One tune that apparently got its start there in the 1890s was “Daisy Bell,” the song that turned the phrase “bicycle built for two” into a catchphrase.
Mr. Woodward said he hoped the demolition for the hotel could be delayed long enough for “a proper archaeological exploration.” (Calls to the owner were not returned on Monday.)
“I can’t think of another lot in Manhattan that has a more important history,” Mr. Woodward said, “and the fact that it might be intact, a couple of feet under the building, is an incredible opportunity to get on archaeological record.”
||||| Elected officials and the Landmarks Preservation Commission are both doing their best to launch a thorough investigation of what may very well be the famed 18th century saloon the Bull's Head Tavern, but their options are limited. Photographer Adam Woodward first documented the ancient, hand-planed wood joists and stone foundation in the basement of 50 Bowery last week, and both he and historian David Freeland are convinced that these are the remnants of Bull's Head. If so, this would be the oldest surviving structure in Manhattan by far, and as Woodward puts it, an "incredible opportunity to get on archaeological record." But the fate of the site depends on the current owner, Alex Chu, who is demolishing the site to make way for a new hotel.
The Landmarks Commission tells The Lo-Down that they're "aware of the situation," but "cannot require the owner to conduct archaeology." The best they can do is give the owner a list of good archaeologists. Some elected officials are also getting involved, but again they've got to take it up with Chu first.
· Landmarks Commission: No Jurisdiction to Mandate Historic Site Survey at 50 Bowery [TLD]
· All Coverage of Bull's Head Tavern [~ENY~] | – In 1783, after the British soldiers left New York City, George Washington is believed to have stopped for a celebratory drink at the Bull's Head tavern. Now a preservationist thinks he's found the historic site—and if he's right, it could be the oldest building in Manhattan. Adam Woodward had heard that the building at 50 Bowery, currently scheduled to be demolished so a hotel can go up, might have "the Bull's Head's structure, cellar, bones," he tells CBS New York. So he searched the basement, and "found myself in what I am pretty certain is the 1750s historic tavern," he says. Specifically, he found what he thinks are hand-hewn and hand-planed joists and foundation walls from the Colonial era. Since that time, the building has housed a drugstore, a Chinese restaurant, and a beer garden, among other things. Now he's hoping city officials will preserve the site, saying, "What an incredible opportunity that the city suddenly has for this thing to re-emerge." A historian is also convinced it is indeed the old tavern, and investigations have been launched by elected officials and the Landmarks Preservation Commission, Eater NY reports. But ultimately, the commission says, it "cannot require the owner to conduct archaeology," so a lot depends on him. He's apparently not talking yet; the New York Times couldn't get hold of him. |
A still image taken from Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) video footage shows what they say is a small unidentified aircraft shot down in a mid-air interception after it crossed into southern Israel October 6, 2012.
DUBAI (Reuters) - The incursion by an unmanned aircraft into Israeli airspace at the weekend exposed the weakness of Israeli air defenses, an Iranian military official was quoted as saying on Monday.
The Israeli air force shot down a drone on Saturday after it crossed into southern Israel, the military said, but it remained unclear where the aircraft had come from.
Jamaluddin Aberoumand, deputy coordinator for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said the incident indicated that Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile defense system "does not work and lacks the necessary capacity", Fars news agency reported.
The Iron Dome system, jointly funded with the United States, is designed to shoot down short-range guerrilla rockets, not slow-flying aircraft. It intercepted more than 80 percent of the targets it engaged in March when nearly 300 rockets and mortars were fired at southern Israel, the Pentagon said at the time.
The drone was first spotted above the Mediterranean near the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to the west of Israel, said military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich. An Israeli warplane shot it down above a forest near the occupied West Bank.
Israeli parliament member Miri Regev, a former chief spokesman of the military, wrote on Twitter it was an "Iranian drone launched by Hezbollah", referring to the Lebanese Shi'ite group that fought a war with Israel in 2006.
Israeli defense officials have not confirmed this.
Aberoumand attributed claims the drone was made by Iran to a "psychological operation" by Israel, but did not confirm or deny them. "The Zionist regime (Israel) has many enemies," he added.
On at least one occasion, Iranian-backed Hezbollah has sent a drone into Israeli airspace. And in 2010, an Israeli warplane shot down an apparently unmanned balloon in the Negev near the country's Dimona nuclear reactor.
The Israeli military released a 10-second video clip of what it said was Saturday's mid-air interception, showing a small aircraft just before a missile from a fighter jet destroys it.
Israel has threatened to bomb Iran's nuclear sites if diplomatic efforts fail to stop the nuclear work it believes is aimed at getting weapons capability, a charge Tehran denies.
Iran has responded with threats to attack U.S. military bases in the region and retaliate against Israel if attacked.
(Reporting By Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Alistair Lyon) ||||| GAZA Israel said it struck targets in the Gaza Strip on Monday after Palestinian militants fired rockets at southern Israel, in what they said was a response to an Israeli air strike that killed one militant and wounded a second a day earlier.
Israel said its air raid targeted 25-year-old Mohammed Makawi whom it linked to a radical group involved in a recent Sinai border attack in which an Israeli was killed. Hospital sources in Gaza said Makawi died of his wounds.
The armed wing of Hamas, the Islamists who control the Gaza Strip, said it had joined in Monday's rocket attack along with the smaller Islamic Jihad group.
Gaza has been under the control of Hamas since 2007. The Islamist group rejects permanent peace with Israel and the two sides fought a three-week war in December-January 2008-2009. The border is tense, with frequent clashes.
The Israeli army says over 470 rockets have been fired from Gaza this year, but it was the first time since June that Hamas had acknowledged launching rockets at Israel. A Hamas spokesman said the movement would not remain passive in the face of what it called "one-sided" Israeli violence.
The Israeli army said it had targeted "Hamas terror activity sites and terrorist squads responsible for the rocket fire", but gave no details. Israeli forces say they will not tolerate such attacks and will hold Hamas responsible for them.
Gaza hospital officials said one Islamic Jihad militant thought to have been involved in the rocket attack had been wounded by Israeli tank fire east of the town of Rafah.
Residents of Khan Younis in southern Gaza said an Israeli tank fired at the suspected launch area, slightly wounding four children and damaging a minaret and a water tower.
Abu Ubaida, spokesman of the Hamas armed wing Izz El-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades, said the rocket firing was a message to Israel that it would not accept "a formula of a one-sided aggression by the occupation on flimsy pretexts".
With Egyptian mediation, Hamas has made efforts in the past to clamp down on smaller militant groups that persist in mounting attacks on Israel, partly in order to avoid another devastating war. The Israeli offensive in the winter of 2009 killed more than 1,000 Palestinians.
But on Monday Abu Ubaida said Hamas had displayed a "high level of coordination" with Islamic Jihad in unleashing the latest rocket barrage.
"Should the enemy continue its aggression against the Gaza Strip the reaction by the resistance will be stronger and broader," he said.
The homemade weapons fired from Gaza are inaccurate, but potentially lethal. An Israeli spokeswoman said some exploded harmlessly on Monday near the border with the Gaza Strip. But one kibbutz resident said children could have been killed.
"It was a very powerful barrage," Ilan Yosef of Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak near the Gaza border told Israel radio. "The goat pen in the (children's) petting corner was severely hit and a vet is treating the animals still alive and dealing with those that aren't."
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Alistair Lyon) | – Israel launched a round of airstrikes on Gaza today, wounding two militants and eight bystanders, including some children. Israel says the attack was retaliation for a round of Palestinian rockets fired yesterday, which Palestinians say were in response to another Israeli airstrike earlier in the day, Reuters reports. More than 470 rockets have been fired from Gaza since June, but this was the first time Hamas acknowledged responsibility. As usual the rockets failed to harm anyone, though one did kill some goats at a petting zoo. The incident comes in the wake of a drone flight into Israeli airspace this weekend, which some have speculated came from Iran. An Iranian military official today boasted that the incident proved that Israel is vulnerable, and that its anti-missile defense system "does not work and lacks the necessary capacity." But he denied that the drone was made by Iran, saying such accusations represented a "psychological operation" on Israel's part. "The Zionist regime has many enemies," he said. Iran, meanwhile, is blaming Israel for a hack attack on its oil rigs. |
PARIS (AP) — The Pompidou Centre in Paris hopes to display a long-vanished Picasso painting in May, now that it has been recovered by U.S. customs authorities.
This undated photo provided by the United States Department of Justice, shows a cubist painting entitled “The Hairdresser” by Pablo Picasso. Authorities say the painting worth millions of dollars was... (Associated Press)
The 1911 cubist painting "The Hairdresser," worth millions of dollars, was reported missing from a Pompidou storeroom in 2001. It was smuggled into the U.S. in December from Belgium.
Pompidou director Alain Seban said the discovery comes as a "true comfort" at a time when the cultural world is reeling from an Islamic State video showing the destruction of statues in Iraq.
Seban said in a statement Friday that he hopes the work can be exhibited again publicly in May.
U.S. and French authorities have not announced any arrests in the case. ||||| A stolen Picasso worth millions of dollars was shipped to the U.S. in a package that described it as a $37 "art craft" — but it will soon be on its way back to France.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn filed papers Thursday to forfeit the century-old cubist painting, which was swiped from a museum storeroom in 2001. "A lost treasure has been found," U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement.
The canvas, titled "La Coiffeuse," was bequeathed to France's National Museum and was placed in storage at the Centre Georges Pompidou, where staffers discovered it was missing when they received a loan request for it.
It was shipped by Federal Express from Belgium in December and seized at the Port of Newark. Officials said shipper was identified only as "Robert" and the destination was a climate-controlled storage facility in Queens. Court papers did not indicate whether the sender or intended recipient have been identified.
La Coiffeuse, painted by Picasso in 1911. U.S. Department of Justice
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— Tracy Connor ||||| A Picasso painting missing from Paris for more than a decade resurfaced in the United States, where it had been shipped under false pretenses as a $37 holiday-themed “art craft.”
The 1911 painting, “La Coiffeuse,” which translates to “The Hairdresser,” was unearthed in December in a FedEx shipment from Belgium to Newark. The canvas had been smuggled out of a storeroom of the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Paris museum and arts center, and its whereabouts had not been known.
On Thursday, Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, filed a civil complaint to forfeit the Picasso and return it to France.
Its shipping papers described it as a $37 “art craft/toy” and also read “Joyeux Noel,” French for “Merry Christmas.” When federal Customs and Border Protection officials examined the shipment, though, they found the master artist’s work. Department of Homeland Security officials working from Long Island City, Queens, which is within the Eastern District of New York’s jurisdiction, then took over.
The oil painting is owned by the French government; it had been bequeathed to the National Museums of France by one of its former directors. It was last exhibited in Munich in 1998, and then returned to Paris, where it was stored at the Pompidou. Officials there thought it was safe and sound until they received a loan request for it in 2001, searched the storerooms and could not find it. They declared the painting, then valued more than $2.5 million, stolen.
On Dec. 17, someone going by “Robert” with an address in Belgium shipped the painting to a climate-controlled warehouse in Long Island City. The next day, the painting arrived at the Port of Newark and was seized.
French museum officials came to New York last month to examine the painting in person alongside historical records and photographs, and they confirmed that it was “La Coiffeuse.”
Under federal law, imported merchandise can be seized by the government if it was stolen or smuggled.
“The market to sell stolen antiquities in the United States is drying up,” Anthony Scandiffio, deputy special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations, which seized the painting after border officials flagged it, said in a statement. | – A Picasso painting that was found to have vanished from a Paris museum more than a decade ago has turned up—in the US, in a package shipped from Belgium. Its papers identified it as a $37 "art craft/toy" and also included the line "Joyeux Noel," or Merry Christmas, the New York Times reports. A man named "Robert" attempted to send the package to a climate-controlled warehouse in Queens, New York, in December, but custom officials at the Port of Newark seized what turned out to be Picasso's 1911 La Coiffeuse (The Hairdresser). French museum officials traveled to New York last month and confirmed the find is indeed the missing Picasso work, which the Centre Georges Pompidou realized was missing from its storerooms in 2001 following a loan request; it was then valued at more than $2.5 million. Court documents don't specify whether the sender or would-be recipient have been identified, NBC News reports, but "a lost treasure has been found," US attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement. She filed a civil complaint yesterday that will have the painting returned to France. The Pompidou's director, who called the painting's rediscovery a "true comfort," hopes the painting can go on display at the museum as early as May, the AP reports. (Another Picasso work was stolen days before this one was found.) |
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. ||||| St. Paul's Top 3 Dive Bars"Best burger in town. Really, it's that amazing. Not a huge place, so don't bring your whole extended family with you."
WCCO Viewers' Choice For Best Egg Roll In MinnesotaIn this week’s Best of Minnesota, the tastiest egg rolls can be found at a popular neighborhood restaurant in northeast Minneapolis called Que Viet.
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Minneapolis Moonshine: 5 Of The City's Top DistilleriesWe crunched the numbers to find the top distilleries in Minneapolis, to help you find the best spots to meet your needs.
Artsy Deals Worth Seeking Out In St. Paul This WeekLooking to up your appreciation of the arts? We've rounded up three artsy deals around St. Paul this week.
Mike's Mix: Crooked Water Spirits & The 'BB' BoulevardierThis cocktail is a riff on the classic Boulevardier cocktail; which, itself, is a bourbon-base version of a Negroni. | – A dispute over the freshness of Wendy’s fries leaves a 25-year-old Minnesota woman facing criminal charges. According to CBS Minnesota, Wendy's employees claim that Eiram Chanel Amir Dixson became argumentative during a drive-thru transaction just after noon Thursday after the woman asked specifically for fresh French fries. Reports don't specify the condition of the fries, or whether she even received them, but do make clear that an argument followed. Employees allege Dixson reached through the drive-thru window and, after an employee threw a soft drink at her, proceeded to spray them with Mace. The restaurant manager was hit directly in the face while two more employees were also in the line of the spray, per the police report. All three employees provided similar accounts of the incident, according to ABC News 5. Dixson is being charged with felony use of tear gas to immobilize. If found guilty, she’ll face a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison and/or a $3,000 to $10,000 fine. Wendy’s drive-thrus see their share of action: last year, a worker was allegedly bit over a wrong order in Virginia, while a Florida man reportedly threw an alligator through a drive-thru window as a prank. |
The wounded officer is Crystal Almeida, 26. The third victim was identified as Scott Painter, a Home Depot loss-prevention officer.
Almeida and Painter were still in critical condition on Wednesday, but they were making "remarkable recoveries," Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall said at a news conference Wednesday morning.
Hall thanked the community for its support and asked for continued prayers.
The suspect, 29-year-old Armando Luis Juarez, was arrested Tuesday night after a police chase that ended in a neighborhood near Love Field. He was initially arrested on one charge of aggravated assault against a public servant and another against the civilian.
A capital murder charge was added Wednesday morning after Santander's death.
The district attorney's office has assigned a team of attorneys to prosecute Juarez in "pursuit of justice," District Attorney Faith Johnson said in a written statement. ||||| DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – A Dallas police officer has died less than 24 hours after being shot at a North Dallas Home Depot store. Another officer and a store employee, who were also both shot, remain hospitalized.
Officer Rogelio Santander died at Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas hospital at 8:11 a.m. Wednesday.
Dallas police Chief U. Renee Hall held a press conference outside the hospital this morning. When CBS 11 News reporter Robbie Owens offered sympathies the Chief said, “We appreciate it” and then made the announcement.
“We come before you this morning with broken hearts and we regret to inform you that Officer Rogelio Santander, Badge 10934, has succumbed to his injuries,” she said. “We’re asking you to continue to pray for the [Santander] family and the DPD family.”
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings also announced Officer Santander’s death during a regularly scheduled city council meeting. Interrupting the meeting, which was already in progress, he said, “It is with great sadness that we must inform you that Officer Rogelio Santander, Badge #934, passed away at 8:11 this morning.”
Along with Officer Santander, Officer Crystal Almeida and the Home Depot security guard, now identified as Scott Painter, all underwent surgery after the shooting. Officer Almeida and Mr. Painter both remain hospitalized.
During the press conference Chief Hall said, “We are happy to report that Officer Crystal Almeida and our loss-prevention officer Scott Painter is making remarkable recovery. They are still in critical condition but we are optimistic about what we’re seeing with them right now.”
The man who police say shot the officers and the security guard – Armando Luis Juarez – woke up behind bars today. After the shooting, a manhunt, and late night police chase, Juarez was taken into custody and ultimately transferred to the Dallas County Jail very early Wednesday morning.
Officers Santander and Almeida both joined the Dallas Police Department there years ago, assigned to the Northeast Division.
A source close to the investigation told CBS 11 News reporter J.D. Miles that Officer Santander was shot in the back of the head and Officer Almeida was shot in the face.
Wednesday morning Dallas police Sergeant Michael Mata, who is also president of the Dallas Police Association, said, “When an officer is shot or killed or injured in one city, it affects every officer across the country. We are one huge family.”
The shooting happened just after 4 p.m. Tuesday at the Home Depot store in the 11600 block of Forest Central Drive, near U.S. Highway 75 and Forest Lane, after the two police officers were called to help an off-duty officer.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Dallas police Officer Seward was working off-duty at the store when Mr. Painter alerted him that a male customer was acting suspiciously in the store. Officer Seward detained the person, identified him as Armando Juarez, and discovered a felony warrant had been issued for him.
Officer Seward had called on-duty police officers to the scene and Officers Santander and Almeida responded. All of the police officers met in the store’s loss-prevention office and then Officer Seward then went to Officer Santander and Almeida’s squad car to look up the felony warrant for Juarez and confirm that was the person being detained inside.
The affidavit details how Officer Seward was returning to the building when he heard a “shots fired” broadcast over his police radio, proceeded inside and found Officers Santander and Almeida and Mr. Painter all on the floor of the loss-prevention office “with apparent gunshot wounds.”
Police say there was a witness inside the office who said he saw Juarez shoot all three people.
Immediately after the shooting armed officers were seen in back of the Home Depot as employees and customers rushed out of the store and away from the area.
A massive search for the suspect — including police helicopters and officers on the ground — followed after witnesses reported the shooter had fled on foot and may be hiding in a nearby creek. But when police reviewed security camera video they discovered Juarez fled from the scene in a white-colored work truck. It was then police put out a description of the truck — that had “GX4” on the back fender, a ladder rack, and large exhaust pipes rising from the front — and issued a be on the lookout (BOLO) alert.
Police later spotted the truck, with Juarez and a female passenger inside, in Southeast Dallas and gave chase. Officers were ultimately able to corner Juarez in a residential neighborhood near Dallas Love Field Airport and took the 29-year-old man into custody. The unidentified woman was also detained. It isn’t know if she is facing any charges.
“We got our man,” Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said at a late-night news conference.
Moments after Juarez was taken into custody, Chief Hall thanked the officers on a radio call.
“Base to all units: Excellent work, excellent work. Thank everybody for their diligence in this matter. Appreciate you so very much and we’re still praying for our brother and sister,” she said.
A number of officers continue to hold vigil at Presbyterian Dallas hospital. “Most of the family that is coming is already here,” Mata said. “Obviously, they’re holding on the best they can. This [being shot] is something I think all [police] families realize they could be facing. But when it happens, you never want it to be you.”
At the time of his arrest Juarez had an outstanding warrant for Felony Theft. With the death of Officer Santander, Juarez has now been charged with Capital Murder in addition to the charge of Aggravated Assault on a Public Servant for the shooting of Officer Almeida. He remains in jail on a $1.1 million bond. ||||| Law enforcement officers stand guard at the driveway entrance to the emergency room at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Two Dallas policemen were reportedly shot at a nearby Home Depot and reportedly... (Associated Press)
Law enforcement officers stand guard at the driveway entrance to the emergency room at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Two Dallas policemen were reportedly shot at a nearby Home Depot and reportedly were transported to the Dallas hospital on Tuesday, April 24, 2018. (Louis DeLuca/The Dallas Morning... (Associated Press)
DALLAS (AP) — A Dallas police officer died Wednesday after a shooting that wounded another officer and an employee at a home improvement store, the city's mayor said.
Mayor Mike Rawlings was presiding over a city council meeting when he announced the death of Rogelio Santander, a member of the police force for three years. Santander, officer Crystal Almeida and a loss-prevention officer for Home Depot were shot Tuesday by a man identified by police as 29-year-old Armando Luis Juarez.
The two officers and the store loss-prevention officer underwent surgery for their injuries after the shooting in the north of the city, Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall said late Tuesday.
Almeida and the loss-prevention officer, who hasn't been identified, were in critical condition Wednesday.
Police arrested Juarez following a high-speed car chase. He's being held at the Dallas County jail on charges of aggravated assault on a public servant and felony theft. He was taken into custody shortly before 10 p.m.
"We got our man," Rawlings said at a late-night news conference at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.
But relatives of Juarez said they couldn't believe he would be involved in such a violent episode.
"There's no way my son could've done this," Ruben Juarez told The Dallas Morning News, adding that he didn't think his son owned any guns.
Armando Juarez's grandmother, Janie Longoria, told reporters Tuesday that her grandson is a "sweet, lovable person," but that his friends are a bad influence.
"And I told him to stay away from those people," she said.
Police were called to the store to help an off-duty police officer to remove Juarez from the store. Police have not said if he was suspected of shoplifting or why he was being ejected from store. Juarez opened fire as he was being escorted from the store and made his escape. Several law enforcement agencies were involved in the pursuit that led to his eventual arrest.
Rawlings said late Tuesday that he remains "upset at the lack of respect for our police in this city and in our country."
In 2016, four Dallas police officers and a transit officer were shot dead by a sniper in an ambush that came toward the end of a peaceful protest over the police killings of black men in other cities.
Juarez was arrested in January on a charge of unlawful use of a motor vehicle after authorities say he was found in a stolen vehicle. He also pleaded guilty to a drug-possession charge. | – A 27-year-old Dallas police officer died Wednesday after being shot the day prior at a Home Depot in Lake Highlands. The Morning News identifies the officer as Rogelio Santander. He'd been called to the store around 4pm by a cop who was working an off-duty job there and noticed Armando Luis Juarez was behaving oddly. The off-duty cop detained Juarez and learned he had an outstanding felony warrant. Santander and Crystal Almeida, 26, responded to the scene; authorities say they and a loss prevention officer employed by Home Depot were shot by Juarez as he was being escorted from the store. A source tells CBS Dallas Santander was shot in the back of the head and Almeida was shot in the face. She remains in critical condition, as does the Home Depot employee. Police say Juarez fled and a high-speed car chase ensued, per the AP. He was apprehended Tuesday night and is being held on charges of aggravated assault on a public servant and felony theft. "We got our man," said Mayor Mike Rawlings. |
BALTIMORE (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard says it's looking for a man who has cost the service about $500,000 after responding to nearly 30 of his fake distress calls.
In a press release published Friday, the Coast Guard says the 28 calls have originated from around the area of Annapolis, Maryland.
Each call involved the same male voice and used an emergency radio channel. He's been making the calls since July 2014. The two most recent calls were made on the night of July 21 and the early morning of July 22.
The Coast Guard also says hoax calls distract rescuers from real emergencies, putting both the public and the responding crews at risk. ||||| A hoax caller in Maryland cost the Coast Guard about $500,000 in the past two years by making false distress alerts.
The caller made 28 false distress alerts from Annapolis, Maryland, beginning in July 2014, according to the Coast Guard. The two most recent calls were received Thursday and Friday, the Coast Guard reported. They also said they determined the calls to have originated from Annapolis, between Loretta Heights and Admiral Drive.
The estimated cost of the responses to these false alarms is $500,000.
The Coast Guard provided an audio file of the caller, in which the caller repeats “mayday” -- a word used to indicate distress at sea.
Making false distress calls is a felony, punishable by a maximum of six years in prison, a $10,000 civil fine, $250,000 criminal fine and a reimbursement to the Coast Guard for their efforts, the Coast Guard said.
The Coast Guard also said such false distress alerts detract from their ability to respond to actual alerts.
“A hoax call is a deadly and serious offense,” said Lt. Cmdr. Sara Wallace, who heads the response sector in Maryland. “Calls like these not only put our crews at risk, but they put the lives of the public at risk.”
Anyone with information about the caller is asked to contact the Coast Guard's regional command center at 410-576-2525 or email investigators at CGIS-Baltimore@uscg.mil. | – The US Coast Guard says it's looking for a man who has cost the service about $500,000 after responding to nearly 30 of his fake distress calls, reports the AP. In a press release published Friday, the Coast Guard says the 28 calls have originated from around the area of Annapolis, Maryland. Each call involved the same male voice and used an emergency radio channel. He's been making the calls since July 2014. The two most recent calls were made on the night of July 21 and the early morning of July 22. “A hoax call is a deadly and serious offense,” a Coast Guard rep tells NBC4, which notes that such calls are a felony that carry six years in prison, $10,000 civil fine, $250,000 criminal fine, and reimbursement to the Coast Guard. "Calls like these not only put our crews at risk, but they put the lives of the public at risk.” |
High-profile Hollywooders, as well as several sports, business and political luminaries, are offering up a string of last-minute, big-dollar contributions both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
Actors Jake Gyllenhaal, Zach Galifianakis, Renee Zellweger, Susan Saint James Ebersol and Amanda Seyfried are among the four-figure donors in recent days to Obama’s campaign, according to federal campaign finance disclosures.
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reset PHOTOS: Stars hit up the swing states Play Slideshow POLITICO’s late night roundup
Author Anne Rice, Disney TV Animation Executive Producer Dan Povenmire, and comedy writer Ian Maxtone-Graham are other notable Obama contributors.
For Romney, actor Kelsey Grammer, Denver Broncos executive John Elway and former game show host Bob Barker have made 11th hour, four-figure donations.
Sarah Palin’s political action committee, SARAH PAC, also chipped in $5,000 last week.
Heritage Foundation Executive Becky Dunlop, American Beverage Association Chief Executive Susan Neely, former Mike’s Hard Lemonade President Philip W. O’Neil, the political action committee of the Consumer Electronics Association and the congressional campaign of Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) are among the recent donors of at least $1,000 to Romney’s campaign. ||||| The Obama campaign is using a mailer modeled after online cat memes as part of their final get out the vote push in the crucial battleground state of Ohio. On the mailer, there is a picture of a cat peeking out from behind a laptop decorated with Ohio-themed Obama campaign stickers highlighting the push to get people to vote early.
“STOP LOOKING AT CATS ONLINE AND GO VOTE,” text on the flyer says.
A user on the social news site Reddit with the handle MollyBloom11 posted a picture of the mailer on the site last night. They were clearly impressed with the campaign’s understanding of internet culture.
“The Obama campaign sent me this today…They know their audience,” MollyBloom11 wrote.
The Obama campaign confirmed the mailer was real and has been used in Ohio. They were not immediately sure whether similar imaging has been used for online ads or in other states.
Follow Hunter Walker on Twitter or via RSS. hwalker@observer.com | – The stars are coming out in a big way as Election Day looms. The latest: Will Ferrell really, really wants you to vote—and he'll do anything to make sure you do, he promises in a new video for President Obama. "Hungry? How about a home-cooked meal? Hope you like angel hair pasta," he says. "You need a guy to help you move a couch? Done. I've even got my own van." But his promises get bigger—and weirder—from there. "If you vote, I'll eat anything you tell me to—garbage, hair, human toenails, underpants, whatever—I'll do it," he swears. The president's name stays out of it until the very end, when Ferrell concludes, while holding a football, "Vote Obama. It's a slam dunk." On Jimmy Kimmel's show last week, Chris Rock offered up a special message to white voters. "In times like these, you need a white president you can trust," Rock explains. "And that white president's name is Barack Obama." His evidence that Obama is actually white? The president used to be called "Barry," he likes to golf, he wears "mom jeans," and he has a Portugese water dog, among other things. Amy Poehler kept her endorsement brief and to the point: "If you can vote, go vote for Obama," she concludes. Obama himself is also urging voters to hit the polls ... and he's doing it cat-meme style. It's not just ads: Celebrities are making last-minute donations to both campaigns, Politico reports. Jake Gyllenhaal, Zach Galifianakis, Renee Zellweger, and Amanda Seyfried all recently made four-figure contributions to Obama's campaign, while Kelsey Grammer, Bob Barker, and John Elway did the same for Romney. Click here, here, or here to see previous celebrity endorsements. |
HUNTINGTON BEACH – Two young men found dead from gunshot wounds in a Huntington Beach apartment on Sunday, Nov. 19 have been identified as brothers, with investigators not ruling out a murder-suicide or an accident-suicide, police said on Monday.
Officers found Benjamin Ullestad, 25, and Brandon Ullestad, 22, dead in the apartment they shared just before 3 p.m., according to the Orange County Coroner’s Office.
Investigators are trying to piece together what led to the deaths, said Officer Angela Bennett, an agency spokeswoman.
“We don’t know,” she said. “We’re not ruling (murder-suicide) out. We’re not ruling out an accident-suicide. But we are not looking for any outstanding suspects.”
Though police would not give many details about the investigation yet, they did say a handgun was found at the scene.
It was unclear who made the distressed call from inside the home that led police to the apartment, which is close to Marina High School, the baseball fields of Marina Park and Helen Murphy Branch Library. ||||| A man who declined to give his name but identified himself as the owner of the building wore surgical gloves as he loaded full trash bags into the back of an SUV. ||||| HUNTINGTON BEACH (CBSLA) – The shooting deaths of two brothers inside a Huntington Beach apartment were being investigated Tuesday as the result of a possible murder-suicide, authorities said.
Police received a call at 2:45 p.m. Sunday that sent officers to the 15700 block of Taft Lane, said Huntington Beach police Lt. David Dereszynski. They found the bodies of two men identified by the county coroner’s office as 25-year-old Benjamin Ullestad and 22-year-old Brandon Ullestad, he said. A handgun was recovered at the scene.
Investigators were not ruling out that the double shooting could be a case of murder-suicide, police said.
“We are not looking for outstanding suspects at this time,” Dereszynski said, adding that “there is no threat to the community.”
(©2017 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.) | – Mystery surrounds the deaths of two brothers whose bodies were found in their Huntington Beach, Calif., apartment Sunday. Police got a call from the apartment that afternoon and arrived to find Benjamin Ullestad, 25, and Brandon Ullestad, 22, dead from gunshot wounds. A handgun was found at the scene, and police "do not believe there are any outstanding suspects," per a spokesperson, but the investigation is ongoing. Police say there is no threat to the community, CBS LA reports. Possibilities so far include a murder-suicide or an accident, the Los Angeles Times reports. The Orange County Register reports it's not clear who made the "distressed" 911 call from the apartment, and notes that an "accident-suicide" is a possibility. Neighbors say the area is typically quiet, making the incident particularly surprising. According to the brothers' Facebook pages, both attended Cal State Long Beach and Benjamin was a legal assistant at a Newport Beach law firm; both Facebook pages feature photos of the men shooting guns. Police found a June 28 receipt for a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun on a table by the door. Their mother also lives in the apartment where the brothers were found, but was in Tennessee when they died. |
Article Excerpt
WASHINGTON—Behind the political showdown over the deadly U.S. consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, are a few dozen heavily edited words.
The 94-word intelligence summary emerged from a daylong email debate between more than two dozen intelligence officials, in which they contested and whittled the available evidence into a bland summary with no reference to al Qaeda, an assessment the administration now acknowledges was wide of the mark.
Now famous as "the talking points," the 94 words were used by United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice on Sunday talk shows days after the attack. That moment has become a proxy for a ... ||||| Article Excerpt
WASHINGTON—Behind the political showdown over the deadly U.S. consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, are a few dozen heavily edited words.
The 94-word intelligence summary emerged from a daylong email debate between more than two dozen intelligence officials, in which they contested and whittled the available evidence into a bland summary with no reference to al Qaeda, an assessment the administration now acknowledges was wide of the mark.
Now famous as "the talking points," the 94 words were used by United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice on Sunday talk shows days after the attack. That moment has become a proxy for a ... | – The Wall Street Journal today takes a look at the life and death of 94 little words: the heavily edited and ultimately faulty Benghazi talking points compiled by the CIA in the wake of the consulate attack. Just a day after the attack, the CIA's reports were already referencing al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb. The following day, David Petraeus appeared before House and Senate groups; he, too, mentioned the terrorists, and was asked to compile unclassified talking points that Congress could use. By noon on Sept. 14, a draft was circulating—and it referenced al-Qaeda. But an exhausting process of editing followed, with more than two dozen CIA officials weighing in on the copy over email—and battling about the inclusion of al-Qaeda. Those opposed argued it should be removed because the intel was shaky (sourced from intercepted phone calls) and over fears it could alert al-Qaeda members to the fact that they were being watched. The opponents won out, though the term "extremists" remained; the FBI agreed with the call. It also contained this line: "The demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo." On Sept. 15, the CIA station chief in Tripoli began to voice his concern with the assertions that the attack was both spontaneous and that demonstrations were occurring. He sent the CIA an email summarizing his thoughts the next day—but Susan Rice had already been hand-delivered the 94 fateful words the night before, so that she could prep for her news show appearances. Click for the Journal's full take, which charts the ultimate change in the CIA's assessment. |
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A volcanic eruption in Tonga has created a new island — although one scientist said Wednesday it could soon disappear.
CORRECTS SOURCE - In this photo, taken Jan. 14, 2015 and released by New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, a volcano erupts near Tonga in the South Pacific Ocean. A volcano that has been... (Associated Press)
CORRECTS SOURCE - In this photo, taken Jan. 14, 2015 and released by New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, a volcano erupts near Tonga in the South Pacific Ocean. A volcano that has been... (Associated Press)
The volcano has been erupting for a month in the ocean about 65 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of the capital, Nuku'alofa. Last week it disrupted international air travel to the Pacific archipelago for several days.
New Zealand volcanologist Nico Fournier said he traveled by boat to within about a mile of the new island on Saturday to take a closer look.
He said it's made mainly of loose scoria and its dimensions are about 1.8 kilometers (1.1 miles) by 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles), and that it rises about 100 meters (109 yards) above the sea.
"It's quite an exciting site, you get to see the birth of an island," he said. "Visually it was quite spectacular, but there was no big sound coming with it, no boom. It was a bit eerie."
He said that once the volcano stops erupting, it will likely take the ocean no more than a few months to erode the island entirely. He said it would need to be made of lava or something more durable to survive.
Fournier, who works for New Zealand agency GNS Science, said he was able to establish that the volcano was mainly belching steam into the atmosphere, and that the small amount of ash it was sending out was rising no more than about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles).
That will come as a relief to airlines, as it is the ash that can be dangerous to planes.
Fournier said the ocean around the island is likely fairly shallow, perhaps only about 100-200 meters (328-656 feet) deep. He said there is no name yet for the new island, and he has been told that any naming rights will fall to Tonga's king. ||||| Volcanic eruption creates new island in Tonga
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Wednesday, January 21, 2015, 2:28 PM - A volcano that began erupting last month in Tonga has created a large new island, officials announced Friday.
The volcano is located 65 kilometres northwest of the nation's capital. According to the Land and National Resource Ministry, the volcano has been quiet for the past five years.
It began rumbling on December 20.
Officials say the volcano is erupting from two vents. One is spewing ash and rock onto the uninhabited island Hunga Ha'apai while the other is underwater, about 100 metres offshore.
Ministry officials toured the area last Thursday and confirmed the presence of a new island.
RELATED: Amazing drone video of Icelandic volcano
"The new island is more than one kilometer ... wide, two kilometers ... long and about 100 meters... high," the ministry writes in a statement.
"During our observations the volcano was erupting about every five minutes to a height of about 400 meters ... accompanied by some large rocks... as the ash is very wet, most is being deposited close to the vent, building up the new island."
Foliage near the volcano appears to be dying off, likely due to ash and gases in the atmosphere.
Tonga is located some 2,000 kilometres northeast of New Zealand. It is situated on the Pacific 'Ring of Fire', an area known for frequent seismic activity. | – Mother Earth has given birth to new land. An island has formed in the Pacific Ring of Fire, where a volcano has been erupting since Dec. 20. Tonga's Ministry of Lands, Survey, and Natural Resources tells the Weather Network the volcano is erupting from two vents. One is spewing ash and rock onto an uninhabited island; the other is underwater. An expert who came within a mile of the new island, 40 miles northwest of the capital, says it's roughly a square mile in size. But as it's made of loose scoria—a dark volcanic rock—he says it should erode away within a few months once the volcano quiets, the AP reports. If it were formed from lava, it might be more durable. Still, "it's quite an exciting site, you get to see the birth of an island," the expert says. Ministry officials say rocks are being thrown some 1,300 feet into the air, while the volcano is sending steam into the atmosphere. Bits of ash are now climbing about 6,000 feet, down from 30,000 feet last week. That means planes diverted from the area can now pass over safely. However, ash and acidic rain are still showering anything in a 6-mile radius, killing tree leaves on neighboring islands, ABC Australia reports. The volcano last erupted over five years ago. |
The U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday that 16 million children living in America received food stamps in 2014, or about one out of every five kids.
Census said that number is up dramatically from 2007, before the Great Recession, when 9 million kids were receiving food stamps, or about one in eight. The data comes from Census’ 2014 survey on families.
“The rate of children living with married parents who receive food stamps has doubled since 2007,” Census said.
The findings are likely to bolster claims from some Republicans that the Obama administration seems to have a goal of putting more people under government aid programs. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 2012 called President Barack Obama the “food stamp president,” which led some to say his comment was racist.
The debate over food stamps has led to a sort of chicken-and-egg argument between Republicans and Democrats. The GOP has said the end of the recession should allow Congress to reduce spending on food stamps.
While Democrats have tried to give President Barack Obama credit for a rebounding economy, they also note that millions of additional people are using food stamps, and that the program should not be cut yet. The total number of people using food stamps has almost doubled since the start of the Great Recession, to nearly 48 million in 2013.
The number finally dipped from that peak in 2014, but just a little, to about 46 million people.
Republicans have tried since 2013 to cut food stamp spending, as part of their overall plan to slow spending and get control of the budget deficit. In 2013, the House voted to cut $39 billion from food stamps over a decade, and almost a year ago, President Barack Obama signed a final deal that will cut just $8.7 billion from the program over ten years.
That cut was estimated to reduce food stamp benefits by about $90 per month for the hundreds of thousands of homes that use them. ||||| WASHINGTON The number of children in the United States relying on food stamps for a meal spiked to 16 million last year, according federal data, signaling a lopsided economic recovery in which lower income families are still lagging behind.
The roughly one in five children who received food stamps in 2014 surpassed pre-recession levels, when one in eight or 9 million children were on food stamps, according to the U.S. Census survey of American families released on Wednesday
Republicans in Congress have sought to cut back on the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program or food stamp program as part of a larger plan to balance the budget.
Early last year lawmakers proposed $40 billion in cuts from the program over 10 years. The final farm bill signed into law trimmed $8.6 billion from the program, eliminating benefits for about 850,000 people, according to estimates by anti-hunger advocates.
Other findings of the survey show a rapidly changing America in which more children are being raised in single-parent homes and more young people are delaying marriage.
Of the 73.7 million children under 18 in the United States, 27 percent were living in single parent homes last year, tripling the 9 percent in 1960.
The number of marriages also dwindled last year with less than half of households in America made up of married couples, compared to three-quarters in 1940, the survey found.
The median age for people first getting married in 2014 was 29 for men and 27 for women up from 24 and 21 respectively in 1947.
(Reporting by Elvina Nawaguna; Editing by Sandra Maler) ||||| The number of children receiving food stamps remains higher than it was before the start of the Great Recession in 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual Families and Living Arrangements table package released today.
The rate of children living with married parents who receive food stamps has doubled since 2007. In 2014, an estimated 16 million children, or about one in five, received food stamp assistance compared with the roughly 9 million children, or one in eight, that received this form of assistance prior to the recession.
These statistics come from the 2014 Current Population Survey’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement, which has collected statistics on families and living arrangements for more than 60 years. Today’s table package delves into the characteristics of households, including the marital status of the householders and their relationship to the children residing in the household. The historical data on America’s families and living arrangements can be found on census.gov. | – There are roughly 73.7 million kids running around America, and about 16 million, or nearly one in five, of them are doing so fueled by food stamps, according to US Census data out yesterday. That number is particularly alarming when compared to pre-recession levels: In 2007, some 9 million, or one in eight, kids were on food stamps. There are currently about 46 million Americans total on food stamps, down from the 2013 peak of 48 million. The jump signals what Reuters says is a "lop-sided" economic recovery that has left low-income people behind, but it also underscores a fundamental partisan divide over social welfare programs. As the Blaze notes, Republicans want to scale back the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program—arguing that the end of the recession should indicate less need—and trimmed $8.6 billion and 850,000 people from its rolls with last year's farm bill. Democrats, meanwhile, argue that it's too soon to scale back the program. Meanwhile, some other highlights from the Census numbers: 27% of children live in single-parent homes, three times the 9% who did in 1960 10% of kids live with a grandparent, 15% have a stay-at-home mom, 0.6% have a stay-at-home dad, and 38% have at least one foreign-born parent 48% of households are made up of married couples, down from 76% in 1940 Americans are continuing to marry later, at a median age of 29 for men and 27 for women; that's up from 24 and 21 in 1947 |
For members of the deaf community, ordering food or drinks at a drive-thru can be a frustrating, or even impossible, experience. But as one deaf woman recently discovered, Starbucks is trying to make this feature accessible for customers with disabilities -- with the help of a little technology.
On Tuesday, 28-year-old Rebecca King of St. Augustine, Florida, uploaded a video to Facebook which reveals what happened during her visit to a local Starbucks drive-thru.
The video shows King driving up to the ordering kiosk. A woman’s voice emits from the intercom.
"Hi, welcome to Starbucks," the woman says. "What can we get started for you today?"
King does not respond and waits in her seat. A few moments later, a Starbucks barista appears on a monitor.
King begins to communicate with the woman using sign language, and the barista signs right back.
"Starbucks! This is what I’m talking about!" King wrote in her Facebook post, which has been watched more than 4.9 million times to date. "Share it away! We can change the world!" ||||| A new technology is getting a lot of attention — and for good reason — at the brand-new Starbucks by the outlet malls in St. Johns County.
A video posted on Facebook shows a customer named Rebecca King using sign language for an order -- and barista, Katie Wyble, quickly signs back.
Wyble says she's had a "passion for sign language since I first saw a teacher use it when I was in preschool." Wyble used a two-way video screen to see King, and the duo quickly completed an order for two coffees.
King's video of the encounter went viral overnight. The video was just posted Tuesday, and it has more than 1 million views and over 65,000 shares.
“Share it away," King said on Facebook. "We can change the world!”
“I think more people need to know about what we’re doing because it moves customer service to a whole new level,” Wyble said. “I hope it helps make more people aware of what they can to do serve others in their communities.”
St. Augustine is known to have a large deaf and blind community. Action News Jax spoke to Professor Tiri Fellows, who is deaf and teaches American Sign Language. She had a translator tell us what she thought about this technology.
“I think it's awesome because it gives the deaf opportunity to order in a different way through the window,” Dr. Fellows said.
Dr. Fellows says going through a drive-thru without a device like this is such a hassle for the deaf or hearing impaired.
She says its about time someone created this device to help them.
“It’s about time,” Dr. Fellows said. “My friends from Arizona saw that on Facebook, Illinois Texas — they all reposted that video.”
Dr. Fellows hopes the video continues to spread on social media so other businesses will want to get the technology as well. | – A Florida Starbucks has made it easy for deaf customers to order at the drive-thru—and video of one deaf woman's experience has been viewed more than 6.5 million times since she posted it on Facebook Tuesday. "Starbucks! This is what I'm talking about!" wrote Rebecca King. The 28-year-old tells First Coast News she was surprised on Monday when she drove up to the St. Augustine Starbucks ordering window and a barista appeared on a two-way video screen to take her order via sign language. She went back the next day to record video of her doing the same thing. "It is a big deal to (the) deaf community that Starbucks has one now. Nowhere else has that!" says King. "We all want to have that at every drive-thru in the world." The barista is 22-year-old Katie Wyble, who tells Action News Jax she's had a "passion for sign language since I first saw a teacher use it when I was in preschool"; she continued to study it in grade school, high school, and college. "I think more people need to know about what we’re doing because it moves customer service to a whole new level,” Wyble adds. “I hope it helps make more people aware of what they can to do serve others in their communities." St. Augustine has a large deaf community and the Starbucks in question is brand-new. It's not clear whether other Starbucks locations have the same capability, but the Huffington Post notes that at least two other chains, Culver's and Subway, have installed their own technology to help deaf customers order. |
It is illegal to take conch shells with living organisms from Florida beaches. (Photo: breckeni, Getty Images/iStockphoto)
A Texas tourist who collected 40 queen conchs seashells from Key West, Florida, is going to jail for 15 days.
A Florida judge also sentenced Diana Fiscal-Gonzalez of Dallas to serve six months of probation and pay a $500 fine, plus $268 for court costs, for taking 40 queen conchs from the waters that surround Key West, the Miami Herald reports.
Fiscal-Gonzalez, who pleaded guilty, said she didn't know taking the shells from the beach was illegal. She was planning to give the state-protected mollusks away as gifts.
Recreational collection of empty seashells is allowed in Florida, but the conch shells Fiscal-Gonzalez collected contained organisms inside. Taking a living queen conch is illegal. Also, killing, mutilating or removing a living queen conch from a shell is prohibited, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission notes.
More: Florida bucket list: 20 things you have to do in the Sunshine State
Fiscal-Gonzalez was arrested by an officer from the commission on July 13, 2017, after an anonymous tipster called the agency. Officer John Martino reported seeing three containers full of queen conches soaking in bleach and water when he met with Fiscal-Gonzalez.
Conch shells are an important part of Florida Keys culture. Native-born islanders are called Conchs, and the Keys are nicknamed the Conch Republic. Empty conch shells, which produce a unique sound when blown, have also been used as signaling devices in the Florida Keys for centuries.
Follow Ashley May on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2uwcuFE ||||| She said she didn’t know it was illegal to take conchs. She’s heading to jail anyway. | – A tourist in Florida has been sentenced to 15 days jail time after she says she thought she was simply collecting sea shells. Per the Miami Herald, Diana Fiscal-Gonzalez was caught after harvesting dozens of queen conchs from the coast of Key West. Fiscal-Gonzalez, who was visiting from Texas, was reportedly arrested July 13 by a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer following a tip. Fiscal-Gonzalez had a reported 40 conch shells in a plastic container. She told authorities she didn't know it was illegal to collect the live creatures in the state of Florida. A judge sentenced her to jail, anyway, as well as to six months probation. Fiscal-Gonzalez will have to pay a $500 fine as well as $268 in court costs, according to USA Today. The conch has been a protected species in Florida since the 1970s, when over-harvesting led to a steep decline in their population in the region. In the Florida Keys, the conch is especially beloved. Floridians native to the stretch of islands refer to themselves as conchs and Key West High School's mascot is the endearingly named Fighting Conch. An FWC officer said most of the conchs Fiscal-Gonzalez took were still alive and returned to the water following her arrest. |
The second ex-wife of Peter Cook has issued a written apology to his first wife — supermodel Christie Brinkley — for ignoring her warning about the architect’s philandering.
“Christie and I have talked recently and I have privately apologized to her, but, given the public nature of their divorce and custody battle, I feel a public apology is also appropriate and deserved,” Suzanne Shaw wrote in a letter obtained by The Post Thursday.
Shaw said she was sorry for bad-mouthing the model by saying in 2012 that “it was the black cloud of Christie Brinkley’s hate” that had tainted Shaw’s marriage to Cook — when he had actually been continuing his skirt-chasing ways.
“Christie was wrongly vilified as being an embittered ex-wife,” Shaw wrote. “I now believe she had every right to do what she did by taking a public stand; she was only trying to protect her children and have the truth be told. Given the nature of Peter’s behavior, and battles for sole custody of their children, it was necessary for her to confront him publicly.”
Christie’s six-year marriage to Cook imploded in 2007 after she learned of his affair with 18-year-old office clerk Diana Bianchi. Cook rebounded by getting hitched to Shaw, who stood by his side during his ongoing court battles with Brinkley. During a 2012 hearing, Brinkley tried to warn Shaw about Cook’s infidelity.
“When you find out he’s been cheating on you, I’ll be here for you,” Brinkley said in a courthouse hallway.
“Come up with a new line!” Shaw barked back. It turned out Brinkley was right, and Shaw split with Cook this year, accusing him of cheating.
“What I say here is by my own volition. I truly feel it’s simply the right thing to do. I’m deeply sorry for my part in causing Christie any unnecessary pain,” Shaw writes.
“Unfortunately, I fell under Peter’s spell, but now that the reality of who he is has been revealed, I regret my involvement. Christie is a wonderful mother and community member who involves herself in charitable causes and has truly made a contribution to society.”
“Last week, Christie said, ‘I wish you the courage to do the right thing for yourself, your daughter and countless women suffering at the hand of an extreme narcissist.’ I believe I have done this now. I thank Christie for forgiving me and I wish her only the best.
“I would like to move on with my life now, quietly and privately. Peter and I have filed for divorce. I am putting this behind me.” ||||| Once a cheater, always a cheater!
Eight years after his severely bitter split from Christie Brinkley and their subsequent financial and custody battle, the model’s
unfaithful ex husband, Peter Cook, has legally separated from his wife, Suzanne Shaw— and sources tell the New York Post’s Page Six that his infidelities are to blame.
PHOTOS: Cheaters Gallery
“Suzanne stood by Peter for years, through all his battles with Christie, but he lied to her and completely misrepresented himself. She repeatedly caught him cheating,” an insider told the paper.
Shaw, who was wed to Cook, 55, for more than six years, left their Hamptons home in February with her teenage daughter after filing for separation.
PHOTOS: Celebs Who Have Been Divorced Twice Before 40
Cook’s lawyer, John J. Fellin, denies his client cheated.
“The separation agreement does not mention, in any way, infidelity by Mr. Cook, and any such allegations to that end are without merit,” he told The Post.
PHOTOS: Don’t Get Mad, Get Everything! Inside The 16 Most Expensive Celebrity Divorces Of All Time
Brinkley, 60, and Cook are still at each other’s throats years after they split amid allegations he cheated with his 18-year-old assistant, Diana Bianchi. The National ENQUIRER recently reported that the pair has been battling over custody issues with their 16-year-old daughter, Sailor.
“The sad reality is, almost eight years later, Christie is still mired in our divorce and hatred of me which has been irreparably damaging to our children,” Cook recently told RadarOnline.com. | – Christie Brinkley's marriage to Peter Cook ended in 2008 after he had an affair with an 18-year-old; he went on to wed Suzanne Shaw. Shaw stood by Cook's side during the 2012 Cook-Brinkley court battle over child support, and things got ugly: At one point Brinkley told Shaw in a court hallway, "When you find out he's been cheating on you, I'll be here for you." Shaw responded, "Come up with a new line"; Shaw also said that her own marriage to Cook had been marred by Brinkley's "black cloud of hate." Only, um, Shaw and Cook filed for divorce this year ... after Cook allegedly cheated on Shaw. Now Shaw has apologized to Brinkley for bad-mouthing her years ago, Page Six reports. "Christie and I have talked recently and I have privately apologized to her, but, given the public nature of their divorce and custody battle, I feel a public apology is also appropriate and deserved," reads a letter from Shaw obtained by the New York Post. "Christie was wrongly vilified as being an embittered ex-wife. I now believe she had every right to do what she did by taking a public stand," Shaw writes. "Unfortunately, I fell under Peter's spell, but now that the reality of who he is has been revealed, I regret my involvement." Click for more on the latest cheating allegations against Cook. |
The 2012 Republican primary is about to enter the elimination round.
When the GOP presidential candidates meet in Michigan Wednesday for a CNBC debate on the economy, they’ll no longer be looking to make a first impression. With less than two months to go before the Iowa caucuses, there’s a much more urgent objective: survival.
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Herman Cain may not be viable much longer, unless he can manage to move the 2012 conversation away from the allegations of sexual harassment that have plagued his campaign. Flagging conservatives such as Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann can’t afford to muddle aimlessly through another candidate forum. If Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum can’t take advantage of this chaotic moment, they may never get another chance. And Jon Huntsman is running out of time to connect with his attempt at a maverick message.
With the exception of front-runner Mitt Romney — and perhaps Ron Paul, the libertarian congressman whose devoted base of support never really diminishes or grows — nearly every candidate in the race is almost one misstep away from political death.
“Voters have formed general impressions of most of the candidates by this point, but a mixed or poor impression hasn’t been fatal,” said Dan Schnur, a former adviser to John McCain’s 2000 campaign. “Going forward, any problems become much more damaging because the clock is ticking.”
Schnur, who now directs the University of Southern California’s Unruh Institute of Politics, said Cain had helped speed up the winnowing process: “We were probably going to get to this point pretty soon anyway, but the controversy surrounding Cain’s campaign may be serving as a reminder to voters of the stakes involved here.”
Michigan Republican National Committeeman Saul Anuzis, a Romney supporter, suggested debates were increasingly about “which people make the mistakes and have the most to lose, not the most to gain.”
“Usually there’s a loser in a debate, not necessarily a winner,” said Anuzis. “I think there will be a desire by all the candidates to stay on [economic] issues and focus on those issues. The question is whether we will get pulled away by the Cain stuff or something else.”
Cain signaled in a press conference Tuesday that he hopes to move on from battling charges of personal misconduct and get back to talking about policy. With his poll numbers holding up in the low-20 percent range, it’s clear that some of his fans have been giving him the benefit of the doubt so far.
The CNBC debate – the ninth of the year, and the sixth involving the full GOP presidential field – will test Cain’s ability to hold on to those supporters and turn the page on the worst week of his campaign. ||||| article
The CNBC debate kicks off tonight in the shadow of the Cain circus. Will the other candidates ignore the elephant in the room, and will Gingrich finally reach the top tier? David A. Graham on what to look for. Plus join Howard Kurtz for a live chat during the debate, starting at 8pm ET.
After three weeks’ respite, the packed Republican presidential debate season is about to return to full tilt. The GOP field will convene in a Detroit suburb on Wednesday for a debate hosted by CNBC. Using a traditional setup, the debate is supposed to focus on economic issues, including taxation, jobs, and the deficit, but fireworks are likely on a few other topics as well. Here’s what to watch for Wednesday night.
1. Will the Herman Cain Allegations Take Center Stage?
Last time around, Herman Cain was a target because his fortunes were rising, along with the popularity of his 9-9-9 plan. Much has happened since, and although his polls numbers have flat-lined, not tanked, repeated allegations of sexual harassment or worse seem to be on their way to derailing the Cain train. How will his rivals handle it? They could attack him directly; even the usually detached Romney edged that way Tuesday, saying the allegations against Cain were serious. But that might be unnecessary and counterproductive. Focusing on Cain’s circus rather than, say, high unemployment is bad for the Republican brand, so they may instead let him bleed slowly as they avert their eyes.
2. Will the ‘Not-Mitt’ Movement Dent Romney’s Armor?
Although it’s long been clear that Mitt Romney was the man to beat in the Republican field, the last two weeks have seen the anybody-but-Mitt movement crystallizing like never before. Bookended by scathing attacks by George Will and Erick Erickson—the voices of the Old Republican Establishment and the Upstart Activist Right, respectively—and peaking with the creation of the website Not Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor’s opponents have come together, Transformers-style. But behind whom? With most of the rest of the field fading or too damaged to take up the standard, Jon Huntsman Jr., whose once-promising candidacy hasn’t even gotten as far as spinning its wheels, is making a late play, producing his own anti-Romney ad. Can Huntsman or some other challenger dent Romney’s armor? Or will the unflappable frontrunner parry all blows with the effortless, bland approach he’s used so far?
3. Will Newt Gingrich Finally Join the First Tier?
With Cain potentially on the outs, could Newt Gingrich finally be having his moment? The former House speaker could appeal to the same voters as Cain (they agree on plenty, as demonstrated by their lovefest on Saturday), he’s experienced, and his campaign seems to have come back from several prematurely declared deaths. Indeed, he’s rising in some polls. But Gingrich’s previous debate performances have been polarizing. While some of the more cerebral Republican pundits gushed over his oratorical and rhetorical talents, he has a tendency to come across as petulantly contrarian and needlessly pedantic. If he can temper those tendencies, the debate could propel him to the first tier of the race.
4. Will Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann Show Up?
Long, long ago—if you can remember that far back—both Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry were first-tier candidates. Their chances at returning to the top tier are slipping away quickly, though Perry’s ample war chest is a crutch. It will be interesting to see how they try to claw back—if at all. Will Perry come across as giddy and drunk, as he did in New Hampshire last month? Will Bachmann figuratively show up? She has been a nonfactor for several debates, but could try to expand on outreach to moms or maybe go big on religion.
5. Will Serious Economic Plans Finally Make an Appearance? | – With Iowa just two months away, the stakes are high for tonight’s GOP debate. Politico describes it as an “elimination round,” with everyone except Mitt Romney—and maybe the seemingly immovable Ron Paul—“one misstep away from political death." Here’s what to watch for: Will anyone touch Herman Cain’s scandal? Focusing on that circus might hurt the GOP brand, the Daily Beast points out, “so they may instead let him bleed slowly as they avert their eyes.” Who can be the Not-Mitt? Anti-Romney sentiment coalesced this week, but has no standard bearer. Newt Gingrich is gaining some buzz, especially after his heart-to-heart with Cain, so some speculate that he's next. Who matters? “For Huntsman, Santorum, and Bachmann, the debate is totally about relevance and trying to maintain some respectability,” an ex-Huntsman campaign manager says. “Not much more, I don’t think.” Will Rick Perry be sober? Perry is reeling after his, um, interesting New Hampshire speech. Perry can come off “like a deer caught in headlights,” says one strategist. “He’s got to decide, what are the two or three messages I’m going to drive?” What about Mitt? “Romney can begin to play ball-control politics,” says a former McCain adviser. “He just needs to be reassuring and not say anything really dumb." |
Let’s start with the crossbow, because the crossbow is huge. I’m sitting in the passenger seat of a camo-painted ATV, rumbling through the northern Louisiana backwoods with Phil Robertson, founder of the Duck Commander company, patriarch at the heart of A&E’s smash reality hit Duck Dynasty, and my tour guide for the afternoon. There are seat belts in this ATV, but it doesn’t look like they’ve ever been used. Phil is not wearing one. I am not wearing one, because I don’t want Phil to think I’m a pussy. (Too late!) The crossbow—a Barnett model equipped with a steel-tipped four-blade broadhead arrow—is perched on the dash between us. It looks like you could shoot through a goddamn mountain with it.
“That’ll bury up in you and kill you dead,” Phil says.
The bow is cocked and loaded, just in case a deer stumbles in front of us and we need to do a redneck drive-by on the poor bastard, but the safety is on. SAFETY FIRST. Still, Phil warns me, “You don’t want to be bumping that.”
As we drive out into the woods, past a sign that reads parish maintenance ends, Phil is telling me all about the land around us and how the animals are a glorious gift from God and how blowing their heads off is part of His plan for us.
“Look at this,” he says, gesturing to the surrounding wilderness. “The Almighty gave us this. Genesis 9 is where the animals went wild, and God gave them wildness. After the flood, that’s when he made animals wild. Up until that time, everybody was vegetarian. After the flood, he said, ‘I’m giving you everything now. Animals are wild.’”
There’s a fly parked on Phil’s long beard. It’s been there the whole ride, and I desperately want to pluck it out, but I decide against it. Along with the crossbow, there’s a loaded .22-caliber rifle rattling around in the footwell. And yet, much like the 14 million Americans who Nielsen says tune in to Duck Dynasty every week—over 2 million more than the audience for the Breaking Bad finale—I am comfortable here in these woods with Phil and his small cache of deadly weaponry. He is welcoming and gracious. He is a man who preaches the gospel of the outdoors and, to my great envy, practices what he preaches. He spends most of his time out here, daydreaming about what he calls a “pristine earth”: a world where nothing gets in the way of nature or the hunters who lovingly maintain it. No cities. No buildings. No highways.
Oh, and no sinners, too. So here’s where things get a bit uncomfortable. Phil calls himself a Bible-thumper, and holy shit, he thumps that Bible hard enough to ring the bell at a county-fair test of strength. If you watch Duck Dynasty, you can hear plenty of it in the nondenominational supper-table prayer the family recites at the end of every episode, and in the show’s no-cussing, no-blaspheming tone. But there are more things Phil would like to say—“controversial” things, as he puts it to me—that don’t make the cut. (This March, for instance, he told the Christian-oriented Sports Spectrum magazine that he didn’t approve of A&E editing out “in Jesus” from a family prayer scene, even though A&E says that the phrase has been uttered in at least seventeen episodes.)
Out here in these woods, without any cameras around, Phil is free to say what he wants. Maybe a little too free. He’s got lots of thoughts on modern immorality, and there’s no stopping them from rushing out. Like this one:
“It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.”
Perhaps we’ll be needing that seat belt after all.
· · ·
The Duck Dynasty origin story is the mighty river from which all other Robertson-family stories flow. And it is an awesome story, one that improves the more it is told, so here is my stab at it: Phil Robertson grew up bone poor in the northwest corner of this state—a place where Cajun redneck culture and Ozark redneck culture intersect—to a manic-depressive mother and a roughneck father. He was a star quarterback in high school and earned a scholarship to play at Louisiana Tech, but quit after one season because football interfered with duck-hunting season. The guy who took his roster spot at Tech was Terry Bradshaw, because that’s how these kinds of stories go.
Phil On Growing Up in Pre-Civil-Rights-Era Louisiana
“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field.... They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”
According to Phil’s autobiography—a ghostwritten book he says he has never read—he spent his days after Tech doing odd jobs and his evenings getting drunk, chasing tail, and swallowing diet pills and black mollies, a form of medicinal speed. In his midtwenties, already married with three sons, a piss-drunk Robertson kicked his family out of the house. “I’m sick of you,” he told his wife, Kay. But Robertson soon realized the error of his ways, begged Kay to come back, and turned over his life to Jesus Christ.
In 1972, with Jesus at the wheel, Robertson founded the Duck Commander company, which sold a line of custom-made duck-hunting calls that quickly became popular among avid hunters for their uncanny accuracy in replicating the sound of a real duck. He eventually sold half the company to his son Willie, now 41, and together they made a DVD series about the family’s duck hunts, which led to a show on the Outdoor Channel, which led to Duck Dynasty on A&E, which led to everything blowing right the fuck up.
The show—a reality sitcom showcasing the semiscripted high jinks of Phil, his brother “Uncle Si,” his four sons, Alan, Willie, Jase, and Jep, and the perpetually exasperated but always perfectly accessorized Robertson-family ladies—has become the biggest reality-TV hit in the history of cable television, reportedly earning the family a holy shit–worthy $200,000-an-episode paycheck. It’s a funny, family-friendly show, with “skits that we come up with,” as Phil describes the writing process. They plunder beehives. They blow up beaver dams. And when the Robertson-family ladies go up to a rooftop in a hydraulic lift, you just know that lift will “accidentally” get stuck and strand them.
But the show, whose fifth season premieres on January 15, is just one part of the family’s pop-cultural dominance. In 2013 four books written (kind of!) by Robertson family members made the top ten on the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list. Another book—penned by Jase Robertson and detailing his Christian rebirth at age 14, his struggle to forgive his father’s past behavior, and his young daughter’s struggle through five facial-reconstruction surgeries to overcome a severe cleft lip and palate—is forthcoming and destined to make it five best-sellers. There’s also a book of devotionals somewhere in there, along with Duck Dynasty–themed birthday cards, bobblehead dolls, camo apparel (pink camo for the ladies), Cajun-spice seasoning, car fresheners, iPhone games (from the press release: “As players successfully complete the challenges, their beards grow to epic proportions and they start to transform from a yuppie into a full-blown redneck!”), and presumably some sort of camou flage home-pregnancy test.
It’s easy to see the appeal. The Robertsons are immensely likable. They’re funny. They look cool. They’re “smarter than they look,” says sportswriter Mark Schlabach, who co-writes the family’s books. And they are remarkably honest both with one another and with the viewing audience: Phil’s old hell-raising, Si’s traumatic stint in Vietnam, the intervention that the family staged for Jep when he was boozing and doing drugs in college (Phil placed him under house arrest for three months)—all of it is out in the open. The more they reveal, the more people feel connected to them.
And then, of course, there is their faith, which plays no small role here. During the family’s initial negotiations about the show with A&E, Jase told me, “the three no-compromises were faith, betrayal of family members, and duck season.” That refusal to betray their faith or one another has been a staple of every media article about the Robertson family. It’s their elevator pitch, and it has made them into ideal Christian icons: beloved for staking out a bit of holy ground within the mostly secular, often downright sinful, pop culture of America.
· · ·
Phil Robertson’s house is located in the sticks about twenty miles outside the city of Monroe (pronounce it mun-roe). It’s a rather small house—the kind of place its owner would proudly call “humble.” The kitchen table is covered with big plastic tubs of cinnamon rolls and mini muffins. There are candy dishes filled to the brim, bricks of softening butter, and packages of jerky made from unknown animals, sent by unnamed fans. (I tried some, and it was awesome.) Just inside the front door, a giant flat-screen TV shows Fox News on mute at all times, and a bunch of big squishy sofas are arranged in a rectangle around it.
Si Robertson is sitting on the couch facing the TV. Jep Robertson, age 35, the youngest son, curls up in a recliner in the corner with a pistol strapped to his waist. He barely speaks, like a countrified Silent Bob. Jase, 44, and Willie share a love seat while Phil lounges barefoot on a camo-patterned recliner in the far corner of the room. Two dogs share the recliner’s footrest with Phil’s heavily callused bare feet. He has severe bunions, so his big toes jut in at forty-five-degree angles. The main TV room is cluttered with mismatched furniture and photos hung haphazardly on the walls. And Phil looks like part of the clutter himself, as if he’d been wedged into that recliner a while back by some absentminded homeowner who didn’t know where else to put him. ||||| (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Jesse Jackson has decided to weigh in on the inflammatory comments that Phil Robertson made to GQ about gays and African Americans.
In an interview with Drew Magary, the "Duck Dynasty" star said the Nazis needed Jesus, that he never saw the mistreatment of African Americans while growing up in Louisiana before the civil rights era and that homosexuality was a sin.
A&E; has already suspended Robertson, but Reverend Jackson, his Rainbow PUSH Coalition and GLAAD are demanding to meet with network execs, along with Cracker Barrel's CEO, to discuss the future of all "Duck Dynasty" memorabilia or content.
Read: Phil Robertson Defends Anti-Gay Comments: 'All I Did Was Quote From The Scriptures'
"These statements uttered by Robertson are more offensive than the bus driver in Montgomery, Alabama, more than 59 years ago," Jackson said in a statement obtained by ABC News.
"At least the bus driver, who ordered Rosa Parks to surrender her seat to a white person, was following state law. Robertson's statements were uttered freely and openly without cover of the law, within a context of what he seemed to believe was 'white privilege.'"
The release, dated Dec. 23, requests a meeting within 72 hours with A&E; and Cracker Barrel execs and urges the network to uphold Robertson's suspension.
Jackson and GLAAD said they believe it's not right for a personality with such a large platform to benefit from such comments.
Related: 'Duck Dynasty' Suspends Phil Robertson
On Sunday, Robertson defended his comments about gays and blacks to a small Bible study group in West Monroe, La.
"I will not give or back off from my path," he reportedly said Sunday.
Robertson added that his GQ comments were quotes from the Bible. "I didn't think much of it at all, but it seems a lot of other people did," he said.
EDITOR'S NOTE: ABC is a part owner of the A&E; Network" | – Phil Robertson's anti-gay comments have been getting the lion's share of attention in recent days, but he also said a few things to GQ about African Americans that, along with those aforementioned comments, aren't sitting so well with Jesse Jackson. In discussing his youth in pre-civil rights era Louisiana, the Duck Dynasty patriarch said, in part: I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. ... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues." In a Dec. 23 statement obtained by ABC News, Jackson addressed Robertson's comments in no uncertain terms. "These statements are more offensive than the bus driver in Montgomery, Alabama, more than 59 years ago. At least the bus driver, who ordered Rosa Parks to surrender her seat to a white person, was following state law. Robertson’s statements were uttered freely and openly without cover of the law, within a context of what he seemed to believe was 'white privilege.'" Jackson, his Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and GLAAD in the statement demand a meeting with A&E execs ... along with Cracker Barrel's CEO, to discuss content and merchandising. |
Relocation of endangered animals carries risks but loss of half of them is highly unusual
Eight out of 14 critically endangered black rhinos have died after being moved to a reserve in southern Kenya, wildlife officials have revealed, in what one conservationist described as “a complete disaster”.
Preliminary investigations pointed to salt poisoning as the rhinos tried to adapt to saltier water in their new home, the Kenyan Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife said in a statement. It suspended the moving of other rhinos and said the surviving ones were being closely monitored.
Last male northern white rhino is put down Read more
Save the Rhino estimates there are fewer than 5,500 black rhinos in the world, all of them in Africa, while Kenya’s black rhino population stands at 750, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Losing the rhinos was “a complete disaster”, the prominent Kenyan conservationist Paula Kahumbu, of WildlifeDirect, told the Associated Press.
Cathy Dean, chief executive of Save the Rhino, said she and international colleagues were shocked and deeply saddened.
She called for external experts to be called in to carry out a thorough investigation into what went wrong, with the findings published in full.
Dean said the scale of the deaths from the translocation was greater than rhino fatalities caused by poaching so far this year in Kenya.
“It’s an absolute tragedy to lose seven [now eight] animals in this way,” Dean said. “The most important thing is for Kenya to do a proper inquiry and investigation into what went wrong. For that to happen the Kenya Wildlife Service needs to bring in external vets and translocation specialists from other countries - Namibia, for example.”
The relocation of endangered animals – known as translocation – involves putting them to sleep for the journey and then reviving them in a process that carries risks. But the loss of half of them is highly unusual.
The black rhinos were moved from the Nairobi and Lake Nakuru national parks to a new sanctuary created in Tsavo East national park in an operation announced by Najib Balala, the Kenyan tourism minister and carried out in collaboration with WWF Kenya.
In a statement the ministry said its preliminary investigations suggested the rhinos had died of salt poisoning as they tried to adapt to saltier water in their new home. It suspended the ongoing move of other rhinos and said the surviving ones were being closely monitored.
“The eight dead rhinos were among those that had been moved to the sanctuary in an initiative to start a new population in line with the National Rhino Conservation and Management Strategy,” the ministry said. “This kind of mortality rate is unprecedented in Kenya Wildlife Service operations.”
“A total of 14 rhinos had been planned to be translocated.
It was the first time since the 1990s that black rhinos had been moved to Tsavo East, which originally had a population of nearly 2,000, according to Save the Rhino, but now has between 10 and 20.
Kahumbu said officials must take responsibility and explain what went wrong. “Rhinos have died. We have to say it openly when it happens, not a week later or a month later,” she said. “Something must have gone wrong, and we want to know what it is.”
Kenya wants to increase its black rhino population to 2,000 by creating populations in areas that provide the right habitat for the animals to thrive.
Dean said translocation was not as common in Kenya as in other southern African countries, such as Namibia.
“In Kenya, they do it every three to four years, whereas other countries are doing them every year,” she said.
“There needs to be a postmortem and we need to look at the whole protocol for translocation.”
The ministry said it had invited an external expert from South Africa to join its investigation and if negligence was found to be a contributory factor disciplinary action would be taken.
“We will make the investigation results public as soon as we receive them,” the statement said.
According to KWS figures, nine rhinos were killed in Kenya last year. In May, three more were shot dead inside a specially protected sanctuary in northern Kenya and had their horns removed. In March, the last male northern white rhino on the planet, an older bull named Sudan, was put down by Kenyan vets after becoming ill. ||||| FILE- In this file photo taken on Saturday, April 30, 2005, Kenya Wildlife Services wardens hold a fully grown 30 year old female black Rhino, after it was darted at Nairobi National Park. A Kenyan wildlife... (Associated Press)
FILE- In this file photo taken on Saturday, April 30, 2005, Kenya Wildlife Services wardens hold a fully grown 30 year old female black Rhino, after it was darted at Nairobi National Park. A Kenyan wildlife official on Friday, July 13, 2018 says seven critically endangered black rhinos are dead following... (Associated Press)
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Eight critically endangered black rhinos are dead in Kenya after wildlife workers moved them from the capital to a new national park, the government said Friday, calling the toll "unprecedented" in more than a decade of such transfers.
Preliminary investigations point to salt poisoning as the rhinos tried to adapt to saltier water in their new home, the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife said in a statement, describing how the animals likely became dehydrated and drank more salty water in a fatal cycle.
The ministry suspended the ongoing move of rhinos and said the surviving ones in the new park were being closely monitored.
The loss is "a complete disaster," said prominent Kenyan conservationist Paula Kahumbu of WildlifeDirect.
Conservationists in Africa have been working hard to protect the black rhino sub-species from poachers targeting them for their horns to supply an illegal Asian market.
In moving a group of 11 rhinos to the newly created Tsavo East National Park from Nairobi last month, the Kenya Wildlife Service said it hoped to boost the population there. The government agency has not said how the rhinos died. Fourteen of the animals were to be moved in all.
"Disciplinary action will definitely be taken" if an investigation into the deaths indicates negligence by agency staff, the wildlife ministry said.
"Moving rhinos is complicated, akin to moving gold bullion, it requires extremely careful planning and security due to the value of these rare animals," Kahumbu said in a statement. "Rhino translocations also have major welfare considerations and I dread to think of the suffering that these poor animals endured before they died."
Transporting wildlife is a strategy used by conservationists to help build up, or even bring back, animal populations. In May, six black rhinos were moved from South Africa to Chad, restoring the species to the country in north-central Africa nearly half a century after it was wiped out there.
Kenya transported 149 rhinos between 2005 and 2017 with eight deaths, the wildlife ministry said.
According to WWF, black rhino populations declined dramatically in the 20th century, mostly at the hands of European hunters and settlers. Between 1960 and 1995 numbers dropped by 98 percent, to fewer than 2,500.
Since then the species has rebounded, although it remains extremely threatened. In addition to poaching the animals also face habitat loss.
African Parks, a Johannesburg-based conservation group, said earlier this year that there are fewer than 25,000 rhinos in the African wild, of which about 20 percent are black rhinos and the rest white rhinos.
In another major setback for conservation, the last remaining male northern white rhino on the planet died in March in Kenya, leaving conservationists struggling to save that sub-species using in vitro fertilization.
___
Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa | – Eight endangered rhinos have died after a move to a new park in Kenya. Per the AP, the black rhinos died in what Kenyan conservationist Paula Kahumbu calls "a complete disaster" after they were relocated from two locations to Tsavo East National Park last month. Officials suspect salt poisoning as the cause, pointing to higher salinity in water sources in their new home. When the saltier water made the rhinos thirsty, they likely drank even more, possibly leading to their deaths, the country's Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife said in a statement. The rhinos were among 11 moved to the park, and officials said the surviving animals are being closely monitored. The planned relocation of other rhinos to the park has been suspended. As the Guardian notes, the Save the Rhino organization estimates the total world population of black rhinos at around 5,500. The species is targeted by poachers who aim to collect their horns for the black market in Asia. Moving endangered animals from one sanctuary to another is called translocation and is done in hopes of establishing healthy populations in new areas. While deaths can and do occur with such moves, officials say a death rate of this magnitude is uncommon. Kenyan wildlife officials said the results of an investigation into the deaths would be made public as soon as it concludes. |
Image copyright AP Image caption Defections across the North-South land border are rare
A North Korean soldier has defected to the South across the two countries' heavily armed border, South Korean officials have said.
The soldier said he shot dead two officers before crossing over just after noon (03:00 GMT) on Saturday.
Our correspondent says defections across the land border are rare. The last soldier fled in 2010.
More than 20,000 North Koreans have gone to the South in the last 60 years, mostly via China and SE Asia.
The two countries are still technically at war after the 1950-53 conflict, which ended in a ceasefire not a peace treaty.
Gunshots heard
The soldier was quoted as saying that he killed his platoon and squad commanders while on guard duty.
A defence ministry official said six gunshots were heard and guards saw the soldier cross the demarcation line on a western section of the tightly guarded border.
They used loudspeakers to establish that he wanted to defect and guide him to safety, they added.
The official said he was in protective custody and was still being interrogated.
There has been no confirmation of the North Korean casualties and no unusual activity observed on the North Korean side of the border.
The BBC's Lucy Williamson in Seoul says that about a million soldiers and a million land mines line the Demilitarised Zone, and only a handful of people have crossed from North to South by land in the past few years.
Most make their way to the South by a long and dangerous land route, she says.
This takes them through China and on to countries such as Thailand or Mongolia. ||||| In what is apparently the first such incident in nearly two-and-half years, a North Korean soldier has defected across the heavily armed land border with the South.
South Korean military officials say a soldier from the North claims he shot and killed his platoon and squad chiefs while on guard duty before defecting across the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone.
The incident occurred at noon Saturday along the western section of the DMZ.
Officials say South Korean troops at the border heard gunshots, confirmed the North Korean soldier's desire to defect, and escorted him to a guard post. He is now undergoing interrogation.
The senior analyst in Seoul for the International Crisis Group, Daniel Pinkston, says there is no indication the defection denotes any instability in the reclusive and impoverished state.
“We'll see as he's debriefed and it's just a one-off incident, so I don't think there's too much we can read into it besides that at this point,” he said.
Pinkston points out that soldiers in North Korea's army posted to the border area are scrupulously vetted.
“Those who are stationed in the border area, around the DMZ and especially right on the DMZ, are those who are considered to be loyal to the regime. They've been screened and they do not put people there who would be considered disloyal,” he said.
Defections by North Koreans along the DMZ are rare. The last known incident involving a soldier occurred in March, 2010.
Under North Korea's collective punishment system, a disloyal act of this magnitude would mean harsh treatment for the soldier's family, extending for three generations.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul says South Korea has increased surveillance along the DMZ following the incident and the military has activated its crisis management facility. However, there is no sign of any unusual activity on the northern side.
The DMZ is a legacy of the 1953 armistice which brought a three-year civil war to a halt. But the two Koreas have never signed a peace treaty. | – A rarity in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea today: A soldier from the North defected and claims to have killed two commanding officers in order to do so, reports the Voice of America. Soldiers in the South heard about six shots, then allowed the soldier to cross the DMZ. He is still being interrogated. “We'll see as he's debriefed and it's just a one-off incident, so I don't think there's too much we can read into it besides that at this point,” says an analyst with the International Crisis Group. Pyongyang, not surprisingly, has not confirmed the incident, reports the BBC. The North generally puts only its best soldiers at the border after a careful vetting process, and defections are rare. One reason: The family of a defecting soldier is sure to face harsh punishment, notes VOA. |
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Expert: Summer gold rush could be the best in 20 years | Share
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A geologist and gold mining expert said this year’s summer gold rush is expected to be the best in two decades. Advertisement
WEBVTT MAX: WE'RE GOING TO BE ONTRAVERSE CREEK, AND THIS IS AWELL-KNOWN AREA TO FIND GOLD.AND AFTER MONTHS OF RAIN ANDSUBSEQUENT FLOODING, THIS WOULDHAVE BEEN THE PLACE TO BE FOR ANEASY SCORE.>> YOU CAN PICK UP, LITERALLYPICK UP, SMALL NUGGETS OF GOLDRIGHT AFTER THE FLOODING.MAX: THOSE AREAS ARE NOW GONE,PICKED OVER BY GOLD PANNERS KEENON THE BEST TIME TO FIND THEMINERAL, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEANYOUR CHANCES AT TREASURE THISYEAR ARE GONE.>> AS FAR GOLD, THE DEPOSITS OFGOLD, THIS IS GOING TO RIVAL ANDCOME CLOSE TO 1997, THE FLOOD OF1997.MAX: COME SUMMER, WHEN THEMOUNTAIN MELTOFF IS UNDERWAY ANDCREEKS, STREAMS, AND RIVERSRECEDE, THE 2017 GOLD RUSH WILLBE ON.>> THIS STREAM RIGHT HERE WILLBE DOWN TO JUST A FEW INCHESDEEP, AND THERE WILL BE PEOPLEIN HERE WITH SLUICE BOXES ANDGOLD PANS AND LOOKING FOR GOLDTO SEE WHAT'S BEEN DEPOSITEDFROM THIS LAST SET OF FLOODS.MAX: BEFORE FINDING THAT IN ANAREA LIKE TRAVERSE CREEK, YOUHAVE TO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THERIGHT EQUIPMENT WHEN LOOKING FORGOLD.>> YOU CAN COME OUT WITHSOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS A GOLDPAN.MAX: OR YOU CAN TAKE IT UP ANOTCH WITH A SLUCIE BOX. >> THE GOLD BEING HEAVY IS GOINGTO GET CAUGHT IN THIS BLACK MATAND BEHIND EACH ONE OF THESERIFFLES, WHERE THERE'S AN EDDYCREATED, AND IT ALLOWS THEHEAVIER MATERIAL TO DROP OUT.MAX: AT BLACK SHEEP MINING INSACRAMENTO, BUINESS BOOMS INANTICIPATION OF WHAT MIGHT BEFOUND COME JULY.>> WE'VE SEEN A LOT OF GROUNDTHAT'S BEEN MOVED AROUND ANDEXPOSED TO WHERE PEOPLE HAVEN'TGOTTEN TO IT IN YEARS OR EVER,EVEN.SO WE'RE SEEING A LARGE INCREASEIN BUSINESS.MAX: THOSE PROSPECTORS WILL ENDUP OUT HERE AT PLACES LIKESTIFLE MEMORIAL CLAIM READY FORA DIG GEOLOGIST RICH DVORACEKSAYS WILL BE UNLIKE ANYTHINGWE'VE SEEN IN 20 YEARS.JUST DON'T EXPECT RICH TO TELLYOU WHERE TO LOOK.>> IF YOU DO FIND GOLD, DON'TTRUST ANYBODY TO TELL YOU WHERETHEY GOT IT, TO BE TRUTHFULABOUT IT.I RARELY AM.MAX: IN EL DORADO COUNTY, MAX ||||| JAMESTOWN, Tuolumne County (KPIX 5) — Weeks of rainy weather across Northern California and the storm runoff through the hills of gold country have triggered a new gold rush.
“Miner Gary” Thomas said he always finds at least a little gold here on his property near Jamestown in Tuolumne County, but this year, there’s so much more runoff than normal and it’s shaking the gold from these hills.
Thomas said it could provide a “Eureka” moment for those inclined to come up here and look for it. “(The runoff) kind of ‘etch-a-sketches’ everything,” said Thomas. “Eveything I had dug up and now my dig spots are all gone.”
The known gold digs were washed out, trees uprooted, and landscape eroded. The runoffs have also removed gold out of the old abandoned mines and sent it down the river.
“It’s going to bring down more gold,” said Thomas. “It’s going to bring up new areas that I never got to.”
Thomas runs tour groups through his property and said now is the optimum time for gold hunting because the storms have just finished churning the landscape.
Officials from the Bureau of Land Management say the erosion “concentrates” the gold by removing the lighter rock and soil.
You may be wondering if this reporter found any during our time here. We did find some fine flakes of what they call “flour gold” and it was found more quickly than normal in just a couple of panning sessions.
“Eureka!” said Thomas.”That’s hard to do.”
But not as hard this year, now that Mother Nature has shaken up the motherlode.
Thomas said one hot spot this year will be below the Oroville Dam, because the huge water releases from the spillway could reveal some new pockets of gold. ||||| Joey Wilson, left, rings up Curtis Barwick for a gold pan and a portable slough Saturday at Adventures in Prospecting in downtown Oroville. Dan Reidel — Enterprise-Record
Oroville >> Now is not the time to quit your day job in hopes of striking it rich. However, people with a new or renewed interest in gold mining may be spending more of their summer weekends near rivers and streams.
Joey Wilson owns Adventures in Prospecting in Oroville, where he says there’s been more excitement among his gold mining customers.
“There’s always been gold in the Feather River,” he said. What’s new is that the recent floods have moved things around.
It’s not just the Feather River. Floods scoured the banks of the American River, the Mokelumne, the Yuba and just about any other waterway where 49ers once got their boots dirty.
Curtis Barwick was in Oroville Saturday waiting for the prospecting store to open. He usually looks for gold closer to his home in Anderson, but decided to check out Oroville on his day off. He said gold mining gets him outdoors and helps him “recharge,” after a stressful week at work. It’s a lot like hiking, another of his hobbies, but with gold mining there’s a chance of a reward.
“The odds are greater than winning the lottery,” he said. Even on days when he only finds a few flakes, it’s fun to turn over rocks and sand.
He’s not alone. In fact, he’s a member of the Shasta Miners and Prospectors Association.
Back in the day, miners in the 1850s did not have metal detectors. Barwick bought one a while back and said if “lead was gold, I’d be rich.” He had found more bullet casings than he cares to collect. Other finds include coins, and a 1944 nickel. He gave his girlfriend a ring he found in the dirt, and would recommend that anyone who buys a metal detector have some fun digging around in their own backyard.
Others make gold mining an adventure. That’s one of the reasons Wilson named his shop “Adventures in Prospecting.” He sells wet suits and fins, and personally loves to dive when he hunts gold.
Finding gold is a common thread for Cindy and Paul Pekarek, who were at the Montgomery Street miner’s supply shop Saturday. The couple belong to the Mother Lode Goldhounds, near Grass Valley, and for fun they travel to new digs, including Oroville.
Paul Pekarek is a five-time gold mining champion, he said pointing to a pin on his wide-brimmed, black leather hat. The pin includes a miniature gold pan, pickaxe and shovel, with a real glob of gold in the center. To win the championships, he proved he could pan faster than most others.
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Some people, like Mark Saposnik, are “pretty serious” about gold mining. Saposnik spent his summers during college dredge mining. It’s more difficult to find gold now that dredging is no longer allowed, he said. The recent floods have “rearranged the rivers,” he said, and he’ll spend more time stomping around.
Spillway gold?
Gold miners can speculate all they want about gold that may or may not have washed down the hillside near the Oroville spillway. Before hydraulic mining was outlawed, hillsides up and down the river were washed away to unearth gold.
Gold is heavy, and prospectors would love to discover what is among the debris at the Diversion Pool. However, the area is closed except for the work crew.
Recent word from Department of Water Resources acting director Bill Croyle was that he did not know if gold had been found in the area.
It’s a moot point because “if anybody gets close to it they will be run off,” said Bob Van Camp, known locally as “Digger Bob.”
Van Camp was the spokesman in 2014 when a 5.18 pound gold nugget was found in the Butte foothills. The man who found the nugget has remained anonymous, but Van Camp was allowed to tell the story.
As for the spillway debris, Van Camp said he believes there is a gold vein that runs from Potter’s Ravine and south, including the area of the spillway.
In addition to panning near waterways, prospectors look for quartz, especially chunks that have been worn smooth by water flow. “Then you go downstream.”
He’ll also walk the higher ground with a metal detector, hoping some of that quartz will give him a strong signal.
Ninety-nine percent of the time the quartz is just quartz, but “now and again,” the quartz will have “some sort of metal in it.” This might mean manganese or silver, “or there may be gold inside.”
Part of the fun in finding gold is knowing it’s something that an old-time gold miner missed, Van Camp said. “I don’t do it for the money. I just do it for the adventure, for the challenge.”
He would love to get his hands dirty in the Diversion Pool at Lake Oroville right now. However, he understands that DWR is working night and day to get the water flow back to normal.
People will be looking at other areas, where gold panning is allowed. After the floods of the mid 1990s, “it was good getting for those of us who knew how to look,” he said.
For an amateur, the adventure could lead to frustration. “But I don’t want to discourage people from learning about history, getting some fresh air and enjoying themselves, even if they don’t find anything.”
Right now, the water is still high. When dry times arrive, more streambed will be exposed, he said.
“I’m going to have a ball this summer.”
Know the rules
The rules have changed for gold miners. Suction dredge equipment is no longer allowed, which includes “mechanized or motorized” systems for removing material from the water.
Contact reporter Heather Hacking at 896-7758. | – This winter's flooding in Northern California has done more than bring relief after years of drought; it's created the prospect of the best gold prospecting in 20 years. Gold hunters in the area tell the Chico Enterprise-Record the floods have "rearranged the rivers" and "move things around." That means gold veins that have been hidden for 200 years are suddenly exposed. According to CBS San Francisco, the floods also swept gold out of abandoned mines and washed it downriver. While KCRA reports that gold can simply be picked off the ground following major flooding, the best prospecting will come in the summer months when the water has receded. Right now, rivers are still high and government workers are trying to keep would-be prospectors away while they get things under control. But in the summer—which experts say could be the busiest since the one that followed major flooding in 1997—stream beds will be exposed for better gold hunting. "I'm going to have a ball," one prospector tells the Chico newspaper. The epicenter for the new gold rush could be the Oroville Dam, which nearly catastrophically flooded this winter and required the use of an emergency spillway for the first time. (This treasure hunter is seeking $1 billion in gold from a sunken ship.) |
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A North Carolina couple is trying to pull back the curtains on a popular home renovation reality show.
Deena Murphy and Timothy Sullivan are suing the production company for HGTV’s “Love It or List It,” claiming the hit show turned their dream home into a nightmare.
The lawsuit against Big Coat TV and one of its contractors alleges the couple were “victims of shoddy work and unfair trade practices” that left their floors, windows and other parts of their home damaged.
RELATED: 'Fixer Upper': What it's actually like to be on the home show
The show’s premise is to renovate a family’s home while the owners contemplate moving into a new home. But the couple's lawsuit may provide too much of a peek behind the reality television curtain.
TODAY The program's hosts, David Visentin and Hilary Farr
“One of the things they're doing in this lawsuit is kind of blowing the secrecy off of reality TV,” said TODAY legal analyst Lisa Bloom.
In their lawsuit, Murphy and Sullivan describe Big Coat’s business model as “skewed.” They said they gave the production company $140,000 for renovations, but only about $85,000 went to the contractor. They claim the production company used the remaining funds “for the production of its series.”
TODAY North Carolina couple Deena Murphy and Timothy Sullivan are suing the show's production company.
In a statement to TODAY, the couple’s attorney said the company’s incentive was “to make decisions that favor the television show but not the homeowners.”
RELATED: 'Fixer Upper' Joanna Gaines shares her spring cleaning checklist
The “Love It or List It” production company disputes the allegation.
“We believe that this claim is in no way supported by any of the facts of the case, and we will be defending ourselves vigorously in this matter,” it told TODAY in a statement.
TODAY sought comment from the contractor listed as one of the lawsuit defendants but did not hear back. ||||| 1:11 See Billy Graham's visit to South Carolina, including USC football stadium and Ft. Jackson Pause
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1:40 Tips to safeguard your home from burglars
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1:01 Video shows woman attacked by police dog while taking out the trash
2:23 How to report Social Security fraud ||||| A North Carolina couple is suing the producers of Love It Or List It, saying the show left them with a house that was shoddily constructed. The Raleigh News & Observer says that Deena Murphy and Timothy Sullivan agreed to participate in the hit HGTV series under the guise that they were considering a move to a rental property with their teenage foster children. The problem, according to the suit against Big Coat TV and Aaron Fitz Construction, was that the show’s principals—designer Hilary Farr, real estate agent David Visentin, and contractor Eric Eremita—are “actors or television personalities playing a role for the camera,” not people who “played more than a casual role in the actual renovation process.” While this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s ever suffered through Farr and Visentin’s bullshit “no, you are” banter, it’s still mildly disheartening to hear.
For the episode, which aired in April 2015, Murphy and Sullivan were asked to deposit $140,000 into a fund with the production company, who would later use that money to pay Fitz and other subcontractors. According to the suit, the couple voiced its concerns about Fitz, saying it had below-average reviews on Angie’s List, but they were ignored. Over the course of the renovations, only $85,780.50 was disbursed to Fitz, leaving the couple wondering where the rest of their money went. The suit also questions how Big Coat can operate as a general contractor, a role it’s not licensed for.
Murphy and Sullivan are also claiming that Love It Or List It is even more of a scam than it generally seems, with the couple saying the show never used a licensed architect to develop plans for their house, and that they were never shown houses that were actually for sale in North Carolina—or for sale by any licensed North Carolina real estate broker. They also say any work done on the show was work that they’d previously made plans for with another company, Werx-Design Build.
According to the suit, the actual work done on the house was “disastrous,” leaving the home “irreparably damaged.” Duct work was left open, leading to vermin entering the house, and the couple complains of “low-grade industrial carpeting, unpainted surfaces, and windows painted shut.”
As the News & Observer summarizes, “Big Coat’s purported agreement,” the lawsuit contends, ‘admits that it is in the business of television production, not construction. ... The homeowners’ funds essentially pay the cost of creating a stage set for this television series.’”
Maria Armstrong, Big Coat’s CEO and the show’s executive producer, says that the company intends to “vigorously defend what [it] consider[s] false allegations.”
Submit your Newswire tips here. | – When Deena Murphy and Timothy Sullivan wanted to renovate their Raleigh, NC, rental property, they didn't want a DIY project, so they did what they thought was the next best thing: signed up to have an HGTV show do it for them. But per a lawsuit the couple has now filed against Big Coat, the production company behind Love It or List It, as well as the local contractor who overhauled the home, they were left with "disastrous work," including holes in the floor and windows painted shut, the Charlotte Observer reports. The suit also alleges the "reality-TV" program is "scripted, with 'roles' and reactions assigned to the various performers and participants, including the homeowners." And the show's hosts, designer Hilary Farr and real estate agent David Visentin, and its resident general contractor? "Actors or television personalities … [who don't play] more than a casual role in the actual renovation process." Per their contract with Big Coat, the couple deposited $140,000 that would be used to pay Aaron Fitz Construction and its subcontractors. About $85,000 was distributed to Aaron Fitz during the overhaul, even though Murphy and Sullivan say they expressed concerns about mediocre reviews seen on Angie's List. The rest of the money got pumped into producing the show, the couple claims, reports Today.com. They say the show is "even more of a scam than it generally seems," as the AV Club frames it. "The homeowners' funds essentially pay the cost of creating a stage set for this television series," the suit says. A statement from Big Coat's CEO says the company will "vigorously defend what we consider to be false allegations." (This DIY project took six months to make and much less time to eat.) |
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