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Anonymous Bidder Buys German Village for Under $165K

(Dec 9, 2017 1:25 PM) An anonymous buyer just purchased an entire German village over the phone for less than $165,000, AFP reports. The mystery person was the only bidder in an auction for the village of Alwine on Saturday. Alwine—an embodiment of the failure of what was once East Germany to match the prosperity of the West—boasts a dozen or so decaying buildings and a population of 20. According to Fortune, all but one family in the village are retired. Prior to reunification, the village 75 miles south of Berlin was owned by a coal briquette plant, which closed in 1991, leading many residents to seek out jobs elsewhere. Alwine was bought by two brothers in 2000, but they had little luck changing its fortunes. The mayor of the district containing Alwine says he wants the village's new owner to see how we can try to develop something here, in collaboration with the people, and not against them.

'Hermit' on His 27 Years of Isolation: 'It's a Mystery'

(Mar 16, 2017 4:30 PM CDT) When he was 20 years old, an introverted young man named Christopher Knight hopped in his car with a tent and backpack, drove into the most remote reaches of Maine, and, without knowing where he was going, with no particular place in mind, he stepped into the trees and walked away. In an excerpt in the Guardian from his newly published book, The Stranger in the Woods, Michael Finkel tells Knight's incredible tale of nearly three decades living in the wilderness, including how he purposely tried to become lost in the woods (not as easy as it sounds) and how he perfected his survival skills as he went along. But because he wanted to be unconditionally alone, Knight had to make some ethical concessions when it came to eating—meaning he had to start to steal. Knight put the same meticulous study into his new life of crime as he did in building shelters and foraging in the forest. Sometimes he'd lie low for hours to make sure a target location was safe. I enjoy being in the dark, he says. He was so good at what he did that his victims felt begrudging respect for the spotless crime scenes he left behind. His life alone finally ended after 27 years when he was caught and arrested for burglary and theft while trying to scoop up food from a camp. Locals couldn't wait to hear what the hermit had to say about his time alone, how he survived, and why he left in the first place back in the '80s. Knight has thought long and hard about that last question, and after ruling out religious, artistic, or anti-modern society reasons, he simply says: It's a mystery. The rest of Knight's incredible survival tale here. (A woman lived deep in the Siberian wilderness for decades.)

NYC's War on Rats Will Cost It $32M

(Jul 12, 2017 7:30 PM CDT) New York City has announced a $32 million, multi-agency plan to reduce the rat population, which is estimated to number roughly 2 million and has included the likes of pizza rat. Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday the plan will target rats in the Grand Concourse area of the Bronx; Chinatown, the East Village and the Lower East Side in Manhattan; and the Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant areas of Brooklyn. The goal, per NBC New York: up to a 70% drop in the rat population in those areas. By September, the city will start installing solar compactors with rat-resistant openings and replacing wire waste baskets with steel cans, reports the AP. It also plans to cement basement floors in public housing, where some floors are currently dirt ones, notes Gothamist. Proposed legislation would regulate the hours garbage could be left at the curb, and increase fines for illegal dumping. It doesn't take much to sustain a rat, Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia notes: They can survive on an ounce of food daily. In February, health officials said one person had died and two others were severely sickened in a Bronx neighborhood due to a rare disease transmitted by rats.

Winter Is Coming, and 2 States Are Dreaming of a New Time Zone

(Oct 26, 2017 1:00 PM CDT) In his first winter in Massachusetts after moving from Washington, DC, Tom Emswiler's heart sank along with the sun at the unconscionably early hour of 4:11pm. You can imagine my horror, the public health advocate tells NBC News. Now Emswiler is part of a commission studying the possibility of moving Massachusetts from the Eastern time zone to the Atlantic time zone, currently home to Puerto Rico and a number of eastern Canadian provinces, the Wall Street Journal reports. The change would add a fifth time zone to the contiguous US. Advocates say the switch, which would also do away with the twice-a-year daylight saving time switch, could boost the economy by keeping sunlight lovers in state and out shopping later, have public health benefits, and reduce crime. Even supporters of the plan admit Massachusetts wouldn't be able to go it alone. To succeed, most of New England—and potentially New York—would have to make the switch, too, to lessen confusion for financial markets, TV schedules, and travelers. Maine, at least, appears to be on board. A bill recently passed the state legislature that would allow residents to vote on joining the Atlantic time zone and do away with daylight saving time, as long as Massachusetts and New Hampshire did the same, Quartz reports. Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? asks state Rep. Donna Bailey, who introduced the bill, regarding another dark winter in New England. There are, of course, potential drawbacks besides increased time-zone confusion. For one, schools would likely have to push start times back to keep kids who aren't fully awake from walking to school in the dark.

Hiker Pinned by Falling 1.5K-Pound Boulder

(Apr 6, 2017 7:45 PM CDT) It took hours, but a 30-year-old female hiker was rescued Wednesday afternoon after being hit and pinned by a 1,500-pound rock at North Table Mountain Park in Golden, Colo. The woman and a male companion were hiking to an area where they were going to mountain climb when the man heard a large crack, a spokesperson for the Golden Fire Department tells the Denver Post. He looked up and saw the boulder start to fall from 30 feet above; it just barely missed him, the spokesperson says. The rock, which was about 5 feet by 4 feet, per the Golden Transcript, was moving too fast for the woman to get out of the way, struck her, and pinned her legs underneath it. About 10 emergency agencies were involved in the rescue; rescue crews and ATVs had to hike a hydraulic system and airbags to the woman, who was about an hour from the trailhead. It took more than two hours to free her, and then rescuers carried her 45 minutes to a helicopter at the top of the mountain that took her to the hospital. Though she was critically injured—she had multiple fractures and was unconscious during the rescue—the fire department says her vital signs were fairly good. As the Post explains, rockslides are a fairly typical occurrence during the temperature changes involved in the freeze-thaw cycle in the spring. The woman, a European who was in Colorado for a conference, is expected to survive, per the Denver Channel.

Astros Win Game 7, Head to World Series

(Oct 21, 2017 10:37 PM CDT) Charlie Morton and Lance McCullers combined for a three-hitter, Jose Altuve and Evan Gattis homered and the Houston Astros reached the World Series, blanking the New York Yankees 4-0 Saturday night in Game 7 of the AL Championship Series, the AP reports. Just four years removed from their third straight 100-loss season in 2013, the Astros shut down the Yankees for two straight games after dropping three in a row in the Bronx. Next up for the Astros: Game 1 of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night. Houston aces Dallas Keuchel and Justin Verlander will have plenty of rest, too, before the matchup begins at Dodger Stadium.

6 Juveniles Shot in Cleveland; 1 Is Dead

(Nov 25, 2017 7:00 AM) Cleveland police are trying to figure what led to a Friday shooting that left one juvenile dead and five others wounded. The victims ranged in age from 12 to 16, and the identity of the age of the youth who was killed was not released, reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer. At this point, about all police know is that the group of juveniles encountered another group Friday evening and gunfire erupted. No arrests have been made.

2-Foot-Long Cobra Is on the Loose in Florida

(Mar 14, 2017 1:23 PM CDT) If you're in the area around Ocala, Fla., watch out: A pet cobra escaped from its home Monday night and a search has been launched. Per First Coast News, police and the state Fish and Wildlife Commission are urging residents to use caution until the 2-foot-long snake is found—cobras are highly venomous, and though they normally keep to themselves, they will attack if they feel threatened. Anyone who spots the missing snake is to stay away, but call the FWC's Wildlife Alert Hotline. Per Ocala.com, the snake's owner thinks one of his large lizards may have eaten the snake, but X-rays of the lizard's stomach are so far inconclusive.

First Time's the Charm for 2016 Rock Hall

(Dec 20, 2016 8:37 AM) The late rapper Tupac Shakur and Seattle-based rockers Pearl Jam lead a class of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees that also includes folkie Joan Baez and 1970s favorites Journey, Yes, and Electric Light Orchestra. While Shakur, Baez, Pearl Jam, and ELO were elected this year in their first time on the ballot, disco-era band Chic failed again to make the cut after its 11th time nominated, reports the AP. However, the rock hall says it will give a special award to Chic songwriter and guitarist Nile Rodgers, who later became one of the hottest producers in the business, behind some of the '80s most indelible albums, including David Bowie's Let's Dance and Madonna's Like a Virgin. Former Journey singer Steve Perry, estranged from the band for many years, offers some potential rock hall drama: Will he show up for his induction? Founding member Neal Schon was quoted in Billboard recently saying that there are so many non-rock artists in the hall that I don't really care about being there. He did allow that it would be nice for fans of the band, never a critical favorite. The hall's 32nd annual induction ceremony will take place on April 7 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. HBO will show highlights later, with SiriusXM doing a radio broadcast.

Lawmaker Cries After Missing 1st Vote in 6 Years

(Mar 11, 2017 6:34 AM) Rep. Justin Amash was proud of his voting record in the House and rightly so: The Michigan Republican didn't miss a vote for more than six years after taking office in 2011, but his perfect streak ended at 4,289 on Friday when he accidentally missed a vote while talking to reporters, the Hill reports. When Amash realized he had failed to notice a roll call, he raced inside the House chamber but was told voting had already finished. Politico reports that Amash asked House leadership if the vote could be reopened but was told there was no precedent for doing so. He broke down in tears when he realized the streak was over. Amash, a House Freedom Caucus member who had often boasted about his perfect record, missed the vote because he had become engrossed in a conversation about his objections to the ObamaCare replacement bill, though he did pause 10 minutes in to check whether he needed to cast a vote, reports the Hill. Rep. Steve Womack, a Republican from Arkansas, now has the longest voting streak, with 4,294. He issued a statement Friday saying he is humbled by the opportunity to serve his constituents and thanks God that no personal hardships have kept me from representing them on a single vote since taking office.

Yahoo: Actually, All 3B Accounts Were Affected in 2013 Breach

(Oct 3, 2017 5:28 PM CDT) Yahoo has tripled down on what was already the largest data breach in history, saying it affected all 3 billion of its users, not the 1 billion it revealed late last year, the AP reports. The company announced Tuesday that it's providing notice to additional user accounts affected by the August 2013 data theft. The breach was previously disclosed by the company in December. Following its acquisition by Verizon in June, Yahoo says, it obtained new intelligence while investigating the breach with help from outside forensic experts. It says the stolen customer information did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or bank account information.

Flaming Lips Smash Record With 8 Gigs in 24 Hours

(Jun 29, 2012 3:19 AM CDT) The Flaming Lips have rocked their way into the record books by playing eight gigs in eight cities in the space of 24 hours, toppling Jay-Z's record of seven. The veteran psychedelic rockers from Oklahoma kicked off the tour with a gig in Memphis and finished up in New Orleans with 20 minutes to spare, StarPulse reports. Stars including Jackson Browne and Grace Potter joined the band for duets along the way. The tour was more about the fans than getting into the Guinness Book of World Records, frontman Wayne Coyne says—but he's happy to have broken the record. To be published alongside the man who ate 22 pounds of his own boogers, beside the woman with the longest toenails, or perhaps even to be published beside an individual who has had maybe 1,000 cockroaches stuffed into their ears ... that, to me, would be one of life's absurd joys, he says.

Monster Truck Wreck Kills 8

(Oct 6, 2013 5:45 AM CDT) An official says an out-of-control monster truck has shot into a crowd of spectators at a Mexican air show, killing eight and hurting dozens. Carlos Gonzalez, spokesman for the Chihuahua state prosecutors' office, said the driver appeared to have lost control of the truck after leaping an obstacle during a demonstration at the Extreme Aeroshow yesterday. He said the accident killed a child and five adults and seriously hurt 40 people. Gonzalez said prosecutors were looking into the possibility of a mechanical failure that left the driver unable to release the gas pedal. The air show was canceled after the accident.

One-Person Firm Got $156M FEMA Deal. It Didn't End Well

(Feb 6, 2018 4:38 PM) Another government contract to provide relief to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria is coming under scrutiny. The reasons, as spelled out in the New York Times, are pretty clear: FEMA awarded a one-woman company out of Atlanta—a firm that had zero experience in large-scale disasters—a $156 million contract to provide 30 million meals. FEMA canceled the contract 20 days later, having received only 50,000 of the 18.5 million meals that were due at the time. Still, Tribute Company, owned by entrepreneur Tiffany Brown, was paid $255,000 for those 50,000 meals, reports CNBC. Brown is now seeking a $70 million settlement for termination of the contract, while the two subcontractors she hired might sue her for breach of contract. It is difficult to fathom how FEMA could have believed that this tiny company had the capacity to perform this $156 million contract, wrote Democratic Reps. Elijah Cummings and Stacey Plaskett in a letter to Trey Gowdy, chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. They want the House panel to subpoena FEMA for all related documents. The Times story suggests that Brown didn't win the contract because of political favoritism but rather because she is adept at working the government contract system. She described herself to the newspaper as almost like a broker in that respect. However, she has five previous contract terminations on her record, albeit for much smaller jobs.

Old Vic Has Gotten 20 'Personal Testimonies' Against Spacey

(Nov 16, 2017 7:04 AM) London's Old Vic theater provided a confidential email address that could be used by anyone who had an allegation of sexual harassment or assault by Kevin Spacey, who served as artistic director there from 2004 to 2015. On Thursday the theater revealed that it has thus far accumulated 20 personal testimonies of alleged misbehavior that occurred through 2013, though all but two occurred prior to 2009, reports the Guardian. In a statement, the Old Vic expressed that a cult of personality around Spacey caused those making the allegations to stay silent at the time; of the 20, only one raised the issue formally or informally with management at the time.

Manhunt Underway After 7-Year-Old, 3 Adults Murdered

(Oct 13, 2017 12:09 AM CDT) A 7-year-old boy was shot dead and his body apparently hidden in a home where three adults were found fatally shot and a fourth was stabbed, a sheriff said Thursday as a manhunt for the suspect focused on a wooded area near Ohio's southern tip. Authorities had issued a missing-child alert after the slayings and spent hours searching for Devin Holston only to find the child dead Thursday at the same house trailer where the bodies were found, the AP reports. The suspect, 23-year-old Aaron Lawson, is being sought on warrants for charges including aggravated murder, Lawrence County Sheriff Jeffery Lawless said.

Starbucks: We're Hiring 10K Refugees

(Jan 30, 2017 2:46 AM) Starbucks says it will hire 10,000 refugees over the next five years, a response to President Trump's indefinite suspension of Syrian refugees and temporary travel bans that apply to six other Muslim-majority nations. Howard Schultz, the coffee retailer's chairman and CEO, said in a letter to employees Sunday that the hiring would apply to stores worldwide and the effort would start in the United States, where the focus would be on hiring immigrants who have served with US troops as interpreters and support personnel, the AP reports. Schultz took aim at other parts of a Trump agenda focused on immigration, repealing ObamaCare, and restructuring trade with Mexico. The letter said that Starbucks would help support coffee growers in Mexico, provide health insurance to eligible workers if the health care law is repealed, and back an Obama-era immigration program that allows young immigrants who were brought to the country as children to apply for a two-year reprieve from deportation and a work permit. Schultz added that Starbucks would aim to communicate with workers more frequently, saying: I am hearing the alarm you all are sounding that the civility and human rights we have all taken for granted for so long are under attack.

Rock Legend Chuck Berry Dead at Age 90

(Mar 18, 2017 5:32 PM CDT) A sad day for fans of rock and roll: Chuck Berry has died at age 90, reports ABC News. Details are sketchy, but police in St. Charles County, Missouri, responded to a medical emergency at Berry's home Saturday afternoon, but he was unresponsive and could not be revived. Berry first hit the Top 10 in 1955 with Maybellene, and remained a rock fixture from then on. Coming later was the iconic Johnny B. Goode, (watch that one here) and a slew of classics such as Roll Over Beethoven, Sweet Little Sixteen, School Days, Rock and Roll Music, Back in the USA, and Memphis, Tennessee. As Rolling Stone puts it, his rollicking songs, springy guitar riffs and onstage duck walk defined (rock and roll) during its early years and for decades to come. The Washington Post notes that he was not only a seminal figure in rock's early days, he was a rarity in that he wrote, sang, and played his own music. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen are just a few of those who considered him a major influence. In fact, John Lennon once famously said, If you tried to give rock-and-roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry.' The St. Louis native began his musical career at age 15 at a high school review, though his first hit didn't come until his late 20s, notes AP, whose story recounts Berry's multiple run-ins with the law. It also sums up his influence on music this way: While Elvis Presley gave rock its libidinous, hip-shaking image, Berry was the auteur, setting the template for a new sound and way of life. Well before the rise of Bob Dylan, Berry wedded social commentary to the beat and rush of popular music.

Trump: I Want 'Really Great' Parade on July 4

(Sep 19, 2017 3:03 AM CDT) Who doesn't love a parade? To a city that already offers many, President Trump wants to add one that showcases US military might. It would take place on July 4 in Washington with, as Trump envisions it, tanks and planes rolling down and streaking above Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump talked up the idea of a really great parade to show our military strength Monday as he sat down with French President Emmanuel Macron, who hosted the president and first lady Melania Trump for France's military parade in the center of Paris on Bastille Day in July, the AP reports. Trump said the two-hour procession was a tremendous thing for France and for the spirit of France. In typical Trump fashion, the president said he wants the DC parade to be bigger and better than the one he saw in France. It was one of the greatest parades I have ever seen, Trump said. It was two hours on the button, and was military might. And because of what I witnessed, we may do something like that on July 4th in Washington, down Pennsylvania Avenue, Trump said. We're going to have to try and top it. Trump said he has discussed the idea with his chief of staff, John Kelly, a retired Marine general. A State Department spokesman says what will happen is unclear, but Trump was very inspired by the French parade.

It's Baby No. 3 for Kate, William

(Sep 4, 2017 5:03 AM CDT) Prince William and his wife, Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, are expecting their third child, Kensington Palace said Monday. The announcement came as the palace said that Kate was not feeling well enough to attend an engagement later in the day, reports the AP. As with her other two pregnancies, the duchess is suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum, or acute morning sickness; the condition forced the palace to announce Kate's two previous pregnancies before the 12-week mark, notes the BBC. The queen and members of both families are delighted with the news, the palace said in a statement. Kate is being cared for at her Kensington Palace home in London. William and Kate, both 35, already have two children: Prince George, 4, and Princess Charlotte, 2. No details were immediately available about when the third baby is due. The royals have said from the time of their engagement that they wanted to have a family — the only question was how many children they wished for. Royal watchers recorded every aside for clues as to what the plans might be. When asked on a royal tour in Singapore in 2012 about how many children he wanted, William said he was thinking about having two. More recently, during a royal tour of Poland, Kate joked about a third child when given a cuddly toy designed to soothe tiny babies. Kate thanked the well-wisher for the present and turned to William. We will just have to have more babies, she said laughing. Prince George is due to start school this week, notes the BBC's royal correspondent, and while presumably his mother would be keen to take him to that, whether she is going to be well enough to do that remains to be seen.

Tweet Could Send US Woman to Jail for 20 Years

(Nov 10, 2017 6:45 AM) An American woman living in Zimbabwe could face 20 years in prison for subversion over a tweet. According to prosecutors, New Jersey native Martha O'Donovan, 25, tweeted a photo last month of President Robert Mugabe next to a drawing of a catheter and a reference to him being selfish & sick, per the New York Times and Al Jazeera. The tweet came from an anonymous account known to be critical of Zimbabwe's government, but prosecutors say they were crafted by O'Donovan as part of a months-long effort to incite political unrest and replicate offline uprisings like what happened in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011. O'Donovan says those claims are baseless and malicious, per the AP. In granting a $1,000 bail on Thursday, a high court judge appeared to agree. O'Donovan—who works as a project coordinator at Magamba Network, an online news channel known for political satire—has a plausible defense, said judge Clement Phiri, adding he's seen no evidence of a plot to overthrow the government. Though O'Donovan is ordered to stay in Zimbabwe, her lawyer says the hearing was a victory since O'Donovan had spent at least three days in a maximum security prison following her arrest a week ago, while the Twitter account cited by prosecutors remained active. Hers is the first internet abuse case since a ministry designed to monitor cybersecurity was created last month. Some fear it's actually being used to control social media as Mugabe, 93, seeks re-election next year, following a 37-year rule.

How Not to Use a 7-Eleven Microwave

(Jun 1, 2017 11:00 AM CDT) Pity the fool who had to clean up this mess: A microwave blew up inside a 7-Eleven in Beaverton, Ore., on Tuesday, spewing not the remains of pizza or nachos but … urine. Officials believe someone was headed to a drug test with a clean sample of urine bundled up in a hand warmer when they decided to microwave it at 7-Eleven, a police rep tells KATU. Unfortunately, the individual forgot to remove the hand warmer from the sample. As Gizmodo explains, a hand warmer contains iron powder, which is no bueno for a microwave. Police hope to use security tapes to track down the culprit, who fled the scene.

Family Rejects Reported $7M Google Offer for Rundown Farm

(Dec 16, 2016 8:03 AM) Smack in the middle of Googleplex, Google's massive campus in Mountain View, Calif., lies a plot of land less than 1 acre in size and holding a crumbling farmstead—a piece of real estate that Google reportedly wants and that the owning family doesn't want to give up, the Guardian reports. Members of the Martinelli family say the farm is a historic remnant of Silicon Valley's agricultural past, as well as of their own, which included harvesting produce on the farm in the '40s. We don't need the money. Right now it's not for sale, 49-year-old Leonard Martinelli says. The family has reportedly been offered $5 million to $7 million for the property; the Register suggests that could be above market value, and points out two other Mountain View plots of around a half-acre each are on sale for around $2.5 million apiece. The Martinellis don't live on the property themselves (they’ve made it available to what the Guardian describes as a group of eclectic renters ), and some are scoffing at the family clinging to this land-oriented legacy. It's not as if the Golden Era of Mountain View was when it was agricultural, a Mountain View city councilman says. It's an attitude called unfortunate and not surprising by a member of the area's preservation council, who notes, Newcomers have no connection to why we came here except for more jobs. That's it for them. While the youngest members of the Martinelli clan seem most adamant about not selling, Victoria Martinelli, 79, is conflicted, noting that the money could safeguard the grandchildren's financial future. (Google made a huge energy-related announcement earlier this month.)

20% of Kids Killed in Car Crashes Weren't Properly Restrained

(May 23, 2017 7:25 PM CDT) A new study published in the Journal of Pediatrics found ensuring children under 15 are properly restrained—or wearing seat belts at all—could save about 232 lives every year. Researchers found 20% of children who died in fatal car crashes between 2010 and 2014 weren't buckled in or were improperly restrained, NPR reports. Of the more than 18,000 children involved in fatal car crashes in those years, 15.9% died. The biggest factor in those deaths was whether the children were properly restrained. Other factors included rural roads, which increased the likelihood a child would die in a car crash, and red light cameras, which decreased that likelihood. The study found child fatality rates varied widely by state, which makes sense as seat belt laws, public information on car seats, rural roads, and the use of red light cameras also vary widely by state. More than half of all children who died in a car crash lived in the South. The highest rates of death were in Mississippi, Wyoming, Alabama, Montana, and Virginia, CBS News reports. The lowest were in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Washington, and Rhode Island. In Mississippi, 38% of children who died in a fatal car crash weren't restrained properly or at all. The study's authors advocate for stronger seat belt laws and better public information—potentially at the federal level—to protect children in car crashes.

Number of US Attorneys Replaced: 0 of 93

(Apr 19, 2017 7:38 AM CDT) The short version of how the Justice Department operates is that the attorney general lays down policy and 93 US Attorneys around the nation implement it. But the Washington Post reports that current AG Jeff Sessions has an unusual situation three months into the new administration: He has yet to fill a single one of those 93 positions. We really need to work hard on that, said Sessions on Tuesday. About half of the Obama administration attorneys resigned when President Trump took office, and Sessions ordered the holdovers to quit last month. None have been replaced, though Sessions suggested the acting federal prosecutors in place will do fine until that happens. There are human beings occupying each of those seats, says a skeptical Ronald Weich, a former assistant attorney general who is now dean of the University of Baltimore's law school. But that’s not the same as having appointed and confirmed officials who represent the priorities of the administration. Complicating matters is the fact that Sessions doesn't have his No. 2 in place—the deputy AG is traditionally charged with shepherding the selection of federal prosecutors—though nominee Rod Rosenstein is expected to be confirmed by the Senate this month. Sessions, meanwhile, plans big changes in how those prosecutors will handle cases, including tougher enforcement of immigration laws. That includes stronger penalties for transporting and harboring undocumented immigrants, Fox News notes.

Deadhead Sells Jerry Garcia's 'Wolf' for $1.9M

(Jun 1, 2017 12:26 AM CDT) A guitar that Jerry Garcia played everywhere from San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom to Egypt's Great Pyramids fetched over $1.9 million at an auction Wednesday night. The Grateful Dead frontman's guitar—named Wolf—was sold at the Brooklyn Bowl, a bowling alley, restaurant, and music venue. The proceeds are earmarked for the Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Montgomery, Ala. The guitar was owned by devoted Deadhead Daniel Pritzker, a philanthropist, musician, and film director who bought the instrument in 2002 for $790,000, the AP reports. I've been a fan of The Dead since I was a kid, and playing this iconic guitar over the past 15 years has been a privilege, says Pritzker. But the time is right for Wolf to do some good. SPLC President Richard Cohen says the organization is grateful Pritzker is willing to part with this piece of music history to support the SPLC's mission fighting hate and bigotry. The auctioneer says Wolf first appeared in a 1973 New York performance the Grateful Dead gave for the Hells Angels. The instrument bears a devilish looking, cartoon-like image of a wolf's face. The 1977 film The Grateful Dead Movie was directed by Garcia and features extensive footage of the instrument.

Hannity Gives Moore 24 Hours to Clarify Story

(Nov 15, 2017 5:02 AM) Roy Moore says his fight is just beginning—but with even Sean Hannity withdrawing support, the writing could be on the wall for his Senate bid. The Fox host, who previously defended Moore after the candidate was accused of sexual misconduct, issued an ultimatum Tuesday night, telling Moore he has 24 hours to explain inconsistencies in his story, the Washington Post reports. You must remove any doubt, said Hannity, who was facing an advertiser boycott. If he can't do this, then Judge Moore needs to get out of this race. AL.com reports that the Republican National Committee has also withdrawn its support of Moore, though the Alabama Republican Party has yet to issue a statement on the candidate. President Trump is expected to comment on Moore now that he is back in the US, and he faces what Politico describes as a wrenching call, with congressional leaders urging him to help push Moore out of the race and conservative Moore loyalists strongly opposed to any such move. In an op-ed, the Wall Street Journal argues that Moore's credibility has fallen below the level of survivability and if he refuses to drop out, the Republican Party will be better off if Democrat Doug Jones wins. Moore, whose latest accuser says he sexually assaulted her when she was 16, spoke at a Baptist revival in an Alabama church Tuesday night but said little about the allegations, the AP reports. I want to talk about where this country's going and if we don't get back to God, we're not going anywhere, he said.

Family of Man Killed by Cop Balks at Sheriff's $314K Bill

(Jul 19, 2017 12:42 PM CDT) When pedestrian Blane Land was struck and killed by a police officer in Jacksonville, Fla., in May, his family immediately began digging into the officer's prior conduct. As it turned out, Officer Tim James had been investigated at least 11 times by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and would a month later be arrested on charges of beating a teen in handcuffs. To Land family attorney John M. Phillips, it looked like officers knew they'd kept a bad officer on the force, per the Florida Times-Union. But in what Phillips says is an apparent attempt to hide that fact, he notes his request for public records about James' work history was met with an outrageous $314,000 bill—one of as many as three to come—which surprised even a former JSO public relations officer. I have never, ever seen a request of this magnitude, particularly this amount of money, the former officer tells Action News Jax. A rep for the Florida First Amendment Foundation adds such an absurd fee only comes when people seek information police don't want you to have, but the sheriff's office denies that. Undersheriff Pat Ivey says Phillips' request was for 10 years' worth of information on all complaints against police officers and would require a review of thousands of pages taking up a room the size of a small bedroom. A rep says the sheriff's office also produced an estimate for two specific items in Phillips' request, totaling $600 before redaction fees, but Phillips says he never received it. We're fine paying for copies, Phillips tells ANJ. But $314,000 is offensive.

Russian Doping Involved 1K Athletes, 30 Sports: Investigator

(Dec 9, 2016 9:36 AM) The Russian doping scandal just keeps getting bigger: A new report implicates 1,000 athletes in 30 sports over recent years, along with officials at various levels of government. The upshot is sure to be increased pressure to penalize Russia ahead of the 2018 Winter Games. In the report—which amplifies an earlier one in July—World Anti-Doping Agency investigator Richard McLaren lays out 1,166 immutable facts he says prove Russia to be guilty of an institutional conspiracy between 2011 and 2015, per the New York Times. This involved cheating on an unprecedented scale at the 2012 London Olympics, where athletes were given a cocktail of steroids ... to beat the detection thresholds, McLaren says. The Russian Anti-Doping Agency says accusations of cheating haven't been proven, reports USA Today. Though his initial report helped ban 30% of Russia's delegation from the Rio Games, McLaren's investigation continued. American athletes, for example, have discussed boycotting the world championships in bobsled to be held in Sochi in February over lingering concerns about doping. Coaches and athletes have been playing on an uneven field, McLaren says, per the AP. It's time that this stops. New evidence presented in the report shows Russian officials swapped or tampered with urine samples, including those of 15 medalists at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Samples from female athletes, for example, had male DNA. IOC's president has said he supports lifetime Olympic bans for athletes and officials involved.

William Peter Blatty, Exorcist Author, Dead at 89

(Jan 13, 2017 1:25 PM) Novelist and filmmaker William Peter Blatty, who conjured a tale of demonic possession and gave millions the fright of their lives with the best-selling novel and Oscar-winning movie The Exorcist, has died at the age of 89, the AP reports. Blatty died Thursday at a hospital in Bethesda, Md., of multiple myeloma, per his widow, Julie Alicia Blatty. Inspired by an incident in a Washington suburb that Blatty had read about while in college, The Exorcist was published in 1971, followed two years later by the film of the same name. Blatty's story of a 12-year-old girl inhabited by a satanic force spent more than a year on the New York Times fiction best-seller list and eventually sold more than 10 million copies. It reached a far wider audience through the film, written by Blatty and starring Linda Blair. RIP William Peter Blatty, who wrote the great horror novel of our time, Stephen King tweeted Friday. The son of Lebanese immigrants, Blatty was born in New York City and was a scholarship student at the Jesuit high school Brooklyn Preparatory, graduating as valedictorian. He attended Georgetown and earned a master's in English lit from George Washington University. He took many detours during his career journey, selling vacuum cleaners, driving a beer truck, and auditioning for a role in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (he alleged he was turned down because his eyes were blue). By the end of the '60s, in a state of financial desperation he finally got around to a novel he'd been thinking about for years, remembering a Washington Post report from the late 1940s in which a 14-year-old boy from Maryland was reportedly possessed. When I heard about this case and read the details, that seemed so compelling, he said. Blatty was married four times and had eight children.

Trump Won't Appeal 9th Circuit Ruling

(Feb 10, 2017 5:04 PM) Despite tweeting SEE YOU IN COURT after Thursday's ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, it now appears President Trump won't appeal the hold on his travel ban to the Supreme Court. A source close to the administration tells CNN they have no plans to appeal the ruling, meaning the ban won't be reinstated. The source says the White House is instead considering possible tweaks to Trump's executive order. The AP reports the president himself told reporters Friday he's instead thinking about issuing a brand new order on immigration and refugees that changes very little from his original ban. He also said he still expects to win any legal challenges to the original executive order.

Dead Woman Had Temp of 109.9 in Nursing Home Tragedy

(Sep 21, 2017 7:24 AM CDT) As far as euphemisms go, resting in bed is an extreme one. That's how a staffer at the Florida nursing home where eight people died after Hurricane Irma knocked out its air-conditioning described an 84-year-old in a entry made in the patient's log—after the patient had died. The New York Times reports on the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration's investigation into the events of Sept. 13 at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills. The agency on Wednesday suspended the facility's license, noting its staff neither called 911 nor moved patients to an adjacent air-conditioned hospital as the residents' temperatures rose to astronomical levels. The agency's statement puts it bluntly: This facility presents a danger to every person on its premises. As for those temperatures, Gail Nova, 70, experienced the highest, reports the Sun Sentinel: She died 10 minutes after arriving at the hospital, and her post-death temperature was 109.9 degrees. The center's logs didn't mesh with reality on several occasions, and the Times gives one example: A 78-year-old's records show a nurse recorded her as having a temp of 101.6 degrees at 4:42am. But the hospital where she had been taken around 4:32am had taken her temp, too—and it was 108.3 degrees. A lawyer for the Rehabilitation Center seemed unperturbed by the log discrepancies, saying it's typical for nurses to finish updating records once their shift is complete. The center further claims it took the appropriate steps in the wake of the outage, including calling an emergency line and leaving messages on Gov. Rick Scott's cellphone. (A 94-year-old survivor has sued.)

103-Year-Old Golfer Nabs Hole-in-One—His 8th

(Dec 21, 2014 12:40 PM) There's no small amount of luck that goes in scoring a hole-in-one in golf, but if you've managed the feat eight times you might want to start picking Lottery picks for your nearest and dearest—though it probably doesn't hurt if you've been hitting the links for 75 years. That's the plight of Gus Andreone, reports CBS, who at the age of 103 looks to be the oldest player on record to have accomplished the feat. His eighth came off the end of his driver on a 113-yard hole at a golf course in Sarasota, and if the PGA certifies it he'll have beat the record of a 102-year-old woman who did it in 2007.

2,400 Auditors Are About to Descend on the Pentagon

(Dec 9, 2017 9:54 AM) The Department of Defense had a budget of $590 billion last year and will have one of nearly $700 billion next year. It has an estimated $2.4 trillion in assets. And yet the department has never been audited. That finally changes this month when the Pentagon undergoes its first-ever financial audit, NPR reports. The federal government started requiring financial reports from agencies two decades ago, but the Department of Defense put it off. In 2010, Congress set a 2017 deadline for a Pentagon audit. With that deadline here, 2,400 auditors will begin to go over everything from personnel to weapons to bases, according to a Pentagon press release.

Dow Hits 21K for First Time

(Mar 1, 2017 11:54 AM) Banks and other financial companies led US stocks sharply higher in morning trading Wednesday, pushing the Dow Jones industrial average above 21,000 points for the first time, the AP reports. Energy and materials companies were also among the big gainers, while utilities and real estate stocks lagged. The rally came a day after President Trump addressed Congress, reaffirming plans to cut taxes and push for other business-friendly policies. The Dow jumped 242 points, or 1.2%, to 21,055 as of 10:07am Eastern Time; as of this writing, it is at 21,123. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 24 points, or 1%, to 2,387. The Nasdaq composite index added 59 points, or 1%, to 5,885. Small-company stocks continued to outpace the rest of the market, a bullish signal on the economy. The Russell 2000 index rose 24 points, or 1.7%, to 1,410. It's nice to see the Dow put another thousand figure up so quickly, said Paul Christopher, head global market strategist for Wells Fargo Investment Institute. At the same time, it sort of suggests this is a sentiment-driven rally. There's usually some recalibration of sentiment at some point. In his speech, Trump struck a less confrontational tone than usual and steered away from dramatically negative descriptions of the state of the US economy. He also reaffirmed his pledges to reform taxes, slash red tape, and ramp up spending on defense and infrastructure projects. The promises have helped send US stock benchmarks to records, but Trump offered little by way of detail.

American Airlines to Reduce Legroom by Up to 2 Inches

(May 3, 2017 7:49 PM CDT) Apparently deciding recent coverage of US airlines had been entirely too positive, American Airlines announced Wednesday it will be decreasing legroom in its economy class seats by up to 2 inches. CNN reports the airline will be reducing the distance between seats in three rows of its economy class from 31 inches to 29 inches. The distance will be reduced to 30 inches in the rest of the economy cabin. This will allow American to add 10 extra seats to its Boeing 737-Max jetliners. An American spokesperson tells the Los Angeles Times the lessened space between seats won't be that noticeable because the seat backs will be thinner, adding passengers will still get a good experience. Customers will pay the same ticket price for 1 to 2 inches less of legroom.

Camp for Transgender Kids as Young as 4 Is Growing

(Aug 8, 2017 3:22 PM CDT) In some ways, Rainbow Day Camp is very ordinary. Kids arrive with a packed lunch, make friendship bracelets, play basketball, sing songs, and get silly. But it is also unique, from the moment campers arrive each morning. At check-in each day, campers make a nametag with their pronoun of choice. Some opt for she or he. Or a combination of she/he. Or they, or no pronoun at all. Some change their name or pronouns daily, to see what feels right. The camp in the San Francisco Bay Area city of El Cerrito caters to transgender and gender fluid children ages 4 to 12, making it one of the only camps of its kind in the world open to preschoolers, experts say. Enrollment has tripled to about 60 young campers since it opened three summers ago, with kids coming from as far as Los Angeles, Washington, DC—even Africa, the AP reports. Plans are underway to open a branch next summer in Colorado, and the camp has been contacted by parents and organizations in Atlanta, Seattle, Louisiana, and elsewhere interested in setting up similar programs. Gender specialists say the camp's growth reflects what they are seeing in gender clinics nationwide: increasing numbers of children coming out as transgender at young ages. They credit the rise to greater openness and awareness of LGBT issues and parents tuning in earlier when a child shows signs of gender dysphoria, or distress about their gender. A decade ago, this camp wouldn't have existed. Eventually, I do believe, it won't be so innovative, camp founder Sandra Collins said. I didn't know you could be transgender at a very young age. But my daughter knew for sure at 2. Collins' experience as the mother of a transgender girl, now 9, inspired her to start the camp, and another for 13- to 17-year-olds called Camp Kickin' It. Click for more on the camp.

Bus Slams Into Street Fest, Kills 38

(Mar 13, 2017 12:46 AM CDT) A bus plowed into people taking part in an early morning street festival in Haiti on Sunday, killing at least 38 people and injuring 17, rescue officials say. The accident occurred around 3am in the city of Gonaives when a passenger bus first hit two people at a bus stop and then continued into a crowd of people participating in a Rara festival, an Easter season Haitian musical celebration, says Joseph Faustin, civil defense coordinator for the region. Reuters reports that authorities say the driver ran into the parade of pedestrians as he tried to flee the scene of the first crash. Faustin says after the crash, angry festival-goers then attacked the bus and tried to burn it before police rescued the passengers aboard. The injured were being treated at a hospital in Gonaives, which is about 60 miles northwest of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The local police chief says the passengers and driver were taken to a police station. He says the driver has since been released and has now fled the area. Haitian President Jovenel Moise issued a statement expressing his deep sadness following the terrible accident and calling for an investigation as soon as possible to shine light on this tragedy.

Key to Infamous 1962 Alcatraz Break: Popular Mechanics?

(Jan 27, 2018 6:03 AM) This week brought the revelation of a letter written in 2013 and sent to San Francisco police, purportedly by John Anglin—who, with brother Clarence and fellow inmate Frank Morris—famously escaped Alcatraz in 1962. That they famously escaped at all is thanks to Popular Mechanics, argues ... Popular Mechanics in a look at how of two of its issues, which were available to Alcatraz inmates, may have played a role in the escape. It's not wild speculation: It reports the FBI and the Federal Bureau of Prisons mentioned the magazine in its files, and Richard Tuggle, the screenwriter behind 1979's Escape From Alcatraz, puts it like so: They never would have tried to escape [without it].The magazine gave them the final key that they needed to be able to try this crazy thing. The first issue is November 1960, which profiles a hunter who used scavenged rubber to make goose decoys. The technique he employed is vulcanizing: It forges water-resistant links between rubber molecules, as Popular Mechanics explains, and all the men needed to begin vulcanizing their own lifeboat was their Alcatraz raincoats (other inmates helped them amass a stash of 50) and rubber cement. The second was the March 1962 issue, which featured the article, Your Life Preserver—How will it behave if you need it? The magazine's take: Popular Mechanics tells its readers how to make things. Always has, since 1902. When that information gets used illegally, there’s not much we can do about it. Read the full story here.

Beach That Washed Away in 1984 Suddenly Returns

(May 8, 2017 9:46 AM CDT) The sea giveth, and the sea taketh away—and, it turns out, giveth again. A beach on a remote Irish island whose sand washed away in 1984 storms has formed once again. After what the Guardian calls a freak tide in mid-April, sand, hundreds of tons of it, was returned to Dooagh village on Achill Island. The wind was coming from the north, Achill Tourism head Sean Molloy explains. It was steady and must have transported sand in from elsewhere. A local bar and restaurant owner tells the Telegraph that small amounts of sand would return each spring, but it was never enough to restore the rocky shore to its former glory, a beach that now stretches about 1,000 feet and can be seen here. It's not the first time the beach has performed a vanishing act. According to records, it previously washed away in the 1890s but was back by 1927, at which point a pier was built—and after which some luminaries, including novelist Graham Greene and a young Angela Lansbury, visited, reports the Irish Times. Ireland's beaches will be inspected next year, reports the Irish Post, and Molloy hopes the beach will still be there and gain blue-flag status. It could be a boon for Dooagh village, which one local explains has seen three hotels and the local shop close their doors in the beach's absence. (Closer to home, Miami Beach's sand comes from elsewhere, and that's a problem.)

Cop Donating Kidney to 8-Year-Old Stranger

(May 16, 2017 5:58 PM CDT) When Wisconsin police officer Lindsey Bittorf saw a Facebook post from a nearby mother begging for a kidney donor for her 8-year-old son, she knew she needed to try to help—even though she'd never met the family. The 30-year-old got tested to see if she was a match, and says doctors were shocked she was such a good one, considering she's not related to the boy, Jackson Arneson. This is seriously, like, meant to be, she tells WISN. It’s going to be me. Last week, Bittorf showed up at Jackson's home to surprise his family with the good news, ABC News reports. She told Jackson's mom, Kristi Goll, it was an early Mother's Day gift, GazetteXtra reports. I took an oath to serve and protect our community, and now my kidney’s going to serve and protect you, she told Jackson, who was born with a kidney condition known as Posterior Urethral Valves. Goll went on Facebook after family and friends got tested and none turned out to be a match. I always knew these days would come, it’s just so hard when they are here, she said in her December post explaining that Jackson's kidney function was decreasing and he was in need of a donor. Bittorf, who is also a mom, says simply, I would hope that someone would save my child's life if needed. The transplant surgery is scheduled for June 22. (Other kidney donors have been found via messages on the side of an SUV, Reddit, and even Tinder.)

10 More Kids Dead as Intense Flu Season Continues

(Feb 9, 2018 2:15 PM) This flu season is a beast, and the CDC warned Friday that we aren't done yet. Another 10 children have died from the flu, bringing the total this season to 63, NBC News reports. That's still fewer than the 110 who died last flu season. But USA Today reports the US is seeing the highest rates of flu-related hospitalizations since the CDC started keeping track of that stat in 2010. And 7.7% of all doctor visits are related to the flu—the highest rate since 2009. It could still get worse. We don’t know if we have hit the peak yet, says acting CDC director Anne Schuchat. We're in week 11 of this flu season; flu season typically lasts for 16 weeks but can run as long as 20 weeks. We could potentially see several more weeks of increased flu activity, Schuchat says. It's as yet unclear exactly why this flu season is so bad. (He went in for the flu; he lost his feet and fingers.)

NZ Plans to Rescue 1K Tourists Stranded by Quake

(Nov 14, 2016 5:58 AM) New Zealand is planning to send in military helicopters and a navy ship to rescue about 1,000 tourists and hundreds of residents who remain stranded in the coastal town of Kaikoura after a powerful earthquake on Monday cut off train and vehicle access. The magnitude-7.8 quake struck the South Island just after midnight. It left two people dead and triggered a small tsunami. It also brought down rocks and mud that swept across highways and cracked apart roads. From all directions, Kaikoura has essentially been isolated, Air Commodore Darryn Webb, the Acting Commander of New Zealand's Joint Forces, tells the AP. There's a real imperative to support the town because it can't support itself. Elsewhere, strong aftershocks continued to shake New Zealand on Monday, rattling the nerves of exhausted residents, though the country was largely spared the devastation it saw in 2011 when an earthquake struck the city of Christchurch and killed 185 people. Monday's quake caused damage in Wellington, the capital, and was also strongly felt in Christchurch. Residents said the shaking went on for about three minutes. Police say one person died in Kaikoura and another in Mt. Lyford, a nearby ski resort. Several other people suffered minor injuries in Kaikoura, police say. Prime Minister John Key toured the area and described the scene in the worst-hit areas utter devastation.

For 1st Time, Female Marines in Ground Infantry Unit

(Jan 5, 2017 4:41 PM) For the first time, the Marine Corps has put three enlisted female Marines in a ground combat unit once open only to men, officials said Thursday. They will serve as a rifleman, machine gunner, and mortar Marine, said 1st Lt. John McCombs, spokesperson for the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejuene. They report Thursday to the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, which has had three female officers in its ranks for several months to help integrate the enlisted females into the unit, McCombs said. The women's names and ranks were not released, the AP reports. This process ensures the Marine Corps will adhere to its standards and will continue its emphasis on combat readiness, McCombs said in an email. Their entry in the unit marks ongoing efforts to comply with Defense Secretary Ash Carter's directive in December 2015 to open all military jobs to women, including the most dangerous commando posts. That decision was formal recognition of the thousands of female servicewomen who fought in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in recent years, including those who were killed or wounded. Carter's decision also stood as a rebuff to the Marine Corps, which was the only service branch to ask for an exception to women serving in certain infantry and combat slots. The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Special Operations Command all said they would not seek any exceptions and would recommend removing the ban on women in dangerous combat jobs.

8-Limbed Girl Learns to Walk

(Jun 22, 2008 5:32 PM CDT) A 2-year-old Indian girl born with eight limbs and worshiped as an incarnation of a Hindu goddess is learning to walk after surgery last fall, CNN reports. Doctors say that Lakshmi Tatma continues to recover from the marathon 27-hour operation that severed a parasitic twin, but that her organs are all functional and she may even be able to have children of her own some day. The hero in this story is Lakshmi, said one of her neurosurgeons. It's a little girl who withstood a formidable operation very well.

Geologists Spot a Pattern, Predict Big Quakes in 2018

(Nov 20, 2017 8:03 AM) Two geologists may have spotted a surprisingly simple correlation that can help predict earthquakes—and if they're correct, the Earth is on track for an uptick in major quakes next year. The pair pored over a century's worth of a data on earthquakes and detected a pattern: When the Earth's rotation slows, as it does periodically, the slowdown is followed by an increase in quakes with a magnitude of 7 or greater, reports the Guardian. Their research, published in Geophysical Research Letters, has been well-received in the field, and it will be put to the test soon. The rotational slowdowns typically happen over five years, and the last began four years ago. Meaning, we can expect to see two to five more major earthquakes than normal in 2018, or 17 to 20, reports Science. The Earth offers us a five-years' heads up on future earthquakes, which is remarkable, says Roger Bilham of the University of Colorado, who detected the correlation with Rebecca Bendick of the University of Montana. Exactly where the quakes will take place is fuzzier, but typically the increase shows up in regions along the Equator. The researchers aren't sure how to explain all this, but one theory is that it involves nearly imperceptible changes in the flow of molten iron in the Earth's core. That might be enough to slow down the Earth's spin a millisecond or two, a difference that can be measured by atomic clocks, and perhaps result in the release of vast amounts of energy underground. The cycle seems to take place about every three decades, writes geologist Trevor Nace at Forbes. (LA residents won't like this San Andreas prediction.)

Bad Diet a Factor in 20% of All Deaths

(Sep 15, 2017 6:06 PM CDT) Everyone dies, and frequently it's what we eat (or don't eat) that's killing us. The Guardian reports the newest results from the massive, ongoing Global Burden of Disease study show diet is a factor in one of every five deaths around the world. That means millions of people are consuming too much salt and sugar and not enough whole grains, fruits, seeds, nuts, and fish oils. It is amongst the really big problems in the world, says Dr. Christopher Murray, the head of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. But malnutrition can be an even bigger problem than eating too many burgers, Fortune reports. And in many cases unhealthy diets have their root in economics. Take fruit, Murray tells the Guardian. It has lots of health benefits, but only very wealthy people eat a lot of fruit, with some exceptions. In addition to diet, other leading risk factors in worldwide deaths are smoking and high blood pressure. But it's not all bad news. The Global Burden of Disease study found global life expectancy increased to 75.3 years for women and 69.8 years for men in 2016. And deaths from infectious disease are dropping. The study published its first results 20 years ago, Discover reports.

7 Brief Calls Didn't Come From Missing Sub's Phone

(Nov 20, 2017 6:19 AM) A surge of optimism followed by something more grim: The seven brief satellite calls made Saturday that were suspected to have been made by a missing Argentine submarine may have originated elsewhere. The Argentine Navy on Sunday said its analysis was still underway but that it had no clear evidence the calls were placed from the sub, reports the New York Times, which notes the San Juan missed its scheduled arrival at its home port Sunday. A naval commander says the signals were so intermittent and weak, per NBC News, that they could not help determine a point on the map to help the search for the vessel, which has 44 aboard. Further, the US satellite phone company Iridium says the Iridium phone that's within the vessel seems to have not been used since Wednesday. Iridium has reportedly placed repeated calls to the sub's phone that haven't gotten through; Argentine officials haven't discussed whether additional satellite phones are available to the crew. And while seven countries are involved in the search via sea and air, that effort has been impeded by weather: waves hitting up to 22 feet, thunderstorms, and strong winds that NPR reports could last for two days. The Times looks at potential scenarios: If the sub sank due to, say, a fire that did not kill the crew, it says the oxygen would last several days; CNN reports a higher count of seven to 10 days of oxygen. That's assuming it sank on the continental shelf; if it went down in the far deeper parts of the Atlantic Ocean, the pressure could essentially crush the sub. If it's on the surface and manages to survive the storm, the crew would have 25 days of food and water.

She Owed Her Husband $120K, Planned to Pay $2K to Kill Him

(Nov 23, 2017 7:05 AM) Apparently unhappy at the prospect of sharing custody of her son, a California mom enlisted her former lover to lure her estranged husband to a deserted path and shoot him to death. But all did not go as Diana Lovejoy planned, authorities say. Greg Mulvihill was shot in the side but survived; Lovejoy, 45, and Weldon McDavid, 50, were both found guilty of attempted murder and conspiracy on Nov. 13, reports People. The jury that convicted them heard how as part of their near-finalized divorce, Lovejoy had been required to pay $120,000 to Mulvihill, 47. Police say she instead planned to pay $2,000 to McDavid, her firearms instructor and a former Marine, to kill her husband. The pair allegedly decided to act on Sept. 1, 2016, because a new moon meant it would be especially dark. That night, a male called Mulvihill claiming he had incriminating evidence against him and directing him to a deserted path near Carlsbad, Calif. (Lovejoy had accused Mulvihill of raping her and molesting their son, allegations Mulvihill denies.) McDavid claimed he was just trying to shoot the flashlight Mulvihill held and that he thought Mulvihill showing up would indicate some kind of guilt that could be used in the custody battle. One juror's take: McDavid's story was getting absurd at times. Among the evidence: the AR-15 found in McDavid's garage, McDavid's DNA found near the path, and cell-tower data that put McDavid and Lovejoy near the scene, authorities say. Lovejoy, who could face 25 years in prison, collapsed when the verdict was read, per the San Diego Union-Tribune. McDavid, who could face 50 years, wept. Sentencing is Dec. 12. (Cops say this woman asked the wrong man to bump off her son's ex.)

Soyuz Returns 3 From ISS

(Oct 30, 2016 7:33 AM CDT) A Russian Soyuz space capsule has landed in Kazakhstan, reports the AP, bringing three astronauts from the United States, Japan, and Russia back to Earth from a 115-day mission aboard the International Space Station. The landing took place Sunday morning near Dzhezkazgan on the treeless Central Asian steppes. Kate Rubins of NASA, Japan's Takuya Onishi and Anatoly Ivanishin of Russia were removed from the capsule and sat on the steppes still in their capsule seats while they readjusted to the forces of gravity after nearly four months in weightless conditions, then were taken to a nearby medical tent for initial examination. Rubins recently gave an appropriately nerdy interview to Entertainment Weekly, in which she described watching Star Trek Beyond aboard the ISS, telling Simon Pegg, Your special effects guys get it right. It absolutely feels like a space station. Meanwhile, Andrei Borisenko and Sergey Ryzhykov of Russia and NASA astronaut Robert Shane Kimbrough remain aboard the space station. They arrived on Oct. 22 after a two-day voyage. The trip back to Earth was much quicker for the three returnees on Sunday, about 3 1/2 hours from undocking until landing. The capsule landed as scheduled and was closely tracked by helicopters as it wafted through partly cloudy skies under a parachute marked in red and white concentric circles. The craft landed upright, which made the extraction of the astronauts quicker than when capsules land on their sides. (Last week, the ISS took a delivery that was two years in the making.)

Sportscaster Dick Enberg Found Dead at Age 82

(Dec 22, 2017 6:22 AM) Dick Enberg, a Hall of Fame broadcaster known for his excited calls of Oh my! during a 60-year career, died Thursday. He was 82. Enberg's daughter, Nicole Enberg Vaz, confirmed the death to the AP. She said the family became concerned when her father didn't arrive Thursday on his flight to Boston, and he was found dead at his home in La Jolla, a San Diego neighborhood, with his bags packed. His daughter said the family believes Enberg died of a heart attack but was awaiting official word. It's very, very, very shocking, said Vaz. He'd been busy with two podcasts and was full of energy. Enberg's wife, Barbara, was already in Boston and was expecting his arrival. The family is grateful for the kind thoughts and prayers of all of Dick's countless fans and dear friends, per a statement by Enberg's attorney.

US Boots 35 Russian Diplomats Over Election-Related Hacking

(Dec 29, 2016 2:31 PM) In retaliation for Russia's election-influencing hacking, the Obama administration is kicking 35 Russian intelligence operatives out of the US, the New York Times reports. The operatives, who Reuters refers to as diplomats, are part of the Russian embassy in Washington DC and the Russian consulate in San Francisco. They'll have 72 hours to leave the country. The White House also placed new sanctions on Russia's FSB and GRU intelligence agencies, according to AFP. The agencies are believed to have been involved in hacking the Democratic National Committee and others. Finally, the administration is closing Russian compounds in Maryland and New York believed to be used for intelligence purposes. The Times calls it the strongest American response ever taken to a state-sponsored cyberattack. Obama calls the response both necessary and appropriate. I have ordered a number of actions in response to the Russian government's aggressive harassment of US officials and cyber operations aimed at the US election, Obama said in a statement. The State Department says US officials in Moscow are regularly harassed by Russian security agents and traffic police; Thursday's actions are in response to that on top of election-related hacking. The move puts the onus on Donald Trump to lift the sanctions when he takes office, officially signalling that US intelligence agencies can't be trusted. When asked about the situation Wednesday, Trump said: The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on.

New Samsung Recall: 3M Washing Machines

(Nov 4, 2016 7:10 PM CDT) In another black eye for one of the world's leading consumer brands, US authorities announced a recall Friday of nearly 3 million Samsung washing machines following several reports of injuries—including a broken jaw—due to excessive vibration, the AP reports. The recall comes a month after Samsung recalled millions of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones because of a mysterious problem that caused the phones' batteries to overheat and catch fire. The recall comes after weeks of discussions between Samsung and US authorities about reports that the drums in certain top-loading washing machine models can become unbalanced and cause severe vibration, in some cases causing the top of the machine to detach from the chassis. Samsung was hit with a lawsuit over the summer by attorneys representing consumers in Texas, Indiana, and Georgia who say their washing machines exploded while being used. In a statement Friday , the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission cited 733 reports of Samsung machines that experienced excessive vibration and nine related reports of injuries, including a broken jaw and an injured shoulder. Samsung said the problem occurred when a high-speed spin cycle was used to wash bedding or other bulky items. In a statement, the company's US subsidiary said it's working with retailers and the commission to inform consumers about the problem.

Docs Behind '1st Fatal Marijuana Overdose' Report Say Chill

(Nov 17, 2017 2:20 PM) The Colorado doctors behind those reports of the first documented fatal marijuana overdose would like everyone to please chill out. Dr. Thomas Nappe tells the Washington Post they are absolutely not saying that marijuana killed an 11-month-old child two years ago. Nappe says he's disappointed news reports have mischaracterized the conclusion reached in a case study authored by himself and Dr. Christopher Hoyte. He says they simply recorded a possible link between cannabis and myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart that killed the child. The case study states this is the first reported pediatric death associated with cannabis exposure. But Nappe warns that associated with does not imply marijuana caused the death. The sensationalizing of the case study may be due in part to an interview Hoyte gave to KUSA. We extensively ruled out almost every other cause that we can think of, Hoyte said regarding marijuana and the child's myocarditis. We found no other reason why this young kid ended up having inflammation on his heart. He added: We just wanted to make sure that we’re not going to call this a marijuana-related fatality if there was something else that we could point at. And we looked and looked and couldn’t find it. Noah Kaufman, an emergency room physician already skeptical of the case study, says you just can't make those statements because ... it can be sensationalized. It's not based on reality, he says. It's based on somebody kind of jumping the gun.

McDonald's Dropped 500M Transactions in 5 Years

(Mar 2, 2017 9:03 AM) McDonald's says it's lost 500 million customer transactions in the US since 2012 and plans to use deals to help win people back. The world's biggest burger chain said Wednesday during its investor day in Chicago that much of that business was lost after it did away with its Dollar Menu, the AP reports. It noted an upside was that the majority of those customer visits were lost to other major fast-food chains, rather than to newer rivals. Those are the easiest customers to get back, said CEO Steve Easterbrook, who took over in March 2015 and has been working to revive the company's image. McDonald's outlined its plans after recording its fourth straight year of declining guest counts at established US locations in 2016, despite fanfare over the rollout of an all-day breakfast menu. The company also trimmed its domestic store base for the second year in a row. To get more customers in the door, McDonald's said it will also more aggressively market coffee and pastries and offer mobile order-and-pay by the end of the year. Easterbrook also noted the huge potential of delivery and that 75% of the population in the company's top five markets—including the US—is within three miles of a McDonald's. McDonald's is being pressured not just from other fast-food giants like Burger King and Taco Bell, but from newer rivals that largely emphasize freshness and taste, as well as the availability of food at convenience stores like 7-Eleven and supermarkets. McDonald's, meanwhile, has touted the changes it's making to improve its core menu, such as cooking its Chicken McNuggets without artificial preservatives. In the near future, the company plans to launch a limited-time offer in April for $1 sodas of any size, which may offer a quick fix to bring customers in.

J&J Baby Powder Suit: a $70M Payout

(Oct 28, 2016 8:11 AM CDT) For more than 40 years, Deborah Giannecchini used Johnson & Johnson baby powder and other talcum powder products—and on Thursday, a St. Louis jury awarded more than $70 million in damages on her claim, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The 63-year-old Californian said those J&J products contributed to her developing ovarian cancer. The jury voted against J&J 10-2—one of the dissenters actually didn't think the award was enough—with an award of $575,000 in medical damages, $2 million in compensatory damages, $2.5 million in compensatory damages against Imerys Talc (the producer of the talcum powder), and $65 million in punitive damages against J&J. About half of the punitive damages will go to the Missouri Crime Victims' Compensation Program, per Jim Onder of Onder Law, which has handled all three cases with awarded damages so far. Memos from inside J&J show the company knew for decades about research tying the use of talc powder to ovarian cancer, Onder says—though CNBC says much of that research has been weak. Giannecchini, however, had no clue of possible risks. There isn't a way to describe how you feel ... when you're told you probably won't make it beyond the next year, she says of receiving her stage 4 cancer diagnosis in 2012. Per her lawyers, Giannecchini has about an 80% chance of dying within the next two years, Bloomberg reports. Not that Onder expects J&J to cede to the nearly 2,000 state and federal complaints against it; instead, he believes the company will take a scorched-earth legal policy and not settle until they absolutely have to. In a statement, a J&J rep says the company will appeal because it's guided by the science, which supports the safety of Johnson's Baby Powder.

24-Year-Old Trump Appointee Runs Into Resume Trouble

(Jan 22, 2018 7:16 AM) Some 24-year-olds are wunderkinds. The Washington Post clearly doesn't think Taylor Weyeneth belongs in that category. Weyeneth was a relative unknown until the Post on Jan. 14 ran a piece looking at the rising star at the Office of National Drug Control Policy —and the paltry resume that got him there. The office is tasked with overseeing billions of dollars in anti-drug campaigns and responding to the opioid epidemic, and the Week points out that it is short a drug czar at the moment, instead being helmed by longtime ONDCP employee Richard Baum. A Jan. 3 memo from Baum notes the exodus of talent and lack of a chief of staff, and says that position's tasks will be handled by Baum and the deputy chief of staff—Weyeneth. The Post reports the position was previously held by a lawyer; Weyeneth's sole post-grad experience was on the Trump campaign. The paper sees his rise as due in part to the many staff vacancies, but digs into inconsistencies on his resumes; multiple versions were submitted to the government, with the second and third copies reportedly revised to correct errors. Among those errors: While attending St. John's University, Weyeneth worked as a legal assistant at the New York firm O'Dwyer & Bernstien; per his first resume, he was there until April 2016. But an FBI background check showed he had left eight months prior, and partner Brian O'Dwyer says Weyeneth was discharged because he just didn't show up. An official told the Post that a replacement for Weyeneth's position is being sought, after which Weyeneth would return to his previous role as White House liaison for ONDCP. The Post digs into other sticking points related to volunteer hours, a master's degree, and more here.

Toyota Halts Sales of 8 Models Over Gas Pedals

(Jan 26, 2010 5:28 PM) Toyota is suspending US sales of eight recalled vehicle models to fix accelerator pedals that stick. As part of the plan, Toyota is halting production at five manufacturing facilities for the week of Feb. 1. The sales suspension includes the 2009-2010 RAV4, the 2009-2010 Corolla, the 2009-2010 Matrix, the 2005-2010 Avalon, the 2007-2010 Camry, the 2010 Highlander, the 2007-2010 Tundra, and the 2008-2010 Sequoia.

Trump Sketch of NYC Skyline Starts at $9K

(Jul 24, 2017 2:48 PM CDT) Back in 2005, Donald Trump made a simple sketch of the New York City skyline for a charity auction. Now that he's president, it's back on the market, but for no mere pittance, reports the Hill. As of Thursday, those interested can bid online at Nate D. Sanders Auctions, provided they have a minimum bid of $9,000. The very rare sketch is 11.5 inches by 9 and features Trump Tower at its center, notes the site. (Former President George W. Bush has been trying his hand as a painter, while former President Obama is a noted doodler himself.

Man Who Walked 11.5K Miles to Help Homeless Comes Home

(Nov 28, 2016 5:36 PM) For more than two years, Leroy Bailey has been hoofing it around the US to raise money for hope—and on Saturday, he finally made it home. The 54-year-old contractor has been on the road for the past 29 months—he took leave of his Virginia Beach home in June 2014—and he's covered more than 11,500 miles, all in the name of attracting funds for his plan to erect hope centers (i.e., homeless shelters) across the country, the Virginian-Pilot reports. Bailey, who says he'd been homeless himself while in his 20s in Buffalo, NY, per the Servants of God Ministries website, relived that experience during his trek, on which he was constantly stopped by cops apparently suspicious of his backpack and even turned away by churches. If you look homeless, they don't want you there, he says. And so he often resorted to napping under bridges or sprawled on picnic tables, jars of peanut butter his only reliable food source (his church contributed money toward other meals). He also had to deal with illness—he was hospitalized in Maine for pneumonia—walking-induced injuries like blisters and shin splints, and missing and stolen belongings. His long haul stretched way past the original 18 months Bailey had allotted for his journey (he ended up plowing through 10 pairs of shoes), and he only raised about $10,000 out of his $400,000 goal, per his GoFundMe page. But he says that's enough to at least start a shelter in Virginia Beach, and he also reaped another unexpected benefit: contact with his son, whom he'd been searching for for years (the son now lives in New York) and whose wife saw Bailey's story circulating on social media. It's amazing after all these years he was just a hop, skip, and a jump away, Bailey's wife, Luci, tells the Pilot. (Why a homeless man in Canada turned down $5,000.)

Shanghai Will Allow Only 800K More to Live There

(Dec 26, 2017 8:03 AM) Anyone interested in moving to Shanghai better not dawdle. The Chinese economic hub currently has a population of 24.2 million, and authorities just put a plan in place to cap the permanent population at 25 million, reports Reuters. The idea behind the newly adopted master plan through 2035 is to curb the maladies common to major cities such as environmental pollution, gridlock traffic, and a decline in the quality of public services such as medical care and education. The State Council, which refers to all of the above as big city disease, also will limit the amount of land made available for development in the coming years. A research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences predicts that the poor will bear the brunt of the new population limit the most because the government will begin tearing down cheap housing now in existence, per the Global Times. Imposing such a limit, he warns, is unpractical and against the social development trend. China similarly hopes to cap the population of Beijing at 23 million by 2020, notes the Guardian. Already, plans were in the works to move government offices out of Beijing to a new city being built about 50 miles to the south.

Family Electricity Bill: $284,460,000,000

(Dec 25, 2017 11:31 AM) Imagine opening your electric bill and seeing a figure of $284,460,000,000 under the amount owed. Pennsylvania's Mary Horomanski had exactly that experience, which she recollects to GoErie.com with a priceless quote: My eyes just about popped out of my head, says the 58-year-old resident of Erie. We had put up Christmas lights and I wondered if we had put them up wrong. As a spokesman for utility Penelec explained, however, it was merely a comically disastrous decimal error. The actual bill: $284.46.

An Oregon Snow Day, an Office Cleaning, a $1M Find

(Jan 13, 2017 7:36 AM) The weather outside was frightful, but for one Oregon man, the results proved utterly delightful. The Oregonian reports that Joemel Panisa of Logsden is its latest $1 million Mega Millions winner, and the only reason he's now flush with cash is because he was holed up during one of Oregon's recent snowstorms. The Oregon Lottery website explains Panisa was stuck home during the inclement weather, so he decided to clean up his office—and that's when he found an envelope containing a Mega Millions ticket he had purchased on Jan. 13, 2016, for a drawing that was held two days later. After a quick online check revealed the winning numbers (short the Mega Ball that would have landed him a $22 million jackpot, per KPTV), Panisa recalled hearing reports about a winning ticket that had been sold in the area and needed to be claimed quickly. The ticket would have expired on Tuesday; Panisa claimed his prize on Jan. 9. (Another lucky lottery winner survived a plane crash days before his win.)

Interior Chief Wants to Shrink 6 National Monuments

(Sep 18, 2017 8:55 AM CDT) Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is recommending that six of 27 national monuments under review by the Trump administration be reduced in size, with changes to several others proposed, per the AP. A leaked memo from Zinke to President Trump recommends that two Utah monuments—Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante—be reduced, along with Nevada's Gold Butte and Oregon's Cascade-Siskiyou. Two marine monuments in the Pacific Ocean also would be reduced under Zinke's memo, which has not been officially released. (Details have previously leaked.) Trump ordered the review earlier this year after complaining about improper land grabs by former presidents, including Barack Obama. The monuments under review were designated by four presidents over the last two decades. Several are about the size of the state of Delaware, including Mojave Trails in California, Grand-Staircase Escalante in Utah, and Bears Ears, which is on sacred tribal land. Among other things, Zinke recommends opening hundreds of thousands of square miles of currently protected zones in the Atlantic and Pacific to commercial fishing, reports the Wall Street Journal, which also obtained a copy of the memo. The changes also could open up areas around monuments on land to coal and oil exploration. For instance, the memo says the Grand Staircase-Escalante currently has an estimated several billion tons of oil and large oil deposits. The Journal expects environmental groups to fight any changes.

Cops: Calif. Parents Shackled Their 13 Kids, Ages 2 to 29

(Jan 16, 2018 12:54 AM) An ordinary house in a California subdivision concealed a bizarre and disturbing case of torture and child abuse, police say. In a press release, the Riverside County Sheriff's Office says a 17-year-old girl called 911 early Sunday morning after escaping a home in Perris and told police her 12 siblings were being held captive by their parents. Police say that inside the residence, they found several malnourished and dirty children shackled to their beds with chains and padlocks in dark and foul-smelling surroundings —and parents David and Louise Turpin were unable to provide a logical reason why they were restrained. Investigators initially thought the couple's 13 children were all juveniles, but they were shocked to discover that seven were adults and the oldest was 29. David Turpin, 57, and Louise Turpin, 49, were arrested on charges of torture and child endangerment and are being held on a $9 million bond each, the Los Angeles Times reports. The 13 victims—the youngest just 2 years old—were hospitalized. Police say they gave them food after they said they were starving. Horrified neighbors tell the Press-Enterprise that they had no idea what was going on. Some didn't even know there were children in the house. A joint Facebook page shows the Turpins, accompanied by their children, renewing their wedding vows in Las Vegas. A 2011 bankruptcy filing seen by CNN states that David Turpin made $140,000 per year working as an engineer at Northrup Grumman. He is listed as principal of the Sandcastle Day School, a private school with just six students, at his Perris address, KTLA reports.

Oakland Pays $1M to Teen in Police Sex Scandal

(Jun 2, 2017 12:34 PM CDT) A former teenage sex worker who claimed to have had sexual contact with more than two dozen Bay Area police officers, including while underage, is getting a nearly $1 million payout. The city of Oakland has agreed to pay $989,000 to settle a claim with the 19-year-old, who has asked to be identified only as Jasmine, reports the Los Angeles Times. Her allegations previously led to charges—including oral copulation with a minor and obstruction of justice—for five Oakland police officers, a former Contra Costa County sheriff's deputy, and a retired Livermore police officer. It's taken its toll on me, Jasmine tells the East Bay Times. I feel happy that I can close this chapter and move on with my life. But the book is not yet closed: Jasmine's lawyers also have filed claims with five other Bay Area law enforcement agencies, including the San Francisco Police Department, and are looking at possible litigation. Still, the Oakland settlement is in the best interests of Jasmine, and may help pay for her education, one of her lawyers tells the San Francisco Chronicle. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf adds it was also in the best interest of the city to settle this matter quickly and fairly, noting the city remains focused on rebuilding the public trust that was so damaged by this incident. The settlement was approved during a 7-1 vote at a City Council meeting on Wednesday. The lone dissenter wanted the city to pay more. Officers allegedly gave Jasmine information about prostitution stings in exchange for sex and protected her from arrest.

5th GOP Senator Publicly Opposes Health Care Bill

(Jun 23, 2017 3:33 PM CDT) A fifth GOP senator has come out against the Senate Republicans' health care bill, which can only afford to have two GOP senators vote against it. CNN reports Nevada Sen. Dean Heller says he simply will not support the bill, which he says is not the answer. I cannot support a piece of legislation that takes away insurance from tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Nevadans, the Washington Post quotes Heller as saying. He says the idea that the bill would lower health care premiums is a lie. He's particularly concerned about spending cuts to Medicaid included in the bill. USA Today reports Heller is considered the most vulnerable senator in 2018, as he's the only Republican senator running for re-election in a state won by Hillary Clinton. The other four GOP senators to oppose the health care bill in its current form—Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee—essentially did so from a more conservative position, arguing it doesn't go far enough in repealing the ACA. In addition to those four and Heller, USA Today identifies four other Republican senators to keep an eye on. Rob Portman and Shelley Moore Capito are concerned cuts to Medicaid would hurt the fight against opioid addiction by limiting low-income people's access to addiction treatment. Meanwhile Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are opposed to the bill cutting Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood for a year.

NFL Player Takes 500-Mile Uber Ride to Get to Practice

(Jun 8, 2017 1:37 PM CDT) This is the story of two men ridiculously committed to their respective jobs. On Sunday, Buffalo Bills cornerback Shareece Wright's flight was late getting into Chicago and he missed his connecting flight to New York, the Buffalo News reports. Wright had to be in Buffalo for (voluntary) practice by Monday morning, but there weren't any flights available and he didn't want to rent a car because he wanted to get some sleep before practice. The (not so) obvious solution: an eight-hour, 500-mile Uber ride. According to BuffaloBills.com, Uber driver Winny—a refugee living in Chicago and putting himself through school with dreams of being an astronaut—was happy to oblige. Winny drove straight through the night, only stopping once for gas, and got Wright to practice with minutes to spare. Wright's coach commended him for his tremendous dedication, but the same could definitely be said of Winny. Wright paid the $632 fare and added a $300 tip for good measure. Wright wasn't the only NFL player with an an unorthodox way of getting to practice this week. MLive.com reports Davon House of the Green Bay Packers was stuck in Minnesota after missing his connecting flight to Green Bay on Monday. He tweeted out a request to see if any Packers fans nearby want to take a trip. Brothers Chad and Mike Johnson did, picking House up at the airport and driving him four hours to Green Bay. The brothers thought that would be the end of it, but House gave them a personal tour of Lambeau Field and signed autographs.

Monaco Will Spend $2B to Get 3% Bigger

(Nov 21, 2017 7:35 AM) Monaco is set to get 3% bigger. The Guardian looks at Prince Albert II's decision to green-light a construction project that will see 15 acres of land reclaimed from the sea so that more luxury homes can be built on it. The prices are astronomical, and so too, apparently, will be the demand: With its lax tax laws—no personal income tax and no inheritance tax, for instance—about a third of Monaco's residents are millionaires, and the Guardian cites real-estate research that suggests that within 10 years, that figure could jump to roughly 42%. But Monaco measures just 485 acres, and there's basically no more room for additional housing, which can go for as much as $10,000 per square foot. The new Portier Cove neighborhood, which will cost $2 billion to construct, is not the first reclamation project Monaco has undertaken, notes Business Insider: The larger Fontvieille district was constructed in the 1970s. In a 2016 article on the project, the Telegraph reported the project would take 10 years, and that the foundations for the titanic operation alone would take more than 3 years to construct. Hundreds of thousands of tons of sand will be imported from Sicily to create the new land. (in the 20th century, the US shrunk by one square mile.)

58 Dead in Suspected Chemical Attack in Syria

(Apr 4, 2017 6:50 AM CDT) A suspected chemical attack in a town in Syria's northern Idlib province killed dozens of people on Tuesday, Syrian opposition activists said, describing the attack as among the worst in the country's six-year civil war. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group put the death toll at 58, saying there were 11 children among the dead, per the AP. Meanwhile, the Idlib Media Center said dozens of people had been killed. The media center published footage of medical workers appearing to intubate an unresponsive man stripped down to his underwear and hooking up a little girl foaming at the mouth to a ventilator. There was no comment from the government in Damascus or any international agency in the immediate aftermath of the attack. It was the third claim of a chemical attack in just over a week in Syria. The previous two were reported in Hama province, in an area not far from Khan Sheikhoun, the site of Tuesday's alleged attack. The Syrian American Medical Society, which supports hospitals in opposition-held territory, said it had sent a team of inspectors to Khan Sheikhoun to investigate. The Syrian activists had no information on what agent could have been used, but they say the attack was caused by an airstrike carried out either by the Syrian government or Russian warplanes. The province of Idlib, home to an estimated 900,000 displaced Syrians, is almost entirely controlled by the Syrian opposition. Rebels and opposition officials have expressed concerns that the government is planning to mount a concentrated attack on the crowded province.

After 50 Years, Pyongyang Still Has Captured US Ship

(Jan 25, 2018 1:16 AM) Fifty years after it was seized by North Korea, the USS Pueblo is the only US Navy ship held captive by a foreign government. And though mostly forgotten in the United States, the Pueblo Incident for North Korea remains a potent symbol of military success. The spy ship, attacked and captured 50 years ago this week, sits in the frozen Potong River on the edge of the sprawling Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum complex in central Pyongyang, the AP reports. Amid an escalating flow of rhetorical attacks on Washington for allegedly trying to sour North-South relations ahead of next month's Winter Olympics, North Korea's state-run media have played up the anniversary as a milestone in the country's struggle against the US.

3 Weeks After Winning Election, New Congressman Is Still MIA

(Jun 28, 2017 3:32 PM CDT) Jimmy Gomez won a special election to represent Los Angeles in the House of Representatives on June 6—becoming the only Democrat to win a special election under President Trump—but he has yet to show up to work, the Washington Post reports. On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy sent a letter to Gomez and Nancy Pelosi questioning why Gomez hadn't been sworn in yet. They have no representative to debate and vote in the People’s House on the critical issues facing our country, the letter said of Gomez's constituents. McCarthy was even more blunt on Wednesday, saying Gomez is neglecting his job and should maybe resign to let his constituents elect someone who actually wants to do the work. The chairman of the House Democratic Caucus accused McCarthy of making an unfounded attack on [Gomez's] character. Gomez has offered multiple reasons for holding off on his swearing in, the Los Angeles Times reports. First, he said he wanted to wait until his election was certified. But he's also currently a California state assemblyman and was trying to put off giving up that position as long as possible to vote on extending a cap-and-trade program. Gomez says he only agreed to stay for the vote until June 15 but a family issue prevented him from being sworn in last week. The Fourth of July holiday will mean further delays. A senior Democratic aide tells Politico Gomez will finally be sworn in July 11. Two representatives elected after Gomez have already been sworn in. The standard time for the winner of a special election to be sworn in is a week.

Thousands of Homeless People Given 1-Way Ticket Out of Town

(Dec 21, 2017 1:30 PM) American taxpayers spend millions of dollars a year on bus tickets out of town for homeless people. New York City alone budgets about $500,000 annually for its homeless relocation program, which can also include expensive plane tickets to places like Nigeria, France, and New Zealand. But despite the money being spent on busing homeless people somewhere else, there's never been a large-scale study on the effectiveness—for cities or homeless people themselves—of such programs. In an eyeopening piece, the Guardian spent 18 months investigating relocation programs, identifying more than 34,000 trips taken by homeless people out of 16 cities and counties—in the western US, Florida, and New York—that have such programs. The results show the outcomes of busing homeless people out of town are all over the map. A 22-year-old woman was homeless and struggling with alcoholism when she was bused out of Fort Lauderdale and returned to her mother; she credits it with saving her life. But a 49-year-old woman also shipped out of Fort Lauderdale to New York faced nights in a McDonald's, abuse, and a return to the Florida city she left. Homeless people report feeling forced to accept bus tickets, and a man given a ticket out of Key West says he felt the program stabbed me in the back. Relocation programs say they can give homeless people a chance to return to old support networks in their hometowns and get a new start, but cities aren't necessarily acting purely out of good intentions. For example, bus tickets are cheap compared to the estimated $80,000 each chronically homeless person costs San Francisco on a yearly basis. Read the full story here.

Idaho Hit by 5.3 Quake; Then Came the Aftershocks

(Sep 6, 2017 9:20 AM CDT) More than 100 aftershocks have rattled southeastern Idaho since a 5.3 magnitude quake hit near the town of Soda Springs late last week, and experts say they could continue for another week or so. The 5.3 quake hit about 6pm Saturday, the AP reports. There were no reports of injuries or damage, though officials say 17,000 people reported feeling the 5.3 quake from as far away as Salt Lake City. By noon on Tuesday, more than 102 additional earthquakes had been recorded in the region by the US Geological Survey, all at magnitudes of 4.5 or less. They'll likely taper off by the end of next week, says John Bellini, a USGS geophysicist. They can go on for days or weeks, and they'll get smaller in size and frequency. Lee Liberty, a Boise State University geosciences professor, says Idaho experiences earthquakes of a magnitude 5 or above on average about every five years, based on news reports and other records dating back to 1872. They don't happen like clockwork, however, he notes. This is the largest event since 1983, Liberty says, referring to Idaho's biggest recorded quake, a 6.9 temblor. So it has been a generation, but historically we expect them more frequently than we've been seeing them. Two schoolchildren were killed in that quake when a brick storefront collapsed. Aftershocks in that event continued for more than a year—one reaching a magnitude of 5.8—and the mountains and neighboring valley shifted nearly 14 feet apart in some places.

Uber's Losses Top $2B for the Year

(Dec 20, 2016 12:45 AM) Uber is fast establishing itself as a modern, 21st-century way to lose a lot of money, according to the latest financial results. Bloomberg reports that the company's losses have been eye-popping this year, with an $800 million loss in the third quarter bringing total losses to at least $2.2 billion, a figure that could top $3 billion when fourth-quarter results come in. A source tells Bloomberg that net revenue has risen along with losses and is expected to reach more than $5.5 billion this year. The loss figures do not include interest or taxes, meaning Uber's losses could be even higher than reported. The company is believed to have lost at least $2 billion in 2015. Insiders tell the Wall Street Journal that the losses resulted from big spending on promotions to attract new drivers, and on investment in new parts of the business like the UberEATS delivery service and the self-driving car project that has led to clashes with California regulators. According to CNBC, Uber's losses in the third quarter would have been even higher if it hadn't left the China market, selling its local business to Beijing-based rival Didi Chuxing as part of a deal that saw the Chinese firm invest $1 billion in Uber. Bloomberg's sources say Uber managed to make a slight profit in the US in the first quarter of this year, but it lost $100 million in its home market in the second quarter and more than that in the third.

Court: Dutch 30% Liable for Srebrenica Massacre

(Jun 27, 2017 7:15 AM CDT) A Dutch appeals court ruled Tuesday that the government was partially liable in the deaths of more than 300 Muslim men killed by Bosnian Serb forces in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. The ruling formally struck down a civil court's landmark 2014 judgment that said the state was liable in the deaths of the Bosnian Muslim men and boys who were turned over by Dutch UN peacekeepers to Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995 and subsequently killed. But the appeals panel largely upheld the earlier case's findings while significantly cutting the amount of damages relatives of the dead could receive by assessing the victims' chances of survival had they remained in the care of the Dutch troops, the AP reports. Hague Appeals Court presiding judge Gepke Dulek says that because Dutch soldiers sent the men off the Dutch compound along with other refugees seeking shelter there, they were deprived of the chance of survival. The men were among around 8,000 Muslim men and boys killed by Bosnian Serb forces in Europe's worst massacre since World War II. The court estimated the chances of Muslim males' survival if they had stayed in the Dutch compound at around 30%. The state is therefore liable for 30% of the losses suffered by the relatives, the court said in a statement. The 2014 judgment didn't include that qualification. (Last year, the Butcher of Bosnia was sentenced to 40 years for his role in the massacre.)

Guy Burning Books Ends Up Burning Down 10 Homes

(Mar 23, 2017 1:29 PM CDT) A man burning books in his Florida backyard sparked a wildfire that burned 400 acres and destroyed at least 10 homes in Nassau County, UPI reports. It was an illegal burn. It was paper. It got away from him, says a Florida Fire Service rep. Dry, windy conditions helped the fire to spread Wednesday afternoon, and 150 residents were ordered to evacuate the area near Bryceville, 20 miles west of Jacksonville. As of Thursday morning, the fire was no longer spreading, but was not expected to be fully contained by the end of the day. The unidentified book burner will be billed for the personnel and equipment needed to fight the fire, and could be held civilly liable for property damage.

Tsunami Expected After 7.3 Earthquake Near Fukushima

(Nov 21, 2016 3:26 PM) A tsunami warning has been issued after a 7.3 earthquake hit off of Fukushima, Japan, Monday, the AP reports. Per Reuters, residents have been advised to flee the Fukushima coast and a tsunami was expected within minutes. The story is developing.

Bullied Kid Gets Escort to School From 50 Bikers

(Aug 4, 2017 11:15 AM CDT) I know what it's like to be picked on, says Brent Warfield. You wouldn't know it to look at him. The burly biker from DeKalb, Ind., says he was bullied as a kid, which is why he was irked to learn a local boy was going through the same thing. Tammy Mick and her 11-year-old son, Phil, met Warfield last December when a local motorcycle shop hosted an event for families who couldn't afford to celebrate the holidays, reports the Washington Post. When Mick told Warfield that Phil was physically and verbally abused at school because of his weight, Warfield vowed to help out. On Phil's first day of sixth grade on Tuesday, Warfield did just that, using Facebook to recruit more than 50 of his big-hearted biker friends to escort Phil to school. Some traveled more than an hour for the ride. Others took the day off work, Warfield says. Phil was just in heaven, he adds. He wasn't apprehensive or scared and walked in with confidence. Tammy Mick tells WTSP her son now comes home every day smiling and he did not do that last year. The bikers, however, aren't done. Warfield says they've organized a September event that aims to raise awareness about bullying and suicide, with Phil as a speaker. Standing up against bullying—we need more of that, his principal at DeKalb Middle School tells the Brown County Democrat. The bikers, whose motorcycles were hard to miss Tuesday, did it in a positive way, he adds. (A mom's Facebook post about her son's bullying went viral.)

Grandma Gets Life for Dressing as Witch to 'Torture' 7-Year-Old

(Apr 15, 2017 12:05 PM CDT) A 51-year-old woman who dressed as a witch named Nelda to repeatedly torture her 7-year-old granddaughter received three life sentences Thursday, the Oklahoman reports. Geneva Robinson of Oklahoma City pleaded guilty to five counts of felony child abuse. The assistant DA says Robinson's granddaughter spent months living in a house of horrors in 2014. Robinson would scratch the girl's neck, hit her with a rolling pin, cut her hair while she slept, whip her, burn her, use a dog leash to hang her from the ceiling by her arms, and imply she was going to eat her. She did all this while dressed up as a witch named Nelda. A cellphone video shows Nelda grabbing the girl while her crying siblings watch, KWTV reports. The girl begs Nelda for mercy. Robinson's boyfriend, 33-year-old Joshua Granger, says Nelda was meant to keep the children from misbehaving. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of felony child abuse for dressing up as a demon named Coogro and helping Robinson. Robinson was arrested in 2014 after bringing the malnourished girl to the hospital. Robinson's own children had also reportedly been abused by the witch, but the victim's father says he didn't think Robinson still did the Nelda thing. The 7-year-old victim wrote a letter to Robinson forgiving her and saying she was a great grandmother.

Cashier Managed to Embezzle $13M From Employer

(Sep 29, 2017 8:00 AM CDT) A cashier in Pennsylvania convicted of stealing nearly $13 million from the monuments and engraving firm where she worked has been sentenced to 8 years and 4 months in prison, per the AP. Cynthia Mills, 56, took the money from Matthews International Corp. from 1999 to 2015. She pleaded guilty in March to mail fraud, wire fraud, tax evasion, and money laundering. As cashier, Mills' job was to deposit checks made out to Matthews and to make wire transfers to pay the company's vendors. While she did that, she also moved money from company accounts into her own bank accounts, then covered up the thefts by forging bank statements and creating fake invoices. Mills' attorney, Phil DiLucente, told the judge the thefts weren't driven by greed but by Mills' addiction to gambling at the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh and the Meadows Racetrack & Casino in nearby Washington County, where he said the bulk of the money was lost. As part of Mills' plea deal imposed Thursday, Mills also agreed to forfeit three homes, a yacht, two other boats, at least eight cars, and other items including jewelry and expensive designer handbags bought with the stolen money. But Assistant US Attorney Shardul Desai noted the casinos weren't even open when Mills began stealing the money: Rivers Casino opened in 2009, and the Meadows casino opened in 2007. This theft didn't start with gambling, Desai said. This theft started with greed.

Cops: Discarded Water Bottle Helped Solve 1999 Rape

(Nov 18, 2016 6:25 AM) An 11-year-old girl's kidnapping and rape in Santa Ana, Calif., may be solved after 17 years thanks in part to a discarded water bottle. For years, detectives had few leads apart from a surveillance video from a gas station showing a man in a van covering the girl's mouth with his hand while an unknown man pumped gas, police say, per KTLA. However, DNA evidence taken from the victim was recently submitted for analysis. Two DNA profiles emerged. One matched DNA from 36-year-old Ismael Salgado, who lived in Santa Ana in 1999, police say, per the Los Angeles Times. The second sample didn't match any in California or national databases, but detectives soon identified an old friend of Salgado's who had also lived in Santa Ana at the time of the crime. While following Jose Plascencia, 36, in Arizona, detectives saw him throw away a water bottle and retrieved it for analysis. DNA from the bottle then proved a match to the case. According to police, Salgado and Plascencia dragged the victim and a friend into their van on Feb. 3, 1999, as the girls were walking home. The friend was able to escape, but when the victim tried to do the same, the suspects pulled her back in by her hair, a police rep tells KABC. They stopped to get gas, then raped the 11-year-old repeatedly at two different locations before releasing her, police allege. Both men are now held at the Orange County Jail on suspicion of kidnapping to commit a sex offense and forcible rape, per the Orange County Register. Bail is set at $1 million each. (Police have a new lead in a girl's 1957 murder.)

Original Gerber Baby Is 90

(Nov 23, 2016 11:48 AM) The original Gerber baby has turned 90. The baby food maker says Ann Taylor Cook celebrated her 90th birthday on Sunday. Cook was about 4 months old in 1927 when her image was sketched in charcoal by family friend Dorothy Hope Smith. The drawing was submitted to Gerber a year later when Gerber put out a call for images to be used in its new baby food advertisements, reports the AP. Today reports that Smith explained in a note that if Gerber picked her entry she'd finish what was an uncompleted sketch, but the company thought it fit the bill. Cook's picture became the company's official trademark in 1931. Cook became a mother of four and taught literature and writing in Tampa, Florida, for 26 years before retiring in 1989. Her identity as the Gerber baby wasn't revealed until 1978, notes Today: Previous to that, Americans suspected Elizabeth Taylor or Jayne Seymour might have served as the model.

2 Couples Involved in Sex Tape Blackmail Scandal Met ... at Church

(Nov 10, 2016 7:01 PM) Two couples who met at a Texas church are now involved in possibly the furthest thing from a post-sermon potluck: a sex tape blackmail case. As the Houston Chronicle reports, Leslie Amanda Hippensteel, 31, and John Ousley, 32, met Saul Eisenberg, 28, and his then-fiancée, 24, at a church in Katy; Ousley and Eisenberg's fiancée ended up having an affair. They made sex videos, which were ultimately found by Hippensteel. She allegedly blackmailed Ousley with them and emailed them to Eisenberg, who in turn allegedly forwarded them to his mother and stepfather. A big mess ensued: Hippensteel and Ousley divorced in March; Eisenberg and his former fiancée are in the midst of custody proceedings over their 6-year-old child; and both Hippensteel and Eisenberg face misdemeanor charges of unlawful disclosure of intimate visual material. Hippensteel was arrested earlier this month for allegedly blackmailing her ex-husband with the sex videos during their divorce proceedings, threatening to send them to the Christian high school where he worked if he didn't give her money. Ousley showed police records appearing to prove he gave Hippensteel $7,812.21. She then allegedly sent the videos to Eisenberg, who says he received them on Feb. 2, and also allegedly sent them to Ousley's employer. Ousley resigned after administrators confronted him about the videos. The videos also somehow ended up on pornhub.com. On Thursday, a judge barred Eisenberg from contacting Ousley or his former fiancée. The Dallas Morning News, which notes that Hippensteel is an actress, reports both she and Eisenberg face up to a year in jail. (Read how a criminal found America's first big sex tape.)

Target Has Stores in 49 States. It's About to Snag No. 50

(Oct 19, 2017 6:53 PM CDT) Imagine living in a state without a Target. It's not some hypothetical apocalyptic future; it's reality for the residents of Vermont, which has never had the iconic retailer inside its borders—but that's about to change. Since its founding in 1962, Target has built stores in all 49 other states, Washington DC, and even India. But an attempt to bring a location to Vermont fell through in 2012 when some locals questioned the size of the store, the Burlington Free Press reports; some Vermonters don't like the idea of adding another big-box store to the state, where Walmart, Kmart, Home Depot, and others already have locations. But others have been pleading for a Target, and the company announced Thursday that their dreams will be coming true. A location will be opened in South Burlington next year, prompting a Breaking News banner on the website of the local paper, per NPR. The store will be around 60,000 square feet, smaller than the average 130,000-square-foot Target, and it will employ 75 people. While we may be the last state to join the Target family, we know they will quickly become part of the Vermont community and look forward to seeing its long-term success in the state, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott said in a press release. South Burlington's city manager says he hopes this will keep people shopping in the state, rather than crossing Lake Champlain to go to the Target in Plattsburgh, New York.

Netflix's $1M Code Contest Was Tech's 'Willy Wonka' Prize

(Jul 20, 2017 10:04 AM CDT) At the time, it was giant news in the world of coding: In 2006, Netflix offered $1 million to anyone who could improve its movie-recommendation algorithm by 10%. In doing so, CEO Reed Hastings took the unprecedented step of making available the company's huge troves of data from customers. In a recounting of the competition at Thrillist, Dan Jackson likens Hastings to a tech-age Willy Wonka who had decided to let any curious hacker into his digital Chocolate Factory —but instead of a chocolate river, he offered a gushing stream of data. Because this was a relatively low-tech contest, amateurs went head-to-head with veterans, and it became surprisingly intense. It would go on for nearly three years, but with a twist: Competitors would share insights with one another in the quest toward the elusive 10%, though they eventually formed into rival supergroups of sorts. Eventually, one of those groups that included AT&T experts finally claimed the prize in 2009, though a rival group known as the Ensemble tied the mark, only to miss out on sharing the honor because its submission came in 20 minutes late. (The money eventually went to charity anyway.) The odd kicker: Netflix didn't actually use the winning formula because by the time the contest ended, it had shifted into a streaming company and the world was a much different place. Still, even if the contest didn't play out like many might have first imagined it—one brilliant genius scoring a million dollar jackpot—it instead helped make large strides in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and recommender systems, writes Jackson. Click for the full story, which notes how outlier films such as Napoleon Dynamite gave the coders headaches.

Day After Visiting Maze, Mom Realizes 3-Year-Old Is Lost

(Oct 11, 2017 10:51 AM CDT) Family members tell police they didn't notice that a 3-year-old boy was missing when they left a corn maze in Utah on Monday night. Nor did they notice his absence at bedtime, or overnight. Indeed, it was shortly before 8am Tuesday that the mother of the boy finally called police, reports KUTV. It had then been some 12 hours since a woman had discovered the crying boy alone at the Crazy Corn Maze in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Jordan and brought him to the maze owners. Because the boy only revealed his age and the names of his brother and cat, the owners went car to car and throughout the maze, announcing that a lost child had been found, per KSL. The boy was finally turned over to the Department of Child and Family Services when no one claimed him. On Tuesday morning, the boy's mother woke up and noticed he was missing, West Jordan police officer Joe Monson tells the Salt Lake Tribune. She realized she may have left him at the corn maze and called us. Police issued no citations, but DCFS is investigating why it took so long for them to realize the child was missing, Monson tells KUTV. It sounds like this is a dwelling with multiple families and a lot of children living in the same home, he says, telling the AP the mother eventually turned up at the police station with 10 kids in tow. A DCFS rep tells Fox 13 we don't want to jump to any conclusions but are concerned mainly about the safety of the child. It wasn't clear whether the boy is back with his family. (A town rallied to find this 3-year-old lost in a cornfield.)

Cotton Swabs Send 34 Kids to the ER Each Day

(May 10, 2017 9:32 AM CDT) A new study from a children's hospital has one clear takeaway: Kids should stop cleaning their ears with cotton applicators. Researchers report in the Journal of Pediatrics that 34 patients under age 18 end up in the ER every day because of injuries related to the swabs. The stat is the daily average of 263,000 ER trips they tracked down over 21 years through 2010, reports the Columbus Dispatch. About three-quarters of the injuries—such as perforated eardrums—came during ear cleaning, with others from kids playing with the applicators (10%) or falling with them in their ears (9%). In the majority of such cases, 77%, the kids were using the applicators themselves. And the younger the child, the more prone they were to a problem: Two-thirds of patients were younger than 8, and 40% were age 3 or younger. The two biggest misconceptions I hear as an otolaryngologist are that the ear canals need to be cleaned in the home setting, and that cotton tip applicators should be used to clean them; both of those are incorrect, says senior author Dr. Kris Jatana of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in a news release. In fact, our ear canals are largely self-cleaning and best left alone, she advises. That echoes advice earlier this year from the American Academy of Otolaryngology, which said that earwax has health benefits to boot. Health experts say that those who just can't resist do-it-yourself ear cleaning should instead opt for drops, and Gizmodo spells out the details. The bright side of the report is that 99% of the hospital trips ended up with the patient treated and released. (Your earwax says a lot about you.)

London Arrests 2nd Suspect in Subway Attack

(Sep 17, 2017 5:36 AM CDT) London police say a second man has been arrested in connection with the London subway attack. Police said Sunday that a 21-year-old man was arrested late Saturday in west London and is being held under the Terrorism Act. He is being questioned at a south London police station but has not been charged or identified. Two men are now in custody for possible roles in the bombing on a rush-hour subway train Friday morning that injured 29 people. An 18-year-old man was arrested Saturday in the departure area of the port of Dover, where ferries leave for France. The two arrests indicate police and security services believe the attack at the Parsons Green station was part of a coordinated plot, reports the AP. We are still pursing numerous lines of enquiry and at a great pace, counter-terrorism coordinator Neil Basu of the London police said late Saturday. Britain's terror threat level remains at critical —the highest level—meaning that authorities believe another attack is imminent. The official threat level is not likely to be lowered until police believe all of the plotters have been taken into custody. Police on Saturday launched a massive armed search in the southwestern London suburb of Sunbury. Neighbors were evacuated in a rush for nearly 10 hours before they were allowed to return to their homes. ISIS says the attack Friday was carried out by one of its affiliated units. The improvised explosive device placed on the subway train only partially detonated, limiting injuries. Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the casualties would have been far higher if the bomb had fully detonated. Frustrated by the string of terrorist attacks in recent months, she said officials will have to work harder to make bomb components more difficult to obtain.

1 Year Sober, Mother Credits Viral Overdose Photo

(Oct 28, 2017 11:56 AM CDT) When police found 25-year-old Erika Hurt passed out in her car in the parking lot of an Indiana Dollar General Store, needle in her hand, with her 10-month-old son in the backseat, they snapped a photo that went viral as the face of the opioid crisis in America. One year after the photo was taken, Hurt tells NBC News that despite being so hurt and embarrassed police would make the photo public, it was kind of a really big eye opener to see myself like that. Hurt celebrated a year of sobriety last Sunday, posting the photo of the absolute worst moment of my life on Facebook to show exactly what heroin addiction is and to never forget where the road of addiction has taken me. Hurt first saw the photo on the news while she was in jail. At the time, she thought it was terrible that police would expose her like that. Now, I do think it was a good thing, because I’m able to look back and see that's who I was, and that was the place it led to. The Washington Post reports Hurt has struggled with addiction since she was prescribed painkillers for a staph infection at 15. While locked up following her overdose, she missed her son's first Thanksgiving, Christmas, and birthday. I told myself I wasn't going to miss any more of his life, she says. She says her son—and the photo—have given her the true desire to stay sober.

Apollo 12 Astronaut Who Flew to Moon Dies

(Nov 8, 2017 7:01 AM) Apollo 12 astronaut Richard Dick F. Gordon Jr., one of a dozen men who flew around the moon but didn't land there, has died, NASA said. He was 88. Gordon was a test pilot when he was chosen for NASA's third group of astronauts in 1963. He flew on Gemini 11 in 1966, walking in space twice, reports the AP. In 1969, Gordon circled the moon in the Apollo 12 command module Yankee Clipper while crewmates Alan Bean and Charles Conrad landed and walked on the lunar surface. Over the two flights, he spent nearly 316 hours in space. Dick will be fondly remembered as one of our nation's boldest flyers, a man who added to our own nation's capabilities by challenging his own, acting NASA administrator Robert Lightfoot said in a statement. Gordon died Monday at his home in San Marcos, Calif., according to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

How the Words We Use Changed Over 200 Years

(Dec 4, 2016 12:59 PM) It is well established that humans across languages and cultures have a tendency to use more positive words than negative ones. This is called linguistic positivity bias (LPB), but why the phenomenon exists remains unclear. Now researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that their big data analysis of 200 years of words in Google Books (1.3 million texts from 1800 to 2000) and New York Times archives (14.9 million articles since 1851) suggests that the ratio of positive to negative written words correlates strongly with the Misery Index (which measure economic health) and war casualties. They also found that LPB has been on the decline, with researcher Morteza Dehghani calling it, very generally, an indicator that happiness may be on the decline in the US. But outside scientists urge caution when interpreting the results. The New York Times says the study does offer up evidence that objective circumstances (like war deaths and the economy, as noted above) and subjective happiness can alter our language, there are confounding factors at play in terms of citing a centuries-long decline. UPenn linguistics prof Mark Liberman, for instance, takes issue with the database of 907 words run against the texts, and give the example of awesome, which has evolved from meaning daunting to excellent. The researchers acknowledge that our results ... encourage the development of more precise tools for inferring psychological states from historical texts. (Even the final words of death row inmates tend to be positive.)

15 Years After Chandra Levy's Murder, Gary Condit Speaks

(Oct 25, 2016 3:49 PM CDT) Former congressman Gary Condit is speaking out publicly for the first time in 15 years over Chandra Levy's murder in 2001. Levy was an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in DC when she vanished while jogging, and her remains were found in a park. Investigators at the time say Condit admitted that he'd had an affair with the 24-year-old, but he has never publicly acknowledged that. Now, the 68-year-old has co-written a book about the case, Actual Malice, and in an interview about it with Dr. Phil McGraw, he insists he was not romantically involved with Levy and had nothing to do with her killing, ABC News reports. He says police tried to frame him. Condit's political career imploded after Levy's murder, though he was ruled out as a suspect early on in the investigation, People notes. I saw her one time outside the office, at a restaurant, and she came by my condo once, Condit says. Well, maybe twice. Yeah, I think it was twice she came by. I want to make this clear: There’s nothing unusual about someone coming by my condo, a lot of people did. Levy's mother, Susan, tells ABC that she doesn't believe he's telling the whole story. Chandra was secretive about her relationship with Condit, she says. Chandra shared that her 'Man,' as she called him, was high-profile and it was best to not be seen together. A review of the book at the Modesto Bee notes that it is critical of the Levy family, along with police and the media. Ingmar Guandique, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador, was convicted of Levy's murder in 2010, but his conviction has since been overturned.

Actor, Comedian Jay Thomas Dead at 69

(Aug 24, 2017 5:01 PM CDT) A publicist for Jay Thomas says the actor and radio host has died. Thomas was 69. In a statement Thursday, publicist Tom Estey said his longtime friend and client will be dearly missed by many, the AP reports. Thomas' longtime agent tells the New York Daily News the comedian died of cancer. Thomas played Eddie LeBac, the former-hockey-player husband of barmaid Carla on Cheers. He played tabloid TV show host Jerry Gold on Murphy Brown, for which he won two Emmys. He also starred in the sitcom Love & War as a sports writer romancing the woman who owned his favorite sports bar. His film roles include Mr. Holland's Opus and the second and third Santa Clause films. Thomas started out as a DJ in college and in recent years hosted a talk show on SiriusXM Radio.

How 10 Minutes in 1965 Changed Joan Rivers' Life

(Nov 9, 2016 5:20 PM) Joan Rivers was a struggling 31-year-old comic back in 1965 when she finally got the break she'd unsuccessfully sought for a decade: a spot on the Tonight Show. As an article adapted in Vanity Fair from a new biography recounts, Rivers killed that night. Her standup set charmed the audience, and Johnny Carson summoned her to the couch, where their banter turned her into a star almost immediately. And in a flash the endless struggle was finished, writes Leslie Bennetts. A lifetime of battling against the people who told her no, who said she couldn’t do it, who thought she wasn’t good enough or a has-been—all the rejections and hardships had been magically wiped away. As Rivers herself put it: Ten minutes on television, and it was all over. Her career took off, and Rivers became a national fixture through the 1960s and into the 1980s with her then-groundbreaking material about sex and marriage. Then came catastrophe: Rivers landed her own talk show on Fox, only to be fired in 1987. Her husband and manager, Edgar, then killed himself, and Rivers soon found herself with a gun on her lap contemplating her own suicide. That's when her Yorkshire terrier jumped onto her lap and actually sat on the weapon. Rivers suddenly realized nobody would want to take care of her spoiled, bratty dog, and scrapped the suicide. What followed was another career rebirth in which she would become a cultural icon, a vastly influential trailblazer, and a business powerhouse before her death in 2014. Click for the full story.

Lawyer: Chelsea Manning Made 2nd Suicide Attempt

(Nov 5, 2016 7:21 AM CDT) Chelsea Manning tried to kill herself on the first day of a term in solitary confinement imposed as punishment for an earlier suicide attempt, her lawyers say. In a statement provided to the New York Times, the transgender soldier says she was placed on suicide watch after the Oct. 4 attempt. She goes on to describe what the Times calls a bizarre sequence of events a few days later in which people impersonating guards carried out an assault on the prison and she heard them torturing the real guards. Manning says the attackers tried to get her to escape and she refused. Everything returned to normal the next morning, although the tier was being deep-cleaned, says Manning, who is serving a 35-year sentence for passing secret documents to WikiLeaks. A psychiatrist specializing in the effects of solitary confinement tells the Times that delirium including paranoia and hallucinations is a classic symptom experienced by inmates in solitary. Attorney Chase Strangio says prison is clearly taking its toll on Manning. After her July suicide attempt, I watched her begin to piece her life and spirit back together only to have that shattered by the disciplinary proceedings brought against her and then the unannounced initiation of her term of punishment last month, he tells the AP. She has repeatedly been punished for trying to survive and now is being repeatedly punished for trying to die. Manning is now back in the general prison population at Fort Leavenworth, though members of her support network say she kept spotting the fake guards for weeks after leaving solitary.

Dad Reveals Location of Son's Body— 20 Years Later

(Apr 27, 2017 8:19 AM CDT) The father of a boy who became the face of a Hawaii campaign for missing and abused children after his 1997 disappearance rode in a van with police and prosecutors last weekend, leading them to the site where he says he dumped his dead son's remains. Peter Kema Sr., wearing a jail jumpsuit and shackles, agreed to the move as part of a plea deal reached earlier this month, Hawaii County Prosecuting Attorney Mitch Roth tells the AP. Kema pleaded guilty to manslaughter in exchange for a 20-year sentence, on the condition that he reveal where the remains are. The site in the Big Island's remote Puna district, to be searched at a later date, is in an area that police didn't previously search or consider. Police will return to the site for a more detailed search before Kema is sentenced in June, Roth said. Kema and his wife, Jaylin, have long been suspects in the disappearance of the 6-year-old known as Peter Boy, but prosecutors said they didn't have enough evidence to charge them until last year, when a grand jury indicted the couple on murder charges. Jaylin Kema pleaded guilty last year to manslaughter in the first official confirmation that the child was dead. In exchange for 10 years' probation and a one-year jail sentence with credit for time served, she agreed to testify against her husband if he went to trial. She also agreed to facts prosecutors laid out in court about abuse suffered by the boy and her failure to get him medical treatment. Prosecutors believe the boy died from septic shock from not getting medical care for an arm injury.

Raise a Red Solo Cup to Its Inventor, Dead at 84

(Dec 29, 2016 4:33 AM) You're more than just plastic, you're more than amazing, you're more than fantastic, croons Toby Keith in his 2011 hit Red Solo Cup, a song that Robert Leo Hulseman surely loved. The inventor of the plastic chalice known as the Red Solo Cup, who lived in both Illinois and Arizona, died on Dec. 21 at age 84, reports People. A death notice describes the devoted family man and father of 10 as a philanthropist, an innovator, a hands-on manufacturing expert, and an industry pioneer. After starting at his father's Solo Cup Company at 18, Hulseman worked his way up and is credited with inventing the famous party cup at some point in the 1970s. He also developed the Traveler Lid, which has been featured at the Museum of Modern Art, notes the Miami Herald. Hulseman—who eventually rose to the position of CEO—is owed a debt of thanks by virtually every American (and quite a few imbibers overseas) for his now-ubiquitous invention, the Red Solo Cup, with rings marking 1.5 ounces for liquor, 5 ounces for wine, and 12 ounces for beer, observes People. Before that product was introduced, the Solo Cup Company had mostly focused on cone-shaped paper cups. The precise history is a bit iffy, but we know we were one of the first to introduce a party cup, a Solo rep told Slate in 2011. There may be competitors, but the Red Solo Cup remains a staple, with tweaks along the way to provide for better stability during, say, enthusiastic beer-pong matches. (More on the cup here.)

Cops: Carjackers Killed Man Trying to Save Daughter, 2

(Sep 11, 2017 3:56 AM CDT) Two Philadelphia brothers have been arrested for what police say was the utterly senseless murder of a father in front of his 2-year-old daughter. Police say the brothers approached 38-year-old Gerard Grandzol outside his residence Thursday and demanded his wallet and car keys after he returned from an outing with his daughter. He handed over his wallet, but was shot dead after apparently insisting on getting his daughter out of the car before giving the robbers his keys, Fox News reports. Police say he was shot twice in the face at point-blank range in front of his daughter, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Maurice Roberts, 21, and his 16-year-old brother, Marvin, were arrested Saturday. Police sources tell the Inquirer that the teenager was the one who shot Grandzol for not moving fast enough. Both brothers have criminal records and police say they lived unsettled lives. Police say family members assisted the investigation. Grandzol was a popular community activist whose second daughter was born just six weeks ago. Those two gunshots just destroyed my life and my two daughters don’t have a father now, widow Kristin Grandzol told KYW. The murder really pulls at the heartstrings, Police Chief Inspector James Kelly said Saturday. It's the senseless slaying of a father in front of his 2-year-old daughter. That shouldn't happen. That shouldn't happen to any family anywhere.

He Fell During a Frat Party; 12 Hours Later, a Call for Help

(Feb 8, 2017 11:20 AM) Timothy Piazza fell down a set of stairs at his Penn State fraternity around 11pm Thursday in the midst of a party. A call for help came 12 hours later. Paramedics found Piazza, 19, unresponsive when they arrived at the Beta Theta Pi fraternity Friday morning. He was pronounced dead at a hospital on Saturday and a coroner determined his death was accidental, citing numerous injuries suffered in the fall, reports Fox 43. But an investigation has raised questions about whether Piazza might still be alive if help had come sooner. CBS News reports Piazza, who was intoxicated, fell down basement stairs but was found on a couch on the main level of the home by paramedics. Party guests knew he fell at 11 but they didn't report it until 10:49 the following morning, hence why we're investigating, a rep for the State College Police Department tells the Washington Post. Alcohol was obviously a factor in this and we are also looking into why it took so long to call, he added, per NorthJersey.com. Piazza's father has said the accident happened during a fraternity pledge/hazing event, without elaborating. Beta Theta Pi has been temporarily suspended while the investigation continues. In a statement, the frat says it is fully cooperating with police and Penn State administrators. The Centre Daily Times reports the fraternity has also provided video footage, which police are now reviewing.