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DOJ Wants Info on 1.3M People Who Visited Anti-Trump Site | (Aug 15, 2017 3:58 PM CDT) The Department of Justice is demanding the IP addresses of more than 1.3 million people who visited an anti-Trump website, TechCrunch reports. According to Fortune, that information—along with photos, email content, and more being sought by the DOJ—could be used to identify anyone who visited DisruptJ20.org, which was used to organize protests during President Trump's inauguration. DreamHost, which hosts DisruptJ20.org, was served a warrant by the DOJ in July, but the warrant wasn't made public until Monday when DreamHost filed arguments to fight it, the Guardian reports. DreamHost says the warrant chills free association and the right of free speech afforded by the Constitution and should be enough to set alarm bells off in anyone's mind. The Electronic Frontier Foundation calls the DOJ warrant unconstitutional and a fishing expedition. The digital rights organization, which is advising DreamHost, says no plausible explanation exists for a search warrant of this breadth, other than to cast a digital dragnet as broadly as possible. Similar warrants have been used to go after websites disseminating illegal content, such as child pornography, but DreamHost says DisruptJ20.org was only used to facilitate legal political speech. The DOJ has been serious about prosecuting anti-Trump protesters; one indictment filed in Washington DC following inauguration protests charged more than 217 people with identical crimes. |
As 2nd Birthday Looms, a New Princess Charlotte Photo | (May 1, 2017 9:10 AM CDT) Prince William and his wife Kate have released a photo of Princess Charlotte ahead of her 2nd birthday, which People reports will be spent privately at home. The photo taken by the Duchess of Cambridge was distributed Monday, one day before Charlotte turns two. It shows Charlotte on the grounds of Anmer Hall, the family's country home, wearing a yellow cardigan sweater decorated with images of sheep, reports the AP. The family is expected to spend more time in London in the coming years. Their London base is at Kensington Palace. Charlotte's older brother, Prince George, 3, plans to attend a London school in September. As for the next big thing for Charlotte, the BBC notes she'll be part of the wedding party for Pippa Middleton's May 20 nuptials. |
Column: Dustin Hoffman Groped Me When I Was 17 | (Nov 1, 2017 10:50 AM CDT) Anna Graham Hunter was a 17-year-old high school senior in 1985 when she got an internship as a production assistant on the set of the Death of a Salesman TV movie. In a column for the Hollywood Reporter, using her own letters from her five weeks on set as a guide, she recounts how Dustin Hoffman allegedly sexually harassed her on set. Her interactions with him started when he asked her to massage his feet one day during lunch (his daughter, who was in eighth grade at the time, was in the room) and progressed to flirtatious behavior like asking her if she had sex over the weekend, talking about breasts in front of her, teasing her about wanting to sleep with Warren Beatty, and telling her he wanted a hard-boiled egg ... and a soft-boiled clitoris for breakfast one morning. Hunter's letters say that she realized Hoffman was a lech around the time he started allegedly groping her butt; she says when he did that she hit his hand away and told him he was a dirty old man. She says another production assistant called him a pig when he said he wanted her breasts for lunch, and that the office manager said if the producer found out about it, she would have been gone in a second —causing Hunter to wonder if she'd be fired should someone find out she was rejecting Hoffman's advances. She eventually stood up to Hoffman and he apologized, even though her supervisor had told her that for the sake of the production she needed to let certain things roll over [her] head. In response to the Reporter, Hoffman said he feels terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation. I am sorry. |
Stabbing Spree Leaves 8 Injured in Colorado Springs | (Jan 13, 2020 9:34 AM) Police in Colorado say eight people were stabbed in a string of apparently random attacks overnight in Colorado Springs. All eight were taken to hospitals, and there's no word yet on the severity of their injuries, reports KDVR. The suspect was being held by victims when officers arrived, police say. At least three different attacks took place downtown, starting about 1:30am. Police found two victims at the first site, then more at a second site by a local park. Officers arrested the suspect at the site of yet another stabbing, around 2:10am. The attacks appeared [to] be random and there is no known relationship between the suspect and the victims, says a police report, per CNN. The suspect hasn't been identified yet. |
'Completely Innocent' Kids Die in Oregon's Worst Crash Since 2012 | (Oct 10, 2017 1:47 AM CDT) A man arrested for drunk driving and hit-and-run in July killed a woman and four children in a horrific head-on crash on Sunday, Oregon State Police say. Lizette Medrano-Perez, 25, and an 8-year-old boy, a 6-year-old boy, a 4-year-old girl, and a 2-year-old girl were killed when a Land Rover driven by 27-year-old Favian Garcia slammed into their Buick Century a mile north of Salem, KATU reports. Those were completely innocent children, says police spokeswoman Lt. Cari Boyd. There are just no words to explain what happened. Garcia was released from jail in August but a warrant for his arrest was later issued when he failed to show up for court. Records show he was also charged with drunk driving in 2011. The crash was Oregon's deadliest since a tour bus crash killed nine people in 2012, the Oregonian reports. Garcia, who was hospitalized after receiving minor injuries in the accident, was booked into jail Monday on five counts of manslaughter, felony driving under the influence of intoxicants, reckless driving, and driving with a suspended license. The three oldest children were Medrano-Perez's and she was the legal guardian of the youngest girl, her niece. To see the sadness in people's eyes knowing their family members aren't coming back because somebody made a bad choice is just one of the worst parts about our job, OSP Trooper Bob Charpentier tells KOIN. |
26 Bodies Found Floating in Sea. All Were Teen Girls | (Nov 7, 2017 7:21 AM) They were mostly between the ages of 14 and 18, and 26 of them are now dead. CNN reports on the latest tragedy in the Mediterranean Sea and describes an appalling scene: teenage girls' bodies floating lifelessly beside a nearly submerged rubber dinghy that survivors tried to cling to. The AFP reports 23 of the bodies were recovered Friday, with another three subsequently found. Their remains were brought ashore in Salerno, Italy; Salvatore Malfi, the police prefect there, tells NPR they appear to have drowned, but the bodies will be autopsied Tuesday to determine cause of death as well as whether the girls had been sexually abused. The BBC reports some are questioning whether the girls, believed to hail from Niger and Nigeria, were abused and murdered. They were en route to Europe via Libya, which CNN calls a hotbed for human traffickers. The AFP quotes Malfi as apparently trying to tamp down on that line of thought: The sex trafficking routes are different. Loading women onto a boat is too risky, the traffickers would not do it as they could lose all their 'goods'—as they describe them—in one fell swoop. Per the UN's migration agency, the migrant death toll along the main Mediterranean route stands at 2,639 for the year through Nov. 1, versus 3,615 for the same period last year. (This smuggler reportedly deliberately drowned 50 migrants.) |
Steve Perry to Perform With Journey for 1st Time Since '91 | (Apr 7, 2017 1:39 PM CDT) Steve Perry parted ways with Journey in 1987—but the original lead singer will perform with the band for the first time since a brief reunion in 1991 when Journey is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Friday night. Journey, whose current lead singer is Arnel Pineda, will perform three songs at the induction, and Perry will sing on at least one of them, TMZ reports. As the Mercury News notes, the ceremony at Brooklyn's Barclays Center won't be broadcast live, but will air on ET April 29. |
Here's How Congressman Lost $17M in Single Day | (Jun 27, 2017 5:46 PM CDT) A Republican congressman from New York lost approximately $17 million Tuesday when the stock value of an Australian biotech firm cratered, Politico reports. It's unclear how much money was lost by his fellow lawmakers, who he convinced to buy into the firm. Rep. Chris Collins is the largest shareholder and sits on the board of Innate Immunotherapeutics. On Tuesday, Innate stock dropped more than 90% after the firm announced its multiple sclerosis drug was a failure in clinical trials. According to CNBC, Innate stock hit a peak of $1.77 per share in January; it closed at 5 cents Tuesday. For those that invested in Innate including me, we all were sophisticated investors who were aware of the inherent risk, Collins says. Collins' actual, not-just-on-paper loss is the just over $5 million he invested in Innate about 15 years ago; he hadn't sold any of his Innate stock prior to Tuesday's crash, the Buffalo News reports. The other lawmakers Collins successfully convinced to buy Innate stock are Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, Bill Long of Missouri, Mike Conway of Texas, and Doug Lamborn of Colorado. The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating Collins for possible insider trading. He helped write legislation to speed up clinical trials that could have benefited Innate in theory. Collins, who says he's still hopeful Innate can develop a successful MS drug, was worth a reported $40 million prior to Tuesday's stock debacle. |
'Production Hell' on Model 3 Delays Debut of Tesla Semi | (Oct 7, 2017 9:43 AM CDT) The debut of Tesla's big rig truck, the Tesla Semi, has been pushed back for at least the second time this year, Reuters reports. Elon Musk tweeted Friday that the public now won't get its first look at the truck until Nov. 16. According to TechCrunch, the Tesla Semi was supposed to debut Oct. 26 after an initial unveiling in September was pushed back. Musk says the company is diverting resources from the Tesla Semi to fix production bottlenecks for its Model 3 and increase battery production to help restore electricity in Puerto Rico. Other needs are greater right now, Musk told a Twitter user asking about the truck. Musk describes the Model 3 as deep in production hell —echoing a warning of manufacturing hell he made back in July. Tesla had aimed to produce 1,500 Model 3s by Sept. 30; it made 260, Forbes reports. Musk blames unspecified manufacturing subsystems that have taken longer to activate than expected for the massive shortfall. |
Martin Landau Dies at 89 | (Jul 17, 2017 12:15 AM CDT) Martin Landau, the chameleon-like actor who gained fame as crafty master of disguise Rollin Hand in the 1960s TV show Mission: Impossible, then capped a long and versatile career with an Oscar for his poignant portrayal of aging horror star Bela Lugosi in 1994's Ed Wood, has died, the AP reports. He was 89. Landau died Saturday of unexpected complications during a short stay at UCLA Medical Center, his publicist says. The New York-born Landau studied drawing and worked for a time as a New York Daily News cartoonist before switching careers at age 22. In 1955, he was among hundreds who applied to study at the prestigious Actors Studio and one of only two selected. The other was Steve McQueen. After a brief but impressive Broadway career, Landau had made an auspicious film debut in the late 1950s, playing a soldier in Pork Chop Hill and a villain in the Hitchcock classic North By Northwest. He enjoyed far less success after Mission: Impossible, however, finding he had been typecast, and his film career languished for more than a decade. He began to find redemption with a sympathetic role in Tucker: The Man and his Dream, the 1988 Francis Ford Coppola film that garnered Landau his first Oscar nomination. He was nominated again the next year for his turn as the adulterous husband in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors. He won Best Supporting Actor for his role in Ed Wood. There was a 10-year period when everything I did was bad. I'd like to go back and turn all those films into guitar picks, Landau said after accepting his Oscar. |
Cops Plead for Help in Tracking Down $30K Worth of Veal | (Dec 28, 2017 6:00 PM) Cops in Toronto are pleading with the public to help them solve a hefty Christmas Day heist. The Daily Meal reports on the theft of an extremely large quantity of veal, as it's worded in a police release. The meat (and the 48-foot refrigerated trailer it was being stored in), which was worth about $30,000, was lifted from a North York commercial address sometime between 3pm Monday and 5am the next day. A police spokeswoman says the trailer was apparently hooked onto a getaway vehicle and driven off the lot, per the Toronto Star. The trailer, which belongs to meat distributor White Valley, has a blue W and the company's name on its side, as well as the Ontario plate K5885K. Anyone with information is urged to call 416-808-3100 or use other contact info cited in the release. |
Storms Kill 4 in Alabama, Wreak Havoc Across South | (Jan 3, 2017 12:03 AM) A powerful storm system that moved across the South on Monday killed four people in Alabama and left a trail of damage over several states, officials say. The line of severe thunderstorms spawned several possible tornadoes, and the threat continued into early Tuesday for southern Alabama, southwest Georgia, and the Florida Panhandle, the AP reports. Four people were killed Monday evening when a tree fell on their mobile home in Rehobeth, Ala., according to a spokeswoman for the Dothan Houston County Emergency Management Agency. The National Weather Service had issued a tornado warning for Houston County in the southern part of the state Monday evening. In Georgia, some of the heaviest rains were expected late Monday night and into the overnight hours of early Tuesday, forecasters said. State emergency officials reported no injuries or deaths in Louisiana and Mississippi, but a trip to Walmart was memorable for shoppers in Marksville, La., as severe weather blew out skylights in the store, sending water and glass cascading onto shoppers. Marksville Fire Chief Jerry Bordelon says a fireworks stand in the parking lot was tossed 30 or 40 yards and mangled. The storm also knocked over 18-wheel truck trailers and punched holes in the Walmart's roof. The fire department ordered shoppers to leave the store, but some didn't want to leave. Believe it or not, we had some people in there who were still trying to shop, Bordelon says. |
Trump Caps Refugees at 45K in Coming Year | (Sep 27, 2017 5:17 PM CDT) The Trump administration defended its decision Wednesday to sharply curtail the number of refugees allowed into the US to 45,000 next year, even as global humanitarian groups decried the move and called the number far too low. The 45,000 cap, to be formally announced by President Trump in the coming days, reflects the maximum the US will admit during the fiscal year that starts Sunday, although the actual number allowed could be far lower, the AP reports. Even if the cap is ultimately hit, it would reflect the lowest admissions level for the US in more than a decade. Lowering the cap reflects Trump's opposition to accepting refugees and other immigrants into the US, an approach that has already driven down refugee admissions. President Obama had wanted to take in 110,000 in 2017, but the pace slowed dramatically after Trump took office and issued an executive order addressing refugees. The total admitted in the fiscal year that ends Sunday is expected to be around 54,000, officials said. In 2016, the last full year of Obama's administration, the US welcomed 84,995 refugees. |
8 Rockets Hit Iraqi Air Base | (Jan 12, 2020 1:51 PM) Eight rockets landed on an Iraqi air base Sunday and injured four Iraqi officers—but who perpetrated the attack remains unclear. Iraq's military says the Katyusha rockets struck Balad Air Base, which hosts foreign contractors and US troops roughly 46 miles north of Baghdad, CNN reports. Al Jazeera notes that the base also hosts US trainers, advisers, and a company that maintains F-16 aircraft. Most of the US airmen stationed there had left before the missiles arrived. No one has claimed responsibility for the strike, which comes days after Iran fired ballistic missiles at Iraqi bases amid fever-high tensions between Washington and Tehran. |
After Collecting Dust for 35 Years, Elvis' Plane Is Sold | (May 29, 2017 10:45 AM CDT) A private jet once owned by Elvis Presley has been auctioned after sitting on a runway in Roswell, New Mexico, for 35 years. The plane sold for $430,000 on Saturday at a California event featuring celebrity memorabilia—a far cry from GWS Auctions' estimate of up to $3.5 million. The buyer was not disclosed in the sold note posted on the firm's website, and auctioneer Brigitte Kruse said she could not immediately release information about the buyer or the buyer's plans for the plane. The auction house says Elvis designed the interior, which has gold-tone woodwork, red velvet seats, and red shag carpet. But the red 1962 Lockheed Jetstar has no engine and needs a restoration of its cockpit. Photos of the plane show seats of the cockpit torn. We were contacted by a private seller who has a very large collection and he can't take everything with him, so he contacted us about holding an auction, GWS told the Tennessean of the unidentified seller. The AP notes there's some contention about whether Elvis truly designed the interior himself. Roy McKay once owned the plane and told KOB-TV he redid what was then a gray, casket -like interior, but GWS disputes McKay's claim and notes Federal Aviation Administration records show no interior changes were ever made to the jet. |
11-Year-Old Dies Rescuing Friend From Frozen Pond | (Feb 7, 2018 1:23 PM) An 11-year-old boy is being called a hero after he died trying to save a friend from a frozen pond Tuesday in New York City. CBS New York reports 11-year-old Anthony Perez and a 12-year-old friend were walking in a park in Queens around 4pm when the friend ventured out onto a frozen pond only to fall through the ice about 50 feet from the shore. Police say Anthony rushed to help his friend and fell in, too. [Anthony] was able to push him out to safety, but he fell through ice and he couldn’t get out, a law enforcement source tells the New York Post. The friend immediately ran for help. But by the time firefighters and police officers arrived, Anthony had been underwater for about 30 minutes and wasn't breathing, the New York Daily News reports. Multiple rescuers fell through the ice while trying to get to Anthony. They had to—physically with their hands—break through the ice and chop through the ice so that they could get to the area where they knew the child would most likely be, CBS quotes FDNY Deputy Chief George Healy as saying. Rescuers provided CPR at the scene and on the way to the hospital, but Anthony was pronounced dead. Two firefighters had to be treated for hypothermia. A neighbor says it doesn't surprise her that Anthony risked his life to help his friend. He’s got a good heart that little boy, Angela Vargas says. I’m going to call him a hero: He’s a hero, neighbor Carmen Rivera tells the Post. (In Utah, a deputy with no protective gear rescued a boy from a frozen pond.) |
Space Station Takes a Delivery 2 Years in Making | (Oct 23, 2016 8:03 AM CDT) The International Space Station received its first shipment from Virginia in more than two years Sunday, reports the AP, following a sensational nighttime launch observed 250 miles up and down the East Coast. Orbital ATK's cargo ship pulled up at the space station bearing 5,000 pounds of food, equipment and research. What a beautiful vehicle, said Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, who used the station's big robot arm to grab the vessel. The capture occurred as the spacecraft soared 250 miles above Kyrgyzstan; Onishi likened it to the last 195 meters of a marathon. Last Monday's liftoff from Wallops Island was the first by an Antares rocket since a 2014 launch explosion. Orbital ATK redesigned its Antares rocket and rebuilt the pad. While the Antares was grounded, Virginia-based Orbital ATK kept the NASA supply chain open with deliveries from Cape Canaveral, Fla., using another company's rocket. NASA is paying Orbital ATK and SpaceX to stock the station, but now SpaceX is grounded, as it investigates why one of its Falcon rockets exploded in a massive fireball during launch pad testing on Sept. 1. Following liftoff, Orbital ATK's Cygnus capsule orbited solo for twice the usual amount of time. NASA wanted the Cygnus—named after the swan constellation—to wait for three astronauts to launch from Kazakhstan. They arrived Friday, doubling the size of the crew. Besides Onishi, the crew includes two Americans and three Russians. Helping Onishi with the Cygnus on Sunday morning was NASA astronaut Kate Rubins. Their four-month mission will end next weekend. Once the Cygnus is unloaded, it will be filled with trash and set loose to burn up in the atmosphere in mid-November. (A SpaceX capsule returned from the ISS in August bearing gifts.) |
Muslim-Americans Raise $90K for Victims of Anti-Semitism | (Feb 22, 2017 4:53 PM) Tarek El-Messidi tells a story about the prophet Muhammad standing in observance of a Jewish funeral procession because, as he said, Is it not a human soul? To show that kind of respect to their Jewish cousins is one of the reasons El-Messidi and fellow Muslim-American activist Linda Sarsour started an online fundraiser after they saw the news about destruction at a Jewish cemetery in Missouri over the weekend, the Washington Post reports. According to CNN, vandals defaced and knocked over more than 170 headstones at Chesed Shel Emeth Society cemetery. Muslim-Americans stand in solidarity with the Jewish-American community to condemn this horrific act of desecration, the fundraising page states. El-Messidi and Sarsour started the fundraiser Tuesday with the goal of raising $20,000 by late-March. They reached that goal in three hours. By Wednesday afternoon, the fundraiser had exceeded $90,000. Sarsour and El-Messidi say the extra funds will go to the dozens of Jewish community centers that have faced anti-Semitic attacks and bomb threats this year. Through this campaign, we hope to send a united message from the Jewish and Muslim communities that there is no place for this type of hate, desecration, and violence in America, the pair state on the fundraising page. Since the election, both Muslim and Jewish communities have been increasingly targeted in hate crimes. |
3rd-Largest Democracy May Ban Sex Outside Marriage | (Oct 27, 2016 4:00 AM CDT) Indonesia is the world's third-largest democracy, with more than 260 million people, but it's moving in a direction that some rights groups find very alarming. In what could end up being the latest victory for religious conservatives in the majority-Muslim country, its highest court is considering changing the constitution to outlaw sex outside of marriage, reports the Washington Post. Activists warn that a ruling to ban unmarried sex would not only make gay sex illegal in the country for the first time, it would turn the millions of couples who have only informal or ceremonial marriages into criminals. It's obvious this law will be a disaster, and women will be most affected, says a women's rights activist. Indonesia's legal code still has more in common with the law of colonial power Holland than Islamic law, but religious conservatives, including a group calling itself the Family Love Alliance, have been pushing hard for change, the International Business Times reports. Some of the nine justices on the court have already expressed their support for a change to the constitution. In hearings over the last few weeks, expert witnesses have testified that homosexuality represents a danger to Indonesia. The witnesses included an anti-gay activist who claimed that gay marriage in the US was a conspiracy masterminded by a small group of Jews, the Post reports. A decision is expected later this year. |
Furniture Salesman Admits Killing Rival 24 Years Ago | (Oct 19, 2016 6:53 AM CDT) Detectives in Ohio have closed a 24-year-old murder case, and the outcome isn't much of a surprise to them: One furniture salesman killed another. Sam Perone, now 68, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter Tuesday, admitting that he shot 41-year-old Richard Woods in 1992, reports the Dayton Daily News. Perone had been a suspect from the start, given that Woods had visited his store on the night he disappeared on Perone's request. His body was found a month later in a ravine near Perone's store in Lebanon. Blood stains found in the store were inconclusive at the time, but detectives used more modern techniques to ID Woods' blood in both the store and at Perone's home. Perone was arrested in Arizona last year and extradited to Ohio. It's a small measure of justice, Woods' widow and the mother of his four children told the judge, per the AP. She called Perone a bad man who had threatened her husband before his murder. The judge sentenced Perone to 11 years in prison, with credit for the year he's been in custody. WCPO describes Woods as having been a successful salesman who'd made his name in the furniture industry, and authorities chalked up the motive to what the Washington Post calls professional jealousy. The newspaper notes that Perone's wife was heard on a wiretap saying to her husband, If you go down, I go down, but under Perone's plea agreement, she won't be prosecuted. (An ex-boyfriend who is now a paraplegic is accused in a woman's 33-year-old murder.) |
2 US Sailors Found Dead 4 Days Apart in Same Home | (Oct 18, 2017 3:54 PM CDT) Investigators suspect drug overdoses killed two Navy submarine sailors whose bodies were found in the same Georgia house four days apart. Authorities are awaiting results of toxicology tests following the strange back-to-back deaths at an off-base home near Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, said Cmdr. Sarah Self-Kyler, a spokeswoman for the Navy's Submarine Forces Command. It is our understanding from the initial reports that it is an apparent drug overdose for both sailors, Self-Kyler said in an interview Wednesday, per the AP. Petty Officer 1st Class Brian Jerrell was found dead Oct. 12 on the floor inside a friend's house in Kingsland, located near the Georgia-Florida state line. Friends had gone looking for Jerrell after the sailor's wife reported him missing, Self-Kyler said. |
FBI Releases 315 Pages of Documents in Vegas Shooting | (Jan 13, 2018 1:43 PM) The FBI unsealed 315 pages of search warrant affidavits related to the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history on Friday, the AP reports. But the documents still don't answer the big question: Why did Stephen Paddock kill 58 people and wound more than 500 others from his Las Vegas hotel room window? According to CNN, the documents do give a peek at what investigators knew about the case and believed about Paddock's actions at the time the search warrants were filed. One conclusion, as per the New York Times: Paddock planned the attack meticulously and took many methodical steps to avoid detection of his plot and to thwart the eventual law enforcement investigation that would follow. The documents also include messages about buying and selling weapons sent between two email accounts that both appear to be controlled by Paddock. Try an ar before u buy. We have huge selection. Located in the las vegas area, reads one message. Another states, For a thrill try out bumpfire ar's with 100 round magazine. It's unclear why Paddock would have been sending such messages to himself, and investigators at the time were interested in finding out if a second person was in control of one of the accounts. The documents also detail the FBI's initial interest in Paddock's girlfriend, Marilou Danley, who deleted her Facebook account in the hours following the attack and admitted her fingerprints may be found on some of the ammunition used in the attack. |
2 Sailors From Florida, 1 From Louisiana Die in Crash | (Nov 25, 2017 12:55 PM) The US Navy says two sailors from Florida and another from Louisiana died in an aircraft crash in the Philippine Sea, the AP reports. In a news release, the Navy's 7th Fleet said the families of Lt. Steven Combs and Airman apprentice Bryan Grosso of Florida and airman Matthew Chialastri of Louisiana were notified of their deaths following the Wednesday crash. |
Cop Who Shot Bride-to-Be Has 3 Complaints on File | (Jul 18, 2017 2:54 AM CDT) Relatives, neighbors, and even the chief of police are demanding answers after the fatal shooting of an Australian woman in Minneapolis Saturday night. Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau says she wants to know why a police officer fatally shot Justine Damond, and she has called for a speedy investigation, the Star Tribune reports. Damond, 40, was shot dead after her fiance says she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault near her home. The officer involved has been identified as Mohamed Noor, who joined the force in 2015 and has three complaints against him on file, reports KSTP. The two officers at the scene did not have their body cameras turned on and there are no other known witnesses to the shooting. Damond was reportedly shot in the abdomen after approaching the arriving squad car in her pajamas. Don Damond, her American fiance, said Monday that the family has been told almost nothing about the shooting. Our hearts are broken and we are utterly devastated by the loss of Justine, he said, per the BBC. Sadly her family and I have been provided with almost no additional information from law enforcement regarding what happened after police arrived. Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is handling the investigation, says more information will be released after it interviews Noor and partner Matthew Harrity, a community service officer who was reportedly speaking to Damond, who was due to be married in August, when she was shot. More here. |
He Called 911 on Himself. Cops Shot the Teen Dead | (May 8, 2017 2:45 AM CDT) A 15-year-old boy was shot dead outside his San Diego high school early Saturday morning, minutes after he apparently called 911 to request a welfare check on himself. Police say that when they responded to a call to check on the safety of a teenager outside Torrey Pines High School, the teen pointed a weapon at the officers and was shot dead as he walked toward them, refusing orders to drop it, the New York Times reports. Police say the weapon turned out to be a semi-automatic BB air pistol, which they describe as a close replica of a handgun that appeared real until it was closely examined, Reuters reports. Police say the teen, who is white, was shot dead within a minute of officers arriving at the high school. Police say they didn't realize until after the shooting that the 911 caller—who told dispatchers the teen was unarmed—had been the boy himself. Both officers fired their weapons, and police say body camera footage will be examined as part of the investigation. The lead cop on the investigation tells the Los Angeles Times it would be premature to call the death a suicide by cop. The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that mourners and a few protesters gathered at the high school Sunday. One classmate described the teen as intelligent, a nice kid who was good with computers. Our family is mourning the loss of a loving and wonderful young man, the boy's mother said in a statement to Fox 5. We ask that you respect our privacy as we remember him and all he meant to us. |
More Than 500 Boys Abused at German Choir School | (Jul 19, 2017 12:07 AM CDT) At least 547 members of a prestigious Catholic boys' choir in Germany were physically or sexually abused between 1945 and 1992, according to a report Tuesday. Allegations involving the Domspatzen choir were among a spate of abuse by Roman Catholic clergy in Germany that emerged in 2010, the AP reports. In 2015, lawyer Ulrich Weber was tasked with producing a report on what happened. The report said 547 boys at the Domspatzen school with a high degree of plausibility were victims of physical or sexual abuse, or both. It counted 500 cases of physical violence and 67 of sexual violence, committed by 49 perpetrators. At the choir's pre-school, violence, fear, and helplessness dominated and violence was an everyday method, it said. Alongside individual motives, institutional motives—namely, breaking the will of the children with the aim of maximum discipline and dedication—formed the basis for violence. The choir was led from 1964 to 1994 by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI's elder brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger. Ratzinger has acknowledged slapping pupils after he took over the choir, though such punishments were commonplace in Germany at that time. The report faulted Ratzinger in particular for 'looking away' or for failing to intervene. Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer has announced plans to offer victims compensation of between $5,730 and $22,930 each by the end of this year. (Ratzinger claims he knew nothing of the abuse.) |
75% of National Parks Panel Quits in Protest | (Jan 17, 2018 6:43 AM) I wish the National Park System and Service well. It's a goodbye, but not just any goodbye: They're parting words from the chair of the National Park System Advisory Board, who was one of nine members to suddenly resign in protest on Monday. The federally chartered board, which had numbered 12, is tasked with advising the secretary of the interior—Ryan Zinke, currently—on matters such as the designation of national historic and natural landmarks. But the Washington Post reports Zinke has declined to meet with them following a May decision to put committees on ice as his team reviews their function. We understand the complexity of transition but our requests to engage have been ignored, says chair Tony Knowles. Alaska Public Radio reports Knowles saw his board as somewhat singular, however, as it was chartered by Congress in 1935. The Post details other advisory bodies that remain at a standstill, among them two tied to the Bureau of Land Management. A member of one of those bodies, which focuses on the Rocky Mountain region, details some of the topics that are languishing: how to enact a fee bump in the area, and what to do about homelessness on federal lands. The terms of many of the exiting NPS board members were up in May, and Knowles says the desire was to make a statement as a board as we left what our concerns are. Knowles outlines those concerns to the New York Times: that Zinke appears to have no interest in continuing the agenda of science, the effect of climate change, pursuing the protection of the ecosystem. |
In Referendum, 97% Support Making Puerto Rico 51st State | (Jun 12, 2017 12:07 AM CDT) Going by votes cast, statehood was the overwhelming winner in a referendum Puerto Rico held Sunday. But going by the actions of most Puerto Ricans, staying home or going to the beach was the runaway winner. The island, a US territory since 1898, held a non-binding referendum on statehood Sunday, and becoming the 51st state won with 97% of the votes, NBC reports, with 1.3% opting for the status quo and 1.5% choosing independence. But with opposition parties boycotting the vote, turnout was extremely low: Only 23% of voters cast a ballot in a territory where turnout is usually closer to 80%. In a similar referendum in 2012, before the island's financial troubles deepened, 61% voted for statehood. The White House declined to comment on the vote. Statehood supporters including Gov. Ricardo Rossello say it is absurd for the US to encourage democracy abroad and reject it for the American citizens of Puerto Rico, though some Puerto Ricans doubt the administration will welcome a new state that would be the poorest in the US by far, the New York Times reports. Puerto Ricans can't vote in presidential elections and their only representative in Congress has limited powers, but the Hill reports that the island will now implement the statehood plan that worked for Tennessee in 1796. The governor will appoint two senators and five representatives who will go to Washington, DC, and demand to be seated. |
Cops Seek This Man in Murder of 2 Hiking Girls | (Feb 16, 2017 6:24 AM) Indiana State Police are trying to track down a man photographed at the Delphi Historic Trails on Monday around the time two teenage girls were killed there. Liberty German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13, were dropped off at the popular hiking spot by a family member around 1pm Monday. Their bodies were found Tuesday about 50 feet from the shore of Deer Creek on a section of private property only accessible by foot, reports the Indianapolis Star. A man seen in the area at the time was wearing jeans, a dark blue jacket, and a hood. We are asking help from the public to help identify him so he can be contacted regarding what he might have seen, police say, per Heavy.com. Police are also asking anyone who was in the area on Monday to contact police with possible tips. There is somebody out there who did this, and we're going to track them down, says an Indiana State Police rep, noting police are already following up on hundreds of hundreds of leads. Adds a sheriff, per CBS News, We're going to get to the bottom of this. We feel confident. And we’re going to do everything within our resources to reach justice in this situation. Officials tell Fox 59 that autopsies on both girls have been conducted but the results are not being released at this time. |
Amy Schumer Rewards Kind Stranger With $2K Gift | (Apr 21, 2017 8:37 AM CDT) Tales of Amy Schumer's generosity continue: While jogging around Chicago on April 13, Schumer stopped in at the Six Corners Mattress Firm, hoping to find a bathroom, reports People. Employee Sagine Lazarre, not recognizing the visitor, quickly showed her the way. But when Schumer had done her business, she returned to Lazarre and asked which mattress she liked the best. Lazarre pointed to a $2,000 mattress, and Schumer immediately bought it for her, per WGN. Schumer, who identified herself as an actress and comedian, told me she wanted to buy it for me as a thank you for letting her use the bathroom, Lazarre says. Mind blown, she adds she Googled the name on Schumer's credit card after the actress left the store and only then realized she had previously seen her stand-up comedy. I'm still in shock, says Lazarre, who notes the mattress is a perfect fit in her new apartment. (Schumer previously left a massive tip on a $77 bill.) |
He Helped the 49ers Win, Then Revealed He Lost His Baby | (Nov 13, 2017 12:45 PM) A tale of heartache and strength in the sports world: Wide receiver Marquise Goodwin blew a kiss toward the heavens Sunday as he scored an 83-yard touchdown that helped the San Francisco 49ers trump the New York Giants 31-21, reports ESPN. Later, he revealed what had happened hours earlier. In an Instagram post, Goodwin revealed that he and wife Morgan Goodwin-Snow lost our baby boy due to some complications, and had to prematurely deliver him early this morning around 4am. Although we are hurt, I am grateful for the experience and grateful that God blessed me with a wife as courageous and resilient as Morgan. The pain (physically, mentally, & emotionally) that she has endured is unbelievable. NPR reports that Goodwin-Snow posted an Instagram message noting that Despite our loss, my hubby kept grinding, scored his son a touchdown & got our first 'W' of the season. Deadspin reports she had posted a message in September that announced the pregnancy, accompanied by the hashtag #hellosecondtrimester. The couple were star track athletes while at the University of Texas at Austin, notes NPR. |
Dow Jones Blows by 26K | (Jan 16, 2018 8:51 AM) The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened above 26,000 for the first time Tuesday morning, and the Wall Street Journal reports that the latest 1,000-point rise took only a dizzying and record seven trading days. The asterisk to that record is that it won't be official until the Dow closes above 26,000. The Journal notes that the records keep falling faster: The Dow took only 23 trading days to hit 25,000 from 24,000 on Jan. 4, and the previous 1,000-point milestone (which actually happened twice: getting to 11,000 and 21,000) took 24 trading days. The Dow is trading at 26,062 as of this writing. |
Pentagon: Syria Strikes Killed 11 al-Qaeda Members | (Feb 9, 2017 12:49 AM) The Pentagon says two US airstrikes near Idlib in northwest Syria killed 11 al-Qaeda operatives, including one with ties to Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda leaders, the AP reports. Spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said in a statement that a single airstrike on Feb. 3 killed 10 operatives in a building used as an al-Qaeda meeting site. A second strike the next day killed Abu Hani al-Masri, identified by the Pentagon as a legacy al-Qaeda terrorist who oversaw the creation and operation of al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s. Davis said al-Masri had ties to bin Laden and to Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became the top leader of al-Qaeda when bin Laden was killed by US forces in 2011. He was also one of the founders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the first Sunni group to use suicide bombers in their terror attacks, the Pentagon statement said. EIJ is responsible for multiple attacks against US and allied facilities and personnel, including a 1998 attempt to blow up the American embassy in Albania. (Thousands of US airstrikes may never have been publicly disclosed.) |
Wonder Woman Sets Record With $100.5M Debut | (Jun 4, 2017 11:29 AM CDT) Wonder Woman has soared to a $100.5 million box-office debut in North American theaters, making the Patty Jenkins-directed superhero film the biggest opening ever for a movie directed by a woman, the AP reports. According to studio estimates Sunday, the well-reviewed Wonder Woman surpassed industry expectations with one of the summer's biggest debuts. Starring Gal Gadot as the Amazonian warrior, Wonder Woman is the rare female-led film in an overwhelmingly male superhero landscape. It proved a hit with moviegoers, earning an A CinemaScore and, while skewing somewhat female, drew a fairly evenly split audience. Warner Bros. said 52% of the audience was female and 48% male. Last week's top film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, is expected to slide steeply for a distant second place. |
'Urkel' Just Turned 40 | (Nov 28, 2016 12:10 AM) This just in from the Houston Chronicle's Department of Making People Feel Old: Jaleel White, who played quintessential nerd Steve Urkel in the '80s and '90s sitcom Family Matters, turned 40 on Thursday. In the 18 years since the show ended, White—who played the character for 10 years, starting when he was 12—got a degree from UCLA in theater, film, and television. He also had film roles, appeared on TV series including House and Dancing With the Stars, hosted the Syfy series Total Blackout, and continued to provide the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog in multiple animated series. |
Man's Murder Conviction Tossed After 32 Years in Prison | (Mar 16, 2017 4:01 PM CDT) After 32 years behind bars, Andrew Wilson had his murder conviction thrown out Wednesday by a Los Angeles County judge. His first plan as a newly free man? Fly to St. Louis to visit his 96-year-old mother, who never doubted his innocence. Wilson, now 62, was convicted in 1986 of stabbing a man sleeping in a truck in Los Angeles, KABC reports. According to the Los Angeles Times, the victim had a disorder that kept his blood from clotting. For the past three decades, Wilson has maintained that he didn't do it. And while his actual innocence is still up in the air, it's now official that he didn't receive a fair trial. The DA's office has admitted that cumulative errors added up to an unfair trial for Wilson. Those errors include allegedly withholding evidence that the victim's girlfriend—the only witness to the crime—had previously filed a false police report regarding kidnapping and rape. Also allegedly withheld: evidence that an LAPD detective directed the girlfriend to a photo of Wilson and that a friend suspected the victim's girlfriend, as she had stabbed the victim in the past. The prosecutor in the murder case denies withholding evidence, and the DA's office maintains that Wilson murdered the victim (though it doesn't plan to retry him). CBS Los Angeles reports a separate hearing will be held to determine if Wilson is factually innocent. |
6 Injured by Gun Violence at Vigil for Victim of Gun Violence | (Jan 26, 2017 12:06 PM) A crowd gathered on Chicago's South Side at a vigil for a young man killed by gun violence were confronted with their own chaos when suspects said to be rival gang members started shooting Wednesday evening, NBC Chicago and CBS Chicago report. Six people were injured, including a 12-year-old girl and a 43-year-old woman who a community activist says was the mother of the man being memorialized. The 12-year-old was grazed in the head with a bullet, per police, and is now in stable condition at Comer Children's Hospital. All of the other victims—which also included a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old, and two 20-year-olds—are said to be in serious but stable condition at local medical centers, per police and fire officials, though Reuters indicates only the 16-year-old, who was shot in his neck, remains in serious condition. Jedidiah Brown, the activist who spoke to reporters, says the opposition emerged from a nearby alley, ostensibly after hearing about the vigil, via social media, and shot up the memorial ; Chicago cops say the incident happened around 8:15pm. No regard for life, Brown says, per CBS, which notes that no suspects were in custody as of Thursday morning for attacking the memorial for the 20-year-old, IDed by the Chicago Tribune as Jamayah Fields. As Reuters points out, the shooting took place just one day after President Trump posted a tweet threatening to send in the Feds if Chicago didn't remedy its shooting-related carnage. |
The Internet Just Bought an 800-Year-Old Castle in France | (Dec 6, 2017 1:24 PM) The French castle about 200 miles away from Paris was built in the 13th century, captured twice by the English in the Middle Ages, sacked during the French Revolution, and partially burned down in 1932, the Guardian reports. Now the internet may have saved the Chateau de la Mothe-Chandeniers. According to the BBC, which has breathtaking drone video of the castle, thousands of people have donated at least $61 each to buy a future for it. The chateau has changed hands many times over the centuries. Most recently a math teacher tried—and failed—to restore it after purchasing it in 1981. As nature reclaimed the chateau and plants sprouted from its windows—giving it what Architectural Digest calls a beautiful if not eerie aesthetic —the math teacher mused about having it demolished. Instead, more than 9,000 people from around the world have donated more than $885,000 toward saving the Chateau de la Mothe-Chandeniers, according to a fundraising site. While the castle's new co-owners won't get to live in it, they will have some say in the plans to restore it and the chance to be the first to visit it when it opens to the public. Donors can also buy stock in the company being set up to run the chateau. The idea is not just about raising the money, but getting as many people as possible to participate in saving this magical, fairytale place, the founder of the company behind the fundraiser tells the Guardian. For anyone who's ever dreamed of being part-owner of a real-life castle, there are still more than two weeks left to donate, which you can do here. (Italy decided to give away castles, with one little condition.) |
COVID-19 Kills 8 Nuns at Retirement Home in a Week | (Dec 17, 2020 6:40 PM) Eight nuns living at a retirement home for sisters in suburban Milwaukee died of COVID-19 complications in the past week—four of them on the same day, according to the congregation that runs the home. The School Sisters of Notre Dame Central Pacific Province said other sisters who live at Notre Dame of Elm Grove have also been diagnosed with COVID-19, but the international congregation of women declined to provide additional details, citing the residents' privacy. All CDC guidelines are being followed regarding the care of sisters affected by COVID-19 and to avoid spread of the virus, including wearing masks, social distancing and handwashing, the School Sisters of Notre Dame said in a statement, the AP reports. Our thoughts and prayers are with the sisters, their caregivers and families. We invite you to join us in prayer for all those affected by the pandemic. |
At Least 50 Killed in Suicide Mosque Bombing | (Nov 21, 2017 12:33 AM) A teenage suicide bomber detonated his explosives as worshippers gathered for morning prayers at a mosque in northeastern Nigeria on Tuesday, killing at least 50 people in one of the region's deadliest attacks in years, police say. Police spokesman Othman Abubakar tells the AP they are still trying to ascertain the number of injured because they are in various hospitals. While there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing in Mubi town in Adamawa state, suspicion immediately fell on the Boko Haram extremist group. |
She Doesn't Love Chachi: 5 Craziest Crimes of the Week | (Dec 16, 2016 5:46 AM) The results of Election 2016 continue to find their way into our roundup of the week's craziest crimes. |
Jonathan Demme Dead at 73 | (Apr 26, 2017 10:55 AM CDT) Jonathan Demme, Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs, died Wednesday morning at age 73. Demme, who passed away in New York, died of esophageal cancer and complications from heart disease, sources tell IndieWire. NPR and the AP are confirming the news. The filmmaker, who also made Philadelphia, Rachel Getting Married, and documentaries including Stop Making Sense about the Talking Heads, was first diagnosed with cancer in 2010 and it came back in 2015; his condition recently went downhill, the source says. He is survived by his wife, artist Joanne Howard, and their three children. |
8 Men Are Set to Die in Arkansas. Here's Why That's 'Unprecedented' | (Mar 3, 2017 3:01 AM) Arkansas hasn't executed anyone in 11 years—but between April 17 and April 27, eight men will be put to death, an unprecedented move in the US, according to a group that monitors executions in the country. Nine inmates had asked the US Supreme Court to review the state court ruling over Arkansas' lethal injection law, and Gov. Asa Hutchinson scheduled the executions soon after the high court said it would not do so, the AP reports. Hutchinson released a statement saying the law requires him to set the execution dates, KATV reports, but CNN notes that activists are criticizing the decision. This planned mass execution is grotesque and unprecedented, says the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Prior to this, there have only been two times a state has executed that many people in one month. Lawyers for the men are trying to block the executions, and some had argued a stay of execution was still in place for the inmates. On Thursday the Arkansas Supreme Court said there's no stay in place. The AP notes the execution dates appear to have been set so close together, with the inmates being executed in pairs, in an attempt to finish them before Arkansas' supply of one of the execution drugs, midazolam, expires at the end of April. Attorneys for some of the men argue that midazolam, which knocks the inmates out before other drugs kill them, doesn't keep them from experiencing pain and thus the state's lethal injection protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Arkansas must also obtain a new supply of another execution drug, potassium chloride, because its supply expired last month. |
Prince's Properties Valued at More Than $25M | (Jan 7, 2017 4:42 PM) Prince may have had a little Scrooge McDuck in him. An inventory of the late music star's assets made public this week by the court handling his estate reveals he had more than $836,000 worth of gold bars, ABC News reports. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Prince had 67 10-ounce bars. In addition to the gold, Prince's real estate properties are worth more than $25 million; he had $110,000 in four bank accounts, unclaimed property, capital credits, and cash; and his four companies had more than $6 million in cash lying around when he died. But there is still a lot of estate left to assign value to, including Prince's 18 or so vehicles, music catalog, musical instruments, jewelry, trademarks, copyrights, and home furnishings. |
Man Survives After 7K-Pound Piece of Metal Crushes His Van | (Jul 18, 2017 12:50 PM CDT) Jesus Armando Escobar, 36, was exiting a Florida interstate on Saturday morning at the same time Antonio Santiago Wharton, 33, was driving a Mack truck loaded with scrap metal on the overpass above him. Wharton lost control of the truck going around the curve and it overturned, dumping a 7,000-pound metal pipe off the overpass and onto the roof of Escobar's van. Yet somehow, the father of three suffered only minor injuries—despite the fact that the roof of the van on the driver's side was crushed by the nearly four-ton piece of scrap metal, WFTV reports. I thought it was a fatality, to be honest with you. But they came out and said, 'Nope, he's only got scratches,' says a worker with AATR Orlando, a towing service. A state trooper who saw the scene and read other troopers' notes tells WESH Escobar was alert and walking around soon after the accident. Authorities say Escobar, who was released from the hospital the same day the accident happened, may have been killed had he been in any other seat. That's the exit everybody takes to go to SeaWorld with their kids. So if it had been somebody with a family full of children, it would have been a catastrophe, Escobar's lawyer says Escobar, who doesn't remember the incident, told him. The lawyer tells News4Jax his client's injuries include a significant head laceration and a neck fracture that will keep him in a neck brace for weeks, and says the family is hoping to reach a settlement in the case. Wharton received a careless-driving ticket; the load was properly secured, but authorities are investigating whether speed was an issue. (In another miraculous incident, a new dad fell 47 stories and survived.) |
$6.45M Bail Set for Surgeon Charged in Child Rape Scheme | (Jun 29, 2017 7:40 AM CDT) A judge set bail at $6.45 million on Wednesday for a Northern California brain surgeon charged with sexually abusing children, the AP reports. Prosecutors had opposed bail for Dr. James Kohut, saying the neurologist is a public danger who recruits women to help find child victims. The Santa Cruz DA's office said Kohut also discussed impregnating women to give birth to children he could sexually abuse in a so-called taboo family lifestyle. Prosecutors say there is no evidence he created such a family, but they have charged him with 11 counts of sexually abusing children under the age of 14. Kohut, 57, has pleaded not guilty. He was arrested last month along with two nurses charged with participating in the sex abuse. The arrest came four days days after cops arrested Rashel Brandon, 42, a nurse who worked at a nearby hospital. Brandon's husband had turned over a video showing shows Brandon and another nurse, 29-year-old Emily Stephens, sexually abusing children. Court records and lawyers said Brandon implicated Kohut. Brandon is also charged with eight counts of sexually abusing children, per the Mercury News, and her bail has been set at $500,000. Stephens was arrested in Tucson, Ariz. Kohut's lawyer, Jay Rorty, did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment but has previously denied the allegations. Rorty argued in court papers that Kohut does not represent a danger to the public or a flight risk. If Kohut does post bail, he will be monitored electronically. He voluntarily suspended his California medical license while the case is pending, and faces 165 years in prison if convicted. |
22-Year-Old Living With Parents Accidentally Stops Cyberattack | (May 13, 2017 4:55 PM CDT) The accidental hero who inadvertently stopped Friday's massive cyberattack that affected nearly 100 countries is a 22-year-old who lives with his parents, the Guardian reports. The British cybersecurity researcher—who's keeping anonymous to protect himself—found a nonsensical website address in the code for the ransomware holding victims' data hostage and causing chaos around the globe. He spent less than $11 to register the domain with the hope of monitoring the spread of the ransomware. But it turns out, registering the domain was a kill switch added by the creators of the ransomware in case they ever wanted to stop it themselves. For a more in-depth explanation, check out the 22-year-old's blog titled How to Accidentally Stop a Global Cyber Attack. But while the spread of the ransomware has been halted for now, the world's computer systems are far from in the clear. Cybersecurity expert Matt Suiche says whoever is behind the attack—their identity is still unknown—can simply update the ransomware and start again. I'd even say this update probably already happened, he tells ABC News. There were 75,000 individual attacks across 99 countries Friday. CNN runs down the victims, which include FedEx, Nissan, the Russian Central Bank, Britain's National Health Service, and Spain's Telefonica. Most of the attacks were in Russia, Ukraine, and Taiwan. |
Nurse Charged in Murder of 8 Babies | (Nov 12, 2020 5:35 PM) A 30-year-old British nurse appeared in court Thursday to face horrific charges: Lucy Letby is accused of murdering eight babies in her care and attempting to murder 10 more, reports the BBC. Letby worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, England, where the deaths occurred in 2015 and 2016. She was previously arrested twice as part of the ensuing investigation, but released both times before being re-arrested on Tuesday, notes the New York Times. Letby was remanded into custody following Thursday's court hearing. Much about the case remains unclear, including an alleged motive and the manner in which the infants were killed. What investigators have said previously is that the hospital launched an investigation after a higher-than-normal mortality rate emerged in its neonatal unit for preemies and babies with special needs. Some of the deaths were unexpected and doctors detected similarities in the cases, leading the police to become involved when the hospital could not rule out foul play. We are fully supportive and respectful of the judicial processes, and as such will not be making any further comments at this stage, says a hospital exec. Our thoughts continue to be with all the families involved. |
Pope Makes 2 Fatima Children Saints | (May 13, 2017 7:00 AM CDT) Pope Francis added two Portuguese shepherd children to the roster of Catholic saints Saturday, honoring young siblings whose reported visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago turned the Portuguese farm town of Fatima into one of the world's most important Catholic shrines. Francis proclaimed Francisco and Jacinta Marto saints at the start of a mass marking the centenary of their visions, the AP reports. Francisco and Jacinta, aged 9 and 7, and their 10-year-old cousin, Lucia, reported that on March 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary made the first of a half-dozen appearances to them here while they grazed their sheep in quiet prayer, reciting rosaries before a statue of the Madonna. They said she confided in them three secrets—foretelling apocalyptic visions of hell, war, communism, and the death of a pope—and urged them to pray for peace and a conversion away from sin. Our Lady foretold, and warned us about, a way of life that is godless and indeed profanes God in his creatures, Francis said in his homily, with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims present. The Martos are now the youngest-ever saints who didn't die as martyrs. The siblings died during Europe's Spanish flu pandemic two years after the visions. Lucia is on track for possible beatification, but the process couldn't start until after her 2005 death. (The parents of a Brazilian boy say a miracle happened after they prayed to the Martos.) |
Top Baby Names of 2017 | (Nov 29, 2017 2:44 PM) BabyCenter released its list of the 100 most popular baby names of 2017 on Wednesday, and while Sophia and Jackson took the top spots for the eighth and fifth years in row respectively, a few more unique names made big gains, Time reports. This past year, new parents appear to have taken inspiration from the NBA Finals (Kevin, Lebron, Kyrie), hip-hop (Kendrick, Chance), Disney (Moana, Belle), nature (River, Willow, Storm, Ember, Cloud), Harry Potter (Severus, Albus, Minerva), and food (Ginger, Saffron, Miso). BabyCenter's list of popular names comes from more than 500,000 babies born to parents registered on its website, unlike the official list from the Social Security Administration, which comes from birth certificates. Here are BabyCenter's top 10 names for boys and girls born in 2017: Girls |
This Is 1st Transgender Hate Crime Murder Conviction | (May 16, 2017 1:29 PM CDT) A Mississippi man received a 49-year prison sentence Monday for the first-ever conviction on federal hate crime charges arising from the killing of a transgender woman, the AP reports. In a case watched by the LGBT community nationwide, US District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. sentenced Joshua Vallum, 29, in the 2015 killing of 17-year-old Mercedes Williamson. It was the first case prosecuted under the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act involving a victim targeted because of gender identity. Prosecutors said Vallum shocked Williamson with a stun gun, stabbed her, and beat her to death to keep fellow Latin Kings gang members from discovering the two were having sex. Gang rules barred homosexual activity and declared it punishable by death. The couple had broken up in 2014 but a friend had recently discovered Williamson was transgender, per CNN. Guirola could have sentenced Vallum to life in prison, but heeded a lesser sentence suggested in a plea agreement between defense attorneys and prosecutors, citing Vallum's neglected childhood and other issues. Both the judge and defense lawyers said Vallum's history of abuse as a child had to be considered. Vallum pleaded guilty to the federal charges in December. He previously pleaded guilty to a state murder charge that led to a separate sentence of life without parole. On Monday, Vallum begged forgiveness from Williamson's family and friends, though none of them were present—only a few reporters, the judge, and Vallum's father and stepmother. Every day, I live with the guilt and regret of my actions, Vallum said. If I could bring back Mercedes by giving up my life, I would gladly do so. |
A Stranger Arrives. Just 2 Generations Later: A New Species | (Nov 25, 2017 1:35 PM) After four decades of work, researchers published the origin of Big Bird (not that one) in Science this week—and it's scientifically unprecedented. The BBC reports that for the first time ever, researchers were able to watch the rise of a new species play out in nature. It's an extreme case of something we're coming to realize, a speciation expert says. Evolution in general can happen very quickly. According to a press release, in 1981 an interloper arrived on Daphne Major, a tiny island in the Galapagos archipelago where Peter and B. Rosemary Grant were studying Darwin's finches. The new bird, bigger than the three species living on the island, was a large cactus finch that had apparently flown from an island more than 60 miles away. Unable to return, it mated with a local medium ground finch. The resulting offspring, nicknamed the Big Bird lineage for their size, were unable to attract partners from the local finch population due to their weird song and unusual beak size and mated only among themselves. B. Rosemary Grant calls it a terrifically inbred lineage, Science Alert reports. Within just two generations, the Big Birds were a distinct species, as confirmed by genomic sequencing and their own unique physical characteristics. An expert says if a naturalist came to the island today, they would simply believe there were four native finch species with nothing giving away the Big Bird as a recent addition. It was touch-and-go there for a minute—droughts in 2002 and 2003 killed all but two Big Birds—but there are now 30 or so members of the hybrid species living on Daphne Major. (The savior of the Galapagos tortoise is a dirty, dirty old man.) |
6 Killed in 'Terrorist Attack' on Canada Mosque | (Jan 30, 2017 12:41 AM) In what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called a terrorist attack on Muslims in a center of worship and refuge, six people were killed and at least eight others injured in a shooting at a mosque in Quebec City on Sunday night. Police initially arrested two men—Alexandre Bissonnette and Mohamed el Khadir, according to a Quebec City court clerk—but later said just one remains a suspect, without naming him. One was arrested at the scene and another nearby, in his car on a bridge near d'Orleans where he called 911 to say he wanted to cooperate with police. Police said they did not believe there were other suspects but were investigating. A witness tells the CBC that two masked men with local accents started shooting after entering the men's section of the mosque at around 8pm. They started to fire, and as they shot they yelled, 'Allahu akbar!' The bullets hit people that were praying. People who were praying lost their lives. Tonight, Canadians grieve for those killed in a cowardly attack on a mosque in Quebec City, Trudeau tweeted. My thoughts are with victims & their families. Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard also called the barbaric violence an act of terrorism and said flags would be lowered to half-staff. The Montreal Gazette reports that the Quebec City Islamic Cultural Center is one of six mosques in the region and had a pig's head dumped on its doorstep with a card reading bonne appétit last June. In a statement, the mosque urged the Muslim community to remain calm and united and to know that the Canadian people stand with us in solidarity. |
Landscaper Accused of Killing 5, Hiding Bodies in Planters | (Jan 30, 2018 1:43 AM) After a series of grim discoveries, police in Toronto believe they have a serial killer in custody—one who was able to operate undetected for years because he had a job that was perfect for hiding bodies. Bruce McArthur, a 66-year-old self-employed landscaper, has been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of five men who disappeared between 2012 and 2017, the CBC reports. The skeletal remains of at least three victims were found in huge concrete planters at a client's home, and police believe that a search of around 30 properties where McArthur carried out work will uncover the remains of more victims. The city of Toronto has never seen anything like this, police spokesman Hank Idsinga said Monday. We do believe there are more ... We have no idea how many more there are going to be, Idsinga said, per the Toronto Star. He's taken some steps to cover his tracks and we have to uncover these victims and identify these victims. Idsinga said numerous planters have been seized from around the city. McArthur—who also worked as a mall Santa—was arrested earlier this month and charged with two murders. Police charged him with three more killings Monday. All of the victims were in their 40s and 50s, and police say they're investigating McArthur in connection with disappearances in Toronto's Gay Village district going back as far as 2010 and possibly earlier. Police said as recently as last month that there was no evidence to support suspicions of a serial killer, the Guardian reports. |
18 Killed in Extremist Attack on Burkina Faso Restaurant | (Aug 14, 2017 12:03 AM CDT) Suspected Islamic extremists opened fire at a Turkish restaurant in the capital of Burkina Faso late Sunday, killing at least 18 people in the second such attack on a restaurant popular with foreigners in the last two years. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the violence, which continued into the early hours Monday, the AP reports. Gunfire could be heard almost seven hours after the attack began. In addition to those killed, eight others were wounded, the country's communications Minister told journalists. Two of the attackers were also killed, he said. The victims were of several different nationalities, he said. At least one of the dead was French and another was Turkish. Security forces arrived at the scene with armored vehicles after reports of shots fired near Aziz Istanbul, an upscale restaurant in Ouagadougou. Three or four assailants arrived at the restaurant on motorcycles and then began shooting randomly at the crowds dining Sunday evening, police say. The landlocked West African nation shares a border with Mali. The border region is now the home of a radicalized preacher, Ibrahim Malam Dicko, who has claimed responsibility for recent deadly attacks against troops and civilians. His association, Ansarul Islam, is now considered a terrorist group by Burkina Faso's government. In January 2016, an attack on a hotel in Ouagadougou left 30 people dead. |
Anti-Death Penalty Prosecutor Pulled From 21 Cases | (Apr 4, 2017 7:11 AM CDT) A Florida prosecutor has been removed from 21 additional murder cases over her refusal to pursue the death penalty. Gov. Rick Scott removed Ninth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Aramis Ayala from the horrendous cases Monday after she criticized capital punishment as costly and inhumane, reports CNN and NBC Miami. The cases have been transferred to State Attorney Brad King. King also took over the high-profile case of Markeith Loyd last month after Ayala said she would not consider capital punishment. Her refusal to do so for the remainder of her four-year term, which began in January, sends an unacceptable message that she is not interested in considering every available option in the fight for justice, Scott says. Scott, who says the thought of victims' families helped him make his decision, adds that he has the authority to appoint a special prosecutor given his solemn constitutional duty to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' However, a rep for Ayala—who claims she only learned of Scott's decision through the media—says she remains steadfast in her position the Governor is abusing his authority and has compromised the independence and integrity of the criminal justice system. Others have echoed her sentiments, including Democratic state Rep. Sean Shaw, who says Scott's decision represents a gross abuse of his power. Ayala plans to fight the move and has hired a civil rights lawyer formerly with the Justice Department, reports NPR. |
Americans Sentenced to Death in 2016: Only 30 | (Dec 21, 2016 12:33 AM) Only 30 people were sentenced to death in the United States this year, the lowest number since the early 1970s and a further sign of the steady decline in the use of the death penalty. The number is a sharp drop from the 49 death sentences last year and just a fraction of the peak of 315 in 1996, according to a report from the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that opposes capital punishment and tracks the issue. I think we are watching a major political climate change concerning capital punishment and it's reflected among reduced death sentences across the country, says Robert Dunham, the group's executive director. The growing reluctance of juries to sentence defendants to death is one of several factors contributing to the overall drop in executions. Twenty people were executed this year, the fewest since 1991, when 14 people were put to death. Capital punishment remains legal in 31 states, but only five states conducted executions this year, the fewest number of states to do so since 1983. Georgia led the way with nine, followed by Texas with seven, two in Alabama, and one each in Missouri and Florida. About half of Americans still support the death penalty, according to a Pew Research Center poll earlier this year, but that's the lowest level in more than four decades. Public support for capital punishment peaked in the mid-1990s, when 80% of Americans favored it. (This year, Nebraska voted to bring back the death penalty.) |
To Understand Toshiba's $6B Nuclear Loss, Go South | (Feb 14, 2017 8:18 AM) The chairman of Japanese electronics and energy giant Toshiba resigned Tuesday after the company logged such massive losses—a projected $6.3 billion—in its nuclear business that it must sell its lucrative computer-chip business to avoid going belly-up. Well, maybe $6.3 billion. Reuters reports that a day of delays and confusion preceded the announcement, with the company missing its scheduled earnings release due to unpreparedness and a lack of certainty around its US nuclear unit, Westinghouse. The numbers that were ultimately released are unaudited and may change by a wide margin, the AP reports. In the meantime, Chairman Shigenori Shiga will step down from the board but stay on as an exec. He is quitting over huge losses from the acquisition of CB&I Stone & Webster by Westinghouse. Toshiba said its net worth was in the negative, at minus $1.7 billion at the end of last year, but the company hopes to fix that by the end of March. President Satoshi Tsunakawa said the company also was looking for potential partners to acquire a stake in Westinghouse. As for what has gone so wrong since Toshiba bought Westinghouse for $5.4 billion in 2006, Bloomberg reports you have to travel to the swamp country of Louisiana. Its deep dive looks at the starring role the Baton Rouge-based Shaw Group has played in the complex tale of blown deadlines and budgets at four nuclear reactor projects in Georgia and South Carolina being run by Westinghouse. Shaw was hired to handle the construction, though it didn't have a nuclear background. In the case of the South Carolina locations, things are three years behind schedule, though 25 million man-hours have gone into them. More here. |
5-Year-Old Finds Gun in Nightstand, Fatally Shoots Self | (Dec 5, 2017 6:46 PM) Police in Anchorage, Alaska, say a 5-year-old boy rummaging through a nightstand drawer late at night found a loaded gun and wound up fatally shooting himself, reports KTUU. Christian Johnnson died after midnight Tuesday while his parents were in other rooms of the house, reports the Anchorage Daily News. The mother heard a gunshot, and she walks into the bedroom and that's when she finds her son, who shot himself, says a police spokesman. It is, he adds, a tragic reminder about gun safety and children. Police have found no evidence that drugs or alcohol played any role in the shooting, and the Anchorage District Attorney's Office has yet to decide whether any charges will be filed. (A study finds that half of US children live in homes with guns, highlighting police concerns about making sure the weapons are safely secured.) |
Coach Star Jerry Van Dyke Dies at 86 | (Jan 6, 2018 4:33 PM) Jerry Van Dyke, Emmy-nominated actor for his work on Coach and brother of Dick Van Dyke, has died at the age of 86, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Van Dyke's wife tells TMZ he died Friday at their ranch in Arkansas. She says his health had been declining since a car accident a few years ago. People reports Van Dyke's final television role was as Patricia Heaton's father on ABC's The Middle. He made his final appearance in 2015, capping an acting career that started more than 50 years earlier on The Dick Van Dyke Show by having Dick appear as his on-screen brother. THR states Van Dyke was known for playing characters that were endearingly earnest and slow-witted. Jerry Van Dyke got his start as a stand-up comic but never found the success of his older brother. He appeared on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Drew Carey Show, Fantasy Island, Raising Hope, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Judy Garland Show, and countless short-lived series. Until his role on Coach in the 1990s, Van Dyke was perhaps most famous for turning down the starring role on Gilligan's Island to instead star in My Mother the Car, which THR notes is considered one of the worst shows in TV history and was canceled after one season. God knows I tried to make it earlier in life, but with all due respect to myself, nothing I ever did was any good, Van Dyke said in 1993. He eventually earned four Emmy nominations playing Luther Van Dam on Coach. |
2 New York Detectives Charged With Raping Teen | (Oct 30, 2017 5:40 PM CDT) Two detectives in the New York Police Department were charged with rape, kidnapping, and official misconduct Monday morning. In a 50-count indictment, the Brooklyn district attorney's office alleges detectives Edward Martins and Richard Hall, while working with an anti-drug squad in the Coney Island neighborhood on Sept. 15, pulled over an 18-year-old woman in her car, the New York Times reports. After searching the car and allegedly finding marijuana and a few Klonopin pills, the detectives handcuffed the woman and put her in their police van. Prosecutor Frank DeGaetano says Martins then forced the woman to perform oral sex on him and raped her while Hall watched through the rearview mirror. Hall then allegedly raped the woman. After the incident the woman had a rape kit conducted and DNA matched both detectives. Martins and Hall pleaded not guilty and were released on bail, and their attorneys called the woman's accusations uncorroborated and said the sexual encounter was consensual. Last week the New York Post obtained a letter from the detectives' lawyers to the Brooklyn DA's office attacking the woman's credibility by pointing out a provocative selfie she posted on Instagram and a recent tweet is which they say she brags about getting attention from paparazzi. But a spokesman for the DA's office attacked the letter, saying the defense counsel’s characterization of how a rape victim should behave is inaccurate, inappropriate and demeaning. |
Thanks to NASA Inventory Error, Illinois Woman $1.8M Richer | (Jul 21, 2017 1:43 AM CDT) One small inventory error has led to a giant payday for Illinois woman Nancy Lee Carlson. A moon dust collection bag that Carlson bought for just $995 in an online government auction in 2015 sold for $1.8 million at a Sotheby's auction in New York Thursday, the BBC reports. The bag, marked Lunar Sample Bag, was used by Neil Armstrong to collect moon dust during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 and still contains small rocks and traces of lunar dust, the AP reports. The buyer declined to be identified. The bag is believed to be the only artifact from the Apollo 11 mission in private hands. It was among items that the FBI seized from the home of Max Ary, the former director of a Kansas space museum, in 2003. NASA tried to get the bag back when it realized it had been misidentified and sold, but a federal judge ruled in Carlson's favor. She plans to use some of the proceeds to set up a scholarship at Northern Michigan University. The bag was sold among 180 lots Sotheby's auctioned off to mark the 48th anniversary of the first moon landing. Other items included the Apollo 13 flight plan, which sold for $275,000. |
With 8 Children Now Dead, Ikea Relaunches Dresser Recall | (Nov 21, 2017 9:55 AM) Ikea relaunched a recall of 29 million chests and dressers Tuesday after the death of an eighth child. The death of a California toddler, who was found trapped underneath an Ikea Malm dresser in May, has raised questions about whether Ikea has effectively spread the word about the recall, which was first announced in June 2016, reports the AP. The Swedish retailer and federal safety regulators are asking customers to take immediate action to secure the dressers or to return them. The recall, which applies only to customers in the US and Canada, is for children's chests and drawers taller than 23.5 inches and adult chests and dressers taller than 29.5 inches, which can easily tip over if not properly anchored to a wall. Customers should contact Ikea for a free wall-mounting kit. The company is also offering to send crews to attach them in the home. CEO Lars Petersson says Ikea has had an extensive communication campaign through social media, its website, and TV and print ads, and it emailed 13 million people about the recall two months ago. Ikea is offering full refunds for anyone who no longer wants the furniture. Customers can bring items to a store, or Ikea will pick them up. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says at least eight children younger than 3 have been killed when an Ikea dresser fell on them. The first death occurred 28 years ago; the others occurred after 2002. The latest death was Jozef Dudek, 2, of Buena Park, Calif. The toddler had been put down for a nap when his father went in to check on him and found him under the dresser, per details released by family lawyers. |
Determined Banker Counts 5K Pounds of Coins by Hand | (Dec 19, 2017 8:32 AM) A German bank employee spent six months dealing with a family's inheritance, which totaled in the millions—of coins. Deutsche Welle has the somewhat improbable story of Wolfgang Kemereit, a worker at the Oldenburg branch of the Deutsche Bundesbank who was tasked with counting 5,500 pounds of coins by hand. They had been amassed over three decades by a man who left the 1.2 million one- and two-penny coins to his family. Germany now uses the euro, but the coins were remnants of the former deutsche mark days. Banks will still exchange them, but Kemereit explains these couldn't be put through a machine because of their sometimes rusted and sandwiched-together condition. He says that while performing his normal duties he chipped away at counting the stash, a project that took him more than six months to complete. The grand total? $9,400. (In a story very much the opposite, a single dime ended up being worth nearly $2 million.) |
Wells Fargo Grabs Back $75M From Ex-Execs | (Apr 10, 2017 12:33 PM CDT) New developments in the Wells Fargo sales scheme emerged Monday, with an investigative report from the bank's board noting that $75 million in compensation will be clawed back from two former executives, including ex-CEO John Stumpf, the New York Times reports. After a six-month probe into the scandal that resulted in thousands of bank employees creating accounts without customers' go-ahead, Stumpf will give up $28 million that was paid out in 2016 under a 2013 equity grant, which is in addition to a previous $41 million and 2016 bonus that he forfeited, USA Today reports. Meanwhile, former head of community banking Carrie Tolstedt, who resigned last June, will have $47.3 million in stock options pulled back, which piles onto the $19 million in compensation she'd already lost. The 113-page report put together by the Shearman & Sterling law firm found that due to a lack of any real central authority, executives like Tolstedt were given general autonomy to carry out the bank's sales tactics as they saw fit. Tolstedt in particular was found to have been behind much of what the Times calls the pressure-cooker climate at Wells Fargo, where some employees said they suffered health issues from unreasonable sales goals resulting in negative outcomes and improper behavior, per the report; one ex-banker said she even started drinking hand sanitizer to alleviate stress, a 2016 New York Times article revealed. Stumpf was reportedly warned repeatedly things were amiss with the company's sales, but he apparently didn't heed the warnings. We accept the board's findings as a critical part of our journey to rebuild trust, Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan said in a statement. |
8 Men Are as Rich as World's Poorest 3.6B | (Jan 16, 2017 1:38 AM) A group of people that could fit into a minivan is richer than enough of the world's population to fill nearly 50 million school buses, according to Oxfam's latest shocking report on world inequality. Eight extremely wealthy men, six of them American, have as much wealth as the 3.6 billion that make up the poorer half of the world's population, the anti-poverty charity says in its annual report, released ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. And wealth is becoming more concentrated year by year: Last year, there were 62 people at the top of what Oxfam called the tippy, tippy top of the pyramid, and in 2010, the wealth of the richest 388 people in the world was equivalent to that of the poorest 50%. Oxfam is calling for the creation of an economy that benefits everyone, not just the privileged few through policies including a crackdown on corporate tax-dodging, which it says would give governments enough money to provide an education for the 124 million children who aren’t in school. Oxfam says that as in previous years, the 1% still have more wealth than the rest of the world put together. Economist Gerard Lyons tell the BBC that while focusing on extreme wealth doesn't always give the full picture, he thinks Oxfam is right to target companies that are increasingly focused on delivering ever-higher returns to wealthy owners and top executives. |
New Fossils Push Known Human History Back 100K Years | (Jun 7, 2017 4:59 PM CDT) My reaction was a big ‘wow,' archaeologist Jean-Jacques Hublin tells the Guardian. Hublin and his team recently discovered Homo sapien fossils in an old mine in Morocco that dating tests reveal are 300,000 years old. Prior to the discovery, the earliest known Homo sapien fossils were about 195,000 years old. The new fossils, obviously, change a lot of what we thought we knew about human history. It was believed that the earliest humans arose in eastern Africa about 200,000 years ago, but this discovery in northern Africa changes the location of what we think of as humanity's Garden of Eden, USA Today reports. If there is a Garden of Eden, it’s ... the size of Africa, Hublin says. The discovery also shapes how we think of human evolution. The fossils discovered by Hublin had many features we associate with modern humans, including their facial structure. The face of the specimen we found is the face of someone you could meet on the tube in London, Hublin says. However, the brain case was more elongated than in modern humans. This is evidence the modern human brain evolved in Homo sapiens and wasn't inherited from an ancestor. However, there is disagreement between scientists not involved in the find whether Homo sapiens really were living all over Africa 300,000 years ago and if Hublin's fossils are even Homo sapiens in the first place and not some earlier species, the Los Angeles Times reports. |
9th Planet May Solve 'Mystery' of Our Solar System | (Oct 20, 2016 12:21 PM CDT) New research may have solved a deep-rooted mystery about our solar system and lent credence to the theory that there's a ninth planet chilling beyond Pluto. (Sorry, buddy.) Researchers at Caltech, including Konstantin Batygin and Mike Pluto Killer Brown (who first floated the Planet Nine theory), say evidence of the massive body has been right under our noses—or actually above our heads—all this time: The planet may cause the sun to appear tilted. How? Well, the orbits of all other planets in our solar system are mostly flat, yet the zone in which they orbit the sun is tilted about six degrees off the sun's equator, per a press release. A massive hidden planet with an orbit set 30 degrees off the other planets' orbits would explain why that is. Such a planet would give the solar system no choice but to slowly twist, study author Elizabeth Bailey says, and calculations apparently check out, per the Guardian. There are other possibilities—that the planets were created this way or the sun's core influenced the orbits early on—but Planet Nine is the first thing that has been proposed to tilt the solar system that doesn't depend on early conditions, so if we find Planet Nine, we will be able to see if it's the only thing responsible, Bailey tells Space.com. Separate research from the University of Arizona notes a massive planet would also explain odd orbits in the Kuiper Belt, the region beyond Neptune's orbit. If there isn't a ninth planet, it has to be that there was one there yesterday and [it] disappeared, Brown says. (Astronomers recently made a jackpot discovery.) |
Surprise Find: Florida Python Ate 3 Deer | (Dec 2, 2016 5:25 PM) Wildlife officials in Florida have known for a while that Burmese pythons have been eating their way through the Everglades, but the study of one particular snake has surprised them with the extent of that appetite: The 15-foot female had eaten three white-tailed deer in the 90 days before her capture, reports Live Science. Researchers found the remains of an adult doe and two fawns in the snake's intestines, they report in Bioinvasions Record. (They titled the report Supersize Me. ) That's a relatively short time for a snake to put down three big meals, notes study co-author Scott Boback. If a python is capable of eating three deer in three months, he marvels, then it clearly raises serious questions about the pythons' impact on the Everglades ecosystem. We don't even know how many of them are out there. What scientists do know is that ever since the Burmese python first surfaced in the area in the 1980s—the reason is unclear, but careless pet owners are generally blamed—the population numbers of raccoons, rabbits, foxes, and other mammals have plummeted. All these studies are putting together a story that we just can’t ignore anymore, Boback tells Vox, which takes a more in-depth look at the implications of the python invasion. As to how a python can take down a deer, this video via Naples News of a Florida hunter rescuing a deer in mid-strangle might provide an idea. And Floridians outside the Everglades will likely be unhappy to hear that the snakes appear to be expanding their territory to the Florida Keys and western Palm Beach County, reports the Orlando Sentinel. (State wildlife officials are fighting back with the Python Challenge. ) |
Thieves Make Off With 1.8K Gallons of Vodka From LA Distillery | (Nov 23, 2017 12:40 AM) Police are searching for thieves who swiped more than 1,800 gallons of vodka from a Los Angeles distillery. Investigators say the suspects sawed through dead bolts to get inside a storage room at the Fog Shots distillery, the AP reports. Company representative Art Gukasayan says the thieves made away with about 90% of the company's holiday inventory and that the take was worth about $278,000. KABC-TV reports that detectives are examining surveillance footage that shows three men behind a razor wire fence. One of them climbs the fence and knocks the camera over before the break-in. |
Boyfriend Charged in Pregnant Woman's 2013 Disappearance | (Dec 6, 2017 10:35 AM) An arrest has been made in the February 2013 case of a Colorado woman who texted a photo of her eight-week ultrasound to her boyfriend, drove two hours to Pueblo to see him, and then disappeared. That boyfriend, Donthe Lucas, was charged Friday with first-degree murder in connection with the death of Kelsie Schelling, whose body has not been found. The Denver Channel notes Friday marks the first time that the long-running investigation has been described by authorities as a homicide investigation. Details on what triggered his arrest are scarce. His home was searched in April, but police didn't comment on what they did or didn't find. All that has been found is Schelling's car, discovered in a hospital parking lot in Pueblo more than a week after she vanished. |
83 College Students Accused of Cheating via App | (Nov 13, 2017 3:06 PM) The ever-evolving miracles of technology are helping students find new and daring ways to cheat. The Ohio State University has charged 83 undergraduates with violating the school's code of student conduct by using a group messaging app to cheat on assignments in a business class last year. The school's Committee on Academic Misconduct says it investigated claims made by a professor at the Fisher College of Business in April and determined that the students used GroupMe, an app that supports document and calendar sharing, to commit several violations, including unauthorized collaboration on graded assignments, the Columbus Dispatch reports. GroupMe is an app that allows people to chat with large groups of users simultaneously, and it is permitted for use by students, according to OSU rules. It is ranked 14th among social-networking apps in the Apple Store, Fox News reports. Punishment for the 83 students could run the gamut, from formal reprimands and grade penalties to suspension or even expulsion. |
Cubs Fans Go Wild as 108-Year Drought Ends | (Nov 3, 2016 4:12 AM CDT) In Chicago, next year is here. At exactly 11:47pm local time Wednesday night, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series title that had eluded them for 108 years. Fans who packed bars to watch the games on television near Wrigley Field—neither of which existed back in 1908—erupted in cheers before swarming onto the streets just before midnight to celebrate in the shadows of the statues of Cubs greats Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo, and legendary announcer Harry Caray, the AP reports. As the game ended, the roar from inside the bars and the throngs of fans on the streets was deafening. The crowds inside and out sang go, Cubs, go at the top of their lungs. As the celebration of the 8-7 win over the Cleveland Indians in Game 7 progressed, thousands of fans poured into the streets leading away from Wrigley, many of them singing We Are the Champions. Fans hugged each other, many of them crying, and took turns writing their names and words of congratulations in chalk on Wrigley's brick walls. Longtime Cubs fan Bob Newhart, who grew up in the Chicago area, tweeted: The billy goat is dead!! As I've said, from the beginning, I'm getting too old for this! The 87-year-old comedian was alluding to the curse allegedly placed on the team during the 1945 World Series by the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern after he was told his pet goat wasn't welcome at Wrigley. |
12 Inmates Escaped With Peanut Butter Trick | (Aug 1, 2017 12:25 AM CDT) Peanut butter was the key ingredient in Sunday evening's mass escape from an Alabama jail, Sheriff James Underwood says. The sheriff says the 12 men escaped after using peanut butter to cover up a door number, AL.com reports. They then convinced a new guard in the control room to open the door, which led outside. It may sound crazy, but these kinds of people are crazy like a fox, Underwood says. Because the door number was obscured by peanut butter, he thought he was opening the cell door for this man to go in his cell, but in fact he opened up the outside door. The inmates, including two men accused of attempted murder, scaled a 12-foot fence topped with razor wire after making their way outside and escaped without serious injury. Underwood says the inmates took advantage of a young guy who hadn't been working at the Walker County Jail for long. Escapes happen, Underwood says. This is one time we slipped up. I'm not going to make any excuses. The sheriff says 11 of the 12 inmates have now been recaptured, CNN reports. Six were recaptured within 90 minutes and five more were caught by a manhunt over the next eight hours, including one inmate who'd apparently stolen a car and two who were at a convenience store on Interstate 65. The only inmate still on the loose is Brady Andrew Kilpatrick, 24. He was jailed for drug offenses including possession of marijuana; Underwood says he's not considered dangerous. |
'Aunt V,' World's Oldest Person, Dies at 117 | (Sep 17, 2017 1:45 PM CDT) The world's oldest person has died in Jamaica. Violet Brown was 117 years and 189 days old, the AP reports. The woman known as Aunt V died Friday at a local hospital, where she had been treated for heart arrhythmia and dehydration. Prime Minister Andrew Holness expressed his condolences in a Facebook post, calling her an inspiring woman. Brown was born Violet Moss, or Mosse—both spellings were sometimes used—on March 10, 1900, and spent much of her life cutting sugar cane near her home in the Duanvale district in western Jamaica. A biography posted on the website of a foundation named in her honor said she was baptized at age 13 at the Trittonvale Baptist Church and remained a member throughout her life, long serving as organist. She credited her longevity to hard work and her Christian faith. Her husband, Augustus Brown, died in 1997 and the eldest of her six children died in April at age 97. In an interview this year with the AP, Brown said she was surprised but grateful to have lived so long. This is what God has given me, so I have to take it, she said. With Brown's death, the Gerontology Research Group now lists Nabi Tajima of Japan as the oldest surviving person. She was born on Aug. 4, 1900, making her just over 117. |
Veronica Mars Actor Commits Suicide at 34 | (Nov 4, 2017 5:30 AM CDT) Brad Bufanda, the actor best known for playing biker gang member Felix Toombs on Veronica Mars, apparently leaped to his death early Wednesday, officials say. Bufanda, 34, jumped from a building in Los Angeles and died of blunt-trauma injuries suffered in the fall, USA Today reports. His body was found by a transient, per the Hollywood Reporter. His death has been ruled a suicide. I'm heartbroken to hear of Brad Bufanda's passing. He did great work on Veronica Mars. My heart goes out to his family, tweeted showrunner Rob Thomas Friday. Bufanda's other credits include Malcolm in the Middle, CSI: Miami, and Days of Our Lives. |
Purple Decks of Cards Led to $10M Win. He Has to Return It | (Dec 20, 2016 8:28 AM) Phil Ivey is a poker pro, but in 2012 he was on a baccarat hot streak, winning $9.6 million over four visits to Atlantic City's Borgata. It's not money he'll keep. A federal judge last week ordered Ivey and companion player Cheng Yin Sun to return $10.1 million to the casino—the baccarat money plus another $500,000 won at craps by spending those baccarat winnings. But as the Washington Post reports, US District Court Judge Noel Hillman didn't find Ivey and Sun had committed fraud as the Borgata alleged. What they did do is breach their primary obligation to not use marked cards in violation of New Jersey's Casino Control Act, per Hillman. How the duo did so: edge-sorting. The Post explains that casinos will give accommodations to high-rolling players, and Ivey requested five. The end result is that he played at a private table with his companion, with a dealer who spoke Mandarin Chinese and used purple Gemaco Borgata playing cards that were shuffled with an automatic shuffler. The linchpin was Sun's impeccable eyesight, as NorthJersey.com reports. A June New York Times Magazine article that featured Sun described how she spent around a thousand hours studying nearly unrecognizable differences in the patterns of the cards (this after losing a fortune gambling and spending three weeks in prison over an unpaid debt; read her colorful story here). She would tell the dealer to turn certain cards 180 degrees, and that rotation would be maintained by the automatic shuffler. What they don't have to repay: the $249,199.83 in comps provided to them by the Borgata. (This poker showdown got a little testy.) |
Rocker Faces 30 Years in Prison on Fraud Charges | (Jan 17, 2018 5:30 PM) From hundreds of thousands of fans to 100,000 victims. The Santa Barbara Independent reports a pop-punk bassist is facing fraud charges and more than 30 years in prison over an alleged real estate scam. Prosecutors say Michael Davenport of The Ataris defrauded approximately 100,000 people in all 50 states and Washington DC out of $27 million through a company he founded called American Standard, according to NPR. The alleged scam worked like this: American Standard would advertise homes for sale for below-market value, usually on Craigslist; interested customers were made to pay $199 for a listing of houses ; victims would later find out the homes on the list were either not for sale or didn't exist. American Standard told customers they could purchase the houses by simply taking over the homeowners' mortgage payments and hired employees who spent most of their time fielding phone calls from angry customers and homeowners, according to an indictment. Prosecutors say American Standard created impossible hoops to jump through if any customer demanded a refund. Davenport was arrested in December at the Bill and Hillary Clinton Airport in Arkansas with $104,000 in cash. He and American Standard salesperson Cynthia Rawlinson appeared in court Wednesday. They've been charged with wire fraud, mail fraud, and more. Davenport played with The Ataris from 1995 to 2004 and appeared with the band during a reunion tour in 2013, Rolling Stone reports. The band's 1999 album was named one of the 50 best pop-punk albums of all time by the magazine. |
16 & Pregnant Star Dead at 23 | (Dec 22, 2016 9:14 AM) Valerie Fairman, who appeared on MTV reality show 16 and Pregnant in 2010, has died of an apparent drug overdose, her family tells TMZ. She was 23. Fairman was staying with a friend who found her unresponsive in the bathroom of her Pennsylvania home on Wednesday, relatives say. Fairman's years-long struggle with drugs was featured on the show; she's also faced charges including prostitution and was last week charged with resisting arrest and giving false identification to police, reports the Hollywood Gossip. Her 7-year-old daughter, Nevaeh, is now with her grandmother. (A reality TV contestant was just murdered. |
Former 'Terrible Racist' Offers Apology, $2K to Black Church | (Jun 3, 2017 7:29 AM CDT) A self-confessed former terrible racist surprised a Greenville, SC, pastor with a plea for forgiveness—and a fat donation. Rev. Michael Sullivan tells WSPA he was floored when he read the letter signed by Anonymous Donor. The missive dated May 13 (which can be seen in its entirety at CNN) reads, I am white and used to be a terrible racist. … Due to Christ's teachings, I am appalled at my former thoughts and words. Tucked inside the envelope was a $2,000 check. I send this donation as a heartfelt apology to the African-American community, as a sign of God's love for you, and as a sign of my love for you as well, the letter read. Sullivan says, When I read the letter, I said 'Wow ... Look at how God works.' I don't care whether we are talking black or white [or] whether we are talking about Christian or Islamic, Sullivan continues. If we can hear the heart of this man as being a heart that represents all of us, I think all of us can become better. The gift, which Nicholtown Presbyterian Church will devote in part to youth outreach, as well as the donor's change of heart inspired Sullivan as he planned his Sunday sermon. As to the identity of the mystery donor, Sullivan has no idea, but he'd like to find out. I [want] to find the guy so I could embrace him, he says. (This just days after LeBron James declared that being black in America is tough. ) |
Democrats, This Is Your 2020 Savior | (Feb 7, 2017 9:49 AM) One school of thought among Democrats is that they should borrow from the book of Trump and go with more of a celebrity than a traditional politician in 2020. Well, how about a little bit of both? At the National Journal, Josh Kraushaar makes the case for Al Franken as a viable contender. The 65-year-old Saturday Night Live alum seems to be finding his groove in the Senate, having emerged as one of the most aggressive and effective questioners of President Trump's Cabinet nominees. Expect that to continue with Supreme Court pick Neil Gorsuch. Franken, though, has learned to balance his toughness with levity, and his authentic self is emerging after years of keeping things closer to the vest, writes Kraushaar. True, his deeply liberal politics might not fly with moderate voters, but Franken has done something that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have not: proven he can win support outside the most progressive precincts. He easily won re-election in 2014 while other Democrats struggled nationwide, and he did so with the support of working-class residents in rural areas—a group that propelled Trump to victory. In fact, he shares some of the president's views on trade issues, having fought for tariffs against Chinese steel. This is Al Franken’s moment in the spotlight, writes Kraushaar, and if he chooses, he could parlay his good fortune into a bid for the presidency in 2020. Click for the full column. |
Dow Ends Day Down 23 | (May 12, 2017 3:16 PM CDT) Stocks are ending mostly lower as declines in banks and industrial stocks outweigh gains in other sectors, the AP reports. General Electric dropped 2.1% Friday, while Wells Fargo lost 1.3%. Nordstrom became the latest department store operator to turn in disappointing results. The company's stock plunged 10.9%. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 3 points, or 0.2%, to 2,390. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 23 points, or 0.1%, to 20,896. The Nasdaq composite edged up 5 points, or 0.1%, to 6,121. Small-company stocks fell more than the rest of the market. The Russell 2000 index dropped 7 points, or 0.5%, to 1,382. |
5 Friends on Dream Trip to NYC Among Victims of Attack | (Nov 1, 2017 4:26 AM CDT) Five of the eight people killed in what authorities believe was an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack in Manhattan Tuesday were friends visiting the city to celebrate the 30th anniversary of graduating from high school in Argentina. Authorities say the five men from Rosario, all in their late 40s, were riding bikes when Sayfullo Saipov drove a rented pickup truck down a bike path near the World Trade Center, running over cyclists and pedestrians, the Washington Post reports. A sixth member of the group was hospitalized in stable condition. We accompany the families in this terrible moment of deep pain, which all Argentines share, the Argentine government said in a statement. According to Argentine media, one of the victims, steel firm owner Ariel Erlij, helped pay for the group's trip to New York, which was described as the trip of their dreams. Three other people were killed in the attack, including a Belgian woman who was visiting New York with her mother and sister, the Guardian reports. Authorities say at least 11 people were injured, though two children injured when Saipov drove the pickup into a school bus were not seriously hurt. Lawyer Tom Kendrick tells the New York Times that he encountered the gruesome aftermath of the rampage while jogging. He says he saw a mangled bike and a body, and then three bodies close together. I approached to see if I could help and they did not need help—they appeared to be dead, he says. Saipov, a 29-year-old Uber driver from Uzbekistan, was shot after emerging from the vehicle with what turned out to be imitation firearms. Authorities say he's in critical condition but is expected to survive. |
Clinton Could Be the 5th Person to Ever Lose Like This | (Nov 9, 2016 7:11 AM) It may be deja vu all over again for Democrats, with the very real possibility emerging that Hillary Clinton will be the second candidate in 16 years to win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College. As of 8am ET, Clinton had pulled ahead of President-elect Donald Trump by roughly 130,000 votes by the New York Times' count. Politico notes it could be weeks before it's declared either way, as absentee ballots will be counted for the foreseeable future. If Clinton does come out on top, Politico sees it as likely provid[ing] little comfort besides adding a footnote to her historic run. In terms of footnotes, Business Insider reports this would be the fifth time such a thing ever happened, with George W. Bush losing the popular vote in 2000, preceded by Benjamin Harrison in 1888, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and John Quincy Adams in 1824. At Slate, Will Oremus writes, It would be scant consolation to Clinton or her supporters, but a popular vote win would still be a historic landmark: It would make her the first woman to win the most votes in a US presidential election. |
Dems Filibuster Gorsuch, 55-45 | (Apr 6, 2017 10:45 AM CDT) Senate Democrats have successfully, if temporarily, blocked President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, reports the AP. The Senate voted 55-45 Thursday to filibuster the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch. Republicans, however, are planning to unilaterally change Senate rules to remove a 60-vote filibuster requirement for Gorsuch and all future Supreme Court nominees, reducing it to a simple majority in the 100-member Senate. Democrats opposing Gorsuch say they believe he would favor corporations over workers and would be on the far right of the court. If confirmed, Gorsuch will fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016, 14 months ago. |
'She Wanted to Be the Envy of Others,' Gets 8-Year Sentence | (Apr 18, 2018 9:05 AM CDT) She wanted to be the envy of others, said an Australian judge of Mélina Roberge. There's little to envy now: The 24-year-old was on Wednesday sentenced to eight years for drug trafficking, in a case that involved $20 million of cocaine, an exotic cruise, and social media. Roberge and Isabelle Lagacé, 30, left Quebec and set sail on what by all appearances was a glamorous six-week cruise with stops in places like Bermuda, Peru, Chile, and Tahiti, which the women documented via Instagram (photos here). But when they arrived in Australia on Aug. 28, 2016, sniffer dogs unearthed 30 kilograms of cocaine in their first-class cabin, reports the CBC. More than twice that amount was found in André Tamine's quarters; the 65-year-old Montreal man had invited the women on the trip. The BBC reports it's the the biggest drug seizure Australia has made on a commercial boat or plane. Judge Catherine Traill had harsh words for Roberge's desire to have an impressive social media presence, reports news.au.com: She was seduced by lifestyle and the opportunity to post glamorous Instagram photos from around the world. It is sad they seek to attain such a vacuous existence where how many likes they receive are their currency. The Times of London cites a court affidavit in which Roberge admitted to being a stupid young woman concerned with superficial things. That may not have changed: The court heard that her main hobby in prison is training at the gym. Lagacé was sentenced to seven years and six months in November, and Tamine will be sentenced in October. (This Instagram post got 2 Americans arrested.) |
A Year After Their Mobile Home Burned, 2nd Fire Takes 2 Kids | (Feb 10, 2017 4:07 PM) After their mobile home burned last year, the best Michael Reeves and Chassity Carter could do was to park a camper trailer on the same lot in coastal Georgia and make it their new home. Now hardship has become sheer tragedy for Reeves and Carter. Less than a year after their mobile home burned, another fire Wednesday ravaged the camper the family had been living in, killing two of their children—3-year-old Blayden Wade Reeves and his 4-month-old sister, Tallie Ann Carter, the AP reports. Chassity Carter and 2-year-old Brighton Michael Reeves were hospitalized in critical condition. After searching the camper's charred remains Thursday, investigators determined the deadly blaze likely stated as an accidental cooking fire. There was a pot of noodles left on a hot plate on a countertop that was the cause of the fire, Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering told reporters at a news conference. Police were initially suspicious because of last year's mobile home fire, but he said there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing in the fire at the camper. It was a travel trailer, which is unusual for a family to be living in, Doering said. It's not designed for that, especially for a family of five. Neighbors knew the young couple had a hard time making ends meet, said Danny O'Neal, who lives around the corner. They have been struggling and struggling, O'Neal said Thursday from his front porch just outside the port city of Brunswick, about 70 miles south of Savannah. He could hardly talk about the day before, when he ran outside to the sound of his neighbors screaming for their children. |
Natalie Cole's Son Found Dead at 39 | (Aug 16, 2017 6:03 AM CDT) I cannot wait until that day that I see you again, said Natalie Cole's only child at her funeral fewer than two years ago. The day was not a long time coming: TMZ was the first to report the singer's 39-year-old son, Robert Yancy, was found dead in his San Fernando Valley apartment Monday night in the course of a welfare check; a friend had become concerned after not hearing from Yancy for a few days. The cause of death is currently listed as natural causes, but an autopsy and toxicology tests are pending. TMZ points out a history of heart issues: Cole died from congestive heart failure, and Yancy's own father was killed by a heart attack at age 34. Yancy's aunt, Timolin Cole Augustus, tells the AP, It appears to be a sudden heart attack. The AP provides some background on Yancy, whose father, Marvin, was the first of three husbands Cole had. The drummer toured as part of his mother's band, and had recently started performing again after mourning her death. He had words of praise for Cole at her funeral: What a woman. She taught me how to love. She had my back every time when I needed it. The greatest gift she ever gave me was Jesus. I cannot wait until that day that I see you again. Yancy never married, and is survived by Cole's twin sisters, Timolin and Casey Cole Hooker, and five cousins. |
Father and Son, Both 9/11 Responders, Have Died | (Aug 17, 2017 12:00 PM CDT) They were healthy, with no history of cancer in the family, but within a year of each other, a father and son have died—the 76-year-old dad last year after fighting seven different cancers over 13 years. The common link: Both Raymond Alexander and his son, Robert, who died Monday at 43 of brain cancer, were 9/11 first responders, per the Washington Post. The firefighters' deaths make it the first time, post September 11, 2001, where the 9/11 attacks have claimed the lives of two generations in a single family, notes a statement from the Uniformed Firefighters Association president. Raymond, with the FDNY at the time, and Robert, an NYPD officer, both were off on 9/11, but they rushed to the scene and worked in the poisonous debris for days. Raymond's struggle with various forms of cancer began a couple of years later, and Robert was diagnosed with a brain tumor in November 2014. The UFA statement notes the nearly 150 firefighters and fire officers who've since died from 9/11-linked illnesses. Robert was an active lobbyist, even in his last days, for reupping legislation to pay for medical costs of first responders made ill from 9/11's toxins. Through their jobs of public service, then their illnesses, the Alexanders (described by loved ones as quiet, humble men of few words ) forged a deeper connection than I could understand, Robert's brother Raymond tells the Post. In 2015, Robert told the New York Daily News that, despite his illness, he never regretted heading to Ground Zero. I would do it again, he said. His fellow firefighters today recognize that dedication. New York City and the country will never forget the sacrifices that Bobby, his father, and many more of our brave firefighters have made, the UFA statement reads. (Another 9/11 victim was just ID'd this summer.) |
2 Sailors From Florida, 1 From Louisiana Die in Crash | (Nov 25, 2017 12:55 PM) The US Navy says two sailors from Florida and another from Louisiana died in an aircraft crash in the Philippine Sea, the AP reports. In a news release, the Navy's 7th Fleet said the families of Lt. Steven Combs and Airman apprentice Bryan Grosso of Florida and airman Matthew Chialastri of Louisiana were notified of their deaths following the Wednesday crash. |
Last Survivor of One of WWII's Great Sagas Dies at 94 | (Jan 25, 2017 8:11 AM) When Harold Hayes said he had one helluva war story to tell, he wasn't kidding. The 94-year-old, who died on Sunday, was the last survivor of 30 intrepid Americans who crash-landed behind Nazi lines during World War II, plunging them into a surreal odyssey that included German attacks, blizzards, illness, and near starvation as they trekked 600 miles until their eventual rescue 63 days later. Details of their saga was a long-held-secret for decades, the New York Times reports. It all began on a clear day in November 1943 when a cargo plane carrying nurses and medics from Sicily to Bari, Italy, was blown off course by a major storm and fired on by German flak guns. After ditching in a remote area, the group learned they were in Albania from locals. Under constant threat of capture, Hayes, then 21, and the others bunked with peasants with little to share except lice-infested blankets. They boiled tea from straw and ate berries. Their limbs froze as autumn gave way to white-out blizzards. When you're hungry, cold, and tired, you forget about almost everything else and are only thinking about surviving, Hayes said, per National Geographic. A British spy found them too sick to go on, and arranged a US air rescue that failed. Crushed, the group managed to continue moving west and reached the Adriatic coast on Jan. 9. To protect their Albanian saviors, they stayed mum during the war and for years after during the Communist years. Hayes rarely talked about his ordeal, author Cate Lineberry tells the Times. (This lost WWII sub was found off Hawaii.) |
France's National Front Just Lost Its 2nd Leader This Week | (Apr 29, 2017 10:06 AM CDT) Marine Le Pen stepped down as leader of the National Front this week to focus on her campaign for French president. On Friday, the man tapped to replace her also stepped down—after he was accused of agreeing, or at least sympathizing, with Holocaust deniers, Reuters reports. According to the Telegraph, Jean-Francois Jalkh is said to have praised the research of a Holocaust denier as well-worked and rigorous in a 2000 interview published in 2005. There are also reports he attended a rally held by supporters of a Nazi collaborator in 1991. Jalkh, who denies being a Holocaust denier but maintains it would have been impossible for the Nazis to use Zyklon B in the gas chambers, plans to file a legal complaint over the accusations, France 24 reports. The sudden attention on Jalkh could hurt Le Pen just over a week out from the second and final round of voting in the French presidential election. Recent polling shows her well behind centrist Emmanuel Macron, who visited the site of one of the worst Nazi atrocities in France on Friday. Le Pen has been trying to make the National Front seem less racist, anti-semitic, and xenophobic than it historically has been—even going so far as to kick her father out of the party he founded after he called the gas chambers a detail of history. On Friday, Le Pen said she abhors the theories of Holocaust deniers and there is no one in the National Front leadership who defends this sort of thesis. |
MH370 Wing Flap Is Clue to Plane's Last Moments | (Nov 2, 2016 8:05 AM CDT) A piece of debris holds a big potential clue, or so finds a new report on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. Of the more than 20 pieces of aircraft debris that have been found since MH370 went down in March 2014, three have been verified as coming from the plane, reports CNN. One of those—the right outboard wing flap found on Pemba Island— was most likely in the retracted position at the time it separated from the wing, states the report. If a pilot was landing or ditching the plane, the wing flaps would have likely been deployed, reports the Guardian. We are very reluctant to express absolute certainty, but that's the most likely scenario, an ATSB rep tells ABC Australia. You can draw [your] own conclusions as to whether that means someone was in control or not. The report—which determined the plane was in a high and increasing rate of descent per its final satellite communications—also includes preliminary drift analysis results in an effort to determine where the debris originated. Officials conclude the crash site is likely within the current search area, or further north. All but a small portion of the 46,000-square-mile search area has now been surveyed, with the final 4,000 square miles to be searched early next year. Officials previously said the search will end at that point, though Australia's transport minister now says a three-day meeting currently happening in Canberra will inform the remainder of the search effort, and develop guidance for any future search operations. |
Family of 5 Wiped Out in Highway Wreck | (Mar 22, 2017 3:46 AM CDT) Relatives are mourning an entire family wiped out in a horrific crash early Sunday on Interstate 75 in northern Florida. Police say parents Nathan and Lynda Russell and children La'Nyah 15, and Natayah, 10, were pronounced dead at the scene after their SUV veered off the road and hit the back of a disabled tractor-trailer, 11Alive reports. Nathan Jr., Natayah's twin brother, was pronounced dead in a Gainesville hospital on Monday. The Russells were on their way back to their Fort Lauderdale-area home from Georgia, according to a GoFundMe page set up to help Lynda Russell's parents with funeral expenses. This one hurts. From the Bahamas to Haiti to South Florida...our hearts are broken, Nathan Russell's cousin said in a Facebook post, per the Miami Herald. Police say the father was at the wheel of the rented 2016 Chrysler 200, in which Natayah was the only one wearing a seatbelt. What we believe is that it was possibly driver fatigue. That's what the thinking is right now, a Florida Highway Patrol spokesman tells the Gainesville Sun. A lot of people are taking road trips now with spring breaks. Maybe that's what they were doing. |
Car Plows Into Pedestrians in Times Square; 1 Dead | (May 18, 2017 11:46 AM CDT) One person was killed and 22 more were injured after a speeding car veered onto the sidewalk in New York City's Times Square on Thursday and plowed through a crowd of pedestrians before crashing and appearing to catch fire, reports Reuters. A man behind the wheel of the red Honda was taken into custody at the scene, reports CBS News; he's since been identified as 26-year-old Richard Rojas of the Bronx. Rojas appeared to be impaired, officials said; he has two prior convictions for drunk driving, reports the New York Times. Based on information we have at this moment, there is no indication that this was an act of terrorism, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference. People were being hit and rolling off the car, one witness tells Reuters. |
Black Sabbath Packs It In After 50 Years | (Feb 5, 2017 6:40 AM) Black Sabbath called it a career Saturday night in the place where it all began 50 years earlier. Ozzy Osbourne and crew put on their final show for fans in Birmingham, England, concluding a legendary run with the band's first hit, Paranoid, reports the BBC. Thank you, good night, thank you so much, Osbourne said as they exited. He formed the band in 1968 with guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, and drummer Bill Ward, though Ward sat out the farewell tour in a financial dispute. I remember playing the Crown pub in Birmingham and thinking, 'This'll be good for a couple of years—drink a few beers and have a jam,' Osbourne said in a pre-show interview. AFP adds a nugget of rock trivia: Iommi lost the tips of two middle fingers as a 17-year-old sheet metal worker, then fashioned replacement tips out of melted plastic bottle tops. Out of necessity, he had to change his playing technique to make things easier, and that involved tuning his guitar lower. The resulting menacing music went a long way toward creating the heavy metal sound of the 1970s. Osbourne swears the band is done for good, and he's currently working on solo projects. |
5-Year-Old's Body Found Hidden in Family's Restaurant | (Jan 11, 2017 7:33 AM) A woman is charged with murder after the body of her 5-year-old daughter was found hidden inside a restaurant in Ohio. Police were initially searching for Ashley Zhao after she was reported to have wandered away from her father's restaurant, Ang's Asian Cuisine in North Canton, late Monday. According to a call to police around 9pm Monday, Ashley had last been seen sleeping in a back room of the restaurant around 5pm but was missing when her mom checked on her hours later. But after searching a nearby wooded area, authorities found the girl deceased and concealed inside the building around 5pm Tuesday, police tell Fox 8. Police say the girl died Monday morning after her mother, Ming Ming Chen, hit the 5-year-old in the head several times with her right fist and slammed her head on the floor, per Fox 8 and WKYC. The girl's father, Liang Zhao, saw Ashley had green fluid coming from her mouth and took her into a bathroom to clean her face, then gave her CPR when he noticed she wasn't breathing, police tell the Canton Repository. It was another 12 hours before the family called police. Chen is now charged with murder and felonious assault, while Zhao faces charges of complicity to murder and complicity to commit felonious assault. Their bond is set at $5 million each. (A new child abuse case out of Utah accuses a mom of keeping her son locked up for years.) |
Einstein 'Tipped' the Man With a Note. It Just Sold for $1.5M | (Oct 25, 2017 6:03 AM CDT) You really can put a price on happiness, or at least Albert Einstein's pithy theory on the matter: The theory, scribbled on a piece of paper and handed to a messenger, sold at auction for $1.56 million, AFP reports. The record-setting bid at Tuesday's sale in Jerusalem far surpassed estimates of $5,000 to $8,000, per Winner's auction house. Einstein scrawled the note on Imperial Hotel Tokyo stationery in 1922 while on a tour of Japan after being informed he'd won the Nobel Prize for physics. It reads in German: A calm and humble life will bring more happiness than the pursuit of success and the constant restlessness that comes with it, per the BBC. The physicist better known for another theory gave the note to a courier who made a delivery to his room. Einstein didn't want the man to leave empty-handed, so instead of a tip he handed him two notes, the anonymous seller tells AFP. The second missive, which sold for $240,000, was less original. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, it reads. Maybe if you’re lucky those notes will become much more valuable than just a regular tip, Einstein told the man, says the seller, a relative of the courier who lives in Hamburg, Germany. The auction house says the buyer was a European who wants to remain anonymous, per the BBC. Two other letters Einstein wrote later were also auctioned, fetching prices of $33,600 and $9,600, per AFP. Other Einstein letters about God, Israel, and physics sold for almost $210,000 in June. (These US cities are the happiest.) |
8 Months Pregnant, Woman Returns Home Invaders' Fire | (Nov 4, 2019 7:45 PM) Hearing a commotion one evening last week, a Florida woman who'd been in a back bedroom of the family house looked out to see what was going on. When she saw two men holding her 11-year-old daughter and pistol-whipping her husband, and one of them took a shot at her, she backed away and grabbed a semi-automatic rifle. The woman, who was eight months pregnant, opened fire. She hit one of them, per Bay News 9, who fled and collapsed, dead, in a nearby ditch. Police are looking for the other. Jeremy King said his wife evened the playing field and kept them from killing me. Her name was not released. King said the men burst into the home about 9pm, pointed their guns at him and demanded money. They came in heavily hooded and masked, he said. When King said he had nothing to give them, one began to pistol-whip him while the other kicked him in the head. It became real violent, real fast, King said. He needed 20 stitches after the attack for injuries that included a fractured eye socket, a fractured sinus cavity and a concussion, per NBC. King said he didn't know the men and doesn't know why they picked his house. The AR-15-style weapon was in the home in Lithia, about 25 miles southeast of Tampa, legally. |
2 Teens in Paris Accidentally Spend 3 Days With 6M Dead | (Jun 14, 2017 1:46 PM CDT) Two teenage boys were safe and sound Wednesday after spending three cold, dark, and no doubt harrowing days lost in the catacombs beneath the streets of Paris. According to the BBC, the two boys, ages 16 and 17, were rescued early Wednesday following a four-hour effort by search teams with rescue dogs. They were taken to a nearby hospital and treated for hypothermia, though authorities say they were otherwise unharmed. The temperature in the pitch-black passageways is about 59 degrees Fahrenheit, notes AFP. The catacombs, which house the bones of approximately 6 million dead, form a 150-mile maze beneath the city. Only a small portion of the catacombs are open to the public, but partygoers and enthusiasts known as cataphiles have been known to access the other tunnels through secret entrances. Authorities have not reported who sounded the alarm about the missing boys or how they got into the catacombs, but the operator of the official museum says he knows of nobody ever getting lost in the public portion of the tunnels. |