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Pakistan's Prez Steps Down, 1st in History to Finish Term | (Sep 8, 2013 7:48 AM CDT) The bar isn't set really high in Pakistani politics, because leaving office willingly when you're supposed to makes history: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari stepped down today at the end of his five-year term, becoming the first democratically elected president in the country's history to complete his full term in office. At a ceremony at the presidency, an honor guard bid farewell to a smiling Zardari. His successor, Mamnoon Hussain, is scheduled to be sworn in tomorrow. Zardari rose to power after the assassination of his wife, two-time Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, in a December 2007 attack. Analysts count his completion of a full term in a hostile political environment to his credit, as well as his strong stance against Islamic militancy. However, economic mismanagement and a failure to tackle the country's energy crisis hurt Zardari's popularity, they say. In an interview with Geo TV to be aired tomorrow, Zardari talked about lost opportunities and admitted that the economy could have been better managed, adding, More work could have been done. His other major accomplishments include transferring power in democratic elections in a country plagued by military coups. Pakistani army dictators ruled for most of the country's 66-year history. He also agreed to a constitutional amendment that transferred many of the president's powers to the prime minister, leaving his position as largely ceremonial. Hussain, a textile businessman from the newly elected government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, is set to replace Zardari as president. |
Tip for the Oscars Pizza Delivery Guy? $1K | (Mar 4, 2014 9:52 AM) The guy who delivered pizzas to the Oscars appeared on Ellen DeGeneres' talk show yesterday, and the Academy Awards host gave him a $1,000 tip. Edgar Martirosyan, who owns Big Mama's & Papa's Pizzeria with his brother, said he thought the pizza order was for the writers backstage, and he was shocked when DeGeneres showed up and led him to the audience. (He was particularly excited that he got to serve pizza to Julia Roberts, whom he described as his woman in dreams. ) DeGeneres had passed around Pharrell Williams' hat at the ceremony and collected $600 in tips from the stars, according to the Hollywood Reporter; to that, she added another $400 and gave it all to Martirosyan. Oscar winner Jared Leto was also a guest on yesterday's Ellen, and he told DeGeneres that when Harrison Ford was eating his pizza, some of it fell on his (presumably very expensive) shirt. I knew he would have the munchies, DeGeneres joked. I knew for sure Harrison would. Also discussed on yesterday's show: The epic Oscars selfie that briefly broke Twitter. Winner Lupita Nyong'o, another guest, talked about her brother, a college freshman who managed to get in on the picture and has since become somewhat famous: He just saw that opportunity and he’s like, 'I’m getting in. It’s my only chance.' (Liza Minnelli, however, tried and failed to get in the picture—see the evidence here.) DeGeneres said that Samsung, the maker of the phone with which she took the picture, is donating a dollar to charity for every one of the roughly 3 million retweets. |
1% Warming Chance Is Cause Enough to Act | (Dec 9, 2009 1:22 AM) Dick Cheney once said that a 1% chance of al-Qaeda obtaining a nuke was reason enough to prepare for it, and that same logic should be applied to catastrophic global warming, writes Thomas L. Friedman. Despite Climategate, the chances look a lot higher than 1%, he notes in the New York Times. But in any case, global warming should be treated as a low-probability, high-impact event that we urgently need to prepare for, Friedman writes. If we build a clean-power economy and climate change turns out to be a hoax, then we have gained cleaner air, energy independence, and a stronger economy at the expense of higher energy prices during the transition period, Friedman writes. But if it turns out to be real, life on this planet could become a living hell. And that’s why I’m for doing the Cheney-thing on climate—preparing for 1%. |
Cat Treks 1,484 Miles to Florida, Comes Home | (Feb 27, 2016 2:29 PM) It takes about 22 hours to reach Florida by car for a person traveling from Wisconsin. But if you're a cat, the 1,484-mile journey likely takes closer to two months. At least that's how long it took Nadia, the Russian blue, to trek from her home on a snowy December day to sunny Naples this week where animal officials helped find her owners, the AP reports. Cheri Stocker adopted the cat nine months ago in Wisconsin, and on Christmas Eve, the cat escaped. How did she get to Florida? I have no clue, Stocker tells the Naples Daily News. We do have a couple of businesses around within a few miles. Maybe she got into a pallet and onto a semi. She was afraid Nadia had died in winter ( She doesn't have the coat for it, says Stocker) until a pet relocation service called her sister. Seems a Naples woman found Nadia and took her to Collier County Domestic Animal Services, where workers found the cat's microchip; Stocker's sister was listed as an emergency contact. Many people offered to drive Nadia home, but ultimately a flight attendant at Allegiant Air brought the cat back on a plane, WTMJ-TV reports. Stocker greeted the 2-year-old feline with tears in her eyes. Oh my god, she says. I didn't think we would ever see her again so it's a miracle. |
Hansel and Gretel Wins, Movie 43 Bombs | (Jan 27, 2013 2:10 PM) A bone-chilling rush of weather spelled bad news for three new R-rated films at the domestic box office, says the Hollywood Reporter. The poorly reviewed action-comedy Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters ($19 million) starring Jeremy Renner limped into first, while Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez misfired with Parker ($7 million) and Movie 43 ($5 million) found a small crowd despite its all-star cast. People simply stopped going out Friday night in the affected regions, says a Paramount exec. Your nighttime business is everything when you have an R-rated film. Jessica Chastain's PG-13 horror flick Mama ($12.9 million) continued to thrive amid the R-rated-film glut, followed by Silver Linings Playbook ($10 million) and Zero Dark Thirty ($9.8 million). |
Mom Admits Suffocating Her 2 Toddlers | (Aug 17, 2010 12:33 PM CDT) A South Carolina mother has admitted to smothering her two toddler sons, saying she didn’t think she could support them, according to police. The bodies were found in a car submerged in a river, but the woman, 29-year-old Shaquan Duley, allegedly told police that they were dead before she strapped them into their car seats; she smothered them with her own hands at a nearby motel, CNN reports. She then sent the car into the river, police say, and tried to pass if off as an accident. She just wanted to get rid of the children, as sad as that may be, the sheriff said in a press conference. He said Duley had had an argument with her mother about the children earlier. I believe she was fed up with her mother telling her she couldn’t take care of her children, he speculated. |
Unemployment Falls to 2-Year Low: 8.8% | (Apr 1, 2011 7:53 AM CDT) The unemployment rate fell to a two-year low of 8.8% in March and companies added workers at the fastest two-month pace since before the recession began. The Labor Department says the economy added 216,000 new jobs last month, offsetting layoffs at local governments. Factories, retailers, education, health care, and an array of professional and financial services expanded payrolls. Private employers, the backbone of the economy, drove nearly all of the gains. They added 230,000 jobs last month, on top of 240,000 in February. It was the first time private hiring topped 200,000 in back-to-back months since 2006—more than a year before the recession started. The unemployment rate, which dipped from 8.9% in February, has fallen a full percentage point over the last four months, the sharpest drop since 1983. |
Zimmerman Gets $9K Bail, Is $2.5M in Debt | (Nov 19, 2013 1:27 PM) George Zimmerman was today granted bail in the amount of $9,000 in relation to yesterday's alleged domestic violence incident, the Orlando Sentinel reports. The order came with restrictions: no contacting his girlfriend in any way (meaning he can't return to the house they shared), he must surrender his guns and ammunition, and he must wear a GPS monitor. ABC News reports his lawyers expect him to be out tomorrow. The state had requested bail be set at $50,000, and made this revelation in the course of doing so: It claims girlfriend Samantha Scheibe suffered domestic violence once previously at the hands of Zimmerman, during which he tried to strangle her; she didn't report it. Zimmerman has a new lawyer, who happens to be the chief of the public defender's office in Sanford. That may have something to do with the fact that he is $2.5 million in debt, NBC News reports. In the Trayvon Martin case, Zimmerman was represented in part by Mark O'Mara, who charged $400 an hour. Jeff Dowdy today described his client as indigent. Read the he said/she said of what happened yesterday here. |
Reggae's Gregory Isaacs Dead at 59 | (Oct 25, 2010 11:10 AM CDT) Reggae superstar Gregory Isaacs died at his London home today at age 59 after a battle with lung cancer, the Washington Post reports. Isaacs was known for popularizing lover’s rock, a reggae style that dealt with romance and relationships rather than the political themes embraced by the likes of Bob Marley and Burning Spear. Called the most exquisite vocalist in reggae by the New York Times, Jamaican-born Isaacs had a hit with Night Nurse in 1982. A fan of American rhythm and blues as a child, Isaacs had a number of hits in Jamaica before Island Records began releasing material in the US. But he struggled with the law and drugs, getting arrested 27 times and eventually losing his teeth due to a crack addiction, which hampered his singing. The cool ruler reportedly appeared on some 500 albums, as well as in the film Rockers, a sort of reggae version of A Hard Days Night. |
Russia-Made Kids Bed Modeled on Launcher That Shot MH17 | (Oct 4, 2016 2:39 PM CDT) A Dutch probe into what and who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine in July 2014 is now pointing the finger at a surface-to-air missile brought into play by Russia. Which is why, perhaps, some people are outraged that a Russian furniture company has opted to design a children's bed frame resembling a Buk launcher, per the Washington Post. Is this some kind of joke? a Russian reporter wrote on his Facebook page, expressing the incredulity that's coming from many other quarters. The bed by CaroBus is actually called Buk and sports Russian military insignia and a liftable base that looks like a missile ready to shoot skyward. The $175 bed, of which fewer than a dozen have sold so far, per the Guardian, was designed as part of the company's future defenders of the motherland series. And Anton Koppel, CaroBus' director, scoffs at the outrage surrounding the bed, noting that the company also builds beds shaped like pirate ships, Hummers, and tanks, among others. Some kids want to be doctors, some want to be bakers, some want to be in the military, he tells the Russian site Fontanka. The company did concede somewhat, changing the name of the bed to the more palatable Defender, with a message on the site that reads: We draw your attention to the fact that this is a defensive weapon, not an offensive one. It has been guarding the peace in the skies since 1980. |
GOP Offered $10K to Prove Ayers Authored Obama Book | (Nov 2, 2008 1:12 PM) A Republican congressman and his brother-in-law approached an Oxford philosophy don in an attempt to prove that Barack Obama's autobiography had been ghostwritten by William Ayers, the Times of London reports. Peter Millican says he was offered $10,000 to analyze Obama's Dreams From My Father and Ayers' Fugitive Days for similarities. Utah Rep. Chris Cannon says he merely doubted that Obama had written his own memoir, and thought If Ayers was the author, that would be interesting. Cannon's brother-in-law contacted Millican, but backed off when the professor said that the charges looked very implausible and insisted that the results be made public, no matter what they showed. |
Newest Bailout: 2010 Olympics | (Jan 19, 2009 11:42 AM) The global recession is putting the 2010 Olympics Games in Vancouver in peril, writes Canada's Globe and Mail. This weekend the provincial parliament in British Columbia passed an emergency bill that allows the host city to borrow $369 million to make sure the athletes' village will be ready in time. The original lender to Vancouver cut off funding last fall, and the city has been subsisting on high-interest bridge loans. Both the federal and the provincial government had refused to help Vancouver pay for further construction, leaving the city to pay $70,000 a day in interest alone. The government insisted that the city will be ready to host the winter Games in February 2010, but one opposition politician who opposed the bill laced into Vancouver for overspending. Let's call this what it is, she said; it is a corporate bailout. |
Trump Used $258K From His Nonprofit to Settle Business Lawsuits: Report | (Sep 20, 2016 5:14 PM CDT) Donald Trump used $258,000 from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits involving his for-profit businesses, the Washington Post reports after a number of interviews and a review of legal documents. In doing so, Trump might have broken anti- self-dealing laws, which bar nonprofit leaders from using charity money toward personal expenditures or their own businesses. The settlements include a $100,000 donation Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club was supposed to make in order to get a lawsuit over $120,000 in unpaid fines dismissed; instead, the check came from the charitable Donald J. Trump Foundation, which is largely funded by donations from people other than Trump. Similarly, one of Trump's New York golf courses was supposed to make a donation to settle a lawsuit, but instead the Trump Foundation made the $158,000 donation. Smaller amounts have been used for other questionable expenses, like $10,000 from the foundation being used to buy a portrait of Trump from a charity fundraiser, or $5,000 from the foundation being used to buy ads for his hotels. If the IRS goes after Trump for self-dealing, he could be forced to reimburse the foundation and/or pay penalty taxes. He could also be in hot water with the New York attorney general, which is looking into whether any state charity laws were broken by the foundation. Click for more from the Post. |
Opening Statements Will Likely Portray 2 Tsarnaevs | (Mar 4, 2015 9:00 AM) Two dramatically different portraits of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are expected to emerge when prosecutors and Tsarnaev's lawyers give their opening statements today at his federal death penalty trial. Was he a submissive, adoring younger brother who only followed directions given by his older, radicalized brother? Or was he a willing, active participant in the attacks? Tsarnaev's lawyers have made it clear they will try to show that at the time of the bombings, Tsarnaev, then 19, looked up to his older brother, Tamerlan, 26, and was heavily influenced by him; they plan to portray Tamerlan—who died following a shootout with police days after the bombings—as the mastermind of the attack. But prosecutors say Dzhokhar was an equal participant who acted of his own free will. Tsarnaev faces 30 charges in the bombings and the fatal shooting days later of a police officer from MIT; 17 of the charges carry the possibility of the death penalty. A jury of 10 women and eight men were chosen yesterday to hear the case, which is to be held in US District Court in Boston under extremely tight security. The trial, which is expected to last three to four months, will be split into two phases: one phase to decide guilt and the other to decide punishment. If Tsarnaev is convicted, the same jury will decide whether he's sentenced to life in prison or death. Assistant US Attorney William Weinreb will lay out the prosecution's case; attorney Judy Clarke, a well-known death penalty opponent who has represented Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Jared Loughner, will deliver the opening statement for the defense. |
Madoff to Plead Guilty on 11 Counts, Faces 150 Years | (Mar 10, 2009 3:18 PM CDT) Bernard Madoff's lawyer told a judge today his client will plead guilty later this week to 11 counts including money laundering, perjury and securities, mail and wire fraud. Prosecutors say the disgraced money manager will face up to 150 years in prison on the charges. The hearing at a Manhattan courthouse was called to resolve several potential conflicts of interest between Madoff and his lawyer, Ira Sorkin. Sorkin and his family invested more than $900,000 with Madoff. After questioning Madoff, the judge ruled that Sorkin may continue representing Madoff. Asked by the judge if Madoff would plead guilty Thursday, Sorkin said: I think that's a fair expectation. |
20% of NYT.com Traffic Yesterday? Nate Silver's Blog | (Nov 6, 2012 5:02 PM) The New York Times is probably pretty grateful for Nate Silver right now: His controversial FiveThirtyEight blog accounted for 20% of all visits to the newspaper's site yesterday, the New Republic reports. Silver, who has a host of fervent supporters and detractors, got attention with his final election forecast giving President Obama about a nine-in-10 chance of winning tonight. Technically, he's a long-term contractor rather than a staff writer, and the Times simply licensed his blog for three years before starting to host it in 2010. FiveThirtyEight has been growing in popularity, with 71% of all visits to the Times' political coverage including a stop at the blog, up from just 10% to 20% earlier this year. And now, as the 20% figure makes clear, the blog is becoming more popular for readers of the site as a whole, at least at election crunch time: Earlier this year, just 1% of all visits to NYT.com included a stop at FiveThirtyEight; by last week that was up to 13%, and by yesterday it hit 20%. And 538 is the only Times staffer or brand to appear as a top search term on Web information company Alexa. |
Japan Pulls 2 Survivors From Rubble | (Mar 20, 2011 6:00 AM CDT) An 80-year-old woman and her 16-year-old grandson emerged today from the rubble in northeastern Japan, nine days after the 9.0 earthquake that leveled their two-story house. The teen, Jin Abe, finally managed to pull himself out of the wreckage, and authorities spotted him waving for help from the collapsed roof in Ishinomaki. Rescuers had to call for back-up to free his grandmother, Sumi Abe, reports the AP. Both were weak, but relatively unhurt and had survived on food in their refrigerator. Japanese television showed footage of Sumi Abe being removed from the house; she said she was unhurt and was able to give her name. Both Sumi and Jin Abe were taken to the hospital via helicopter. |
7 UN Peacekeepers Killed in Sudan | (Jul 13, 2013 2:10 PM CDT) Seven UN peacekeepers are dead and another 17 wounded after gunmen ambushed a team in Sudan's western region of Darfur. It is the deadliest ever single attack on the international force in the country since it began its work there in five years ago. The assault included sustained heavy fire from machine guns and possibly rocket-propelled grenades, says a UN forces spokesperson. Reinforcements later arrived to rescue the wounded, who included two female police advisers. It wasn't immediately clear if any civilian personnel accompanied the team into the ambush. The UN has so far not revealed the nationalities of those killed and wounded in the attack. About 40 countries have contributed military personnel or police to the peacekeeping force. No group has claimed responsibility for the assault yet. The perpetrators should be on notice that they will be pursued for this crime and gross violation of international humanitarian law, says another spokesperson. |
Duggars' 19 Kids and ... Canceling, Says TLC | (Jul 16, 2015 10:11 AM CDT) Another year, another controversial TLC show gets the boot. After pulling episodes of 19 Kids and Counting, TLC confirms it has canceled its most-watched show after claims that cast member Josh Duggar molested four of his sisters and a babysitter as a teen. 19 Kids will no longer appear on the air after 10 seasons, the network tells the AP, calling the move the best way forward. TLC says it will kick off a campaign to raise awareness about child sex abuse, to begin with a commercial-free documentary featuring Duggar sisters Jill Dillard and Jessa Seewald in August. They're interested in putting the focus on this issue, too, a TLC rep says of the Duggar family. Seewald and Dillard came forward as victims last month in an interview with Fox News. Josh Duggar hasn't admitted to the molestation claims but vaguely apologized back in May for acting inexcusably ; he has never been charged. We are so thankful for our film crew that has shown up at our house for over a decade, the Duggar family says in a statement, per the Washington Post. They have become like family to us. They have invested their time and energy into our lives and have been so loving and patient. We love and appreciate them so much! |
Suicide Bombs Kill 16, Wound 150 in Pakistan | (Sep 26, 2009 5:43 AM CDT) Two suicide car bombs killed 16 people and wounded about 150 others in separate attacks in northwestern Pakistan today, just days after the Taliban warned suicide strikes were coming if the military pressed forward with an offensive to rout the insurgents. The bombs were detonated outside a bank affiliated with the army in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, and at a police station in the province's Bannu district. A third bomb injured four in the restive region. The strikes came two days after the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan threatened to step up suicide attacks in the region unless the army ends its offensive to roust the militants from the region. We have enough suicide bombers and they are asking me to let them sacrifice their lives in the name of Islam, a Taliban trainer told the AP in an interview, but we will send suicide bombers only if the government acts against us. |
2nd Bonnaroo Death Confirmed | (Jun 14, 2011 11:06 AM CDT) Bonnaroo has claimed a second victim: Christopher William Yoder, 24, died of hyperthermia early Sunday, the AP reports. Yoder had been airlifted from the music festival to a hospital, and officials are awaiting toxicology reports. The safety of our patrons is our No. 1 concern, and we are deeply saddened by this, said organizers in a statement. A 32-year-old woman was found dead at the festival last week; an autopsy is planned. |
In US, Gym-Class Injuries Up 150% in Past Decade | (Aug 3, 2009 4:52 PM CDT) American kids are suffering 150% more injuries in gym class than a decade ago, the AP reports. Over that period, a study found, there has been a renewed emphasis on physical-education class as a way to inculcate students with healthy habits and prevent obesity. But the increase in injuries may be due to lax supervision, the senior author says, rather than increasing amounts of exercise. Shrinking education budgets across the US have reduced the numbers of school nurses and increased class sizes. In addition, some districts don’t require PE teachers to be certified. Classroom teachers who aren’t trained in PE might not recognize situations that can cause injury, said a rep for the National Association for Sports and PE. |
Obama Pulls in $70M, Trounces GOP | (Oct 13, 2011 9:35 AM CDT) President Obama raised a combined $70 million for his own campaign and the Democratic Party this summer, easily exceeding his $55 million goal and walloping his Republican rivals, his campaign announced today. The number does, however, represent something of a slowdown for Obama, who raised $16 million more than that between April and June, the AP observes. But while total dollars were down, the number of Obama donors—more than 600,000 people—increased, with 98% of those donors giving $250 or less, with the average donation at $56. Campaign manager Jim Messina touted that grassroots fundraising as a huge accomplishment this early in the campaign and an answer to anyone who wants to know whether the president’s supporters have his back. Among Obama’s GOP challengers, Mitt Romney is top of the heap, raising $18 million in his first three months of campaigning. |
1 in 13 Humans Have Feet Like Apes | (Jun 2, 2013 3:58 PM CDT) No one wants to be told their feet look like an ape's, but scientists say that many humans' do, and there's a good reason why: It's evolution, baby. Humans typically have rigid feet, held together by stiff ligaments, explains the BBC. But researchers studied the feet of almost 400 visitors to the Boston Museum of Science, and found that 1 in 13 had floppy feet like a chimpanzee, with flexible mid-sections that result in a flatter, bendier foot—perfect for climbing trees, the scientists reported in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. The best way to see this is if you're walking on the beach and leaving footprints, the middle portion of your footprint would have a big ridge that might show your foot is actually folding in that area, says one of the researchers. He says that a fossil of a million-year-old human ancestor also has this foot structure. We are using variation in humans today as a model for understanding what this human creature 2 million years ago was doing, he explains. |
4 Shot Dead in Long Island Pharmacy Robbery | (Jun 20, 2011 3:21 AM CDT) A robbery gone wrong ended with four people shot to death in a small Long Island pharmacy yesterday morning, reports AP. Police don't know why the robber killed the two employees and two customers at the family-owned shop in Medford, and have no suspects in custody. One of the victims was a 17-year-old high school student who worked there part-time. I don't know what happened, said her father. She was supposed to graduate Thursday. The pharmacy, Haven Drugs, had opened for business at 10am; the massacre happened at 10:20. Investigators believe a single gunman was responsible for the bloodbath, and that the motive was robbery. The suspect was reportedly armed with a handgun and stole prescription drugs from the pharmacy before fleeing with a black backpack. |
Bank of America Slashing 16K Jobs | (Sep 20, 2012 4:51 AM CDT) Bank of America is the biggest banking employer in the US, but it has accelerated plans that will see it lose that title to rivals, reports the Wall Street Journal. The bank aims to cut 16,000 jobs by the end of the year, allowing it to reach chief executive Brian Moynihan's target of shedding 30,000 jobs a year ahead of schedule. Most of the cuts will be in retail banking, where the bank plans to axe 200 branches on top of 178 closed last year, but some junior investment bankers will also be getting pink slips. The cuts—part of a program called Project New BAC aimed at cutting $8 billion in costs by 2015—will bring the bank's head count down to its lowest level since 2008, when it bought Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch. But whoever is wielding the axe will want to keep plenty of IT workers on hand: The bank's website suffered outages earlier this week after a group calling itself the cyberfighters of Izz ad-din Al qassam threatened to attack the bank to protest the film mocking Mohammed that has caused riots across the Middle East, reports Reuters. |
FDA OKs 1st 3D-Printed Pill | (Aug 5, 2015 5:28 AM CDT) It might seem like something out of Star Trek, but pills that are produced by a printer are now a reality and the FDA has approved the first one. In what the BBC says is a world first, Aprecia Pharmaceuticals has won approval to produce epilepsy medication Spritam on a 3D printer. In a press release, the company explains that 3D printing on a device it has developed, which creates the pill layer by layer, allows for the creation of a porous formulation that rapidly disintegrates with a sip of liquid, allowing it to pack higher doses into a single pill and making it a lot easier for children or people with swallowing disorders to take their medicine. The pill, which is a new version of a medication used to treat seizures, is expected to hit the market early next year and Aprecia says it is working on more, reports NPR. Experts say the technology, which will allow makers to create pills with very precise, personalized doses, could revolutionize the industry. For the last 50 years we have manufactured tablets in factories and shipped them to hospitals and for the first time this process means we can produce tablets much closer to the patient, a lecturer in pharmaceutics at the University of Central Lancashire tells the BBC. (A 3D printer was used to give this dog new front legs.) |
Woman Sues GM for Crash That Left Her Trapped for 6 Days | (Oct 21, 2015 5:00 PM CDT) A mother of four who lost both legs below the knees and suffered a traumatic brain injury after being stuck in her 2009 Chevrolet Malibu for six days following a crash filed a lawsuit against General Motors Tuesday. NBC 9 reports Kristin Hopkins lost control of her car while driving along a Colorado highway in 2014, went off a 120-foot cliff, and landed upside down in a wooded area 200 feet away. She was unconscious and suffering from hypothermia when she was rescued by passersby six days later. Two months after her accident, she got the first recall notice from GM for her Malibu, according to ABC News. Another recall notice came a few weeks ago. NBC reports the recalls covered power steering and safety systems related to crash avoidance, both of which the lawsuit claims failed during Hopkins' crash. We think that had these failures not occurred, then this crash wouldn’t have happened, Hopkins' attorney, Kurt Zaner, tells ABC. GM knew about these problems, they knew they put an unsafe car on the road, and they acted entirely too late to try and correct that failure. Hopkins is suing GM for negligence, NBC reports. According to ABC, the lawsuit accuses the carmaker of [inadequate] quality control measures and using inappropriate manufacturing practices. In response to the lawsuit, GM released a statement saying it is investigating the tragic accident. (A couple stopped to take photos at a scenic Utah overlook when they stumbled across a woman trapped in her car for two days.) |
4 Dead in Bloody Attack at California Tribal Office | (Feb 21, 2014 10:09 AM) An eviction hearing for a formal tribal chairwoman ended in a hail of bullets yesterday at the Cedarville Rancheria American Indian tribal office in California. Alturas police say Cherie Lash Rhoades, also known as Sherie Lash, opened fire at around 3:30pm, shooting six people and killing four of them, KRCR reports. When she was out of bullets, she allegedly ran into the kitchen, grabbed a butcher knife and stabbed one of her victims again. One blood-drenched witness escaped and ran to get police. Police say they found Rhoades outside, running with the knife still in her hands. A Rancheria employee helped tackle her, the Redding Record Searchlight reports. The two surviving victims were flown to the hospital. Rhoades allegedly killed two women, ages 19 and 45, and two men, 30 and 50, during the rampage. The tribe, which has just 35 members, had been considering evicting Rhoades and her 24-year-old son, who was also at the meeting, from Rancheria property. |
Jewelry Thief's Crime Spree Spans 5 States | (Jan 6, 2016 8:33 AM) A woman believed to be in her 20s or 30s held employees of a Jared Vault jewelry store in Mebane, NC, at gunpoint on Monday before making off with jewelry piled into a shopping bag. But this wasn't her first rodeo: The FBI says the same brunette has robbed five other jewelry stores across the South since April, including in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, netting more than $450,000 worth of bling, per WNCN. A black man in his 30s or 40s, weighing about 250 pounds, was spotted by cameras during three of the robberies, reports NBC News. The FBI says both suspects are considered armed and dangerous. |
Cabrera Wins in 3-Way Playoff | (Apr 12, 2009 6:43 PM CDT) Angel Cabrera claimed the second major championship of his career today, winning the Masters on the second hole of a three-way playoff. Cabrera, the 2007 US Open winner, pulled off a remarkable par at No. 18 after hitting his tee shot behind a tree. Kenny Perry, set to take home the green jacket before bogeying his final two holes in regulation, also made par after his chip rolled up just short of the hole, while Chad Campbell was eliminated in sudden death when he missed a 4-footer to save par from the bunker. |
No. 7: Shark Attacks Swimmer Off North Carolina | (Jul 1, 2015 5:07 PM CDT) Beaches along the North Carolina coast are sure to be jam-packed this holiday weekend, which makes this bit of news especially troubling: A shark attacked a 67-year-old man off Okracoke Island in the Outer Banks today, making him the state's seventh victim this season, reports Reuters. In the 80 years of records on such things, the previous season's high was five, reports AP. And the total doesn't count two other attacks in South Carolina. In today's attack, the victim survived after a shark estimated to be 7 feet long dragged him under in waist-deep water and bit him repeatedly. He was able to swim to shore, reports WSOC, though there was no immediate word on his condition. Experts are floating several theories on what might be going on. One is that an especially hot June has caused fish to begin migrating north earlier than usual. Combine that with a general increase in beach attendance. So when you have more marine life in general in the water and then more people heading to the beach than usual, then you've got a potential recipe for accidents to happen, says a shark researcher at East Carolina University. Also not helping: shark fishing off the coast. |
Thai Junta: Our Poll Says 99.3% Like Military Rule | (Dec 23, 2015 1:00 AM) An astonishing 99.3% of Thais are perfectly happy with life under the country's ruling military junta, according to a poll carried out by the country's ruling military junta. Thai authorities say the poll of 2,700 people found that 98.9% believe the junta could solve Thailand's problems and 99.3% are satisfied with its overall performance since seizing power in a coup last year, reports the Guardian. Since the coup, the junta has been sending journalists, academics, and dissenters to military camps for what it calls attitude adjustment, the Guardian notes, which may offer a clue to the whereabouts of the dissatisfied 0.7%. In a year-end speech on Wednesday, junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha said the second phase of the military's reform plan will soon be underway and it will hold elections in July 2017, reports Reuters, which notes that he was visibly angry when he addressed accusations of human rights abuses. Prayuth blamed the detentions on dissenters, for violating laws against dissenting. The law says you can't do this and yet they still do it, he said. Now they say I violate human rights. Those dissenters include dozens of students detained earlier this month for protesting alleged corruption involving the construction of a lavish monument on a military base, the Wall Street Journal reports. (A Thai man faces a 32-year sentence for liking a Facebook photo.) |
North Korea Plans to Put 2 American Tourists on Trial | (Jun 30, 2014 3:03 AM CDT) Two of the three Americans currently being detained in North Korea are facing prosecution. Matthew Miller, 24, and Jeffrey Fowle, 56, will be indicted; a trial could result in long jail sentences for both. The third US citizen detained in the country, 45-year-old Kenneth Bae, is currently serving a 15-year sentence. Miller and Fowle were both arrested earlier this year on separate tourist trips to the country, USA Today reports. Their hostile acts were confirmed by evidence and their own testimonies, says the state news agency, according to Reuters. As the Wall Street Journal points out, North Korea has recently released two other foreigners—American Merrill Newman and Australian John Short—and it's possible Pyongyang plans to find Miller and Fowle guilty, extract confessions from them as it did from Newman and Short, and then release them. No trial date has been announced. News of the indictment comes a day after North Korea fired two missiles into its eastern waters in defiance of a UN ban. |
Ikea Accused of Funneling Money, Evading $1B in Taxes | (Feb 15, 2016 9:52 AM) How do you say large-scale tax avoidance in Swedish? That's what a new report from the European Parliament's Greens/European Free Alliance group is accusing Ikea of, to the tune of $1.1 billion, per CNNMoney. The report alleges that the retail giant funneled money from its stores in highly taxed countries around Europe through a Dutch subsidiary, and possibly also through Luxembourg and Lichtenstein, so it could reap significant tax savings, notes Reuters. This type of profit shifting —in which headquarters for multinational companies are set up in low-taxed nations—is common in Europe, CNN notes. Ikea's response, via a statement: We pay our taxes in full compliance with national and international tax rules and regulations. The European Commission says it's going to delve more into the supposed tax avoidance, which Reuters notes is alleged to have taken place over a six-year period. (Ikea has been taken to task on its minimum wage, too.) |
Partridge Family Mom May Pose for Playboy at 75 | (May 11, 2009 2:14 PM CDT) Shirley Jones may have perfected the wholesome mom type on The Partridge Family, but her next gig might be a bit naughtier. The 75-year-old is considering posing nude for Playboy, her husband/manager tells the New York Post. She’s still drop-dead gorgeous, he opined. I think it would be sensational. Mature women are relevant. |
Publishers Bank On a 007 Comeback | (May 8, 2008 1:55 PM CDT) This year is the centenary of author Ian Fleming's birth, but while Daniel Craig gave the James Bond movie franchise a much-needed recharge, sales of the 007 books haven't caught up. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports, the Fleming estate has commissioned respected writer Sebastian Faulks to pen a new Bond novel, Devil May Care, with an ambitious first US printing of 250,000. The last Bond books have sold pitifully, and their attempts to make Bond contemporary proved unpalatable. Faulks is returning Bond to the days of the Cold War, and publisher Doubleday has gone all-out with promotion. One Barnes and Noble buyer has high hopes for the title: The downturn in the economy has prompted a demand for escapist fare, he said. |
Lebanon Picks Prez, Ends 6-Month Crisis | (May 25, 2008 5:26 PM CDT) Lebanon elected its first leader in 6 months today by naming Gen. Michel Suleiman as president, the Washington Post reports. Fireworks filled the sky to a chorus of car honks after Suleiman secured the post with a near-unanimous 118 of 127 parliamentary votes. But the nation remains torn between US-Saudi backing and the forces of Hezbollah. Leaders are still divided over foreign policy and Hezbollah's arsenal; the new pact gives Hezbollah veto power over the new cabinet. Suleiman, an ex-army commander, emerged as a Hezbollah candidate until winning over government support. Seeking to mend fences, he told a cheering crowd today that the gun should only be pointed against the enemy. |
Oil Rockets to $135 on Surprise Supply Decline | (May 22, 2008 6:11 AM CDT) A surprise 5.32 million barrel decline in US crude oil stockpiles prompted oil prices to surge past a record $135 a barrel in after-hours New York trading this morning, extending oil's runup to 19% this month, reports Bloomberg. The Energy Department also said yesterday that gasoline stockpiles had declined some 755,000 barrels, while analysts had expected an increase in reserves. There's agreement that $200 is possible and that's getting more people into the market, said an analyst. We have very little supply cushion going forward and that's playing into the minds of investors.'' |
SocGen Trader Charged, Faces 7 Years | (Jan 28, 2008 9:08 AM) Jérôme Kerviel, the rogue trader who cost France's third-largest bank over $7 billion, was charged with attempted fraud by French authorities today, Bloomberg reports. Abuse of trust, the most serious of four charges, carries a potential 7-year sentence and $1.5-million fine. Police want him kept in custody, to prevent evidence tampering or flight. Kerviel admitted faking trades and email trails to hide his positions, the chief prosecutor said at a press conference. His goal was to be a stand-out trader, the prosecutor said. He considered that for a long time he'd taken winning positions and had the benefit of the doubt.'' Kerviel’s attorneys say he committed no dishonest act, did not siphon off a single cent, and did not profit in any way, and that SocGen is creating a smokescreen to hide losses elsewhere. |
G20 Cop Attack Sparks Demand for Investigation | (Apr 8, 2009 3:40 AM CDT) British officials are calling for a criminal investigation into a police attack on a man who died during the G20 protests in London last week, the Daily Telegraph reports. Video of the incident, shot by a New Yorker in town on business, shows a sickening and unprovoked attack by police on Ian Tomlinson, said a spokesman for the Liberal Democrat party. Tomlinson, 47, died of a heart attack a short time later. One senior police officer has called the footage shocking. Tomlinson's son, who has also demanded an investigation, noted that his father was struck with his hands in his pockets with his head down walking away. We want answers now. It's only minutes after that Ian collapsed and had the heart attack. |
Teen Driver Swats at Spider; It Ends Badly for 11 People | (Oct 21, 2015 1:00 AM CDT) A teenage girl in Kansas is the latest arachnophobic driver to have become more dangerous than any spider. The Kansas Highway Patrol says 17-year-old Diana Nicole Bell was on the highway east of Great Bend when she noticed a spider on her lap and let go of the steering wheel to try to kill it, reports the Hutchinson News. Her eastbound vehicle crossed the center line and hit a Jeep head-on, which then slammed into an eastbound minivan in a collision that damaged a fourth vehicle with debris, the Great Bend Tribune reports. A total of 11 people were taken to a local hospital for treatment after the Sunday afternoon pileup, including five young children, the Tribune reports. The AP notes that 10 out of the 11 people injured were released the same day and one stayed in the hospital overnight in stable condition. Everybody involved was wearing either a seat belt or a safety restraint, per the Tribune. In recent weeks, drivers afraid of spiders have jumped from a moving car and set a gas pump on fire. (A spider also got the blame in this viral motorcycle crash.) |
Teen Survives 3,500-Foot Fall | (Jan 29, 2014 8:32 AM) An absolutely amazing story out of Oklahoma, where a Texas 16-year-old survived a 3,500-foot fall in a skydiving mishap—and didn't even require any surgery for her injuries. Mackenzie Wethington, who went skydiving Saturday as a birthday present from her parents, slammed into the ground, yet somehow only suffered a lacerated liver and kidney, broken bones, and a broken tooth; she's already communicating with her parents in writing and doctors say she's in good condition and should suffer few long-term effects. I have no idea how she survived, one tells Today. Experts are calling it a miracle; one suspects the teen somehow decreased her air speed and thus landed somewhat more softly—in other words, she was incredibly lucky. The teen was supposed to do a tandem jump with an experienced skydiver, but was told when she arrived that Pegasus Air Sports Center wasn't doing tandem jumps, so her first jump after six hours of training was on her own—and went horribly awry. It's not clear exactly what happened: According to MyFox DFW, the family says Mackenzie's primary parachute didn't open properly (it was supposed to open automatically) and may have gotten tangled, and Mackenzie couldn't open the emergency chute. Mackenzie's dad (who says the main chute only half-opened, according to CNN) blames Pegasus Air Sports Center, claiming it offered inadequate training and didn't properly maintain its equipment. The owner of Pegasus, however, blames Mackenzie and denies any problem with her equipment: She didn't do what she was supposed to do, he says, though it's not clear what she did wrong; the owner says she didn't take a corrective counter action to make her parachute stop turning. He claims the chute did open fully but somehow, maybe ... initiated by her, started a rotation that caused the problem. The family has hired a lawyer, Fox News Insider reports. |
How Two $1.69 Bottles of OJ Cost Dollar General $277K | (Sep 26, 2016 7:27 AM CDT) Two bottles of OJ that retailed for $1.69 at Dollar General will end up costing the chain more than a quarter of a million dollars. That after a diabetic former employee won a lawsuit connected to the juice. Linda Atkins was working at a Maryville, Tenn., location in the fall of 2011 when she felt a hypoglycemic attack coming on. The main cashier was on break, and so to avoid leaving the cash register unattended, and for the security of the store, Atkins grabbed a bottle of OJ from the cooler, drank it, and then paid for it once her blood sugar had stabilized. WBIR reports the same thing happened again the following January. She was fired for grazing, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued. On Sept. 16 Atkins was awarded $27,565 in back wages and $250,000 in compensatory damages, per an EEOC press release. The backstory is that Atkins asked her supervisor if she could keep her own juice at the register but was told that violated store policy—except that policy allows exceptions for people with medical needs. Atkins' firing was precipitated by a March 2012 shrinkage audit to investigate any employee thefts at the store; two employees who admitted to grazing pointed out that Atkins had done it as well. That's when Atkins was fired, though the auditors were aware of the medical angle and that she had ultimately paid for the drinks. While the jury found Atkins was wrongfully fired and that the Americans With Disabilities Act was violated, it didn't find the managers acted with malicious intent, thus there are no punitive damages, reports the Knoxville News Sentinel. (See why this man without hands sued Six Flags.) |
NYC Axing 777 School Workers | (Aug 24, 2011 11:19 AM CDT) New York City is slashing 777 Education Department jobs, sending school aides, family workers, parent coordinators, and drivers packing due to budget cuts, reports the New York Times. Teachers, however, are exempt from the biggest single-agency layoff since Michael Bloomberg became mayor in 2002, thanks to a deal brokered between their union and Bloomberg's administration in June, A Bloomberg spokesman blamed the layoffs on unions that refused concessions, particularly District Council 37, which represents 95% of the workers losing their jobs. Some 1,940 teachers, meanwhile, are still without permanent placements for this fall and are drawing full salaries while in the absent teacher reserve pool. More than 400 teachers have been in the pool since last summer and 68 have been there since it was created in 2006. |
Kim, Kanye Drop $1.5M on Crazy Armored Cars | (Aug 13, 2013 10:50 AM CDT) Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are leaving nothing to chance when it comes to the safety of baby North. They've ordered two customized armored cars, and are plunking down more than $1.5 million in the process. The bullet- and bomb-proof vehicles were suggested to Kanye by good pal and fellow new dad Jay Z, a source tells the Daily Star. Kanye will drive a Chevrolet Kodiak based on President Obama's Limo One, while Kim will have a Prombron Iron Diamond. The military-grade Iron Diamond is designed to weather landmines and even rocket-propelled grenades, just in case Kim should be traveling through a war zone with her child. (One model of the SUV also features upholstery made from whale foreskins.) Kanye is fully aware that his new family is so high-profile they attract the attention of weirdos and psychopaths. He aims to leave nothing to chance, says the source. That means both he and Kim will also travel with two bodyguards at all times ... and Kanye is even considering hiring body doubles who would walk around carrying a baby doll to fool potential kidnappers. (Another way in which Kimye may be following in Jay/Bey's footsteps: They're not planning to sell baby pictures of North, TMZ reported yesterday.) |
Yes, Democrats, Obama Can Lose in 2012 | (Apr 20, 2011 1:27 PM CDT) Democrats could easily get complacent looking at the lackluster GOP candidates for 2012 or, better yet, the fringe contenders such as Donald Trump. At Salon, Steve Kornacki provides a sobering antidote to that complacency: Under economic conditions like those that now exist, Obama is likely to be defeated in 2012, he writes. To take advantage, however, Republicans would have to avoid a fringe candidate. (Peggy Noonan made a similar case. The conservative establishment seems well aware of this, judging by how many prominent members have stepped up to marginalize Trump. Expect the same treatment for any unelectable candidate who emerges. In other words, it still seems likely—for all of the zaniness in the air—that the GOP will end up nominating a candidate like Romney or Pawlenty next year, someone generic enough to take advantage of a lousy economy (if the economy remains lousy). Democrats better hope the unemployment rate starts dropping faster. Click to read the full column. |
Divers Find 1811 Wreck That Changed US History | (Jan 9, 2011 7:17 AM) Two hundred years ago yesterday, the USS Revenge hit a reef in heavy fog, and sank into the deep off the coast of Rhode Island. Its captain, legendary naval officer Oliver Hazard Perry, survived and was recommissioned to the Great Lakes, where his victory over the British changed the course of the War of 1812 and US history. Now, amateur divers say they've found the wreckage of the Revenge. The divers found a 42-inch cannon in 2005, reports AOL News, and have since discovered five more, an anchor, and canister shot. Our eyes were bulging out of our heads, said one diver. Historians caution that there is no firm evidence the wreckage is from the Revenge, but, If it's not the Revenge, whose cannons are they? asks one diver. Perry, incidentally, is famous for having said, We have met the enemy and they are ours. If a lesser man had been at that battle, asks one of the divers, who knows what would've happened? |
Sony Swings to First Annual Loss in 14 Years | (Jan 22, 2009 6:25 AM) Sony announced today that it would go down to its first annual loss in 14 years, after having forecast just months ago that it would turn a profit. The Japanese electronics giant said it expected to lose $1.7 billion, the result of declining demand from the global recession. The BBC reports that Sony has also been hit hard by the strong yen: 80% of its sales come from overseas, and currently the Japanese currency is its highest against the dollar in more than 13 years. |
We Aimed to Murder 5,000: Mumbai Terrorist | (Nov 30, 2008 6:55 AM) The lone Mumbai terrorist captured alive said months of training had prepped him and his cohorts to kill 5,000 people, the Daily Mail reports. Describing the massacre to police, Azam Amir Kasab of Pakistan, 21, said his instructions were to target whites, preferably Americans and British. He was told to kill to my last breath. But the gunman begged to live when taken to a hospital. I do not want to die, he told health-care workers. The terrorists were trained in Kashmir, and traveled to Mumbai via boats, including a hijacked fishing trawler, according to police accounts of the terrorist's report. They killed two coast guards who intercepted them, forcing one to guide them first. I have done right, Kasab declared. I have no regrets. India’s home minister and a national security adviser have both submitted resignations as the government faces questions over its failure to prevent the attacks, the BBC reports. |
US Sent Iran $400M Same Day Americans Were Released | (Aug 3, 2016 3:27 AM CDT) Smart diplomacy —or dollar diplomacy? The US government quietly delivered the equivalent of $400 million in cash to Iran on Jan. 16 this year, the same day that Tehran released four detained American citizens, sources including US officials tell the Wall Street Journal. The cash, which was sent in currencies including Swiss francs because of a US ban on doing business with Iran in dollars, was part of a $1.7 billion agreement Washington reached with Tehran over an Iranian-US arms deal made just before the revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power in 1979. President Obama didn't disclose the payment when discussing either the prisoner release or the arms deal settlement. Administration officials say the timing of the payment was a complete coincidence—and since the failed 1979 arms deal was headed to an international court in the Hague, the settlement probably saved American taxpayers billions of dollars. Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of the Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years, says State Department spokesman John Kirby. Some of the Journal's sources, however, say Iranian negotiators demanded the cash delivery as part of the prisoner exchange—and Iranian officials openly boasted about the US having bowed to pressure. (Another dual US-Iranian citizen is now believed to be in Iranian custody.) |
6 Americans Dead in Afghan Helicopter Crash | (Dec 17, 2013 1:42 PM) Six US service members were killed today when a helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan, US and NATO officials said. One person on board the Black Hawk UH-60 was injured and survived, two US defense officials said. The aircraft was an Army helicopter from an Army unit, but officials have not yet confirmed the identities or the service branches of the individuals, a third official said. A NATO statement said that the crash was under investigation and that there was no insurgent activity in the area at the time. According to initial reports, the troops had mechanical problems and came under fire only after the crash. It was unclear whether any of the casualties were the result of enemy fire. The deputy governor of southern Zabul province said a NATO helicopter crashed in the remote district of Shajau, and US officials later confirmed that Zabul was the location of the US crash. |
The Feds Own (Maybe 6) Secret Medical Warehouses | (Jun 27, 2016 12:27 PM CDT) Search Google News for articles on the Strategic National Stockpile and you'll get a slim 1,480, a low quantity befitting a program studded with secrets. The SNS falls under the auspices of the CDC, which was in 1999 given congressional funding in order to stockpile what now tallies up to $7 billion in inventory: antibiotics, chemical antidotes, vaccines, antitoxins, and other medical items that would be needed in the event of, say, a pandemic flu or chemical-weapon attack in the United States. As for where the SNS warehouses (there are possibly six) are located, This is not public information, per a government website, but NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce got a look inside one—after signing a confidentiality agreement that barred her from saying anything about the exterior. Among the things she noticed inside: A massive American flag; a caged area containing potentially addictive drugs; a huge freezer stocked with items requiring colder temps; rows of ventilators that are charged monthly and serviced annually; shipping containers pre-stocked with 50 tons of goods, ready to be sent to local public health officials if needed; and shelves so tall that looking up makes me dizzy. One interesting wrinkle: expiration dates. The dates on every item needs to be checked so expired ones can be tossed, meaning vast sums of money are spent on items that will ultimately be discarded. That's not to say the stockpile hasn't been called upon. The first deployment was in June 2001, when 200 ventilators and related supplies were sent to Houston in the wake of Tropical Storm Allison; three months later, SNS provided items following 9/11. |
Polar Bear Makes Epic 9-Day, 420-Mile Swim | (Jan 26, 2011 8:07 AM) Scientists in the Arctic have recorded what is by far the longest swim a polar bear has ever been known to make. A female bear fitted with a radio collar swam continuously for almost 10 days through icy waters north of Alaska, covering 420 miles as she searched for ice floe hunting grounds. We are in awe that an animal that spends most of its time on the surface of sea ice could swim constantly for so long in water so cold. It is truly an amazing feat, the lead researcher tells the BBC. The epic swim, however, came at a huge cost to the bear: she lost more than a fifth of her body fat, and her yearling cub did not survive the journey. It was simply more energetically costly for the yearling than the adult to make this long distance swim, the lead researcher says. The team says that as Arctic ice continues to decrease, polar bears will have little choice but to continue making such long swims, at equally high cost. |
Forget Cat Videos, YouTube Debuting 1st Drama Series | (Jun 24, 2016 5:38 PM CDT) YouTube is hoping Channing Tatum will catapult them into the realm of Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. The cat-video provider just announced Step Up as its first full-fledged, big-budget original drama series, Deadline reports. The series will debut in 2017 on the subscription-only YouTube Red. Step Up is based on the film franchise of the same name that first loosed Channing Tatum upon the world on the way to making $650 million. In fact, Tatum and Step Up-costar-turned-wife Jenna Dewan Tatum will executive produce the new series. An executive at Lionsgate, the studio behind Step Up, calls it a distinctive, noisy, platform-defining series, according to the New York Times. Lionsgate wanted to bring Step Up—the series will be about dancers at a performing arts school—to an audience that was already invested in it, Polygon reports. We know that dance is a hugely successful global category on YouTube, so I’m excited to have a series rooted in such an enormously popular genre on our platform, YouTube's head of original content tells Deadline. Each of the first season's 10 episodes will have a budget of few million dollars and utilize YouTube stars for its cast. YouTube hopes Step Up will be its version of Transparent or House of Cards, convincing more people to pay $10 a month for a YouTube Red subscription. |
Woman, 76, Gets 10 Years for 1957 Murder of Daughter | (May 2, 2013 4:39 PM CDT) Prosecutors wanted the judge to impose a 45-day jail sentence along with 10 years of probation. Instead, she gave 76-year-old Ruby Klokow of Sheboygan 10 years in prison after Klokow pleaded no contest to killing her infant daughter in 1957, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. A lesser sentence would unduly depreciate the crime, the judge ruled. Klokow could be eligible for parole in two and a half years. Klokow admits that she flung her 6-month-old daughter to the floor in a fit of anger, but for years she claimed it was an accident. When her son was 11, she actually blamed him for the death, saying his fussing as an 18-month-old at the time had distracted her and caused her to drop the baby. He ran away at age 13 and started digging into the case as an adult when an aunt told him the truth. I always wanted a sister, the 57-year-old told the judge. I did not know I had a sister until my mom accused me of killing my baby sister when I was 11 years old. |
2 Humpbacks Saved From 'Enormously Painful' Fate | (May 19, 2016 10:38 AM CDT) A humpback whale off the coast of Gloucester, Mass., is lucky to be alive after a rescue team disentangled it from a slew of fishing lines, Massachusetts Environmental Police tell WCVB. The whale was first seen Wednesday morning, and by 7:30 that night, a Center for Coastal Studies team had cut the animal loose. If the whale is kept at the surface, it's possible for a team to use knives to free [it], center rep Charles Mayo says. A 2012 Yale Environment 360 report noted that not only are fishing lines often lethal for big whales—the animals may also endure enormous pain and prolonged suffering. The same thing happened this week off the coast of California to a crab fisherman and his 5-year-old son, and California Whale Rescue officials say their willingness to stay with the whale until it was cut free probably saved its life, CNN reports. Calder Deyerle and little Miles were about 4 miles out from Carmel Highlands Tuesday when they saw the humpback swim by, dragging heavy fishing lines and floats. They called CWR staff, who removed the tangled mess using a pole-mounted hook knife. The whale then safely swam away after its seven-hour ordeal. We've got to find a way to stop them getting tangled up, Mayo tells WCVB. [This] is their ocean, and in some ways, we are just borrowing it. (Some good news: Most humpbacks aren't endangered anymore.) |
Mt. Gox: We Found 200K Bitcoins in Our Other Wallet | (Mar 21, 2014 7:00 AM CDT) Don't you hate when you leave something in your other pants? Like, say, $116 million? That's the approximate value of the 199,999.99 bitcoins that Mt. Gox found lying around in an old bitcoin wallet, according to the BBC. Mt. Gox had certain old-format wallets which were used in the past and which, Mt. Gox thought, no longer held any bitcoins, CEO Mark Karpeles said in a court filing yesterday revealing the find. The old wallet had been in use prior to June 2011. The coins were found on March 7, and moved to an offline wallet for safekeeping a week later. The find brings the number of missing Mt. Gox coins from 850,000 down to 650,000, though that number, too, could change; the company is still investigating the cause and extent of the loss, the Wall Street Journal reports. In the meantime, users can look at the coins they might not have; Mtgox.com has begun allowing users to check their balances, with a disclaimer that it might not have the coins shown. |
70-Year-Old Rower Sets Off on Record-Breaking Quest | (May 16, 2016 9:23 AM CDT) Norwegian doctor Stein Hoff is no stranger to challenges. The avid rower crossed the Atlantic with a partner in 1997, and in 2002 he rowed solo and unsupported from Lisbon, Portugal, to the coast of the South American country of Guyana. But now the 70-year-old who says people spend too much time at their desk and wasting their lives watching Game of Thrones is hoping to become the oldest person to row across the Atlantic, reports the Telegraph. Hoff will be unsupported and unfollowed (a satellite phone can summon help if needed). His wife Diana, who set the record for the oldest woman to cross the Atlantic when she was 55 in 2000, has prepared all his food—including homemade energy bars, cereal, milk powder, and fruitcakes—for a voyage expected to take 90 days and cover as many as 3,000 nautical miles. Hoff's boat, Fox II, is so-dubbed in honor of the 1896 journey that sent two Americans of Norwegian descent on the first human crossing of the Atlantic by oar. Their 18-foot boat was named Fox, reports the New York Post, and their 55-day record stood for 114 years until a four-man crew beat it. Hoff will copy their route, though his Fox II boasts GPS, water filtration, and solar panels. I realize it could be risky, he says, but he set off Sunday from Manhattan, bound for England's Isles of Scilly, with his sights set high. (This rower's quest? The Pacific.) |
Raising Drinking Age to 21 'Regrettable': Key Doctor | (Jul 27, 2009 7:03 PM CDT) A psychiatrist who was part of a presidential committee that recommended raising the US drinking age to 21 now calls those efforts the single most regrettable decision, the Los Angeles Times reports. Morris Chafetz, in an opinion piece being shopped for publication, says seeing the collateral, off-road damage —binge drinking, date rape and the like—wrought by the1984 law has left him disillusioned. Legal Age 21 has not worked, Chafetz writes. To be sure, drunk driving fatalities are lower now than they were in 1982. But they are lower in all age groups. And they have declined just as much in Canada, where the age is 18 or 19, as they have in the US. |
Newlywed, 95, Dies After 96-Year-Old Wife Taken Away | (Dec 31, 2014 12:44 PM) A 95-year-old newlywed Virginia man has died just weeks after his 96-year-old wife was taken away by family to Florida. Eddie Harrison died yesterday in a hospital after suffering from influenza, said Rebecca Wright, who was caring for the couple in their home in Alexandria, Va. Harrison became distressed after his wife and longtime companion, 96-year-old Edith Hill, was taken away, said Wright, who is Hill's daughter. He lived for her, and she lived for him. It's the love story of the century, Wright said, recalling how they would dance, take walks, and care for each other. Their marriage this year after 10 years together was disputed in court. Their wedding was problematic because Hill has been declared legally incapacitated for several years. Another of Hill's daughters, Patricia Barber, contested the marriage, saying it would complicate Hill's estate. But Hill and Harrison wanted to stay together. A judge appointed a new guardian for Hill to protect her interests, removing Barber and Wright as guardians, but left the marriage intact. The interracial aspect of the marriage also was unique because the two longtime Virginians would not have been allowed to marry if they had met in their 20s, 30s, or 40s under state law. On Dec. 6, Hill's guardian arrived to take Hill away to Barber's home in Florida for what was supposed to be a two-week vacation. When Hill did not return home as planned after two weeks, Harrison began to realize she was not coming back, Wright said. A family friend said Harrison was heartbroken. He became ill with the flu and checked himself into a hospital. |
Drunk Driver Who Killed Man to Serve 120 Days in Jail | (Jul 14, 2014 11:29 AM CDT) In 2011, Leroy Buddy Bronson's wife and 11-year-old daughter were killed by a drunk driver. Last year, Bronson himself was killed by a different drunk driver. And on Friday, that second driver—25-year-old Ronald O'Kelly—received a suspended sentence that could see him spend just 120 days in jail, the Kansas City Star reports. Bronson, 57, was riding his motorcycle in Kansas City just after midnight on April 7, 2013, when O'Kelly, who ultimately pleaded guilty, hit him with his Ford F-150 after failing to stop at a red light. O'Kelly then fled the scene. It’s unthinkable, says Bronson's stepson of the sentence. It teaches other drunk drivers that if they get in a wreck—fatality or nonfatality—to just run and you will get a light sentence. The judge and prosecutors say they were limited in their sentencing ability by the evidence they had available—as WFSB points out, investigators could not prove O'Kelly's blood alcohol content at the time of the crash. Cell phone records showed that O'Kelly was on his phone at the time of the accident, and witnesses said he had been drinking at a tavern earlier in the night and appeared intoxicated. But one potential witness—his girlfriend, who allegedly told her father that O'Kelly was drunk at the time—never testified, as O'Kelly married her, and Missouri law does not require spouses to testify in such cases. O'Kelly, who had a prior DUI conviction and who told the family he was super sorry about what happened, was sentenced to seven years on a charge of involuntary vehicular manslaughter due to intoxication and four years on a charge of leaving the scene of an accident, to be served concurrently. But as part of the plea deal, both sentences were suspended as O'Kelly serves a 120-day callback sentence—and if that goes without incident, he'll get probation instead of further jail time. The driver who killed Bronson's wife and daughter was in 2012 sentenced to 15 years. |
Chicago Logs 500th Murder of '16 in Bloody Weekend | (Sep 6, 2016 11:25 AM CDT) After wrapping up its deadliest month in 20 years, Chicago logged its 500th homicide of the year over Labor Day weekend, when 65 people were shot, including 13 fatally. Nine of those deaths and almost half of all shootings resulting in injuries or deaths occurred between 6am Monday and 3am Tuesday, possibly as individuals and gangs sought retaliation for earlier shootings, police tell the Chicago Tribune, which now counts 512 homicides in the city so far this year, compared to 491 in all of 2015. An 80-year-old man and a woman who was nine months pregnant were among the victims, reports CBS Chicago, which has a detailed breakdown of the shootings. |
4.7 Quake Hits Christchurch, No Injuries Reported | (May 25, 2012 12:49 AM CDT) One of the stronger of the thousands of earthquakes and aftershocks to hit Christchurch since last year's devastating 6.1 quake struck the New Zealand city today. No reports of serious injuries or damage were received after the 4.7 quake, reports the New Zealand Herald. Authorities closed the city's downtown area—now known as the red zone —as a precaution. Buildings in the area will be inspected over the weekend before the hundreds of workers rebuilding downtown are allowed back in. More bricks were said to tumble from the damaged Christchurch Cathedral. |
Obama Has 70% Chance of Topping Ticket | (Mar 10, 2008 4:35 PM CDT) Barack Obama is far more likely to be the Democratic nominee than Hillary Clinton is, says Joe Trippi, the veteran strategist who advised Howard Dean and John Edwards. In an IM interview with New York, he puts Obama’s odds at 70%, predicts a race that lasts until the convention, and foresees a remote chance of a third candidate if this gets really ugly and Clinton takes a meat ax to Obama. Now it looks like Obama is in for some tougher treatment, Trippi says of the media's recent scrutiny. That is a good thing. He adds, If the Obama camp can't cope with this, then better we all find out now. And he's blunt about the final analysis: In the end, Clinton may need a self-inflicted mistake by Obama to get the nomination. |
Bush Threw Out 4th Amendment After 9/11 | (Apr 4, 2008 1:23 PM CDT) Just a month after Sept. 11, 2001, the Justice Department concluded that anti-terror military operations on US soil were not constrained by the Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure. The conclusion was detailed in a memo written by John Yoo, the theorist behind many of President Bush's expansions of presidential power. Though it hasn't been released, it was referred to in Yoo's 2003 memo authorizing torture, which was released Tuesday, writes the Washington Post. The Fourth Amendment prevents the police from intruding into Americans' lives without a warrant; the memo concluded that these restrictions do not extend to the military, though no court has ever taken that view. The applicability of the Fourth Amendment doesn't turn on what kind of uniform the government agent is wearing, a director at the ACLU tells the Post. A Justice Department spokesman tells the AP it does not reflect the current thinking of the administration. |
3 US Airmen Swept Out to Sea in Japan | (Oct 5, 2014 9:28 AM CDT) The US military is searching for two of three airmen who were swept out to sea today off the coast of Okinawa as Typhoon Phanfone bore down on Japan. One of the three was found dead. They had been on Okinawa island's northern coast when they were overcome by the waves, according to a rep for the Japanese coast guard's Okinawa branch. The Air Force said the search for the missing airmen had been interrupted by rough seas. Their names were being withheld pending notification of relatives, reports the AP. Though expected to diminish, Phanfone was packing a punch, with winds of up to 104mph, reports CNN. We're talking torrential rain and also significant wind, says a meteorologist. And with 4 to 8 inches of rain expected, mudslides could be an issue in mountainous regions—particularly Mount Ontake, where a deadly volcanic eruption late last month has left a thick layer of ash. |
Home Sales Jump 7.4% | (Dec 22, 2009 9:14 AM) Home resales surged to the highest level in nearly three years, reflecting an extraordinary level of federal support that has pulled the housing market back from the worst downturn since the Great Depression. The National Association of Realtors says sales rose 7.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.54 million in November, from a downwardly revised pace of 6.09 million in October. Sales were 44% above last year's levels, a record jump. They had been expected to rise to an annual pace of 6.25 million, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters. The median sales price was $172,600, down 4.3% from a year earlier, and up 0.2% from October. |
57 Saudi Men Arrested for Flirting | (Feb 23, 2008 1:03 PM) Authorities in Saudi Arabia arrested 57 young men accused of flirting with girls at shopping malls in Mecca, the BBC reports. Prosecutors say the men wore indecent clothing, played loud music, and danced to attract the girls’ attention. The arrests were prompted by Saudi’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which runs its powerful religious police. The police force, known as the mutaween, enforces Wahhabism, Saudi’s strict brand of Islam. Officials, who’d earlier banned the sale of items related to Valentine’s Day, said they received reports of the men’s bad behavior at local malls, but guardians for some of the men insisted they’d socialize on weekends without ever violating laws that prohibit mingling of the sexes. |
Elon Musk, Wife Take 2nd Shot at 2nd Divorce | (Mar 22, 2016 2:36 AM CDT) Billionaire Elon Musk and actress Talulah Riley are making another attempt to end their second marriage, the AP reports. Riley filed to divorce Musk on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court. Musk filed for divorce on New Year's Eve in 2014 but withdrew the petition seven months later. The divorce is amicable, and the pair agreed that Riley would file the petition to end their latest marriage after roughly 2½ years. According to the statement, Musk and Riley have been living separately for the past six months and plan to remain friends. Riley's filing cites irreconcilable differences and makes no mention of a prenuptial agreement. She is seeking spousal support from Musk. Musk co-founded PayPal and has gone on to help start the electric car company Tesla Motors and the private space firm SpaceX. Riley appeared in Pride & Prejudice and Inception and wrote and directed her first feature film, Scottish Mussel, in 2014. The pair first married in 2010 and divorced in 2012. They remarried 18 months later. They do not have any children together, although Musk has five sons from a previous marriage. (Tesla Motors may have a name change in the works.) |
Dog Disease Complaints to FDA Single Out 3 Brands | (Mar 13, 2012 5:37 PM CDT) FDA officials still aren't sure what has caused a wave of disease in 600 US dogs, but pet owners' complaints over Chinese-made chicken jerky dog treats may provide a clue. Some 13 of 22 key complaints point to Waggin' Train or Canyon Creek treats, both from Nestle Purina, while three more complaints refer to Milo's Kitchen Home-Style Dog Treats from Del Monte, MSNBC finds. But so far, no specific products have been recalled because a definitive cause has not been determined, says an FDA rep. In November, the FDA released a warning about jerky treats; the agency continues to investigate treat samples and vets' records of dogs with liver disease, kidney failure, and Fanconi syndrome. While the FDA isn't certain about the cause, some pet owners have little doubt. Several petitions, including one with 3,400 signatures, are urging a recall of Chinese-made jerky treats. Meanwhile, Ohio Democrats Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Dennis Kucinich have written to the FDA seeking an intensified probe. For its part, Nestle Purina says its treats are safe to feed as directed. |
Iceland Best Nation for Women; US 19th | (Oct 12, 2010 12:56 PM CDT) Iceland leads the world in gender equality, says a new report from the World Economic Forum, with the United States rising 12 spots to 19th. Nordic nations again dominated the list, with Norway, Finland, and Sweden also near the top. Ireland, the UK, Germany, and Spain did well, but France plummeted into the 40s because of its lack of women in political power. The list also factors in education, health, and jobs. More details at Fox or the Guardian. |
Kabul Blast Kills 4 Near US Embassy | (Nov 27, 2008 3:48 AM) At least four Afghans were killed when a suicide car bomber struck 200 yards outside the American embassy in Kabul this morning, AP reports. The embassy said none of its personnel was injured in the blast, which happened as Americans and other Westerners were entering the embassy compound for a Thanksgiving fun run. The bomber was apparently targeting a NATO convoy. I was about 30 or 40 yards inside the gate. There was a large explosion. I felt the shock wave, said an aid worker from Virginia. We were about 200 yards from the blast when it went off, but we were behind the embassy wall and that protected us. The man said he had been warned to expect tighter security on Thanksgiving. |
2 Men With HIV Are Off Drugs, Seem Virus-Free | (Jul 3, 2013 7:43 AM CDT) The two men who saw HIV seemingly vanish from their blood after getting bone marrow transplants to treat their blood cancer are still apparently virus-free and feeling great —weeks after they stopped taking anti-retroviral drugs. Researchers gave the encouraging update today at the International AIDS Society Conference in Malaysia, but doctors are being careful not to use the word cured, since the men have been off drugs a relatively short period of time: seven and 15 weeks, respectively. If these patients are able to stay without detectable HIV for at least a year, maybe a year and a half, after we stop treatment, then the chances of the virus coming back are very small, a lead researcher tells AFP. Their blood is being tested weekly, and even their intestinal tissue, where HIV seemingly hides, has been tested, the Boston Globe reports. But HIV could still be hiding in the brain, gut, or lymph nodes, warns the study leader. Of course, as the New York Times puts it, the news is of no practical use to most of the people suffering from HIV around the world. The transplant procedure is extremely dangerous, and can only be ethically used on someone already at risk of dying from blood cancer. (In fact, the third patient in the study died after his cancer returned.) Even so, the results are encouraging, and could inform attempts to genetically re-engineer HIV patients' cells; two teams are apparently working on this. The case is similar to that of Timothy Ray Brown, who was apparently cured of HIV following a bone marrow transplant, but he had leukemia (these patients had Hodgkin's lymphoma) and he received marrow containing a mutation that protects against HIV (these patients did not). More encouraging news from the conference: The HIV-positive baby who was put on anti-retrovirals when she was just days old is still free of the virus, 15 months after stopping treatment. |
Frenchwoman Admits Smothering Her 8 Newborns | (Jul 29, 2010 3:31 PM CDT) A 47-year-old woman in France faces homicide charges after admitting that she killed eight of her own newborn babies and hid them at two separate residences, the BBC reports. Dominique Cottrez told police that her husband never knew because she has always been overweight. He has not been charged. The couple have two grown daughters, and Cottrez said she didn't want anymore children, so she buried the bodies after giving birth alone. The daughters, ages 21 and 22, professed bewilderment to a local paper. We never noticed anything, said the younger one. She had her moments of weariness, it's true, but she worked nearly 24 hours a day between her job as a home help and her housework. The older one said her mother was present at the birth of her grandson. She was there at the delivery with me. She was the one who carried him and wrapped him. We both had tears in our eyes. |
Guy Nears 3M Miles in 1966 Volvo | (Jul 9, 2012 1:23 PM CDT) It just keeps going, and going, and going, and no, it's not a battery: It's Irvin Gordon's 1966 Volvo P1800S. Gordon's small, red two-door has well more than 2 million miles on the odometer, the equivalent of nearly 1,176 times around the globe. The retired schoolteacher from Long Island hopes to reach the 3 million-mile mark by next year—and he only has 34,000 miles to go. The 72-year-old bought the car in 1966 for $4,150, when he was 25, and has been taking it on road trips ever since. It took him 21 years to reach the first million miles and 15 more years to reach 2 million. He averages 85,000 to 100,000 miles per year. Most of his trips are for auto shows, but he also takes trips across the country just for a good cup of coffee. The engine has been rebuilt twice, but is still original, and Gordon has held the Guinness World Records mark for High Mileage Vehicle since 2002 (he was the first person to hold that record). He thinks that his Volvo will last way longer than 3 million miles: I have a feeling I'll be dead long before the car, he says. |
Spielbergs Give $100K to Bolster Gay Marriage | (Sep 24, 2008 1:38 PM CDT) Steven Spielberg has weighed in to the tune of $100,000 against the gay marriage ban on California’s ballot this fall, the AP reports. Spielberg and his wife join Brad Pitt—who gave the same amount last week—as major celebrity opponents of the ban. The couple says the ban is discriminatory and has no place in California’s constitution, or any other. |
Parents Must Pay Tuition for Estranged Daughter, 21 | (Nov 14, 2014 7:41 AM) New Jersey's Caitlyn Ricci appeared to take inspiration from Rachel Canning when she sued her parents for college tuition earlier this year—but Ricci won. The 21-year-old hasn't spoken to her divorced parents, Michael Ricci and Maura McGarvey, since February 2013, when she moved out of her mother's home and in with her paternal grandparents. Those grandparents are the ones who paid for her lawyer, 6ABC reports. The judge cited a New Jersey legal precedent that states divorced parents bear responsibility for their child's college education, regardless of that child's age, in ordering the parents to pay $16,000 toward Ricci's tuition at Pennsylvania's Temple University in this and future years. The parents haven't paid and are appealing. When he ruled that way, I said there is no way she is getting anything from me until we establish some kind of a relationship again, Ricci's dad says. Her mom has plenty to say, by way of a lengthy blog post titled The Age of Entitlement, in which she describes Ricci as a teen who often drank (and was kicked out of the Disney College Program for drinking) and who chose to move out instead of following their rules, which included that she work, do chores, and register for summer school: The court did not seem to care that ... we told her repeatedly that we simply cannot afford out-of-state tuition. Ricci's lawyer tells a different story, saying that the nicest thing her parents have said about their child is that she's a spoiled brat. He claims McGarvey kicked her out and tells the Washington Post Ricci desperately wants her family back. (In other tuition news, we've overlooked a major student-debt problem.) |
Georgian Woman Claims She's 130 | (Jul 8, 2010 5:23 PM CDT) A woman in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia claims to have turned 130 today, making her the world's oldest person. Georgian officials back her up and say Antisa Khvichava was born on July 8, 1880. Her birth certificate is long gone, but she has Soviet-era documents that confirm her age, says a government spokesman. Since retiring from her job as a corn picker in 1965, she has lived with her grandson in a country house in their small mountain village, the Sun reports. I've always been healthy, and I've worked all my life—at home and at the farm, Khvichava told the AP through an interpreter. The Gerontology Research Group currently holds a French 114-year-old to be the oldest person and said it had yet to examine Khvichava's case. |
4 Stabbed in Toronto Office Building | (Apr 9, 2014 11:48 AM CDT) A second stabbing incident with multiple victims is making headlines today. Police in Toronto say a man stabbed three men and a woman inside an office building, reports the CBC. Two of the victims, including the woman, have life-threatening injuries, reports the Globe and Mail. All worked for human resources company Ceridian. Former employee Chuang Li, 47, has been arrested, though a motive remains unclear. The Toronto Sun reports that the assailant used a pair of scissors. |
Women Live 10 Years Longer by Quitting at Age 30 | (Oct 27, 2012 5:35 PM CDT) Women who stop smoking by age 30 will enjoy huge health benefits and add about 10 years to their life, according to a new study. Those who quit by age 30 still lose roughly a month, and 40-year-olds lose about a year, but smoking into middle age is particularly deadly—even for those who don't light up often, the BBC reports. Stopping works, amazingly well actually, says Sir Richard Peto, lead researcher of the Oxford study. Smoking kills, stopping works, and the earlier you stop the better. The study looked at 1.2 million women who picked up smoking in the 1950s and 60s—the first generation to smoke as much as men. Only now can researchers observe the long-term effects of smoking on women, which, it turns out, are the same as on men. But experts say the study doesn't give women license to puff away in their 20s, for smoking can still age skin prematurely and affect fertility and pregnancy. The best thing for your health is to avoid smoking at all, says the head of the British Lung Foundation. |
Dow Surges 165 | (Nov 2, 2015 3:20 PM) Stocks posted solid gains Monday, adding to last month's big advances and pushing the Dow Jones industrial average into positive territory for 2015. Several companies moved on news, including Chipotle Mexican Grill, and Visa. Health care stocks were among the winners as drugmakers Pfizer and AbbVie climbed, while energy stocks rose sharply in a late-day rally. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 165.22 points, or 0.9%, to 17,828.76. The gain made the Dow the last of the three major US market indexes to return to positive territory for 2015. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 24.69 points, or 1.2%, to 2,104.05 and the Nasdaq composite rose 73.40 points, or 1.5%, to 5,127.15. Health-care stocks continued to rally. Drug giant Pfizer rose $1.24, or 3.7%, to $35.05, the second-biggest gain in the Dow. The shares slumped late last week on word Pfizer is in talks to buy competitor Allergan. AbbVie, which surged 10% Friday on strong third-quarter results, climbed $3.83, or 6.4%, to $63.38 after analysts at Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock. Health-care stocks gained 2%, nearly twice as much as the broader S&P 500 index. Energy stocks rose even more, 2.4%. Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Chesapeake Energy, and others rose 3% or more. |
15-Year-Old Terrorist in UK Gets Life Sentence | (Oct 2, 2015 11:25 AM CDT) A 15-year-old British boy was sentenced Friday to at least five years in custody for organizing a terrorist plot to kill police officers in Australia. Judge John Saunders said the teenager, who can't be named because of his age, would be released only when he was no longer a danger to the public. He handed down a life sentence with no chance of parole for five years. Prosecutors say the boy planned the attack from his suburban bedroom in Blackburn, northwestern England, inspired by the Islamic State. He sent thousands of online messages to 18-year-old Australian Sevdet Besim, developing a plot to run over or behead police officers at a war memorial parade in Melbourne. The teenager, who was 14 when he was arrested in April, admitted inciting terrorism and is one of Britain's youngest convicted terrorists. Besim is awaiting trial in Australia. Passing sentence at Manchester Crown Court, Saunders said it was chilling that a 14-year-old could become so radicalized that he wanted to kill. He said older recruiters had groomed the boy online, turning him into a deeply committed radical extremist. Thanks to the intervention of the police in this country and in Australia, that attack and the deaths which were intended to follow never happened, the judge said. |
Elin Hires Top Lawyer for $284M Divorce | (Dec 18, 2009 6:59 AM) Elin Nordegren didn’t just get herself any old lawyer—she’s reportedly hired Hollywood's superstar divorce guru Sorrell Trope, and is gearing up to go after nearly $284 million. Trope, whose clients range from Cary Grant to Hugh Grant, specializes in very high-asset, high-income divorces, an expert tells the New York Daily News, and Elin likely brought him onboard to negotiate a sum on top of her prenup, in light of Tiger’ extramarital mahem. Just how much more money? Sources tell the Mirror she plans to score half of Tiger’s fortune, or about $283.9 million, adding that she told friends, divorce is 100% on. Woods could recoup some of that money by taking on a new sponsor—a New York strip club offered the golfer a $1 million endorsement deal, OK! reports. |
6 More Air France Bodies Found | (Jun 13, 2009 5:58 AM CDT) Six more bodies from Air France Flight 447 have been found, bringing the total to 50 even as authorities contemplate an end date for the search, the AP reports. Warm ocean water in the search area will speed up the sinking of bodies and attract feeding marine life, experts note, and the signal from the plane’s flight recorders begins to fade after 30 days. The Brazilian military has set June 25 as the tentative end date for its search operations, and will meet every two days beginning Monday to determine whether to keep looking—a decision that will be based on whether any new debris or bodies have been found. Bad weather in the region continues to hamper search efforts. |
Dow Falls 23 Before Fed Meeting | (Oct 26, 2015 3:20 PM CDT) Stocks are closing mostly lower as traders look ahead to a busy week of corporate earnings and a Federal Reserve meeting. Xerox slumped 3% Monday after its quarterly revenue missed analysts' estimates. The company said it would review its business and spending plans. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 23 points, or 0.1%, to 17,623. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell four points, or 0.2%, to 2,071. The Nasdaq composite inched up two points, or 0.1%, to 5,030. Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.06%. |
2 Boys Vanish Aboard Fishing Boat | (Jul 26, 2015 11:16 AM CDT) On Friday afternoon, Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen bought $110 worth of gas for their 19-foot fishing boat and set off from Jupiter, Fla., in the direction of the Bahamas, in what NBC News reports is the last sighting of the two 14-year-olds. The two boys were reported missing when they failed to return that evening, reports WPBF, and the US Coast Guard says it has since searched nearly 15,000 square nautical miles for the pair. The boys' families don't believe they would have tried to reach the Bahamas; the AP notes that neighbor Joe Namath is offering a $100,000 reward. The commitment (of the US Coast Guard) has been fantastic, Perry's stepdad tells WPBF. A Coast Guard rep says the boys were ill-equipped to be out overnight, and that the search has shifted north in the belief that their boat is disabled and drifting. |
El Nino Is Looking Scarily Like 1997's El Nino | (Dec 31, 2015 9:10 AM) The El Nino weather system of 1997-98 was so bad that descriptions of it sound like something out of a Ben Affleck disaster movie: Australia turned into a slow cooker, California and Peru were pummeled with rain, and there were rampant fires in Indonesia; around 23,000 people perished from the combined effects around the world, per NBC News. Now NASA is warning that this year's El Nino could be just as bad, if not worse, with a Dec. 27 satellite image of sea surface heights indicating there could be severe droughts, floods, and other weather events that could cause humanitarian emergencies, NBC reports. The El Nino weather system could leave tens of millions of people facing hunger, water shortages, and disease next year if early action isn't taken to prepare vulnerable people from its effects, Oxfam says in a press release. The worst of what the Smithsonian calls a menacingly familiar system is expected to start affecting the US in early 2016, NASA says, with a Weather Channel producer telling NBC the system could produce a wetter and stormier California, as well as extreme weather on the East Coast. (It's even worse than we originally thought.) |
Alaska Town to Vanish by 2017 | (May 14, 2013 9:06 AM CDT) When it comes to the fate of the 350 residents of Newtok, Alaska, the Guardian pulls no punches: Exile is inevitable, it writes. That's because their coastal village, located some 480 miles west of Anchorage, is in the process of being washed into the Bering Sea. As the Guardian explains in an in-depth look at the town, the Ninglick River flows past three of Newtok's sides on its path to the sea, and it's been chipping away at the village at a rate that's only grown more aggressive due to climate change (more than 100 feet of shoreline gone some years), which has been linked to melting permafrost and dwindling protective sea ice. The US Army Corps of Engineers surveyed the village, and offered no break to the gloom: It concluded that seawalls or other protective measures wouldn't work, and that Newtok's highest point could be underwater in just four years, by 2017. The villagers must leave (a tribal administrator tells Alaska Public Radio relocation has been a major town talking point for the last three decades), leading the Guardian to dub them America's first climate change refugees. The villagers selected a new site nine miles away, but moving the town there could cost $130 million, and relocation efforts have yet to truly get off the ground. And while Newtok may be first to disappear, it likely won't be last: A decade-old GAO report found 184 Native villages in Alaska could be at risk. |
Big Banks Had 800K Needless Foreclosures | (Sep 16, 2012 10:36 AM CDT) The big banks moved sluggishly to implement the Obama administration's Home Affordable Modification Program, forcing hundreds of thousands of families out of their home unnecessarily, according to a new study. Office of the Comptroller of Currency data indicates that while many banks had sufficient staff and expertise to implement the program and keep people in their homes, a few large servicers [have offered] modifications at half the rate of others, Pro Publica reports. If those bigger lenders had modified loans at the same pace as the rest, about 800,000 more families could have kept their homes, bringing the number of modifications up from 1.2 million to 2 million. The HAMP gave banks money to encourage them to modify loans, but Pro Publica alleges that lax Treasury oversight allowed the banks to ignore its rules. Though the report doesn't specifically name offenders, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, and JPMorgan Chase are the biggest mortgage servicers. Bank of America in particular has been notoriously slow to modify. |
Zambrano Throws No-Hitter as Cubs Beat Astros 5-0 | (Sep 14, 2008 10:11 PM CDT) Carlos Zambrano pitched the first no-hitter for the Chicago Cubs in 36 years, returning from a recent bout of rotator cuff soreness to shut down the Houston Astros 5-0 tonight in a game relocated because of Hurricane Ike. The storm forced two games of the series to be moved from Texas to Miller Park, home of the Milwaukee Brewers. Zambrano, known for his emotional displays on the mound, kept himself in control until striking out Darin Erstad to finish his gem. The big right-hander dropped to his knees and pointed to the sky with both hands after getting Erstad to swing and miss. Zambrano (14-5) was immediately mobbed on the mound by his teammates. The crowd of mostly Cubs fans erupted in a wild ovation after chanting Let's go Z! throughout the final inning. |
Phillies Edge Rays 5-4 to Take Lead in Series | (Oct 26, 2008 1:16 AM CDT) It took a while, but the Phillies finally beat Tampa Bay in the wee hours to take a 2-1 lead in the World Series. Carlos Ruiz hit an infield single—a trickler down the third-base line—with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth as Philly outlasted the Rays, 5-4. The game didn't begin until 10:06pm because of a rain delay, and it didn't end until 1:47am. Ruiz, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard homered for the Phils. Rays reliever JP Howell hit Eric Bruntlett with a pitch to start the ninth. Enter Grant Balfour, who threw a wild pitch that caromed off the backstop to catcher Dioner Navarro, whose throw trying to get Bruntlett skipped into center field. With Bruntlett on third, the Rays issued two intentional walks. Ruiz followed with a nubber down the line. Third-baseman Evan Longoria dove for the ball, then rushed an underhanded flip home that sailed over Navarro's head. Game over. |
Norway Cruise Ship Catches Fire; 2 Dead | (Sep 15, 2011 8:20 AM CDT) Rescue crews evacuated a cruise ship carrying 262 passengers off the coast of Norway today, after a fire broke out on board. At least two people are dead, police tell the AP, and four others are missing. The first 106 evacuees were taken to shore on lifeboats, but the rest simply disembarked when the ship reached harbor in Alesund. Six people were taken to the hospital, and officials say at least two have serious burns and smoke injuries. The company operating the ship says crews are searching it to ensure it's been fully evacuated. |
17-Year-Old: I Caused Twitter Meltdown | (Sep 22, 2010 11:57 AM CDT) Remember the mouseover bug that sent unwitting Twitter users to Japanese porn sites yesterday? Well, it was caused by a 17-year-old Australian schoolboy. Pearce Delphin says he was the first one to try the mouseover trick. I did it merely to see if it could be done ... that JavaScript really could be executed within a tweet, he confessed to the AFP. But hackers quickly adapted the idea, and created replicating worm tweets. The viruses wound up ensnaring the likes of Robert Gibbs and Sarah Brown, wife of ex-British PM Gordon Brown. Before long, the Netcraft security service tracked the code back to Delphin. At the time of posting the tweet, I had no idea it was going to take off how it did, Delphin said. I just hadn't even considered it. ... Hopefully, I won't get into trouble. |
Robber Drops ID Card, Gets 12 Years | (Oct 16, 2014 12:33 PM CDT) It was the perfect crime, except for the part where Malcolm Thomas tripped on his way out of the gas station he had just robbed while running with the register tray. A witness saw him fall, and when police searched the spot, the Southwest Times Record details what they found: a large amount of change, a pack of condoms, and Thomas’ state-issued identification card. It was that last one that did him in, and the 21-year-old got sentenced to 12 years in prison yesterday in Sebastian County Circuit Court in Arkansas. It did not help his case that when police were tracking him down, his cousin asked, Who did he rob this time? (Click to read about how vanity led to the arrest of an Ohio woman accused of robbery. |
Dow Off 107 on Weak Data | (Jun 16, 2009 3:27 PM CDT) Stocks fell further today as markets absorbed more poor economic data, the Wall Street Journal reports. National industrial production fell 1.1% in May, the Federal Reserve announced. The Dow Jones producer-price index rose only 0.2% in May, short of the expected 0.6% increase. The Dow lost 107.46 to close at 8,505.67. The Nasdaq fell 20.20, closing at 1,796.18, and the S&P dropped 11.75 to settle at 911.97. |
Syrian Bomber Kills Himself, Injures 12 in Germany | (Jul 25, 2016 12:39 AM CDT) Police in the southern German city of Ansbach say a man killed himself and injured 12 others Sunday night when he blew himself up after being turned away from an open-air music festival, the AP reports. He was a 27-year-old Syrian who had been denied asylum, Bavaria's top security official says. We don't know if this man planned on suicide or if he had the intention of killing others, Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann told reporters, adding that the man's request for asylum was rejected a year ago, but he was allowed to remain in Germany because of the strife in Syria. Three of the 12 victims suffered serious injuries, Herrmann says. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Ansbach says the attacker's motive wasn't clear. If there is an Islamist link or not is purely speculation at this point, he says. The three-day open-air concert was underway, with about 2,500 in attendance, when it was shut down as a precaution after the explosion. Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson was the scheduled performer. Germany—and Bavaria in particular—are on edge after a rampage at a Munich mall on Friday in which nine people were killed and an ax attack on a train near Wuerzburg last Monday in which five people were wounded. Earlier on Sunday in the neighboring state of Baden-Wurttemberg, a machete-wielding Syrian man killed a pregnant woman and injured two other people. |
Sweden's Fairytale Princess Lilian Dead at 97 | (Mar 11, 2013 8:57 AM CDT) Sweden's Princess Lilian, whose transformation from British commoner to royal lover captivated the country, has died at 97, the AP reports. Born in Wales, Lilian Davies met Sweden's Prince Bertil at a British nightclub in 1943, while he was stationed in the UK. After an air raid near her London home, he went to her aid in his car; they fell in love, but Bertil's father barred them from getting married after an elder brother's death put the royal line at risk. Still, they quietly moved in together. For years, they shared homes in France and Stockholm in a common-law marriage, while Lilian grew popular with the Swedish people. It wasn't until 1976 that the two were finally married, with the approval of new king Carl XVI Gustaf. By then, they were in their 60s, the BBC notes. If I were to sum up my life, everything has been about my love, Lilian said in 1995. |
Excruciating World Record: A 5-Hour-Plus Plank | (Jun 1, 2015 9:58 AM CDT) George Hood has been breaking world records for 30 years, starting in 1986 when he jumped his way into Guinness by skipping rope for more than 13 hours, per NBC San Diego. Now the 57-year-old ex-Marine (and ex-DEA agent, and personal trainer, and group exercise instructor) has another athletic feat under his belt: the People's Plank, a five-hour, 15-minute, and 15-second plank that he pulled off on Saturday in Oceanside, Calif. Hood's abdominal bridge—resting on your forearms in a push-up position for as long as you can—beat the record of four hours, 26 minutes set by a Chinese police officer in September. To put those times in context: The San Diego Union-Tribune notes that a typical plank is one minute; a greater challenge for most people would be five minutes. Hood trained for nine months—four to six hours a day, with at least 30 hours of planking thrown in every week, NBC notes. During his record attempt, Hood asked for as many distractions as possible: He chatted with the support crew there to place ice chips under his achy elbows, concentrated on music blaring from the loudspeakers, and studied objects that spectators placed on the mat in front of him. One thing he didn't focus on was time: No one was to tell him how much longer he had until he broke the record, per the Union-Tribune. Hood's world record wasn't only meant to reassert his planking powers (he had held the record before Mao Weidong beat it last fall): He was also there to raise money for injured US service members. The discomfort that I feel right now pales in comparison to [what] they feel, he told NBC. (Read about more unusual world records.) |
21 People Shot Last Night in Chicago | (Jul 5, 2014 2:34 PM CDT) A major spate of gun violence has taken Chicago this weekend, with 36 people shot so far, the Chicago Tribune reports. In just 11 hours last night, 21 people were shot, with attacks focused in the South and West sides. Several shooting victims were in serious condition; CBS Chicago reports one death, noting that there have been no charges so far in the attacks. Most of the shooting victims were young; they include at least three teens. Three people were shot by police, the Tribune notes, and those shootings are being reviewed. |