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Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Anderson Cooper's alleged stalker arrested
Celebs 
9 hours ago
GUS RUELAS / Reuters file
Anderson Cooper.
A man who reportedly had been stalking newsman Anderson Cooper was being held on $75,000 bail in Manhattan Criminal Court over the weekend, according to the New York Daily News.
Alex Hausner is accused of leaving numerous phone calls at Cooper and his partner Benjamin Maisani's home in the city, and trying to break into the couple's home at least four times over a six-month period that began in January, said the complaint.
One such visit to their home reportedly involved Hausner standing outside the apartment and banging "with his foot on the door numerous times," said the court papers.
He's also accused of tracking Cooper down at his job at CNN and left a threatening call to security on Friday, telling the guard, "The f---ing worst is coming."
He was charged with menacing, stalking, aggravated harassment and given an order not to contact Cooper.
The New York Post indicates the harassment has been going on for much longer than since January, saying Hausner ? who the paper says describes himself as "a gay, Jewish white supermacist" ? has been pursuing Cooper since 2008.
Hausner is next due in court on Aug. 8.
Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/anderson-coopers-alleged-stalker-arrested-new-york-6C10791939
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NFL Player Forced to Miss Practice Because of a Jolly Rancher
There's a certain protocol you need to run when consuming a Jolly Rancher. After popping one in your mouth, you don't immediately bite into it! That's just asking for what recently happened to the Cowboys'?Barry Church. A couple of weeks ago, Church bit into the hard candy and accidentally chipped his tooth. At the time, he felt some obvious pain, but things took a serious turn when Church woke up this past Monday and felt a lot of pain in his mouth.?
After visiting a dentist, Church needed to undergo an emergency?root canal procedure, which resulted in him missing a practice. So, remember kids, make sure you practice safe... Jolly Rancher consumption. It's for your own good. ?
RELATED: The 25 Freakiest Sports Injuries of All TIme
[via Nick Eatman]
Source: http://www.complex.com/sports/2013/07/barry-church-misses-practice-jolly-rancher
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Google giving Zagat more attention with new site, mobile apps
Google's acquisition history is made up of some incredible smart decisions (see: Android) and then some more questionable ones (see: Motorola Mobility).
Chances are that Google's 2011 purchase of Zagat, once a formidable and go-to travel and recommendations brand, falls somewhere in the middle.
Certainly, Zagat's international library of restaurants, hotels, and other points-of-interest lends both extra meat and credibility to Google Maps search results.
But the addition of Zagat to Google services such as Maps, Plus and Now hasn't quite lived up to any expectations that it would really provide heated competition with Yelp or even Foursquare.
Perhaps some extra love and attention will give Google's rendition of Zagat a much-needed boost.
Gannon Hall, group product manager and head of the Zagat team, explained further in a blog post on Monday that the new spin for Zagat moves farther from just user reviews but rather toward curated content and "expert local editors."
With a new desktop portal as well as iPhone and Android versions, Hall also emphasized that the new Zagat is also making its ratings and reviews available for free without registration for the the first time ever.
Zagat now covers restaurants and nightlife in nine cities. The team is promising to expand coverage to at least 50 U.S. and international destinations in the coming months.
For a closer look at the revamped Zagat, check out the promo clip below:
Image via The Official Google Blog
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zdnet/thebigquestion/~3/AZNWuORXMco/
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Tuesday, July 30, 2013
New EPA chief: Climate controls will help economy
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's top environmental official wasted no time Tuesday taking on opponents of the administration's plan to crack down on global warming pollution.
In her first speech as the head of EPA, Gina McCarthy told an audience gathered at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Mass., that curbing climate-altering pollution will spark business innovation, grow jobs and strengthen the economy. The message was classic Obama, who has long said that the environment and the economy aren't in conflict and has sold ambitious plans to reduce greenhouse gases as a means to jumpstart a clean energy economy.
McCarthy signaled Tuesday that she was ready for the fight, saying that the agency would continue issuing new rules, regardless of claims by Republicans and industry groups that under Obama the EPA has been the most aggressive and overreaching since it was formed more than 40 years ago.
"Can we stop talking about environmental regulations killing jobs? Please, at least for today," said McCarthy, referring to one of the favorite talking points of Republicans and industry groups.
"Let's talk about this as an opportunity of a lifetime, because there are too many lifetimes at stake," she said of efforts to address global warming.
In Obama's first four years, the EPA has issued the first-ever limits on toxic mercury pollution from power plants, regulated greenhouse gases for the first time, and updated a host of air pollution health standards.
McCarthy acknowledged the agency had been the most productive in its history. But she said Tuesday that "we are not just about rules and regulations, we are about getting environmental improvement."
But improvement, she said, could be made "everywhere."
That optimistic vision runs counter to claims by Republican lawmakers and some industry groups that more rules will kill jobs and fossil fuel industries. The EPA under Obama has already put in place or proposed new rules to reduce carbon pollution from cars and trucks, large smokestacks, and new power plants - regulations that McCarthy helped to draft as head of the air pollution office. Next on its agenda is the nation's existing fleet of coal-fired power plants, the largest single source of carbon dioxide left. Obama in a June speech gave the agency until June 2014 to draft those regulations.
"It is not supposed to be easy. It is supposed to be hard," McCarthy said of the road ahead. "I don't think it is my job out of the gate to know what the path forward is. It is my obligation to let those voices be heard and listen to them."
A panel in the Republican-controlled House recently signed off on a plan to cut the agency's budget by a third and attached a series of measures that McCarthy said "do everything but say the EPA can't do anything."
Yet, last week, in a victory, a federal court dismissed challenges brought by Texas and power companies to EPA's plans to regulate the largest sources of heat-trapping gases.
"Climate change will not be resolved overnight," she added. "But it will be engaged over the next three years - that I can promise you."
_______
Follow Dina Cappiello's environment coverage on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/dinacappiello
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/epa-chief-climate-controls-help-184510375.html
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Monday, July 29, 2013
China opens pipeline to bring gas from Myanmar
BEIJING (AP) ? China has switched on a pipeline bringing natural gas from Myanmar, a state company said Monday, in a project that has raised concerns in Myanmar's nascent civil society about whether its giant neighbor's resource grabs will benefit local people.
The 793-kilometer (493-mile) pipeline connects the Bay of Bengal with southwest China's Yunnan province and is expected to transfer 12 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China annually, according to a news release on the website of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). A parallel 771-kilometer (479-mile) pipeline that will carry Middle East oil ? shipped via the Indian Ocean ? is still under construction.
China's investments, largely in energy and mining, have generated controversy in Myanmar because they have done little to relieve that country's chronic power shortages. In response, the Myanmar government abruptly suspended construction in 2011 of the China-backed Myitsone dam, which would displace thousands and flood the spiritual heartland of Myanmar's Kachin ethnic minority.
While the pipelines are expected to provide only a small proportion of China's oil and gas consumption, they are strategically important to Beijing. The gas pipeline that began operating Sunday offers a nearby source of gas, and the oil pipeline would eliminate the need for tankers from the Middle East to pass through the crowded Malacca Strait between Malaysia and Indonesia.
The two joint ventures are between state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Myanmar's national petroleum company Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise. Four other companies from India and South Korea also have stakes in the project, according to CNPC.
For years, China was the closest ally of Myanmar's military regime, which was shunned by the West because of its poor human rights record and failure to hand power to an elected government. Since 2011, when an elected, though still military-backed, government took office, Myanmar has undergone political and economic reforms and has courted investment from the West.
The reforms have brought heightened activity from nongovernment and civil society groups in Myanmar, said Tony Nash, Singapore-based managing director of economics and risk consulting for IHS, an independent economic consultant. This, together with growing competition from Western companies in Myanmar, will push Chinese companies to be more transparent about how their investments will affect the local population, he said.
In April, hundreds of people protested in western Rakhine state against the pipeline, saying they had to give up their land for too little compensation and that salaries offered for local pipeline workers were too low.
"Some of the responses to that protest back in April were really specific to looking at community needs and responding with corporate social responsibility at the local level," said Nash. Chinese companies are increasingly "saying 'we hear you and we want to make a commitment for corporate social responsibility,' you are seeing Chinese companies becoming a bit more savvy in that respect," he said.
Wong Aung, who heads the Shwe Gas Movement, which campaigns against the pipelines on human rights and environmental grounds, said the government and companies have not clarified how the project's benefits would be shared.
"The contracts made by the previous government need to be reviewed to see whether they guarantee the national interest and rights of every citizen and whether they meet international standards or not," he said.
Even on the Chinese side of the border, opposition to the pipeline has been strong. In May, more than 2,000 people worried about air and water pollution protested in Kunming in Yunnan against a planned petroleum refinery connected to the project.
___
Associated Press writer Yadana Htun in Yangon, Myanmar, contributed to this report.
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ReelzChannel to re-examine Kennedy killing
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) ? Weeks before the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination this fall, ReelzChannel will take another look at the killing in a docudrama that suggests a Secret Service agent fired one of the bullets that felled Kennedy.
"JFK: The Smoking Gun" is based on the work of retired Australian police Detective Colin McLaren, who spent four years combing through evidence from Kennedy's death on Nov. 22, 1963.
The two-hour docudrama airs Nov. 3 in the U.S., Canada and Australia. It suggests that agent George Hickey fired one of the bullets that hit Kennedy. Hickey, who is now dead, was riding in the car behind Kennedy's limo that day.
The program is ReelzChannel's second Kennedy-related offering. In 2011, the cable channel aired "The Kennedys" after History Channel dropped the miniseries.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/reelzchannel-examine-kennedy-killing-234003644.html
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Egypt?s Ruling Military Kills Scores of Islamists at Rally | NY Times
CAIRO ? The Egyptian authorities unleashed a ferocious attack on Islamist protesters early Saturday, killing at least 72 people in the second mass killing of demonstrators in three weeks and the deadliest attack by the security services since Egypt?s uprising in early 2011.
The attack provided further evidence that Egypt?s security establishment was reasserting its dominance after President Mohamed Morsi?s ouster three weeks ago, and widening its crackdown on his Islamist allies in the Muslim Brotherhood. The tactics ? many were killed with gunshot wounds to the head or the chest ? suggested that Egypt?s security services felt no need to show any restraint.
?They had orders to shoot to kill,? said Gehad el-Haddad, a Brotherhood spokesman. The message, he said, was, ?This is the new regime.?
In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry called this ?a pivotal moment for Egypt? and urged its leaders ?to help their country take a step back from the brink.?
The killings occurred a day after hundreds of thousands of Egyptians marched in support of the military, responding to a call by its commander for a ?mandate? to fight terrorism. The appeal by Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, who has emerged as Egypt?s de facto leader since the military removed Mr. Morsi from power, was widely seen as a green light to the security forces to increase their repression of the Islamists.
In the attack on Saturday, civilians joined riot police officers in?firing live ammunition?at the protesters as they marched toward a bridge over the Nile. By early morning, the numbers of wounded people had overwhelmed doctors at a nearby field hospital.
One doctor sat by himself, crying as he whispered verses from the Koran. Nearby, medics tried to revive a man on a gurney. When they failed, he was quickly lifted away to make room for the many others.
With hundreds of people gravely wounded, the toll seemed certain to rise, and by Saturday evening had already surpassed the more than 60 deaths on July 8, when soldiers and police officers fired on pro-Morsi demonstrators.
As the deaths have mounted, more than 200 since the government was overthrown, hopes have faded for a political solution to the standoff between the military and the Brotherhood, whose leaders, including Mr. Morsi, are imprisoned or preparing themselves for jail.
In a televised news conference hours after the clash, Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim absolved his men of any responsibility and made no mention of the high death toll. His officers, he said, ?have never and will never shoot a bullet on any Egyptian.?
He blamed Mr. Morsi?s supporters for the violence, saying they planned to disrupt traffic on the bridge. ?We had to stop them,? Mr. Ibrahim said. The protesters threw rocks and fired weapons, he said, and a large number of officers were wounded, including two who were shot in the head.
Mr. Ibrahim also suggested that further repression was imminent as the authorities prepared to break up sit-ins that thousands of Mr. Morsi?s supporters have held for weeks.
?God willing, it will be dispersed in a way that doesn?t cause many losses,? he said. ?But God willing, it must end.?
Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who is vice president in the interim government, added a rare note of support for the Brotherhood from the country?s new leaders, writing on Twitter that he condemned the ?excessive use of force? and was trying to ?end the standoff in a peaceful manner.?
Mr. Kerry called on Egypt?s leaders to ?respect the right of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression? and to open an inclusive political dialogue.
?Over two years ago, a revolution began,? he said in a statement. ?Its final verdict is not yet decided, but it will be forever impacted by what happens right now.?
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel spoke by telephone with General Sisi, urging him to exercise restraint and ?take steps to prevent further bloodshed and loss of life,? according to a Pentagon statement.
The violence broke out on Friday night after a day of large, competing marches by supporters of Mr. Morsi and his opponents expressing solidarity with the military. At least eight people died on Friday, but there was not the kind of widespread violence that many had feared after?General Sisi?s speech?on Wednesday calling for demonstrations in support of the military.
That changed around 10:30 p.m., when groups of Mr. Morsi?s supporters left their vast encampment in Nasr City, marching toward the central October 6 Bridge, where police officers were stationed, according to witnesses. Several people said that the protesters had left the camp because it had become overcrowded, and that people had fanned out from the encampment along several boulevards. Others said they had planned to march through a nearby neighborhood.
The group that came under attack walked down Nasr Street, past the reviewing stand where President Anwar el-Sadat was assassinated in 1981, and the pyramid-shaped memorial to the unknown soldier across the street, toward the bridge.
?We didn?t have any weapons,? said Mohamed Abdulhadi, who said he had joined the march, which was ?not violent.? More than 10 other witnesses confirmed his assertion.
The Interior Ministry released a video after the killings that it said showed Morsi supporters firing birdshot at the police and damaging property. It showed protesters throwing rocks, unidentified people wandering into traffic, and one man pulling out what appeared to be a silver pistol and firing it, though it is not clear who the man was, or which side of the fighting he was on.
Mohamed Saeed, an agricultural engineer, said he and some of the other protesters had started to exchange words with the officers before even reaching the bridge.
?You know how it is,? he said. ?Some of us said some provocative things, and the tear gas started.?
The protesters threw rocks, and the confrontation quickly escalated, Mr. Saeed and others said. The Morsi supporters feared that the police were preparing to storm their encampment, so they started building brick walls on the road to ?to prevent them from coming into the sit-in,? Mr. Saeed said.
An hour and a half after the clashes started, the police and their allies started firing live ammunition and pellet guns, Mr. Saeed said. Other witnesses said they had seen snipers on the roofs of nearby buildings.
Ahmed Hagag was there with his best friend, Ashraf. They had rushed to the front line bearing aid for their comrades, but it was useless given the kind of violence under way. ?We went there with masks and vinegar,? he said, in preparation for the tear gas.
Ashraf, who had been ?yearning for martyrdom,? did not want to stand in the back, Mr. Hagag said. ?So it happened, and a bullet ended up in his heart.?
As the sun rose, a bullet struck Mr. Saeed?s right kidney. An hour later, a path that the protesters had cleared to the field hospital had become a highway for the wounded, who came in ambulances, on motorcycles and in the arms of friends.
A taxi drove by with a shattered rear window, pierced by a bullet that struck the driver in the neck. He declined offers of help and kept driving, blood running onto his shirt.
Before the police retreated around 8 a.m., a spray of gunfire had come from their positions, sending people scrambling for cover and setting off a new cavalcade of ambulances.
In the makeshift morgue at the field hospital, 29 bodies lay in a row covered with white sheets. A medic, Mahmoud al-Arabi, said the wounds were disturbing for their accuracy: many of the dead had been shot in their head, chest or neck.
Their shrouds were marked with names and sometimes the cities they had traveled from to join the Islamists in their square: Saadawy Mohamed from Beni Suef, Khaled Abdel al-Nasser from Qena.
Later Saturday, the Health Ministry said 72 people had been killed. The Brotherhood said it had counted 66 dead and classified an additional 61 people as ?clinically dead.?
The violence left the Brotherhood in an increasingly dire position, facing the prospect of a ban of the kind it suffered before the uprising against President Hosni Mubarak. Its options at this point are limited, said Samer S. Shehata, a professor of Arab politics at the University of Oklahoma and an authority on the group.
?They really can?t resort to violence,? he said. ?They don?t have a militia and it runs against all their rhetoric and recent history.?
Mr. Ibrahim, the interior minister, raised the prospect of a new threat to the Brotherhood, saying Saturday that he was reconstituting a state security agency that under Mr. Mubarak was responsible for monitoring Islamists and known for carrying out torture and forced disappearances. Without security agencies that have a political focus, Mr. Ibrahim said, ?the security of the country doesn?t work.?
Source: http://iranian.com/posts/view/post/18194
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Sunday, July 28, 2013
Johnny Football in a Tim Tebow Jersey Because the Internet Would Want it That Way
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Central University student wins competition .... http://t.co/rjw5TFabJV
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Obama: I won't 'twiddle my thumbs' waiting for GOP
(CNN) - President Barack Obama explained why, amid a series of executive branch controversies, his renewed focus on the economy matters: it's not only about financial stability, but about equal opportunity.
The message he sees as "jobs and justice" from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington 50 years ago still rings true, Obama told The New York Times in an interview published Saturday evening.
To the many Americans who today are uncertain about their future, the 1963 march taught valuable lessons on racial equality and opportunities for "working folks," he argued.
The remarks, days after the president spoke on race and the Trayvon Martin case, came while he was on a campaign-style economic tour.
"Racial tensions won't get better; they may get worse, because people will feel as if they've got to compete with some other group to get scraps from a shrinking pot" if individuals do not see a stable fiscal future, Obama said.
"If the economy is growing, everybody feels invested. Everybody feels as if we're rolling in the same direction," he continued.
Obama's midweek schedule looked familiar to watchers of his 2012 campaign and first White House term, when he favored speaking to crowds at colleges and businesses around the nation over Washington venues when advocating his economic priorities.
After visiting universities in Illinois and Missouri and speaking on the importance of education to the economy, he flew to the port in Jacksonville, Florida, where he called for investment in infrastructure. On Monday, he will speak at a Tennessee shipping center about manufacturing, jobs, and economic growth; then on Wednesday, he will travel to Capitol Hill to meet with Democrats in the House and Senate.
He cast aside the questions about such issues as the National Security Agency leaks, Internal Revenue Service political scrutiny and U.S. handling of the Benghazi, Libya, attack last September. "With an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball," he said, although he was not specific about which controversies he was referring to.
The White House plans to continue the economic push into the fall.
In the same time frame, he is also expected to make perhaps the most important economic decision of his second term: naming a new individual to chair the Federal Reserve. Ben Bernanke's term as chairman is set to expire in January.
Obama told the Times he wanted someone who would go beyond tracking inflation and focus on market stability.
"The idea is to promote those things in service of the lives of ordinary Americans getting better," he said. "I want a Fed chairman that can step back and look at that objectively and say, Let's make sure that we're growing the economy."
He disputed Republicans' claims about job creation should the controversial Keystone pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast be constructed. The 2,000 temporary construction jobs he predicted - far less than the 20,000 some Republicans have said to expect - would be a "a blip relative to the need" for job creation.
He suggested that concerns over the pipeline's environmental impact could be addressed to his satisfaction because "there is no doubt that Canada at the source in those tar sands could potentially be doing more to mitigate carbon release."
In the interview, the president acknowledged that people are "anxious" and "frustrated" about their own financial future even while the economy overall improves.
Some do not see the potential for upward mobility, which he called "part and parcel of who we were as Americans."
It predates the fiscal crises of the last decade, he said, and despite the bloated national debt, the federal government's austerity measures have hurt the government's ability to effect change in diverse areas such as climate change and immigration.
"I want to make sure that all of us in Washington are investing as much time, as much energy, as much debate on how we grow the economy and grow the middle class as we've spent over the last two to three years arguing about how we reduce the deficits," he said, blasting what he called "a damaging framework in Washington."
And he issued a stern warning to Capitol Hill Republicans: "I'm not just going to sit back if the only message from some of these folks is no on everything, and sit around and twiddle my thumbs for the next 1,200 days."
A series of polls this month have shown Obama's approval rating is below the 50% mark. But his scores - in the mid- and upper-40s - rank well above those of Congress, which came in at 21% and 12% approval in two surveys conducted about a week ago.
Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/27/obama-i-wont-twiddle-my-thumbs-waiting-for-gop/
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Saturday, July 27, 2013
South Africa in Charlotte and WBTV
AFRICA UMOJA- The Spirit of Togetherness ?is a pulsating musical celebration of South African song and dance.
From the potent rhythms of tribal musical to the intricate steps of gumboot dancing, journey through the jazz of Sophiatown to the inspirational joy of Gospel and the powerful pounding energy of Kwaito.
AFRICA UMOJA is a joyous celebration of dynamic talent, with a large cast of South Africa's young versatile performers, singers, dancers, drummers and marimba players.
AFRICA UMOJA is the inspiration of Todd Twala and Thembi Nyandeni. They created the show to remind the kids of their heritage and give opportunity to the South African youth. AFRICA UMOJA opened at the Victory Theatre in 2000, and then moved to London in 2001. It captivated UK audiences and wowed the press with its honest energy.
To date, AFRICA UMOJA has successfully toured over 30 countries around the globe and continues to do so with its many casts. AFRICA UMOJA plays at the VICTORY THEATER, its home in South Africa Johannesburg. -
See more at: http://www.blumenthalarts.org/events/detail/africa-umoja#sthash.d8LbaHtp.dpuf
Source: http://www.wbtv.com/story/22945580/south-africa-in-charlotte
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Saturday?s sports TV/radio programming
Television
?
Arena football ? Cleveland at Utah, 7 p.m., KJZZ
Auto racing ? Formula One, qualifying for Hungarian Grand Prix, 6 a.m., NBCSN
? NASCAR, Sprint Cup, practice for Samuel Deeds 400, 7 a.m., ESPN2
? NASCAR, Nationwide Series, pole qualifying for Indiana 250, 10 a.m., SPEED
? Pole qualifying for Samuel Deeds 400, noon, ESPN
? Indiana 250, 2:30 p.m., ESPN
? NHRA, qualifying for Sonoma Nationals, 5 p.m. (tape), ESPN
Bowling ? U.S. Open, men?s and women?s championships, 10 a.m., ESPN
story continues below
Boxing ? Omar Figueroa Jr. vs. Nihito Arakawa, for vacant WBC interim lightweight title; champion Diego Chaves vs. Keith Thurman, for WBA interim welterweight title; welterweights, Andre Berto vs. Jesus Soto Karass, 7 p.m., SHO
Golf ? The Senior British Open Championship, 10 a.m., ESPN2
? PGA Tour, Canadian Open, 11 a.m., TGC; 1 p.m., Ch. 2
? USGA, U.S. Junior Amateur Championship, 2 p.m., TGC
? Web.com Tour, Boise Open, 4:30 p.m. (tape), TGC
Horse racing ? NTRA, Diana Handicap and Jim Dandy Stakes, 3 p.m., NBCSN
Major League Baseball ? St. Louis at Atlanta, 12:30 p.m., Ch. 13
? Regional coverage, Boston at Baltimore or Texas at Cleveland, 5 p.m., MLB Network
? Kansas City at Chicago White Sox, 5 p.m., WGN
Next Page >Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/sports/56649820-77/espn-nbcsn-open-qualifying.html.csp
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Flashback Friday: 15 Gorgeous Pics of Actresses From the 2000s
It seems like it was just yesterday that the new decade kicked off -- and the style finally started evolving from the baggy pants and flannel shirt era of the 1990s.
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Friday, July 26, 2013
Man accused of claiming partner had cancer to avoid loan repayments http://ow.ly...
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Source: http://www.facebook.com/theplymouthherald/posts/10151587320601902
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Rosemarie DeWitt Joins Poltergeist
EXCLUSIVE: Rosemarie DeWitt is the choice to play the female lead in Poltergeist, the new installment of the Tobe Hooper-directed horror classic that will be made by MGM and Fox 2000, with Gil Kenan directing a script by David Lindsay-Abaire. They are looking to cast the male lead. Jobeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson were the original parents whose ideal family life is uprooted by a cavalcade of spirits that culminates in the kidnap of their youngest daughter. Given how well these fright films are faring against studio product lately, this one seems ripe for remaking and I?m surprised someone didn?t reheat the 31-year old film sooner. Sam Raimi and Nathan Kahane are producing. DeWitt is coming off Promised Land and Your Sister?s Sister, and is currently starring in Kill The Messenger with Jeremy Renner for Focus Features.? She?ll next be seen in the Lynn Shelton-directed Touchy Feely and is repped by CAA and Wishlab.
Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1927953/news/1927953/
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Thursday, July 25, 2013
California state senator: Dangerous chemicals being pumped underground without oversight
By Reuters
Wednesday, July 24, 2013 20:35 EDT
?
By Rory Carroll
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? California oil and gas regulators have failed to monitor practices used to access shale oil, including the injection of dangerous chemicals underground, a state senator said Thursday, urging passage of her proposed oversight legislation.
Fran Pavley, chair of the Senate committee on Natural Resources and Water, said she was discouraged by the responses she received from the state?s oil and gas well regulator to her inquiry about the use of corrosive acid to dissolve rock and unlock oil in California?s massive Monterey Shale deposit, an issue first raised by Reuters in May.
Industry officials have said that ?acid jobs? could play as important a role in extracting oil as the better-known technique of hydraulic fracking.
?It is deeply concerning that dangerous acids and Proposition 65 chemicals are being pumped underground without any permits or oversight,? said Pavley, referring to a decades-old law designed to protect drinking water sources from substances that cause cancer.
In his response to Pavley?s questions, Mark Nechodom, director of the state?s Department of Conservation, said hydrochloric, hydrofluoric, acetic, formic acid are among the types of chemicals typically used in acid jobs, but could not say how often or in what quantities they are used in California.
?Since the Division does not have well stimulation data captured in a database, the range of specific well stimulation techniques that are being used in California is not readily available at this time,? Nechodom said in his response to Pavley.
?Nor do we have the resources to dedicate to review thousands of scanned documents,? he said.
Pavley rejected that explanation, saying the Department of Conservation?s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) has over the past three years voluntarily declined additional staffing resources that could have helped beefed up oversight.
?Unfortunately, regulators have not deemed these activities worthy of monitoring. Director Nechodom?s letter reaffirms the need for legislation to force DOGGR to fulfill its legal responsibilities?protection of life, health, property and natural resources,? Pavley said.
She said the dearth of information on oil extraction techniques underscores the need for the passage of SB 4, a bill she authored that would require well operators to obtain permits before they frack or acidize a well.
The permits would require companies to provide estimates of the amount of water and the composition of the well stimulation fluids they planned to use.
The bill, which was approved by the Assembly Natural Resources Committee earlier this month, will be heard by an Assembly appropriations committee in August.
(Reporting by Rory Carroll, additional reporting by Braden Reddall; Editing by Richard Chang)
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Listing on Vietnam Wall sought for troops killed in 1962 plane crash
Before departing for Vietnam 51 years ago, Army Sgt. 1st Class Raymond ?Bill? Myers left behind his ID, dog tags and a gold ring he had never taken off before. He told his brother-in-law that he had a bad feeling about the mission and didn?t think he would be coming home. He asked him to watch over his wife and children after he was gone.
Myers then boarded a military-chartered Flying Tiger Airline Lockheed Super Constellation aircraft at Travis Air Force Base in California. After several stops, the plane disappeared over the Pacific and the 93 American soldiers, three South Vietnamese military men and 11 crewmembers onboard were never heard from again. They were declared dead less than two months later.
Myers? son, Tommy Joe ? like the families of the other lost Americans ? has no answers about his father?s fate. Adding to that pain is how his father and the others have been forgotten. Their names are not on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and no government agencies ? Army, Air Force, Defense Department, National Archives, State Department, CIA ? admit to possessing records related to the soldiers and their mission. None could provide Stars and Stripes with a list of the deceased, although they are mentioned in a Civil Aeronautics Board crash report from 1962.
A petition has been launched to get the names added to the wall. Proponents face an uphill battle and need to prove that the plane was headed to Vietnam for a combat mission ? which has been impossible without documentation ? or through the special intervention of elected officials.
?They were flying into harm?s way,? said Frank Allen, the Massachusetts man who started the change.org petition in October. Allen is related to one of the men, Sgt. Howard Gallipeau Jr., by marriage. ?Had they survived and landed, they might have died under different circumstances. The military treats it like a car accident. They should be honored for what they did.?
Allen?s petition calls for 1,000 signatures, although they are hoping for many more. The petition will be sent to Defense Department officials after it closes in October.
Tommy Joe Myers said after years of being turned away and threatened when pressing for answers and recognition, he has lost all hope.
?It?s hurtful that they won?t put these guys? names on the wall,? he said. ?People need to know what these guys sacrificed. Just give them the same courtesy and respect other guys have gotten.?
A few good men
In early 1962, the U.S. was slowly ramping up involvement in Vietnam, according to editions of Pacific Stars and Stripes from the time. Known military operations were limited mostly to advising the South Vietnamese, and ferrying troops into battle and limited engagements with communist forces when fired upon.
The men on Flight 739 appear to have been hand-picked for the mission; they came from bases across the country, according to Vietnam veteran and retired Marine Bruce Swander, who has spent the last 10 years researching the flight in an effort to get their names added to the wall. He said his research indicates they were advisers trained in communications and not Special Forces.
Pacific Stars and Stripes reported after the plane disappeared that the men were trained jungle troops.
Myers was an all-American boy, according to his son. He grew up in Carterville, Ill., with Steve McQueen good looks and piercing blue eyes. He played minor league baseball in the St. Louis Cardinals organization and commanded attention when he entered the room. But his real passion was military service.
Myers was listed as a supply sergeant in the heavily redacted file his son received upon filing a Freedom of Information Act request several years ago, but he could also speak a multitude of languages. He was a veteran of World War II and had been wounded during two combat tours in Korea.
Myers received his orders to head to Vietnam on March 13, 1962, according to a copy of the orders obtained by Stars and Stripes. The next morning he would be on the ill-fated Military Air Transport Service chartered Flying Tiger Line Flight 739.
As was the case with Myers, Spc. 4 Roger Oliver?s family put a headstone in the ground in his hometown after the plane disappeared. Oliver, from Victory, Wis., was ?very studious,? and he joined the Army and was trained in communications, according to his sister, Gloria Oliver Warmuth.
He also told his father that he wouldn?t be coming home from the mission and asked him to take care of his pregnant wife and baby after he was gone. His daughter was born later that year.
?He said, ?I won?t be back from this,??? Oliver?s daughter, Kristina Hoge, told Stars and Stripes. ?My grandfather told him, ?You?ll be fine.? I think it haunted my grandfather.?
Hoge said over the years she was told by her father?s friends that he was involved in ?black ops.? A condolence letter from his commanding officer at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., states that he worked in the Film Library Division there. Her mother thought he was going to Vietnam to make a training film.
Army photos of Sgt. Howard Gallipeau Jr. from Korea show the communications specialist relaying fire instructions over a field radio from ?no man?s land? during fighting. He would be wounded in action, have surgery and re-enlist. He was tough but warmhearted, his son, Howard Gallipeau III, told Stars and Stripes.
Eerily, the sergeant too told his wife he would not be coming back alive.
?Before he left, he said, ?I don?t think I?m going to be coming home from this one,??? his son said. ?My mom tried to talk him out of going but he said. ?I have to serve my country.???
The three families contacted by Stars and Stripes said they didn?t know each other and hadn?t shared their stories among themselves.
Flight 739
Flight 739 left Travis Air Force Base on March 14, 1962, with a destination of Saigon, according to a copy of the 1962 Civil Aeronautics Board crash report obtained by Stars and Stripes. No cargo other than passengers, crewmembers and their belongings was reported. U.S. Army Security Service checked all passengers including the unknown foreign nationals.
The flight successfully stopped for refueling in Honolulu, where minor maintenance was performed on the engine ignition systems before they departed for Wake Island, the report said. They arrived at Wake, where maintenance was once again performed before heading to Guam. They arrived at Guam with no reported problems.
?There were no mechanical discrepancies reported and no maintenance was required,? the report said.
After a short layover, they were off again to Clark Air Base, Philippine Islands. They contacted control several times during their flight, and no disturbances or issues were reported.
They were last heard from just after midnight March 16, 1962, 270 miles west of Guam.
Shortly after, the flight stopped answering radio transmissions, the report said. They were never heard from again.
Search-and-rescue operations were launched from Guam and the Philippines within hours, the report said. A Liberian-flagged Standard Oil of California super tanker and its Italian crew reported seeing a midair explosion in the area where Flight 739 should have been.
?It was recalled that a vapor trail, or some phenomenon resembling a vapor trail, was first observed overhead and slightly to the north of the tanker and moving in an east to west direction,? the report said.
?As this vapor trail passed behind a cloud, there occurred an explosion, which described by witnesses as intensely luminous, with a white nucleus surrounded by a reddish-orange periphery with radial lines of identically colored light. The explosion occurred in two pulses lasting between two and three seconds and from it two flaming objects of unequal brightness and size apparently fell, at disparate speeds, into the sea.?
A bright target was observed on the ship?s radar during the last 10 seconds of the fall of the slower of the two objects, the report said. The ship changed its course and searched the area for 5? hours with no results.
Over the next eight days, an armada of more than 50 planes and 7th Fleet assets searched 75,000 square miles of sea around the clock between Guam and the Philippines. Two Stars and Stripes reporters covered the search.
?I remember flying around in the aircraft for hours and hours and hours,? former Stripes reporter Paul Rogers recalled recently. Rogers said no theories emerged at the time as to what happened to the plane. ?We were really just looking for it.?
It didn?t take long for conspiracy theories to swirl. On the front page of the March 18 Japan edition of Stars and Stripes, the owner of the planes alleged that sabotage or hijacking were possibilities. Another Flying Tiger plane carrying secret military cargo destined for the area had crashed in the Aleutians the same day as Flight 739, killing one member of the crew. However, that crash was later attributed to pilot error.
The search for Flight 739 was called off March 23. Not a single piece of the aircraft, the bodies or any emergency life rafts were ever found.
The report stated that anyone with intent in Hawaii, Wake Island or Guam could have accessed the flight lines and aircraft and that the plane was left unattended in a dimly lit area in Guam.
George Gewehr, historian for Flying Tiger Line Pilots Association, said many in his organization have long believed it was friendly fire that brought down the plane. Hoge said her mother believed the plane was hijacked. Swander believes it was mechanical failure.
?The government has kept a tight lid on what did happen,? Gewehr said. ?We didn?t pursue any investigation on it. It?s a pretty open-ended story on our part; we treated it as a bad accident and went on our way. I know if the truth could be found it would be a great thing for the families of all concerned.?
?Thank God I didn?t get on that plane?
Dan Asensio and Johnny Byrnes ? privates first class in communications ? remember sitting at the Travis Army terminal with the 93 men. They also had received orders to Vietnam.
Asensio said the two men didn?t really fit in with the others ? Ranger communications specialists trained in jungle warfare. He said the group appeared to be of a higher grade than he and Byrnes.
As the names were called out, each man stepped forward. Asensio and Byrnes were told there were issues with their passports and they were being held back. Neither man remembers seeing the South Vietnamese military men at the terminal.
Byrnes recalls going up to the bus that would bring the men to the doomed plane to say goodbye to a softball buddy he met at a command in Georgia. He doesn?t remember his name.
?I said goodbye and told him to save a few (enemy fighters) for me,? said Byrnes, who became a New York City police officer. ?I?ll never forget those words ? I?ll never forget them reading their names off and the guys stepping out.?
The pair would take a commercial flight later in the day. They arrived safely in Vietnam for their 13-month tour at a communications compound near Saigon, where they were told of the crash. Their families had believed they were dead for several days.
?I felt invincible after that,? Byrnes said. ?Thank God I didn?t get on that plane.?
In the years since, Asensio has written letters to representatives to try and get the men?s names added to the wall.
?I get goose bumps thinking about how close I was to getting on that plane,? Asensio said. ?My main concern is to get those guys? names on the wall.?
The wall
The guidelines for inclusion on the Vietnam Memorial are mandated by Congress.
Since 1982, changes have been made to the eligibility requirements but the general rules state that the someone can be added if they died ? regardless of cause or circumstance ? within the designated combat zone boundaries, if combat-related wounds, accident or illness incurred in country led to their death elsewhere, or if they were ?going to or returning from? a combat mission.
Army officials told Stars and Stripes that the men on Flight 739 did not meet the criteria for serving in the ?Vietnam area of responsibility.?
Swander said he had hoped to prove that the men fell under the third option. However, with no documentation available, it has been impossible.
?The problem from day one has been to document that these men were on a ?mission? ? as opposed to replacements or manpower escalation,? he said. ?Unfortunately, all records showing what they were trained in, why they were picked and what they were going to do there have been redacted from their files.?
Swander said the men do not fit cleanly within the rules, which are open to interpretations depending on who looks at each case.
Over the years, there have been two exceptions, but both took special intervention.
Names have been added for a heart attack at a desk in Thailand, or a stateside suicide after being freed from a communist prison, Swander said.
But the example that most strongly supports including those on Flight 739 is the addition of names of servicemembers who died after a Marine Corps KC-130F crashed into the sea upon take-off from Hong Kong on Aug. 24, 1965.
The plane was returning to Vietnam from a rest-and-recuperation period so the troops on board could finish their tours, Swander said. The 54 Marines who lost their lives were added to the wall in 1983, and the five sailors who died were added a year later thanks to approval by President Ronald Reagan.
?Although the aircraft was en route to Vietnam, it was outside of the designated war zone,? Swander said.
Family anguish
Answers as to what happened to the men of Flight 739 and their mission remains elusive.
The only document received after requests from Stars and Stripes from any government agency was a report that detailed sorties that searched for Flight 739.
Despite the coordinates of the explosion being known, Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command officials never searched for wreckage because the incident was never assigned to them as a killed-in-action case, a spokesman said. A spokeswoman from the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office said they are responsible for wartime losses only.
Neither the Air Force casualty office nor the Army?s Human Resources Command, which tracks casualties, had any information.
?It?s like they were meant to disappear,? Gloria Oliver Warmuth said. ?They have been forgotten.?
Everyone briefed on the details of the case seems to be in agreement, that more needs to be done for the 93 that were lost.
?It really burns me up when things like this happen with the loss of an aircraft and its crew/passengers and the incident is quickly forgotten,? Travis Air Force Base historian Mark Wilderman wrote in an email to Stars and Stripes after finding nothing in an exhaustive search of their records. Failure to recognize their efforts dishonors the folks who lost their lives in the line of duty, he said.
Officials from Veterans of Foreign Wars agreed.
?Though we may never know why the aircraft went down, it would still bring great solace to surviving family members for their loved ones to be recognized for the mission they never got to complete,? said national VFW spokesman Joe Davis. ?There are far worse things than dying for one?s country, and being forgotten tops that list.?
So time continues to pass; wives and siblings of the 93 passengers grow old or die. Their children have no place among fellow veterans to honor the fathers they barely knew.
?Getting their names on the wall in Washington, D.C., would be an awesome thing,? Howard Gallipeau III said. He believes his father deserves a spot. ?He went to war and didn?t come home. He died for his country. That makes him a hero.?
burke.matt@stripes.com
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Wednesday, July 24, 2013
NASA sees newborn eastern Atlantic tropical depression
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 24-Jul-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Rob Gutro
robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
The fourth tropical depression of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season was born west of the Cape Verde Islands in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean on July 24. NOAA's GOES-13 satellite provides continuous views of the Atlantic Ocean basin and captured an image of the newborn storm.
At 5 a.m. EDT on July 24, the National Hurricane Center announced the birth of Tropical Depression 4 or TD4. At that time TD4 had maximum sustained winds near 35 mph (55 kph). It was centered about 310 miles (500 km) west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands, near 13.9 north and 28.1 west. TD4 was moving to the west-northwest at 20 mph (32 kph) and had a minimum central pressure of 1008 millibars.
NOAA's eastern Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite known as GOES-13 captured a visible image of Tropical Depression 4 in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean on July 24 at 11:45 UTC (7:45 a.m. EDT). The image was created by the NASA GOES Project located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The image showed that the storm had become more organized overnight, and strong convection (rising air that forms thunderstorms that make up the tropical depression) had increased in coverage and become more concentrated around the center.
The National Hurricane Center noted that TD4 may strengthen slightly and reach tropical storm status later in the day or on July 25 before running into drier air and cooler waters. Dry air absorbs the moisture needed to form thunderstorms, and tropical cyclones need water temperatures of at least 80F/26.6C to maintain strength.
If TD4 strengthens into a tropical storm it would be renamed Dorian.
###
Text credit: Rob Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 24-Jul-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Rob Gutro
robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
The fourth tropical depression of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season was born west of the Cape Verde Islands in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean on July 24. NOAA's GOES-13 satellite provides continuous views of the Atlantic Ocean basin and captured an image of the newborn storm.
At 5 a.m. EDT on July 24, the National Hurricane Center announced the birth of Tropical Depression 4 or TD4. At that time TD4 had maximum sustained winds near 35 mph (55 kph). It was centered about 310 miles (500 km) west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands, near 13.9 north and 28.1 west. TD4 was moving to the west-northwest at 20 mph (32 kph) and had a minimum central pressure of 1008 millibars.
NOAA's eastern Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite known as GOES-13 captured a visible image of Tropical Depression 4 in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean on July 24 at 11:45 UTC (7:45 a.m. EDT). The image was created by the NASA GOES Project located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The image showed that the storm had become more organized overnight, and strong convection (rising air that forms thunderstorms that make up the tropical depression) had increased in coverage and become more concentrated around the center.
The National Hurricane Center noted that TD4 may strengthen slightly and reach tropical storm status later in the day or on July 25 before running into drier air and cooler waters. Dry air absorbs the moisture needed to form thunderstorms, and tropical cyclones need water temperatures of at least 80F/26.6C to maintain strength.
If TD4 strengthens into a tropical storm it would be renamed Dorian.
###
Text credit: Rob Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-07/nsfc-nsn072413.php
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PROtique? Announces Affordable Small Business and Home ...
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Home based beauty care professionals seeking small business insurance in Toronto or elsewhere in Canada have found a new partner for success with PROtique?.
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The Stock Is Down, but Netflix Is Winning
Netflix's plan requires more high-quality shows like Orange Is the New Black, seen here. Photo courtesy Jessica Miglio/Netflix
Netflix?s shares tanked late Monday in after-hours trading, because the company?s second quarter results indicated a disappointing gain of ?only? 630,000 new streaming subscribers in the U.S. That?s a marked slowdown from the numbers Netflix put up over the previous three quarters, and in a game where growth is king any slowdown can devastate share prices. But this is a fairly shortsighted perspective. The game Netflix is playing?in which the object is to convert from a streaming service into a producer of original content?is a difficult one, but it?s also one in which scale matters. The company?s subscriber base is still growing quickly, and that growth lays the foundation for further growth.
If Netflix has in fact found a consistent way to produce compelling original content?and the episodes of Orange Is the New Black that I watched over the weekend on June Thomas? recommendation certainly suggest that it has?the company is poised for financial success as well.
To see the promise of the New Netflix model, consider the problems with the old model. Paying content owners for the right to stream their shows and movies and then charging customers for access has a basic problem, which is that you?re counting on the content-owners making a mistake. Netflix?s original streaming success was built on the back of a content deal with Starz made back in 2008, which basically involved Starz underestimating the value of its own content. But that?s not the makings of a viable long-term business strategy: Netflix wasn?t able to renew the deal on advantageous terms, because once Starz saw how popular its content was, it drove a hard bargain the second time around.
Value inevitably migrates to the original rights owner, so Netflix decided it should try to become an original rights owner. The business logic here is quite different. The first season of House of Cards will never again have as much value as it did when it was first released, but as with any old show there will always be some people who want to watch it, and the ability to do so will have some economic value. Having produced it, Netflix now has House of Cards in its bank of content until the end of time. The more subscribers Netflix attracts, the more content it can produce. Those mere 630,000 net new subscribers should be worth over $60 million in revenue over the course of a year. That?s more than enough to pay for a season of Hemlock Grove or Orange Is the New Black, according to Hollywood agent Peter Micelli?s relatively high-end estimates, and it almost equals the price of a season of House of Cards.
In other words, with each passing year Netflix has a larger stock of zero-cost content that it produced in previous years. And with each year that it adds subscribers, it gains the ability to produce brand new content at a more rapid pace. That means those $7.99-per-month subscription fees should become a more and more appealing value proposition, and give the company some scope to increase rates over time.
Which isn?t to say Netflix has no problems. The threat of competition is real enough. The positive news on this front is that Hulu?s owners seem to lack a clear strategy for the company, and HBO shows no sign of wanting to market its HBO Go service as a standalone product. Amazon, however, is dipping its toes into original content, and the barriers to entry here are not enormous.
Sappy though it sounds, the competitive threat underscores that the main challenge for Netflix is simply to produce quality content. Reliably making TV shows that people like is tricky. But the news here is all good. Their first original program, Lillyhammer, was basically garbage. House of Cards and Arrested Development are getting Emmy nominations. Orange Is the New Black is fantastic. The idea of relying on audience analytics to generate new content sounds a little daft, and raises the specter of bland paint-by-numbers features. But traditional content production can be bland and formulaic, too. (How many police procedurals feature a strange-bedfellows partnering of a regular cop with a quirky one whose special abilities are the key to cracking the case?) In some ways the Netflix formula seems to allow for more creativity. Knowing what combinations of talent and subject matter are likely to appeal to viewers lets Netflix get a bit quirkier in terms of what actually happens on screen.
It would be foolish to call Netflix?s success a foregone conclusion. But Reed Hastings and his team are trying to execute a strategic pivot from content licensing to content production that?s daring, difficult, and necessary. That they?re pulling it off while steadily growing their subscriber base is an enormous accomplishment. One allegedly disappointing quarter relative to arbitrary expectations shouldn?t distract from that achievement.
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