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“You are hiding a child, let that boy come home,” Pusha raps on the track, claiming Drake is playing “border patrol.” While calling in to discuss the track on The Breakfast Club, Pusha went on to explain the connection he made in his song between Drake’s son and an “Adidas press run.” Drake Taylor Hill/FilmMagic “Allegedly his new line on Adidas is called Adidon, which is named after Adonis, his son,” Pusha T said. Pusha T and Drake Roy Rochlin/Getty Images; George Pimentel/WireImage Drake addresses the topic again on track “8 Out of 10,” rapping, “The only deadbeats is whatever beats I been rappin’ to,” and “Never a matter of ‘could I?’ or ‘should I?’/Kiss my son on the forehead then kiss your ass goodbye.” Aside from the big baby news, the Canadian star’s album also features JAY-Z, Nicki Minaj, Future and Ty Dolla $ign. In “Emotionless,” which samples Mariah Carey, Drake declares, “I wasn’t hidin’ my kid from the world/I was hidin’ the world from my kid/From empty souls who just wake up and looked to debate/Until you starin’ at your seed, you can never relate.” “Breakin’ news in my life, I don’t run to the blogs/The only ones I wanna tell are the ones I can call/They always ask, ‘Why let the story run if it’s false?’ You know a wise man once said nothin’ at all,” he adds. “They always ask, ‘Why let the story run if it’s false?’ / You know a wise man once said nothin’ at all / I’m exhausted and drained I can’t even pretend.” But as we later learn on album closer “March 14,” in what is essentially a song spoken to his son, he mostly kept things hushed because the relationship with the mother of his child, allegedly former adult-film star Sophie Brussaux (whom Drake does not mention by name anywhere on this album, nor the name of his child), is strained. He went on to claim that Drake only planned to confirm the existence of his child once he “started selling sweatsuits and sneakers.” “Who rolls out their child with a sweatsuit? These are the most telling admissions from “March 14”: Yesterday morning was crazy / I had to come to terms with the fact that it’s not a maybe / That shit is in stone, sealed and signed / She not my lover like Billie Jean but the kid is mine / Sandi [his mother] used to tell me all it takes is one time, and all it took was one time / Shit, we only met two times, two times / And both times were nothing like the new times / Now it’s rough times / I’m out here on front lines just trying to make sure that I see him sometimes / It’s breaking my spirit. “Now it’s rough times, I’m out here on front lines/Just tryin’ to make sure that I see him sometimes/It’s breakin’ my spirit/Single father, I hate when I hear it/I used to challenge my parents on every album/Now I’m embarrassed to tell them I ended up as a co-parent/ Always promised the family unit/I wanted it to be different because I’ve been through it.” The rapper continues, “Fairy tales are saved for the bedtime stories I tell you now/I don’t want you worry about whose house you live at/Or who loves you more or who’s not there/Who did what to who ‘fore you got here.” RELATED: Pusha T Accuses Drake of Having a Secret Child in Scathing New Diss Track On the track, Drake confirms his son was born Oct. 11 and says he celebrated in Miami when the DNA test confirmed he was the little boy’s father. October baby for irony sake, of course / I got this 11 tatted for somebody, now it’s yours / And believe me, I can’t wait to get a hunnid more / Sorry I’m vintage, tryna cover ground / They said that in two weeks you’re supposed to come in town / Hopefully by the time you hear this me and your mother will have come around instead of always cutting each other down. She also told TMZ that she had text messages from the rapper asking her to get an abortion. Poking fun at himself, the rapper wrote: “HATE WHEN DRAKE RAPS, DRAKE SINGS TOO MUCH, DRAKE IS A POP ARTIST, DRAKE DOESN’T EVEN WRITE HIS OWN SONGS, DRAKE TOOK AN L, DRAKE DIDN’T START FROM THE BOTTOM, DRAKE IS FINISHED, I LIKE DRAKE’S OLDER STUFF, DRAKE MAKES MUSIC FOR GIRLS, DRAKE THINKS HE’S JAMAICAN, DRAKE IS AN ACTOR, DRAKE CHANGED.

– "She’s not my lover like Billie Jean but the kid is mine/ Sandi used to tell me all it takes is one time, and all it took was one time/ S---, we only met two times, two times," Drake raps in a new album, Scorpion, which dropped late Thursday. "Sandi" is his mom, Sandi Graham, "she" is apparently French former adult-film star Sophie Brussaux, and "the kid" is apparently the son they share, reports People. The Canadian rapper says DNA confirmed the child, born October 11, is his, and raps that, "I wasn’t hiding my kid from the world/I was hiding the world from my kid." Further, "I used to challenge my parents on every album/ Now I’m embarrassed to tell them I ended up as a co-parent/ Always promised the family unit/ I wanted it to be different because I’ve been through it." Vulture has more reveals from the new album.

– Adam Lanza apparently planned the Sandy Hook massacre by himself and left no evidence of why he killed 27 people at a Connecticut elementary school last year, according to a report released today. "Why did the shooter murder twenty-seven people, including twenty children?" wrote Danbury State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky in the report, which closed an 11-month police investigation. "Unfortunately, that question may never be answered conclusively." The report does say Lanza planned all his actions, including his suicide, and even wore ear buds during the assault, the Hartford Courant reports. Also from the report: A blow-by-blow of Lanza's carnage. The 20-year-old fired 154 shots, mostly in the classroom of substitute teacher Lauren Rousseau, where Lanza murdered her and 14 of her 15 students. He killed six more in the classroom of Victoria Soto, where student Jesse Lewis told kids to run when Lanza's gun jammed. Six safely got past Lanza, but Lewis was killed. The Courant is posting interesting points from the report, including the fact that Lanza didn't like holidays and birthdays, communicated with Nancy only by email for 3 months before the shooting, and had expressed an interest in serial murders and mass killings. Lanza was very interested in the Columbine shootings and posted a blog about them, NBC News reports. His mother Nancy stayed home to take care of him, saying he had Asperger's Syndrome, but Lanza refused to take medication or behavioral therapy. He also felt no connection to Nancy and wouldn't care if anything happened to her, according to a witness (Lanza killed her with a gunshot to the forehead). Lanza left his bed made at home and sealed his windows with duct tape. He had carefully taken apart his hard drive and scratched a "W" on the disks before trying to destroy them with a dumbbell. He changed the seven magazines he had on him so often that in some cases he fired off only half of a magazine's 30 rounds before removing it; the Courant notes investigators see this as a sign he approached the school shooting like a video game, as typical gaming practice is to enter a new room with a full magazine.

By Scott Roberts, HealthDay Reporter WEDNESDAY, Jan. 14, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- A new electrical stimulation device designed to control obesity by targeting the nerve pathways between the brain and stomach that regulate hunger and fullness has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Maestro Rechargeable System, the first FDA-approved obesity device since 2007, is approved to treat patients aged 18 and older who have not been able to lose weight with a weight loss program, and who have a body mass index of 35 to 45 with at least one other obesity-related condition, such as type 2 diabetes. “Obesity and its related medical conditions are major public health problems,” William Maisel, deputy director for science and chief scientist in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in the statement. Close EnteroMedics’ system uses electrodes implanted in the abdomen to send electrical pulses... Read More Close Open Source: EnteroMedics Inc. via Bloomberg EnteroMedics’ system uses electrodes implanted in the abdomen to send electrical pulses to nerves, the FDA said. It works by sending intermittent electrical pulses to the trunks in the abdominal vagus nerve, which is involved in regulating stomach emptying and signaling to the brain that the stomach feels empty or full. “Medical devices can help physicians and patients to develop comprehensive obesity treatment plans.” Adverse Events Serious adverse events for EnteroMedics’ system included nausea, pain at the neuroregulator site, vomiting and surgical complications. More common but less serious side effects included heartburn, problems swallowing, belching, mild nausea and chest pain. The device, made by EnteroMedics Inc. of St. Paul, Minn., is the first of its kind to treat obesity by targeting nerves that link the stomach and the brain.

– If taking a pill that tricks your body into feeling full isn't appealing, how about some quick zaps instead? The FDA has approved a device that uses electrodes implanted in the abdomen to fool the brain, reports Bloomberg. The electrodes stimulate the hunger-controlling vagus nerve, which in turn tells the brain that the stomach is full, explains HealthDay News. The Maestro Rechargeable System will be available only to obese adults who have one other related condition, such as Type 2 diabetes, says an FDA release. The Wall Street Journal likens it to a "pacemaker for the stomach" and quotes a gastrointestinal surgeon who predicts the cost will be between $30,000 and $40,000, on par with gastric bypass surgery. The device's maker, EnteroMedics of Minnesota, must keep track of at least 100 patients for five years after surgery for a follow-up study. (Click to read why people tend to weigh less on Fridays.)

“We were happily wed for a long time, but then I felt that I really wanted a child with Chris.” Rachelle Chapman Rachelle and Chris Chapman, with their daughter, Kaylee, who turns 1 on April 26 The couple’s daughter, Kaylee, turns 1 on Tuesday. Relatives and close friends, including the woman who served as the girl's surrogate, celebrated over the weekend with an Elmo-themed birthday party “because Kaylee is completely obsessed with Elmo,” Chapman told TODAY. "It's so cool, she uses the back of my chair to pull herself up and she has figured out how to come to me when I go to take her out of her crib," she says of her daughter, Kaylee. "Chapman talks about her lost friendship in a documentary she and husband Chris shot for TLC about their journey to become parents. “Chris and I together as a team are more than capable of taking care of a baby, especially with the help of my mother, who was all in from the beginning,” she said. She laughs all the time and makes me so happy and I just want to be able to do for her." Paralyzed Bride Opens Up for the First Time About Friend Who Caused Tragic Accident: 'I Had to End the Friendship' Courtesy Rachelle Chapman Martha Manning Courtesy Rachelle Chapman Courtesy Rachelle Chapman Courtesy Rachelle Chapman It's been a big year for Rachelle Chapman The woman known as the "paralyzed bride" celebrated her daughter's first birthday , started driving again for the first time since her 2010 accident and officially cut ties with the friend who pushed her in the pool, paralyzing her from the chest down almost six years ago.Chapman, who lives in Knightdale, North Carolina, became known as the "paralyzed bride" after a freak accident at her bachelorette party left her paralyzed from the chest down. One of her four best friends playfully pushed her in the pool, causing the life-changing injury.Now, for the first time, the 30-year-old is talking publicly about that friend. "We aren’t very close friends anymore and I talk about it for the first time on the show," she said. "Once she can get in and out of her car seat on her own, or old enough not to need one at all, I'll be able to do that."

– Rachelle Chapman, the now-30-year-old paralyzed in 2010 when one of her best friends pushed her in the pool at her bachelorette party, is talking to People and Today in advance of a TLC documentary about her story—a documentary that reveals, among other things, that Chapman is no longer friends with the woman who caused her accident. Though Chapman long defended her friend, refusing to name her publicly (she still hasn't), she says they ultimately drifted apart. Chapman tells People her friend was "distraught and depressed" after the accident, and the two supported each other. "The first year I made sure that she was OK, even more than me," Chapman tells Today. But as time went on, things shifted for both of them. "She didn't make the effort ... and every time we spoke, I just felt like I was remembering the accident ... and I had negative feelings. I didn't feel that way in the beginning, but that's what's been happening over the last three years." Chapman says she ultimately "had to tell her that we couldn't be friends." Still, Chapman says she doesn't blame the woman—"we've all pushed somebody in a pool." The last time Chapman saw the friend was when Chapman's daughter, who celebrated her first birthday this week, was born via surrogate. As for caring for a 1-year-old, while her husband handles bottle-washing (Chapman lost the use of her fingers), "I have found a way to manipulate my hands to do a lot of things." Her mother lives with the family on weekdays to help; Chapman's husband works as a middle-school teacher. (This 5-year-old was paralyzed after doing a backbend.)

The latest example is brought to you by the lawsuit New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed Monday evening against Bear Stearns (via JPMorgan Chase & Co., which purchased Bear during the crisis) alleging it knowingly stuffed mortgage-backed securities full of subprime garbage and then foisted them on unsuspecting investors. New York's top prosecutor opened a new front in efforts to hold banks accountable for the financial crisis by filing a civil lawsuit against J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., alleging widespread fraud by the company's Bear Stearns unit in the sale of mortgage-backed securities. The AG's complaint says it has a bunch of emails showing how Bear Stearns employees and executives, even, were well aware of how ugly the loans they were stuffing into mortgage bonds were: For example, according to a June 2006 internal Bear Stearns email, almost 60% of AHM loans that were purchased through the conduit were 30 or more days delinquent. After learning this information, Defendants went on to issue over 30 subprime and Alt-A securitizations that included AHM loans.” … even if the lapses were expedient to ignore … “Indeed, far from making an effort to improve their due diligence review—and thereby improve the scrutiny of the loans they were purchasing—Defendants, as early as February 2005, began to reduce the amount of due diligence conducted ‘in order to make us more competitive on bids with larger sub-prime sellers.’ As one senior executive acknowledged in testimony, the ‘reduction in due diligence could be a response to a request from a seller. '” … ok, we can’t resist, one more … internal communications reflect Defendants’ awareness of the bad quality of loans that were being included in other securitizations. In connection with the Bear Stearns Second Lien Trust 2007-1 (“BSSLT 2007-1”) securitization, for example, one Bear Stearns executive asked whether the securitization was a “going out of business sale” and expressed a desire to “close this dog.” In another internal email, the SACO 2006-8 securitization was referred to as a “SACK OF SHIT” and a “shit breather.” Somewhere, former Merrill Lynch analyst Henry Blodget is shaking his fist in rage: His email about touting a "piece of shit" tech stock in the dot-com bubble has now been upstaged.

– Today's newly filed lawsuit accuses Bear Stearns—now owned by JPMorgan Chase—of knowingly pushing rotten mortgage securities onto investors before the financial meltdown. And how might federal prosecutors go about proving it? It won't hurt that they've got Bear Stearns emails referring to one deal as a "sack of shit" and a "shit breather," reports the Huffington Post. Another shows an exec anxious to "close this dog," and yet another shows that Bear Stearns knew most of the loans it was buying and reselling were more than 30 days' delinquent. "Every now and then, a lawsuit or legislative report emerges to remind us just how out-of-control the US mortgage business was in the years leading up to the financial crisis," writes Patrick Clark at the Observer. And as the Wall Street Journal points out, if this case proves successful, it could be the first of many that seek to hold big banks accountable—brought by private investors as well as the government.

Toward the end of his remarks, the president said, "I don't want to pass this problem on to the next president, whoever it is. “If, as a nation, we don’t deal with this now, when will we deal with it?” President Obama outlines a plan for closing the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Another 35 detainees held at Guantanamo since the George W. Bush administration are awaiting transfer to other countries. U.S. officials say it calls for up to $475 million in construction costs that would ultimately be offset by as much as $180 million per year in operating cost savings. The annual operating cost for Guantanamo is $445 million, but the officials said the Cuba detention center will need about $225 million in repairs and construction costs if it continues to be used. There are 46 detainees whom U.S. officials consider too dangerous to release because of the potential threat they might pose, along with 10 others who are either charged or convicted by military commissions. The plan, which was requested by Congress, makes a financial argument for closing the controversial detention center. A former senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss administration deliberations, said that ordering officials to defy Congress would require “the mother of all [Justice Department] opinions.” The blueprint did receive support from some lawmakers, including Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who urged fellow lawmakers to consider it. "But I really do feel like if you're gonna put it in a small town like this, you should at least get the opinion of people living around here, so you know what kind of backlash you're going to get from it."

– The White House responded to Congress' request for a blueprint for the closure of Guantanamo Bay on Tuesday—though NPR reports that President Obama's proposed plan is "not expected to go very far." It would see 35 of Guantanamo's 91 inmates transferred to other countries by this summer, while the remaining detainees would be moved to one or several of 13 possible military and federal prisons in the United States, per the Washington Post and the AP. At least some of the sites under consideration are in South Carolina, Kansas, and Colorado. The move would require up to $475 million in construction costs, though officials say closing Guantanamo will save $180 million per year. Annual operating costs for the US facilities would range from $265 million to $305 million. Since a law exists barring Guantanamo detainees from US soil, Congress would need to alter it to approve the plan. Critics say it would put Americans' safety at risk and the mayor of Leavenworth, Kan.—home to the maximum security Army prison under consideration for Guantanamo detainees—previously told NPR that she's "absolutely against" Guantanamo prisoners moving there. Many locals in Canon City, Colo., home to the Centennial Correctional Facility also under consideration, feel similarly. In a live address on Tuesday, however, Obama argued that "Guantanamo Bay does not advance our national security. It undermines it." He also called the prison center a propaganda tool for terrorist groups like the Islamic State.

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) - South Korean and Japanese jets joined exercises with two supersonic U.S. B-1B bombers above and near the Korean peninsula on Thursday, two days after North Korea sharply raised tension by firing a missile over Japan. Two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers fly from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, for a mission, with an escort of a pair of Japan Self-Defense Forces F-15 fighter jets and U.S. Marines' F-35B fighter jets in the vicinity of Kyushu, Japan, in this photo released by Air Staff Office of the Defense Ministry of Japan August 31, 2017. However, diplomats expect resistance from Russia and fellow veto-wielding power China, particularly given that new measures were only announced on Aug. 5 after North Korea tested its first two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July. SANCTION OPTIONS The 15-member U.N. Security Council on Tuesday condemned the firing of the missile over Japan as “outrageous” and demanded that North Korea halt its weapons programs. Japanese Prime Shinzo Abe said he and visiting British Prime Minister Theresa May agreed to urge China, North Korea’s lone major ally, to do more to rein in North Korea.

– The UN blasted North Korea's missile launch over Japan as "outrageous" while Pyongyang promised the latest provocation was only a "first step," Reuters reports. The UN Security Council called on North Korea to stop its aggressions, saying it was of "vital importance" the rogue nation take immediate steps to wind down rising tensions. North Korea is "deliberately undermining regional peace and stability," said Security Council President Abdellatif Aboulatta of Egypt, per CNN. But the 15-member panel declined to slap the regime with new sanctions, at least for now, despite a joint call to do so by South Korea and Japan. North Korea's state-run news agency on Wednesday warned the intermediate-range missile launch was a "first step" to further operations and a "meaningful prelude to containing Guam." The threat level remained high in the US territory, which North Korea threatened earlier this month, drawing President Trump's counter-threat of "fire and fury." Kim Jong Un was reportedly "very satisfied" with Tuesday's launch, the first conducted from the capital. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called the launch "the most serious and grave threat ever" against his nation. Meanwhile, North Korean reports of the 1,680-mile missile flight over northern Japan lacked the typical bluster, per Reuters. The Hwasong-12 missile flew a shorter distance and at a lower trajectory than earlier launches before plunging into the sea. One South Korean expert says it was lacking in military significance but "was all about North Korea being stubborn." But, he adds, "North Korea is hinting that there is room for negotiation if the US and South Korea end the joint military exercises." (A North Korea nuclear strike may not be suicide after all.)

– A 42-year-old man found shot dead at Olivia Newton-John's Florida home yesterday was a contractor working at the house, police say. Newton-John, who owns the home with husband John Easterling, was not at the Jupiter Inlet Colony house at the time, Reuters reports. The death appears to be a suicide, but police are still investigating, according to the Palm Beach Post. Gossip sites have reported recently that Newton-John was selling the 7,429-square-foot house, possibly to Rosie O’Donnell.

Famous guests at the swanky soiree included Kim and husband Kanye West; Kylie's boyfriend, Tyga; Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin; Chrissy Teigen and John Legend; Melanie Griffith and daughter Stella Banderas; Courtney Love; Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci; Cheryl Burke; and Mel B. and husband Stephen Belafonte. WATCH: Kylie Jenner Posts Underwear Selfie on Mom Kris Jenner's 60th Birthday All of Kris’ kids sent their mom birthday wishes this week, but it was a surprise from Jenner’s granddaughters, North West and Penelope Disick, that got the reality star truly emotional.

– Kris Jenner turned 60 over the weekend, and her family's tribute to her must be seen to be believed. Vanity Fair provides the backstory: When she turned 30, Kris (who was then "Kristen Kardashian") made a music video dedicated to her friends. Set to the tune of Randy Newman's "I Love LA," Kris' "I Love My Friends" featured all the things she and her friends loved ... including "bible study," "church on Sundays," and "Cheesecake Factory." Thirty years later, her five daughters filmed an updated version, "She Loves Her Friends," and needless to say, the list of things Kris and her pals enjoy has gotten noticeably ritzier. (Although there is still a shot of Costco included.) Watch the video, or check out Kris' Gatsby-themed birthday soiree.

ATLANTA (AP) — A Michigan man has been arrested after authorities say he threatened to travel to Atlanta and kill people at CNN headquarters. (iStock photo) On Jan. 9, an operator in Atlanta manning the public contact number for CNN received a phone call. Brandon Griesemer made 22 calls to CNN on January 9 and January 10 and four calls, which were recorded, contained threats, according to the affidavit, which was unsealed Friday. He allegedly told a CNN operator, "Fake News. I'm coming to gun you all down." "I am on my way right now to gun the f****** CNN cast down .... I'm coming to gun you all down," said the caller, who cursed and used an expletive directed at African-Americans, the affidavit said. The investigator called the second phone number and asked to speak to Griesemer's father. “I am coming to kill you.” Thirty minutes later, the caller again reached the CNN public switchboard. Griesemer, whose age was not given, also made disparaging statements about Jewish people, African-Americans and the network in several calls, the affidavit said. I have a gun and I am coming to Georgia right now to go to the CNN headquarters to f‑‑‑ing gun every single last one of you. You gotta get prepared for this one, buddy.” Court records indicate Griesemer was arrested on a charge of interstate communications with intent to extort, threaten or injure. Griesemer is currently free on a $10,000 unsecured bond. On Monday night, a man who identified himself as Griesemer’s father told The Washington Post that “this whole thing has been a mistake. Ann Arbor police used an online database to identify Griesemer's father as the phone's owner. A family member at Griesemer's home in Novi, Michigan, declined to comment late Monday. “We take any threats to CNN employees or workplaces, around the world, extremely seriously. This one is no exception. We have been in touch with local and federal law enforcement throughout, and have taken all necessary measures to ensure the safety of our people.” Public records indicate Griesemer was born in 1998. According to the arrest affidavit, an investigator working for CNN originally traced the threatening calls back to Griesemer. On January 10, CNN received the fourth call from the same cell phone number used to make the three prior threats, the affidavit said. At one point, the investigator called the number and spoke with someone who identified himself as “Brandon.” The investigator recorded the conversation, then compared the audio with the recordings of the threatening CNN calls. “The voices sounded like the same individual,” the affidavit states. (CNN) Authorities arrested a Michigan man last week after he allegedly called CNN several times, threatening to kill employees at the network's Atlanta, Georgia, headquarters, according to a federal affidavit. On September 19, a man -- later identified as Griesemer -- called an employee at an Islamic center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and made derogatory comments about the mosque and Muslims, an FBI agent said in the affidavit. In a phone call with police, Griesemer “stated that he had called the mosque on September 19, and that he was angry at the time of the call.” More from Morning Mix: Neil Diamond says he has Parkinson’s disease, will retire from touring

– A Michigan man has been arrested after authorities say he threatened to travel to Atlanta and kill people at CNN headquarters. Federal court documents filed in Michigan say 19-year-old Brandon Griesemer of Novi began calling CNN on Jan. 9, per the AP. He allegedly told a CNN operator in one call, "Fake news. I'm coming to gun you all down." In a second call, he reportedly said: "I am on my way right now to gun the f---ing CNN cast down. ... I am coming to kill you." He allegedly made racist and anti-Semitic comments, too. Altogether, there were 22 calls from two phones over two days. "We take any threats to CNN employees or workplaces, around the world, extremely seriously," CNN said in a statement. "We have been in touch with local and federal law enforcement throughout, and have taken all necessary measures to ensure the safety of our people." The phone numbers were traced to Griesemer's family. In court documents, an FBI agent says Griesemer had made a threatening call to a local mosque in Ann Arbor in September. Cops traced that call, and a couple of days after the incident Griesemer admitted he'd made the call, in which he was said to have made derogatory remarks about the mosque and Muslims, because he "was angry at the time." In the CNN case, an FBI affidavit says Griesemer made interstate threats by phone, in violation of federal law. A man who said he's Griesemer's father tells the Washington Post that "this whole thing has been a mistake" and that Griesemer doesn't even own guns, adding: "He didn’t know what he was saying, the seriousness of it." Griesemer, a part-time grocery worker, could face a fine or up to five years in prison if convicted. His bail has been set at $10,000.

HSV-1 normally causes mouth ulcers rather than genital infection, but it is becoming an increasing cause of genital infection too, mainly in rich countries. Assuming 50% of incident infections among 15-49-year-olds are genital, an estimated 140 million (range: 67–212 million) people had prevalent genital HSV-1 infection, most of which occurred in the Americas, Europe and Western Pacific. "The global burden of HSV-1 infection is huge," the WHO research team writes. Future control efforts, including development of HSV vaccines, should consider the epidemiology of HSV-1 in addition to HSV-2, and especially the relative contribution of HSV-1 to genital infection. More than 3.7 billion people under the age of 50 suffer from the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), usually after catching it in childhood, according to a the WHO study. GENEVA Two-thirds of the world's population under 50 have the highly infectious herpes virus that causes cold sores around the mouth, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, in its first estimate of global prevalence of the disease. Little is known about any link between HSV-1 and HIV/AIDS, although it can lead to other serious complications such as encephalitis. HSV-2 is traditionally called genital herpes, and it's the kind most people think of as causing sexually transmitted infections. In the Americas, WHO estimates that 49 percent of women, or 178 million women, have HSV-1 and 39 percent of men, or 142 million, do. HSV-2 can increase the risk of catching and spreading HIV, the disease that causes AIDS. The World Health Organization (WHO) has generated estimates of the global burden of HSV-2 twice: for 2003[16] and for 2012[17]. "An estimated 140 million people aged 15-49 years were calculated to have prevalent genital HSV-1 infection globally in 2012," they wrote. The number of HSV-1 infections was highest for Africa, South-East Asia and Western Pacific, which had the largest population sizes. Recent changes in the pattern of HSV-1 infection, i.e., decreasing rates of oral HSV-1 infection in childhood and increasing sexual transmission of HSV-1, mean that there may be cohort effects in prevalence data whereby older individuals have experienced higher historic rates of childhood infection and lower rates of sexual transmission. In a recent Phase III trial, an HSV vaccine based on glycoprotein D2 failed to prevent HSV-2 infection and disease, but, encouragingly, did show significant efficacy against HSV-1-related infection and disease[41]. "We really need to accelerate the development of vaccines against herpes simplex virus, and if a vaccine designed to prevent HSV-2 infection also prevented HSV-1, it would have far reaching benefits," said Sami Gottlieb, a WHO medical officer. Genital HSV-1 acquisition is lowest in regions such as Africa with the highest HIV rates, but understanding how HSV-1 affects HIV spread is critical given how common this infection is globally.

– In its first ever global assessment of the prevalence of the herpes virus that causes cold sores, the World Health Organization reports in the journal PLoS ONE that two in three humans under the age of 50 are infected with the incurable virus. That's an estimated 3.7 billion people. The WHO had previously done the same assessment for herpes simplex virus type 2, aka genital herpes, and found that 417 million people ages 17-49 have it. HSV-1, by contrast, is transmitted by oral-oral contact (often via childhood kisses, notes NBC News) and causes cold sores. "However, HSV-1 is an increasing cause of genital infection," they write, with the prevalence of genital HSV-1 being highest in the Americas. Reuters explains why: "Improved hygiene in rich countries" is reducing the number of infections that occur during childhood, and pushing more into young adulthood, where HSV-1 is transferred via oral sex (so not oral-oral but oral-genital). "We really need to accelerate the development of vaccines against herpes simplex virus," one WHO medical officer says. There are currently multiple phase-1 and phase-2 trials, with Genocea Biosciences halting its work on a pneumonia vaccine to focus on genital herpes. As for HSV-1, the WHO estimates that the Americas have the lowest infection rates: 49% of women and 39% of men. That number jumps to nearly 60% in Asia and a whopping 87% in Africa, reports NBC News. (This newborn almost died when a hospital visitor with HSV-1 kissed her.)

Story highlights Eight new cases have been recorded in the last week, a Pentagon official told CNN One of the military service members is a pregnant female Washington (CNN) CNN has learned there are now 41 members of the military who have been diagnosed with the Zika virus since testing began earlier this year.

– At least 33 US service members have gotten Zika while serving overseas, the Pentagon says. Six family members of service members have also gotten the virus while outside the continental US, Military.com reports. One of the active-duty service members to contract the virus is pregnant, though details about her health and that of her unborn child were unavailable. The Pentagon didn't specify the countries involved or say how many of the infected troops were still sick or back in the US, notes CNN. (Zika is being transmitted by local mosquitoes in Florida.)

They won where they should have (Illinois, Arkansas etc) and where they shouldn't have (Maryland and Maine). Losers * Southern Democrats: Sen. Kay Hagan in North Carolina, Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky and Sen. Mark Pryor in Arkansas did everything they could to run away from President Obama and insist they were their own independent voices. Loser: 2016 Democratic Presidential Candidate This doesn’t bode well for Democratic presidential hopefuls: In recent presidential elections with no incumbent, the party that controls Congress has taken the White House. $92.8 million of the $190 million in dark money spent in the cycle went toward Senate races in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky and North Carolina As of mid-October, super PACs spent $29.2 million against Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), and she lost to Thom Tillis (R). National Exit Poll Reveals Major Voter Discontent PHOTOS: The Unusual Places Where Americans Vote Updated Results From Around the Country WINNERS J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo Mitch McConnell Not only was Mitch McConnell able to hold onto his job as Senator from Kentucky, but now he gets a promotion as well after Republicans were able to tilt the balance of power in the Senate. Sen-elect Cory Gardner (R) initially said "no" to the race but reversed course as the political environment faded for President Obama. Loser: Perennial Losers Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, Charlie Crist in Florida, Scott Brown in whichever state he’s currently in … all lost once in high-profile statewide races, and then came back this cycle to lose again.

– Last night's victory for Mitch McConnell was a big one: He was expected to face a neck-and-neck race, but instead he was called the winner just after the polls closed, Chris Cillizza writes in the Washington Post. Starting next year, he's the Senate majority leader. Among the night's other key winners and losers: The National Republican Senatorial Committee finally had a great night after years of trouble against Democrats. They managed to knock out Sens. Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan, and Mark Udall, while keeping a struggling Pat Roberts in the Senate. As chair of the Republican Governors Association, another 2016 contender, Chris Christie, fought hard for important victories in Florida, Wisconsin, Maryland, and Illinois, USA Today reports. On a more conceptual level, the Huffington Post saw it as a big night for "bullies." New York Rep. Michael Grimm beat out Domenic Recchia, even amid tax fraud charges and after a threat—caught on TV—to break a reporter "in half." His win helped Republicans gain what ABC News notes is an even larger majority in the House. As for losers last night, President Obama was a big one: He earlier said that his "policies are on the ballot." The results, then, were a "near total repudiation" of those policies, USA Today notes. What's more, chances for a Democratic presidential victory in 2016 look weaker, the Huffington Post adds: The past three presidents have been elected under Congresses run by their parties. Wendy Davis lost badly in the Texas gubernatorial race. She wasn't expected to win, Cillizza notes, but she was also an icon for those who hoped to see Texas eventually go blue. Instead, Republicans swept last night's races for Texas state offices, Mother Jones reports. Harry Reid is out as Senate majority leader, and he could struggle even to keep his seat during the next election, USA Today reports. (The incoming majority leader, however, did get photobombed at the polls.)

'Deadpool 2' Stunt Person Killed On Set Stunt Person Killed On 'Deadpool 2' Set in Motorcycle Crash EXCLUSIVE 11:59 PM PT -- A spokesperson for 20th Century Fox tells us, "We are deeply saddened by the accident that occurred on the set of Deadpool 2 this morning. "Our hearts and prayers are with the family, friends and colleagues of our crew member during this difficult time.” Added star Ryan Reynolds: "We're heartbroken, shocked and devastated... but recognize nothing can come close to the grief and inexplicable pain her family and loved ones must feel in this moment. A stunt driver died on the Canadian set of "Deadpool 2" after attempting to do a stunt on a motorcycle, according to a tweet today from the Vancouver Police Department.

– A stuntperson has been killed on the set of Deadpool 2, a spokesperson for distributor 20th Century Fox confirms to ABC News. Details, including the identity of the stunt driver involved in the Vancouver accident, were not immediately available, but sources tell TMZ the Monday morning accident involved a female motorcycle rider who went airborne somehow while filming a scene for the movie. The sources say she never applied the brakes, and her bike ultimately crashed through the glass of a studio inside Shaw Tower. (A stuntman recently died on the set of The Walking Dead).

TOKYO Japan said on Friday it was still trying to secure the release of two Japanese hostages held by Islamic State militants after a deadline to pay ransom for their release passed and there was no immediate word on their fate.

– A new post on a forum popular with ISIS militants claims the two Japanese captives are running out of time. The "countdown has begun" for the group to kill Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa unless Japan pays $200 million in ransom, according to the post, published today. Japan says it's analyzing the message as it attempts to contact the men's captors through local tribes, though ISIS' original 72-hour deadline has expired, the AP reports. "The situation remains severe, but we are doing everything we can to win the release of the two Japanese hostages," government spokesman Yoshihide Suga says. Meanwhile, Goto's mother, Junko Ishido, is pleading with the government to save her son, who "only went to rescue his friend," Reuters reports. Documents show Japan considered a military strike on ISIS militants but found that one would be outside its legal realm. A Japanese journalist who tried to free Yukawa in September and an expert on Islamic law said yesterday they have an ISIS contact and were willing to negotiate with the group, the AP reports; it isn't clear if Japan was agreeable. Finding the captors would be no easy task: Experts reviewing the hostage video—which seems to show Goto and Yukawa in jumpsuits in the desert—suspect it was actually shot in a studio, the AP notes. Shadows converge, indicating two light sources rather than one bright sun, while noiseless "wind" (perhaps from a fan) doesn't appear to kick up dust. NHK reports ISIS will give a statement on the two captives "soon."

A deputy was patrolling the rural area in the 7000 block of Sun Fair Road in Joshua Tree, saw a travel-trailer on a property that appeared to be abandoned and the rectangular plywood box, and checked it out, according to a San Bernardino County sheriff’s news release. SIGN UP FOR FACEBOOK NEWS ALERTS: Message us here to get started The property has no electricity or running water, and deputies saw several holes, mounds of trash, human feces, and between 30 and 40 cats, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said in a news release Thursday. The mother, Mona Kirk, 51, slept in the box with her children, while the father, Daniel Panico, 73, lived in the trailer or a vehicle, said Cindy Bachman, a Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman, in an email. The three children, ages 11, 13 and 14, reportedly lived in the large rectangular box — which was approximately 20 feet long by 4 feet high by 10 feet wide — for about four years. They didn’t have adequate food and were living in an unsuitable, unsafe environment due to the property conditions, the news release stated. The Joshua Tree parents of three children, who were found to be living in a large wooden box, were arrested Wednesday morning on suspicion of willful cruelty to a child. (Photo: San Bernadino County Sheriff's Department) Children and Family Services responded to the property and took custody of the children. The house is about eight miles from the front gate of Joshua Tree National Park and two miles east of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Station.

– At first glance, authorities saw what they thought was an abandoned trailer and a large plywood box amid a sea of trash in Joshua Tree, Calif. On second glance, they realized this was the shelter of three children, ages 11, 13, and 14, and their parents. Mona Kirk, 51, and Daniel Panico, 73, were charged with willful cruelty to a child Wednesday after authorities came upon the remote property without running water, electricity, plumbing, or heating, reports the Los Angeles Times. According to officials, the family had been staying at the desert property for four years, with Kirk and the children living in the box—about 20 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 4 feet high—and Panico living in the trailer or a vehicle, reports the San Bernardino Sun. Panico reportedly owned the property and planned to build his dream home there, a neighbor tells the Desert Sun. But the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department called it "an unsuitable and unsafe environment" for the children, who didn't have an adequate amount of food. Authorities say the area, roamed by 30 to 40 cats, featured several feces-filled holes apparently used as toilets, and a rep for the sheriff's department says the kids weathered nights as cold as 20 or 30 degrees. Kirk and Panico are now in jail with bail set at $100,000 each. Their children, who weren't enrolled in public school, are in the custody of Children and Family Services and are in "good spirits," per officials.

“We’re creating an optimised microclimate that can double the shelf life [of the fruit],” said James Rogers, CEO of Apeel Sciences. The tasteless coating, developed by Santa Barbara company Apeel Sciences, controls the two main factors that cause fresh produce to go bad: the rate at which water escapes the surface of fruit and vegetables and the rate at which oxygen enters. “It’s a visceral reaction when you’ve spent a few dollars on something that ends up in the garbage.” From this week, the Apeel-treated avocados – grown by California-based Del Rey Avocado – will be available in Costco and Harp Foods stores across the midwest, before rolling out across the United States. Avocados that stay ripe for twice as long as usual thanks to an edible barrier made from plant materials will be sold in the US for the first time this week. “We slow down the rate at which the clock is ticking.” Apeel’s coating is made from naturally occurring lipids extracted from discarded fruit or vegetable waste, including tomatoes, grapes, wasted seeds. Ours will stay ripe for 4-6 days.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Apeel avocados. The coating can also extend the life of produce in developing countries where refrigeration is not widely available across the supply chain, which explains why the company launched in 2012 with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Although Apeel is starting with avocados, the coating’s formulation can be modified to create optimal conditions for other items including strawberries, mangoes, apples, bananas, kumquats and asparagus.

– Avocados are the frequent subject of teasing over their ever-so-brief period of ripeness—but one California company is looking to change that. Avocados treated by Apeel Sciences will be sold in the US for the first time this week, and thanks to a tasteless and edible coating, those avocados will stay fresh twice as long as a typical avocado. "The average avocado might be ripe for 2-3 days. Ours will stay ripe for 4-6 days," says the company's CEO, per the Guardian. The edible barrier, made from plant materials, creates a "microclimate," controlling the rate at which water leaves the avocado's surface and oxygen enters—the two main things that make produce go bad. Apeel's CEO says it started with avocados because "everyone has an experience of cutting into an avocado and discovering it’s past its prime. It’s a visceral reaction when you’ve spent a few dollars on something that ends up in the garbage." But many other types of produce can be treated with the coating, and Apeel hopes to ultimately help reduce the 400 pounds of food per person estimated to be thrown away in the US per year. Apeel-treated avocados are first rolling out in Costco and Harp Foods stores in the midwest, but will eventually be available across the US. They will cost the same as any other conventionally grown avocado. Business Insider has side-by-side comparison photos of an untreated versus a treated avocado 30 days after harvest.

– If you're looking for Ruby Rose, you'll have to try her Bat Phone. The Orange Is the New Black star made headlines last week when it was announced she'd play Batwoman for the CW, the first openly gay superhero in a TV series leading role. But while Rose was "thrilled and honored," she wasn't as thrilled the online backlash—and she's left Twitter because of it, Deadline reports. "Where on earth did 'Ruby is not a lesbian therefore she can't be batwoman' come from—has to be the funniest most ridiculous thing I've ever read," she tweeted in one of her final posts. "I came out at 12?" Vulture notes some of the backlash came under the #RecastBatwoman hashtag, spurring Rose to call for women and minorities, including the LGBT community, to be "a little kinder and more supportive of each other." In the meantime, she wrote, "I am looking forward to getting more than 4 hours of sleep and to break from Twitter to focus all my energy on my next 2 projects. If you need me, I'll be on my Bat Phone." Rose's Instagram and Facebook accounts were still up and running as of Monday morning, though it appears comments have been disabled on Instagram.

Researchers have been studying the day and night cycle in plants for a long time: Linnaeus observed that flowers in a dark cellar continued to open and close, and Darwin recorded the overnight movement of plant leaves and stalks and called it “sleep”. Frontiers in Plant Science, 7:222. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2016.00222 Picture download: http://www.tuwien.ac.at/dle/pr/aktuelles/downloads/2016/sleepingtrees Further information: Norbert Pfeifer Department für Geodäsie und Geoinformation TU Wien, Österreich T: +43-1-58801-12219 norbert.pfeifer@tuwien.ac.at Eetu Puttonen, Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI) National Land Survey of Finland, Finnland eetu.puttonen@nls.fi András Zlinszky Centre for Ecological Research, Ungarische Akademieder Wissenschaften zlinszky.andras@okologia.mta.hu “No one has observed this effect before at the scale of whole trees, and I was surprised by the extent of the changes.” Advertisement Zlinszky and his colleagues scanned trees in Austria and Finland with laser beams between sunset and sunrise. Understanding ecophysiological processes of individual trees, including their diurnal water use pattern and how this changes under water stress is becoming increasingly important for climate research, as near-global coverage of high-resolution remote sensing has revolutionized the up-scaling of findings from individual tree-based models to continental scale (Shugart et al., 2015).

– Well this gives the phrase "sleeping like a log" a whole new meaning. New research shows trees might sleep like any other living organism, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Scientists used lasers to make models of silver birch trees in Finland and Australia and discovered the trees' branches "droop" up to 10 centimeters at night, according to New Scientist. They published their findings earlier this year in Frontiers in Plant Science. Studies on flowers and other small plants undergoing changes between night and day go back centuries, according to a press release. But it was never clear if large plants like trees did the same thing. “No one has observed this effect before at the scale of whole trees, and I was surprised by the extent of the changes,” one of the researchers tells New Scientist. Researchers used laser technology that allowed them to monitor the trees' movements without using lights, which would have produced a photosynthetic response in the plants. They found the trees' branches were at their lowest point a few hours before sunrise. So far, it's unclear if the trees were moving due to their own internal clock or because of reactions to photosynthesis during the day. The drooping could be attributed to the loss of water pressure inside plant cells at night or because it takes energy to hold branches up to the sun during the day. Researchers plan to next study the water use of trees during the day and at night to get a better idea of what's going on. (If you're a woman, trees could extend your life.)

#DWTS — Adina Porter (@AdinaPorter) May 9, 2017 The host asked @Simone_Biles about her absent smile and she said "Smiling doesn't win you gold medals" and I INSTANTLY GOT UP AND CHEERED pic.twitter.com/iB0cPDqHeP — Inkwell J (@iAmInkwellJ) May 9, 2017 They criticized @Simone_Biles for smiling too much then ask her why she doesn't smile? "I feel like everyone has their own opinion, clearly, and I feel it's just how you take it," Biles said, adding that, in spite of the judges saying that they can't get a feel for who she really is during her performances, she's doing her best to convey real emotion. "I feel like I am trying, I am being honest, but if they don't see that, I don't know what more I can do," she said, explaining as she had tears in her eyes. "Each week she comes in and she delivers something different. While some of the dances call for her to show her sexy side, others require nuanced emotion, and from her point of view, there's never a clear sign as to what will impress them from week to week. "I almost ran to the bathroom at one point, but I pulled it together." "Thank you for embracing our show, thank you for doing it, thank you for putting yourself out there," Chmerkovskiy said, addressing Biles. "Smiles don't get you gold medals and I agree with her as an athlete and I side with her. There's hard work and sweat and tears and, most of the time, everything but smiling."

– Many women don't like being told to smile, and might appreciate Simone Biles' response in the face of such an expectation. When the judges started offering their critiques of the gymnast's performance Monday night on Dancing With the Stars, host Tom Bergeron interjected to note, "I was waiting for you to smile at some of the compliments—you didn't." At that point Biles did smile, but she did so while replying, "Smiling doesn't win you gold medals." Mashable calls the response "perfect," while USA Today notes that the phrase should be put on a T-shirt. Twitter users loved it, too, and the backlash to Bergeron's comment ultimately elicited a response from him: "Loved @Simone_Biles crisp response to my clumsy question. Curious how she felt about judges comments, I unwittingly added to the smile pile," he wrote, adding that he should have simply asked for her reaction to the judges' comments. As AOL explains, Biles has been a fan favorite this season, but has struggled to connect with the judges. She has DWTS pro Val Chmerkovskiy in her corner; he told ETOnline of her comment, "She kept it real, you know, and sometimes the truth hurts. Smiles don't get you gold medals and I agree with her as an athlete and I side with her."

Darryl Carr got the pedicure on Nov. 13, 2014, at AZ Happy Nails, 1715 Sauk Trail in Sauk Village, according to the lawsuit filed by his widow, Latania Peterson-Carr, in Cook County Circuit Court. Workers at Happy Nails soaked Darryl Carr’s feet in a hot water and chemical solution, followed by a hot wax solution, the suit claims. The suit alleges AZ Happy Nails was careless or negligent in using contaminated or unsafe chemical and wax solutions, soaking Carr’s foot in the solutions too long, using excessive heat on Carr’s left foot and failing to test whether Carr might suffer an allergic reaction or ask whether he had any medical conditions. "As the proximate result … (Carr) suffered injuries of a personal and pecuniary nature, including serious burns to his left foot and leg, which subsequently became infected, resulting in the amputation of his left foot and leg, and other medical complications that ultimately caused or contributed to his death on June 4, 2015," the lawsuit states. During a call to AZ Happy Nails, a person answering the phone said the salon’s owners or manager were not available to comment Friday evening. Carr’s wife is seeking more than $50,000 in damages, according to the complaint.

– A widow in suburban Chicago blames a nail salon for killing her husband in a pedicure-gone-wrong. A lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court alleges that Darryl Carr suffered a grisly infection that led to the amputation of his left leg and, ultimately, his death, reports the Chicago Tribune. Carr's family says the AZ Happy Nails salon in Sauk Village soaked his feet in a chemical solution and then in a hot wax solution, but it alleges that the solutions were contaminated and that his left foot was left soaking for too long, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. Carr suffered "serious burns" to his leg, which then became infected, says the lawsuit. It faults the salon for lax safety and training procedures, and for failing to test Carr for possible allergic reactions or warn him of any risks. He visited the salon in November 2013 and died this month, leaving his wife and two kids, ages 10 and 13. His widow is seeking at least $50,000 in damages from the salon, which hasn't responded publicly. (In New York, authorities are cracking down on the exploitation of nail salon workers.)

They revealed they are set to share their new fortune with disabled children, a women’s help group, fire fighters, police trusts, Christian churches and Washington florist Barronelle Stutzman, 70, who was fined after declaring she would not serve a gay wedding. But I don’t regret what I said. Crystal O'Connor said the amount of money was overwhelming. ‘I didn’t want to leave my apartment. But it has been difficult.’ Her father, who has owned the business for around nine years, said: ‘I am overwhelmed and not just because of the money, but the positive feedback that we have met with. It seems like all we hear about is the bad ones and when something like this happens, it seems like the bad ones are the first to come out and get after you. "To us this whole thing isn't about gay marriage. I don’t hold anything against them. People just don’t want you to have those rights any more. ‘They support our right to be able to have that belief and I compare this case like that of conscientiousobjectors. The restaurant was closed, and its operators said they'd gone into hiding after their... (Associated Press) WALKERTON, Ind. The news and entertainment network Blaze began a fundraising campaign on the website GoFundMe to help the O'Connors and the fund stood at $842,592 from 29,166 people when it closed. O'Connor said he hasn't received the money yet, but said he plans to give some to charity and use some money to make improvements to the restaurant. (Arlene's Flowers) 12 HOURS AGO UPDATE #7 Barronelle Stutzman, a Christian florist, referred her friend and long-time customer to other florists because she could not in good conscience provide full wedding support for a same-sex wedding. A judge declared last month that her refusal to sell flowers to the gay wedding couple violated the Washington Law Against Discrimination, which makes bias based on sexual orientation illegal.

– Memories Pizza is open and ready to serve once again, assuming you're not a gay couple looking for a wedding caterer. The Indiana pizzeria gained either fame or infamy, depending on your views, after the owner backed the state's controversial religious freedom law and said he would happily serve gay customers but would not cater a gay wedding. Kevin O'Connor was hit with threats and closed the eatery for eight days, but it reopened yesterday to what the AP terms "a full house of friends, regulars, and people wanting to show their support"—and, at least as of last night, no protests. As for the brouhaha, it didn't change O'Connor's mind; he still says gay customers are welcome but gay weddings are off the table. "I'd do the same thing again. It's my belief. It's our belief. It's what we grew up on," he says. "I'm just sorry it comes to this because neither one of us [his daughter echoed his original comments] dislike any of those people. I don't hold any grudges." In addition to the threats and criticism, the pizzeria will also receive $842,387 donated by about 29,000 people in a now-finished crowdfunding campaign. O'Connor says he'll use some of the money to improve the restaurant, but will also donate to charity ... and to Barronelle Stutzman, a Washington state florist who was fined when she refused to provide flowers for a gay wedding, O'Connor tells the Daily Mail.

Blair asked Attorney General Lisa Madigan to review the Blagojevich pension issue shortly after the former governor's 14-year sentence was pronounced Wednesday.

– Gone was the defiant Rod Blagojevich who protested his innocence, promised a comeback, and called himself "frankly … stunned" at his guilty verdict: The Blago on display yesterday at his sentencing was apologetic and emotional, but he was sentenced to 14 years for corruption nonetheless. Now he has just 71 days of freedom before going away for at least 12 years, the earliest point at which he will be eligible for early release. The disgraced ex-governor, who turns 55 Saturday, will get one last birthday and Christmas with wife Patti and daughters Amy, 15, and Annie, 8, before reporting to prison Feb. 16 to share a cell and work a menial job for 12 cents per hour. "I've had a lot of clients who've had to start making preparations the day after they were sentenced," a federal defense attorney tells the AP. "But not a single one of them has been able to prepare for saying goodbye to their children." In addition to that, Blagojevich probably hopes to see his house sold and get his financial affairs in order, giving his wife power of attorney so that she can complete financial transactions without him. He's not likely to ever receive his $65,000-per-year state pension, the Chicago Tribune notes, although he will probably still get a federal pension, since his misdeeds took place during his governorship and not during the six years he served as a congressman.

These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites.

– Charles Manson is back behind bars, a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesperson confirmed to the Los Angeles Times on Friday. "He is at the prison," Terry Thornton says. "I don't know how much plainer it can be." Manson, currently serving a life sentence, was transported from Corcoran State Prison to a hospital in Bakersfield on Tuesday for a serious medical issue. Officials aren't giving out details, but the New York Daily News reports the 82-year-old Manson had gastrointestinal bleeding but was too weak for surgery. His current condition is unclear. Hospital visits are likely the only time Manson will get beyond prison walls; he's already been denied parole 12 times.

At least 18 Florida lawmakers plan to live on a minimum wage this week to draw attention to efforts to increase the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour. Sen. Dwight Bullard and Rep. Victor Torres, both Democrats, have both filed bills SB6 and HB109, respectively, to raise Florida’s minimum wage from $8.05 to $15 an hour. Sen. Bullard will soon announce he is taking the Minimum Wage Challenge and will live on the same pay as those living on minimum wage for five days.

– At least 18 Florida lawmakers say they'll take the "Minimum Wage Challenge" this week to show the need for a minimum wage hike to $15 an hour. From Monday to Friday, each of the lawmakers, who are mostly Democrats, will live on just $17 a day—the remains of an $8.05-an-hour paycheck after the costs of taxes, childcare, and housing, reports the AP. They'll also go grocery shopping with a minimum wage worker to see how they cope. State Sen. Dwight Bullard, who has filed bill SB6 to raise Florida's current minimum wage to $15 an hour, says he'll be among those taking part. "I'd like my colleagues to see that supporting this bill to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour is the right thing to do for Florida's working families who struggle every day just to make ends meet," he says, per Fox 35. State Rep. Victor Torres has also filed similar legislation.

I was in the hospital, I just had a baby, so my husband thought it would be fun for my other kids if they could sell some things at the garage sale," said Racquel Cloutier, 31, of Laguna Niguel, Calif., who owns the ring. Racquel Cloutier hid her $22,000 wedding ring under a cushion in a wooden watch box for safe keeping before she went into the hospital to deliver her fifth child. He thought the box was empty, but a California husband accidentally sold his wife's $23,000 diamond wedding ring for $10 at a garage sale on June 1. There’s a small chance whoever bought the box doesn’t know the ring is in there.” Eric Cloutier is a former professional hockey player. The Tweet referred to the lady who reportedly bought the ring as “shady.” Cloutier’s wife, Racquel, was in the hospital at the time of the sale.

– Husbands, there's a lesson for you in Eric Cloutier's very big mistake: Never sell anything at a garage sale without first checking with your wife. The California man offloaded a watch box he thought was empty at a June 1 community garage sale for $10. Little did he know his wife had hidden her $23,000 diamond wedding ring beneath the box's cushion ... before she went to deliver their fifth baby at the hospital, which is where she was during the garage sale. "Every year our community holds a garage sale. I was in the hospital, I just had a baby, so my husband thought it would be fun for my other kids if they could sell some things at the garage sale," Racquel Cloutier explains to ABC News. She discovered the box, and the ring, were missing after she got back home last week; the couple is publicizing their story in the hope that the bargain shopper will return the ring. KTLA notes they are offering an unspecified reward. An added ouch: The blonde woman who bought the box couldn't decide at first whether she even wanted it. And a quirky side note: Per Card Player, Eric Cloutier is a former professional hockey player/accomplished poker player.

– It used to be that people actually had to wait for the game to watch the Super Bowl ads, but as the New York Times points out today, those days are long gone for Madison Avenue. Most companies roll out the spots, or versions of them, on YouTube and social media to generate early buzz. Some talkers, for better or worse, this year: Coke: The company has an ad about a race in the desert (viewers can vote on who wins) complete with an Arab and stubborn camel. It's "racist, portraying Arabs as backward and foolish camel jockeys, and they have no chance to win in the world," says the president of the Muslim Institute for Interfaith Studies. It and other groups are demanding that Coke pull or alter it before Sunday, notes the Hollywood Reporter. See it here. Volkswagen: It, too, is being accused of racism for a spot that features a white office worker talking in a Jamaican accent throughout, reports Reuters. See it here. Mercedes-Benz: Its ad featuring Kate Upton washing a car, or at least supervising, already has gotten more than 5 million views on YouTube, reports the AP. See it here. Today.com has more of this year's buzzy ads here.

Apparently, 40% of people who suffered from persistent pain reported that music helped to relieve symptoms – with Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, Robbie Williams's Angels and Elton John's Candle in the Wind among the songs they found most soothing. "After speaking to many people who are living with pain we were interested to learn just how many found music beneficial, which is why we're now trialing the use of music within our pain service in some of our pharmacies."

– Walk into select Lloyds Pharmacy locations in the UK complaining of a headache, and you may be more likely to walk out with a Simon & Garfunkel CD than a bottle of painkillers. The pharmacy chain commissioned a study that found 41% of all people suffering persistent pain (and 66% of people aged 16-24) felt better after listening to music, reports the Telegraph. Now the store is "trialing the use of music within our pain service in some of our pharmacies," says a company pharmacist. "There are lots of different ways of managing pain, not only with medicines but also with lifestyle changes such as moderate exercise and relaxation," he says. The study of 1,500 people found pop music was the most effective pain reliever, followed by classical, then rock or indie music. The songs with the highest pain-relieving powers reported were "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon & Garfunkel, "Angels" by Robbie Williams, "Albatross" by Fleetwood Mac, "Candle in the Wind" by Elton John, and "Easy" by The Commodores. This may be an eyebrow-raiser for some people—like the Guardian's music editor, who jokes: "This slightly contradicts my own survey, which found that 100% of all respondents (sample size: one) thought 'Candle in the Wind' induced chronic pain, but there you go."

UPDATE: A man who shot himself and a woman at a graduation ceremony at the Augusta High School on Sunday could be charged with a misdemeanor. The Augusta Police Chief has presented a case to the Butler County Attorney Monday morning. Chief Tyler Brewer said he will recommend the charge of criminal use of a weapon/possession of a firearm on school grounds. "Let's just cut to the chase here," said Brewer. "The gun should've stayed in the car. An ankle, in a sock, is not an adequate place to put your weapon." Chief Brewer said the concealed weapon was a Kel-tec semi-auto 380. When it got uncomfortable in the man's sock, he tried to re-adjust it. Instead, the gun triggered shooting the man in the foot. It then ricocheted off the ground, flying more than 50 feet, into a women's calf. The man drove himself to Kansas Medical Center for treatment. The woman was taken to Wesley Medical Center in serious condition. "She was released from the hospital and is fine as can be. You know, she's got a bullet that's in her leg," said Brewer. He says the class B misdemeanor he's recommending for the incident carries a fine of up to $1,000 fine and up to one year in prison. The man could also lose his license, but under Kansas law, he'd still be able to carry a gun legally because he has no felony. "Unfortunately, sometimes people just don't use common sense." said Brewer. No federal charges will be filed in this case. FactFinder12 wanted to know: is it illegal to take a concealed gun, with a permit, into a high school football stadium? It comes down to what the state means by two words - "grounds" and "building." According the Kansas attorney general's website, concealed carry permit holders are allowed to carry on the "grounds of a K-12 school," but district's can post signs on school "buildings" prohibiting concealed carry inside. No one FactFinder 12 spoke with is exactly sure what lawmakers meant by the terms grounds and buildings. Attorney General Derek Schmidt clarified that a parking lot is grounds, meaning concealed or open carry is allowed. But what about a football stadium? Lawyers with the Kansas Association of School Boards say they advise districts to post signs anywhere they don't want guns. "At least let your intent be known as to what your feelings are, what you want to have happen at certain sorts of structures, those sorts of things," said Lori Church, KASB attorney. Attorneys believe the Augusta shooting could help clear confusion, if the county attorney decides to take the case to court. ----- Two people were hurt, one seriously, in an accidental shooting at Augusta High School's graduation ceremony. Augusta police say a little before 2 p.m. Sunday, a man's concealed gun accidentally discharged when he was in an area of bleachers at Hillier Stadium, where the outdoor commencement was held. Police say a bullet from the gun wounded the man's foot, then, either the bullet or shrapnel ricocheted about 50 feet and hit a woman in the lower leg as she was standing under the press box. This happened as people were filing into the football stadium for the graduation. Police say the gun owner has a permit, and was carrying a small, semi-automatic gun in his sock. They say it was uncomfortable and he was adjusting the gun when it went off. The man was reported to have accidentally shot himself in the right foot and was able to drive himself to a hospital. The woman was taken to Wesley Medical Center in serious condition after suffering a wound to the calf. One witness who knows the woman who was taken to Wesley, said he heard the shot a little before the commencement ceremony began. He said he looked down at the woman's calf muscle and noticed the wound, which was "bleeding like crazy." He said he ran over to the concession stand and grabbed a lot of paper towels in an effort to stop the bleeding. The woman's family says she is going to be okay. Augusta police say the man whose gun went off should not have had a gun on school grounds, even outside. Police say they will present the case to the district attorney's office Monday. The district attorney will decide what, if any charges are filed. There has been some confusion over whether having a gun at the graduation ceremony would be legal if the owner has a concealed carry permit. The short answer is, 'No,' police and lawmakers say. A sign outside Hillier Stadium is clearly posted at the entrance. Whether the man with the concealed gun saw the sign is part of the investigation. Lawmakers who serve on the committee in charge of writing firearms laws in Kansas say a school is covered by federal law, not state law. Guns are illegal on campus, inside the building, or anywhere outside on the grounds, they say.

– Two people were shot and injured after an accidental discharge at a high school graduation ceremony in southern Kansas, the AP reports. The Wichita Eagle reports that the Butler County Sheriff's Office says the shooting happened around 2pm Sunday at the Augusta High School ceremony. Per KWCH, a man's concealed gun accidentally went off, wounding his foot, and he drove himself to the hospital. A woman also suffered a serious leg injury, either because the bullet ricocheted or because she was hit by shrapnel, and she was transported to a nearby hospital via ambulance.

An Orange County Superior Court jury on Aug. 21 had swiftly found Stanwood Elkus of Lake Elsinore guilty of first-degree murder for making an appointment with Ronald Gilbert using a fake name and shooting the physician 10 times when he walked into the exam room. × 79-Year-Old Retired Barber Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murder of Newport Beach Urologist A 79-year-old retired barber was sentenced Friday to life in prison, plus 10 years, without the possibility of parole for fatally shooting a urologist inside the doctor’s Newport Beach office in 2013. Elkus had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but the jury last month found that he was mentally sound when he plotted to kill the doctor, used a fake name to schedule a medial appointment and then gunned him down in an exam room. At the sentencing, several close friends and family members described in court how they have been affected by the devastating loss. Halfway through family members' statements, Elkus, who has hearing loss, removed the headphones that helped him hear the proceedings.

– A retired barber who murdered a urologist inside his Southern California office in 2013 over a 21-year-old grudge was sentenced Friday to life in prison plus 10 years without the possibility of parole, the Los Angeles Times reports. In 1992, Ronald Gilbert—then a medical resident at the veterans hospital in Long Beach—worked with other doctors to diagnose Stanwood Elkus, who was dealing with frequent urination, with a narrowing of the urethra. Two other doctors at the VA ultimately performed a simple urethra-widening surgery without Gilbert; Elkus firmly believed the surgery was botched and damaged his prostate, the Orange County Register reports, causing incontinence, erectile dysfunction, and diminished sex drive, all of which led his longtime girlfriend to leave him. A DA on the case told jurors that Elkus held a grudge against Gilbert over the incident. More than two decades later, Elkus—who had often seethed about his medical issues in the ensuing years "to anyone who would listen," per the Register—used a fake name to make an appointment with Gilbert on Jan. 28, 2013, at his Newport Beach office, where he entered the exam room and shot him 10 times, killing him. The now-79-year-old pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but jurors found that he was sane and convicted him last month of first-degree murder. Per KTLA, jurors also affirmed a special-circumstance allegation of lying in wait. That, along with a sentencing enhancement allegation of personal use of a gun, added 10 years to his sentence. "The world was robbed of a model citizen … our children were robbed of an amazing father," said Elizabeth Gilbert, Ronald Gilbert's wife, at the sentencing hearing, recalling her husband's death just days before his 53rd birthday.

Male fruit flies that have been rejected by females drink significantly more alcohol than those that have mated freely, scientists say. Inan article in Science, researchers suggest that alcohol stimulates the flies' brains as a "reward" in a similar way to sexual conquest. The work points to a brain chemical called neuropeptide F, which seems to be regulated by the flies' behaviour. Human brains have a similar chemical, which may react in a similar way. The connection between alcohol and this chemical, which in humans is known as neuropeptide Y, has already been noted instudies involving hard-drinking mice. The new work explores the link between such reward-seeking and the study of social interactions, said the lead author of the report Galit Shohat-Ophir, now of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Virginia, US. "It is thought that reward systems evolved to reinforce behaviours that are important for the survival of both individuals and species, like food consumption and mating," Dr Shohat-Ophir told BBC News. "Drugs of abuse kind of hijack the same neural pathways used by natural rewards, so we wanted to use alcohol - which is an extreme example of a compound that can affect the reward system - to get into the mechanism of what makes social interaction rewarding for animals." 'Control system' Working in thelaboratory of Ulrike Heberleinat the University of California, San Francisco, Dr Shohat-Ophir and colleagues subjected a number of flies to a wide variety of fates. In one set of experiments, male flies were put in a box with five virgin females, which were receptive to the males' advances. In another, males were locked up with females that had already mated and which thus roundly rejected the males' attempts at sex. Offered either their normal food slurry or a version charged with 15% alcohol, the mated males avoided the alcohol, whereas the sexually deprived males went on a comparative bender. The team then went on a hunt for a chemical that could tie the two parts of this story together, hitting on neuropeptide F (NPF). Image caption In mammals, the "rewarding" brain chemical is called neuropeptide Y They found that the heavy-drinking rejected males had a lowered level of the chemical, and sated, mated males had an elevated level. "What we think is that these NPF levels are some kind of 'molecular signature' to the experience," Dr Shohat-Ophir explained. To show that the NPF is actually responsible for the change rather than just associated with it, the researchers actively manipulated just how much NPF was in the flies' brains. Those with depressed levels acted like the rejected males, and those with elevated levels behaved like the mated males. "What this leads us to think is that the fly brain - and presumably also other animals' and human brains - have some kind of a system to control their level of internal reward, that once the internal reward level is down-regulated it will be followed by behaviour that will restore it back," Dr Shohat-Ophir said. It is tempting, given that humans share a similar brain chemical, to imagine that NPF drives human behaviour as well. However,in an accompanying article in Science, Troy Zars of the University of Missouri wrote that "anthropomorphising the results from flies is difficult to suppress, but the relevance to human behaviour is obviously not yet established". Nevertheless, he suggested that the work linked "a rewarding social interaction with a lasting change in behaviour". "Identifying the NPF system as critical in this linkage offers exciting prospects for determining the molecular and genetic mechanisms of reward and could potentially influence our understanding of the mechanisms of drugs of abuse."

– Entomology as country song: Researchers say male fruit flies denied sex drown their sorrows in alcohol, reports the BBC. Or more precisely, boy flies who get some action turn up their noses at food dosed with alcohol, while boys who get rejected are far more likely to indulge. Researchers think it's because the booze triggers a "reward" chemical in the brain to compensate for the "reward" they would have gotten through sex. Yes, humans have a similar chemical. How did they find this out? The scientists put some male fruit flies in a box with females who might only be called Rush Limbaugh's favorite descriptor. Things happened. Others went in boxes with females who had already mated and had no interest in doing so again. Then they gave each set of males a choice of normal food or spiked food, and the more-frustrated flies kept the bar open all night. The study appears in Science.

A federal jury on Thursday awarded more than $50 million in damages to neighbors of an industrial hog operation found responsible for intense smells, noise and other disturbances so bad people couldn't enjoy their rural homes. Jurors on Thursday awarded the 10 neighbors of a 15,000-head swine operation a total of $750,000 in compensation, plus $50 million in damages designed to punish the corporation that owns the animals. That operation, Kinlaw Farms, is not the target of the lawsuit; Kinlaw is ultimately beholden to Smithfield Foods, theh company for which they raise hogs. A North Carolina jury on Thursday reached an unanimous verdict against pork producer Murphy-Brown LLC in a landmark case that could pave the way for more nuisance lawsuits against large-scale livestock operations. In the statement, Smithfield vowed to appeal the decision. “We are now preparing for the next, which is scheduled for the end of May.” This case, presenting with the plaintiffs and the specific farm, was chosen by suing attorneys.

– The 10 North Carolina plaintiffs who say a pork farm near their homes is endangering their health by, among other things, spraying hog urine and feces onto nearby fields, have won a big victory. A federal jury has awarded each plaintiff $5 million in punitive damages and $75,000 in compensatory damages, Modern Farmer reports. The more than $50 million in awards is to be paid by Smithfield Foods—the company for which the North Carolina hog operation, Kinlaw Farms, raises the animals. In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs complained of large pits holding hog feces that, in addition to causing horrible smells, attracted buzzards and insects. They say the sprayed feces sometimes even ends up in their homes, the Daily Press reports. Smithfield says it will appeal. The case, the ham giant says in a statement, is "an outrageous attack on animal agriculture" and that this and dozens of similar lawsuits—involving more than 500 neighbors in total—"are a serious threat to a major industry, to North Carolina's entire economy, and to the jobs and livelihoods of tens of thousands of North Carolinians." Modern Farmer points out that even if Smithfield loses its appeal, lawmakers with ties to the hog industry successfully put a limit on the amount of money plaintiffs can receive in this type of lawsuit, so the plaintiffs may ultimately only be able to collect $250,000 in punitive damages. The Wall Street Journal says it's unclear whether the new state law will apply in this case.

Islamic State militants drove into the village of Kocho, about 15 miles southwest of the town of Sinjar, on Friday, following a week-long siege in which the al-Qaeda inspired group demanded that residents convert to Islam or face death, said the reports, which could not be independently verified. One of them told him that 84 Yazidi men were lined up and shot and that more than 300 women were taken away. BAGHDAD Islamic State insurgents "massacred" some 80 members of Iraq's Yazidi minority in a village in the country's north, a Yazidi lawmaker and two Kurdish officials said on Friday. Tens of thousands of Yazidis fled when the Islamic State group earlier this month captured the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, near the Syrian border. The accounts could not be independently confirmed nor the conflicting numbers reconciled, but fears had been growing for the welfare of Yazidis in the village since the Islamic State siege began on Aug. 7. Senior Kurdish official Hoshiyar Zebari, a former Iraqi foreign minister, told Reuters that the militants "arrived in vehicles and they started their killing" Friday afternoon.

– The Yazidis who managed to escape to the mountains seem to be protected from Islamic State militants, but those who stayed in their villages clearly are not. Reports from the village of Kocho in northern Iraq say that extremists executed about 80 Yazidi men yesterday and took away about 300 women and children. "They arrived in vehicles and they started their killing," a Kurdish official tells Reuters. "We believe it's because of their creed: convert or be killed." A resident of a nearby village said the militants had spent the better part of a week trying unsuccessfully to convince the Yazidis in Kocho to convert to their brand of Islam. “The villagers had received local assurances that they were safe,” Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s former foreign minister, tells the Washington Post. “Maybe they killed them in revenge for the setbacks they have suffered from the airstrikes.” The accounts have not been confirmed, though NPR notes that Iraqi officials reported an even larger massacre last week. Elsewhere, the AP reports airstrikes near the giant Mosul Dam in an apparent attempt to wrest control of it back from the militants. It wasn't clear whether US or Iraqi planes were involved.

Bush is set to be moved from intensive care unit after doctors report health improvements. Bush hugs his wife, Barbara, after speaking at the dedication of the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas. The Bushes thanked "their well-wishers for their kindness, and especially their prayers," McGrath said. (Photo: David J. Phillip, AP) HOUSTON — Former first lady Barbara Bush, cleared a day ago to leave the hospital where she has been a patient since midweek this past week, was discharged Monday, her doctors said in a morning press conference. Bush, has been in intensive care with bacterial pneumonia at Houston Methodist Hospital, and she was hospitalized Wednesday with fatigue and coughing that later was diagnosed as viral bronchitis. Because the former president has bounced back so well, his doctors expect that he could leave the hospital as early as Friday, said Dr. Clint Doerr, his pulmonologist or lung specialist. Bush family spokesman Jim McGrath said Sunday that the former president's vital signs were normal and that doctors hoped he could be moved out of intensive care in the next day or so. She said Mrs. Bush has been discharged and that "she is back to her normal self." The Bushes were married Jan. 6, 1945, and have had the longest marriage of any presidential couple in... (Associated Press) FILE - In this Nov. 6, 1997, file photo, former President George H.W. Mynderse said the former president had been sitting up and watching television, describing him as "not your average 92-year-old." The... (Associated Press) FILE - In this Nov. 6, 1997, file photo, former President George H.W. Bush, vice president under Ronald Reagan and president for one term from 1989 to 1993, was put on a ventilator because of his breathing difficulties and at one point had a procedure to clear his bronchial tubes, the doctors said. Before the tube was removed from his throat, the machine was at its lowest setting, essentially natural breathing with the option of additional assistance if necessary.

– A double dose of good news for the elders of the Bush family: Barbara Bush, 91, is out of the hospital, and husband George HW, 92, is about to leave ICU, reports the AP. The former president was admitted to Houston Methodist Hospital on Jan. 14 because of breathing trouble, and he was subsequently treated for pneumonia and moved into ICU. His wife entered the same hospital Wednesday with bronchitis. She's now "back to her normal self," says one of the doctors treating the couple, and her husband is "not your average 92-year-old." He could be discharged this week, per KHOU-TV.

Brandon N. McGlover was arrested on suspicion of five counts of arson to wildland after the Cranston Fire erupted earlier the same day. As of Wednesday night, the fire was 5 percent contained. Photo credit: San Bernardino National Forest The Cranston Fire was reported at around noon off state Route 74 in the forest area between Hemet and Mountain Center, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for residents of Idyllwild, Mountain Center along McGaugh and McCall Park roads and the communities of Pine Cove and Fern Valley. At least 110 homes in southwest Idyllwild have been evacuated, and officials said at least 600 more structures were threatened by the blaze. Authorities have also issued a smoke advisory for the region, advising that winds could bring smoke into various parts of Riverside County, including the Coachella Valley, Banning Pass, the Hemet/San Jacinto Valley, Perris Valley and Anza.

– A fast-moving wildfire—believed to have been sparked by arson—tore through trees, burned five homes, and forced evacuation orders for an entire forest town as California sweltered under a heat wave and battled ferocious fires at both ends of the state. The so-called Cranston Fire, which erupted Wednesday in the San Jacinto Mountains east of Los Angeles, turned into a wall of flame that torched timber and tinder-dry brush. In a matter of hours it grew to 7.5 square miles, threatening an estimated 600 homes and forcing the evacuation of Idyllwild, authorities say. The fire was the largest of at least five that police believe were purposely set Wednesday by a man whose car was reportedly spotted at the starting point of the blaze, the AP reports. Brandon N. McGlover, 32, of Temecula was booked on suspicion of five counts of arson, state fire officials say. Authorities ordered residents to leave Idyllwild and several neighboring communities, home to about 12,000 people. William Blodgett of Idyllwild says he couldn't get home because of the fire and had to wait along with others at a gas station—until the fire hopped a highway and began to move in his direction. "We were all peeling out of there as fast as we could," he tells KNBC. "It was apocalyptic."

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 22, 2017 @lrozen there were a few, but as @KellyannePolls told me on NYT podcast, she declined that job — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 22, 2017 And then more recently Sunday night, New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman reported a similar sentiment from a “longtime Trump adviser”: Trump sent Spicer out to give statement yesterday, a longtime Trump adviser says, but afterwards Trump said "he was terrible." “I’d be careful about using the word ‘lie.’ ‘Lie’ implies much more than just saying something that’s false.

– Dan Rather has been in the news business for longer than most of Donald Trump's aides have been alive and he says the weekend's goings-on were like nothing he has seen before. In a Facebook post, the former CBS anchor slams adviser Kellyanne Conway for the "Orwellian" use of the phrase "alternative facts," press chief Sean Spicer for "bullying and lying" in his first White House appearance, and Trump himself for boasting about the size of inaugural crowds "before the stars of the fallen CIA agents," the Hill reports. "These are not normal times," Rather writes, calling for reporters to ask congressional Republicans about what they plan to do about "lying from the White House." "Facts and the truth are not partisan," he writes. "They are the bedrock of our democracy." In other coverage: Twitchy reports that sources have told reporters at New York magazine and the New York Times that Saturday's press conference may have been a "trap" for Spicer. The sources say Spicer was RNC chief Reince Preibus' choice, not Trump's, and the president described the press secretary's performance Saturday as "terrible." The New York Times reports that many others in the media reacted with alarm to a standoff developing with the Trump administration this quickly. In Sunday's coverage, many outlets described Spicer and Trump's statements as "lies" or "falsehoods," the Times notes. In a single press conference, Spicer managed to kill off the traditional way of reporting on a president, writes Margaret Sullivan at the Washington Post. But "journalists shouldn’t rise to the bait and decide to treat Trump as an enemy," she writes. They should remember that their mission is to hold public officials accountable and "dig in, paying far more attention to actions than to sensational tweets or briefing-room lies—while still being willing to call out falsehoods clearly when they happen." At Politico, Jack Shafer says there is no need for the "extraordinary measures" Rather is calling for if journalists just do their jobs and report the facts. He says journalists should view Trump "as a politician whose behavior is different only in degree, not in kind," noting that the Obama administration was no stranger to media manipulation. David Graham at the Atlantic looks at what he calls the Trump administration's devotion to a "particular variety of pointless falsehood." The Trump administration appears to be going "double-or-nothing" on the campaign gamble that it could get away with easily disprovable mistruths, he writes.

Local operations of Ford Motor Co. to Infosys Ltd., the nation’s second-biggest software maker, remained shut for a second day. Relief efforts were proving to be challenging as some roads have been washed away and telephone networks were down, Home Minister Rajnath Singh told lawmakers on Thursday. The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India termed the situation as “total chaos.” “The city has come to a virtual standstill and is in the grip of fear and panic,” Assocham said in a statement on Thursday, urging the federal government to “immediately” handle this “extreme crisis” with a suitable package. Television images showed residents in almost neck-deep, brown water in many neighborhoods as local fishermen and volunteers helped ferry the elderly, women and children in boats. Additional Flights As many as 34 aircraft, including those of budget carrier SpiceJet Ltd., were stuck at the airport. Meanwhile, on Twitter, social-media users were organizing help through hashtags #ChennaiRainsHelp and #ChennaiRains, with users offering food, medicines and tweeting details of shelters where those affected could take refuge. Facebook Inc. initiated its “safety check” feature, which allows people in disaster zones to mark themselves as safe on the social-media site so friends and family can know their whereabouts.

– India's fourth largest city—along with its approximately 9 million residents—is pretty much completely underwater after a record amount of rainfall in the past month, Bloomberg reports. According to the Wall Street Journal, the runway at Chennai's international airport was under 7 feet of water Thursday, leaving 30 planes and hundreds of passengers stranded. Multiple businesses—including Ford and Hyundai factories—and the city's main railway station have shut down. Meanwhile, Bloomberg adds that water is neck-deep in many neighborhoods, telephone networks are down, roads have been washed away, and many are without power. More than 250 people in Chennai and the surrounding state of Tamil Nadu have been killed in flooding since the start of November, and more than 2,000 people have been evacuated, according to the Journal. Chennai received nearly 48 inches of rain in November, more than three times the normal amount for November, Bloomberg reports. And with most of the city barely above sea level to start with, even minor flooding can be a big problem, according to the Journal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi blamed the fatal flooding on climate change, while others looked toward heavy construction along the city's rivers. The Indian government has allocated $141 million for flood relief. But Bloomberg reports losses to businesses could reach $2.2 billion, with the tourism, automobile, and information technology industries being especially hit hard. One Indian business association calls the situation "total chaos." Rains were expected to continue at least through Friday, the Journal reports.

– Graduating seniors at Reynolds High School in Oregon collected their diplomas this week just two days after a fatal shooting at their school. And one of those seniors happens to be the older brother of 14-year-old victim Emilio Hoffman. In tribute, Joshua Mitchell wore his little brother's soccer jersey over his formal cap and gown—and he turned his back to the audience to raise his arms and flash them the No. 29 on stage, reports the Oregonian. His classmates stood and cheered, and the photographer who captured the emotional, unplanned scene writes about it here.

- Photo by Ron Blome / NBC News Authorities overnight found the body of missing real estate agent Beverly Carter buried in a shallow grave on property in Cabot, and the man arrested in her kidnapping has entered a preliminary innocent plea to a capital murder charge. The Pulaski County sheriff's office questioned Arron Lewis for more than 12 hours after his arrest Monday in the abduction of Carter, who disappeared Thursday after going to show a home in Scott. Early Tuesday morning, investigators found the body of Beverly Carter, 49, at Argos Concrete Company in a rural area about 25 miles northeast of Little Rock and more than 20 miles away from Scott, where she had an appointment to show a house Thursday but hadn't been seen since. "We have reason to believe he's been on the property and is familiar with it," Pulaski County sheriff's office spokesman Lt. Carl Minden said. Lewis admitted kidnapping Carter, the sheriff's office said, but wouldn't say where she was during the lengthy questioning. Shortly after being taken to the jail, investigators got a "major break in the case" that led them to the concrete business in far northern Pulaski County. The Arkansas man who faces capital murder charges in the death of a real estate broker whose body was found early Tuesday in a shallow grave told reporters she was chosen because "she was a woman that worked alone -- a rich broker." "[Lewis] is the only suspect we have in the case and at this point the only person we're going to be looking for," he said. We do not believe at this point he was involved in the commission of this crime.” Pulaski County Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney John Johnson said Lewis appeared Tuesday morning in Pulaski County District Court and entered preliminary innocent pleas to charges of capital murder and kidnapping. Lewis, 33, was being held on $1 million bail in the Pulaski County jail. Johnson said he couldn’t comment about the case itself. When she didn't return home later that night, Carter's husband went to the house and found her sport utility vehicle parked outside with her purse in it and the door to the home open. He did not reveal whether Lewis was the client Carter was planning to meet. Police haven't said how investigators linked Lewis to Carter's disappearance, but Sheriff Doc Holladay said more details will be released at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. "I just want to express my condolences to the Carter family and her friends who have worked so hard to find her and these investigators who were committed to finding her," Holladay told reporters Tuesday morning. Lewis previously worked for the concrete company, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Tuesday. Click here to get the latest Flash player. (By Gavin Lesnick) [View Full-Size] Realtor's body found in shallow grave; Lewis charged with murder Authorities early Tuesday found the body of missing Realtor Beverly Carter in a shallow grave outside Cabot. (By Gavin Lesnick) [View Full-Size] Photo by Pulaski County sheriff's office Arron Lewis Photo by Gavin Lesnick Pulaski County sheriff's deputies work Argos Concrete Co., 12117 Arkansas 5 in Cabot, where Realtor Beverly Carter's body was found buried behind the building Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014.

– A little more light is perhaps being shed on the death of real estate agent Beverly Carter: A suspect in the murder, Arron Lewis, told reporters that Carter was targeted because "she was a woman that worked alone—a rich broker," Fox News reports. But he's not saying he was to blame. He referred to a co-defendant, Fox News notes; meanwhile, the AP reports that Lewis has pleaded not guilty to preliminary kidnapping and capital murder charges—though he reportedly admitted the kidnapping to authorities. Carter's body was found this morning at a concrete company property more than 20 miles from where she went missing; Lewis once worked for the company, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.

Sam Smith, from Muswell Hill, changed his name by deed poll to reflect his love of the food after a night in the pub. Well, this man in the U.K. apparently once ate a bacon double cheeseburger so delicious that he decided to honor it by literally changing his own name to Bacon Double Cheeseburger. “It was largely the most ridiculous thing we could think of. My mum was furious but my dad thinks it’s hilarious. That’s something we’re discussing a lot.

– We get that if your name is Simon Smith, you might long for more exotic nomenclature. But this British bloke admits his recent name change was "the culmination of probably too many drinks in the pub," per the Evening Standard. Smith, now officially known as Mr. Bacon Double Cheeseburger, says he and his pals were chatting about switching up names when his Burger King-inspired moniker was suggested. "It was largely the most ridiculous thing we could think of," says the 33-year-old, whom Time calls a "hero." "My friends were quite supportive of anything that makes me look silly, as good friends are." He filled out the required application, and when the final papers arrived for him to sign, he was—"perhaps unfortunately," the Standard notes—drinking with the same group of friends. They prodded him to seal the deal, for which he now says he has "no regrets." Reaction to his new name has been mixed: He says his mom was "furious," his dad thought it was "hilarious," and his fiancee—well, she'll probably make him change it back before the wedding, per the Standard. He travels a lot for work to the Far East, where he says they don't realize "Bacon" isn't a valid first name, but he concedes people he meets in Europe think it's "pretty weird." And he does keep his original name on his résumé, preferring to "drop that bombshell [only] after the contracts have been signed." He's still prickly about his erstwhile appellation: Cheeseburger took the Standard to task for reporting he was previously known as Sam Smith, tweeting, "You got my name wrong, it was SIMON SMITH. FFS. Sam Smith would be a ridiculous name." Whatever his former name, the man now known as Cheeseburger is reaping at least one perk: Burger joints are offering him free bacon double cheeseburgers if he provides proof of the name change, the BBC reports.

– Congressmembers took turns today swinging at yesterday's New York Times report that al-Qaeda wasn't involved in the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, with Darrell Issa defending his past statements implicating the terror group. "There is a group that was involved that claims an affiliation with al-Qaeda," he said, per Politico. Of the Times' conclusion that the attack was "fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam," Issa countered, saying, "We have seen no evidence that the video was widely seen in Benghazi. People from this administration … have said under oath there was no evidence of any reaction to a video." Democrat Adam Schiff of California stood by Qaeda's involvement, but said the Times report "adds some valuable insights," reports Politico. "It is a complex picture." Said Michigan Republican Mike Rogers, "I find the timing odd. I don’t want to speculate on why (the NYT) might do it." Elsewhere on your Sunday dial, as per Politico: Ted Cruz on his 'whirlwind' first year: "This is a city where it’s all politics all the time. And I’m trying to do my best not to pay attention to the politics, to focus on fixing the problems. I know it’s hard to believe, because no one in this town does that. This is a time for people to step up and do the right thing. And that’s what I’m trying to do." Howard Dean on ObamaCare: "There are going to be problems. The data does show that less healthy people are signing up. Younger people are signing up less frequently than hoped." Critics, however, are guilty of "hyperbole" and "look incredibly partisan," and "the first year is going to be more successful than most people think." GOP commentator Ana Navarro on GOP incumbents vs. the Tea Party: "I think you're going to see them win their primaries because they're taking it seriously, they're campaigning hard, they're raising the money and they're doing what they have to do. They're not about to get Richard Lugared." Joe Lieberman says he would still vote for ObamaCare: "The rollout of ObamaCare has been bad," as was the status quo. "The best thing that could happen now is for both parties to sit down and figure out how to fix the current system."

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday denounced the rape of a woman by five men at a Brooklyn playground, pledging police would work to swiftly apprehend the suspects in “this vicious crime.” Police said on Saturday the men took turns raping the 18-year-old woman at the playground operated by the New York City Parks Department in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn just after 9 p.m. on Thursday. One of the men, who was armed, pointed a gun at them and ordered her father to leave. The woman, 18, was with her father inside the Osborn Playground in Brownsville, near the intersection of Lott Avenue and Osborn Street, when five men approached them, the police said. The men fled the scene when her father returned a short time later with two uniformed police officers, the police said. The woman was taken to Kings County Hospital Center, where she was treated and released, the police said. Police released surveillance video taken in a nearby bodega that they said showed the five suspects before the attack. The video depicts a group of black men in jackets and sweatshirts talking and laughing inside the store. The police have asked for the public’s assistance in identifying and locating the men.

– A group of five men raped a teenager one-at-a-time in a Brooklyn playground on Thursday night after ordering her father to flee at gunpoint, police say. The 18-year-old survivor, unnamed in media reports, was with her dad in Osborn Playground at about 11:15pm when the suspects allegedly came up, the New York Daily News reports. One of the men is said to have drawn a gun in the Brownsville facility and given the father a simple order: "Get the f--- out of here." The father then fled to call 911, and when he came back with two cops, the suspects ran in all directions. The survivor received treatment at Kings County Hospital, but the suspects all escaped. Now police are seeking help by releasing video of five black, male suspects in a nearby bodega before the assault, Reuters reports. They're wearing light jackets, hoodies, and can be seen smiling and laughing, the New York Times notes. Now nearby residents are taking a second look at Osborn Playground, which includes climbing equipment and is normally used by middle-school kids during the day. "I have to keep an eye out," says a 52-year-old who adds that her 16-year-old daughter is no longer allowed in the playground. "To me, I thought this was safe."

The report, written by Environmental Protection Agency scientists, includes findings that are more open-ended than those in a draft version last year, when the agency said fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, isn’t having “widespread, systematic impacts on drinking water.” ... WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that hydraulic fracturing, the oil and gas extraction technique also known as fracking, has contaminated drinking water in some circumstances, according to the final version of a comprehensive study first issued in 2015. WASHINGTON—Fracking can affect drinking water supplies in certain circumstances, the Obama administration said in a long-awaited report issued Tuesday, leaving open the possibility of more widespread impacts that it says can’t be determined with current data. “There are instances where fracking has impacted drinking water resources,” said Thomas Burke, a deputy assistant administrator and science adviser with the EPA, in a phone call with reporters Tuesday morning. “This study took five years to complete, and in that time EPA found nothing to suggest that fracking is a serious risk to groundwater,” wrote Katie Brown, a spokeswoman for the group, in a response to the EPA report. The report, the largest and most comprehensive of its kind to date on the effects of fracking on water supply, comes as President-elect Donald J. Trump has vowed to expand fracking and roll back existing regulations on the process.

– Weeks before it gets an exceptionally fracking-friendly new chief, the Environmental Protection Agency has done a U-turn on the threat the process may pose to drinking water. The final version of a long-awaited report has removed a sentence that says fracking is not having a "widespread, systemic impact" on America's water, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The report now leaves open the possibility that fracking could be having a major impact. "While the number of identified cases of drinking water contamination is small, the scientific evidence is insufficient to support estimates of the frequency of contamination," EPA spokesman Thomas Burke tells the Wall Street Journal. "Scientists involved with finalizing the assessment specifically identified this uncertainty in the report." The report had been in the works since 2010 and industry groups slammed the EPA for reversing course just before President Obama leaves office. Environmental groups, however, praised the agency for delivering a conclusion they said was based on science instead of political considerations. "This report acknowledges what far too many communities across this country know to be true—fracking is a threat to our clean drinking water," Madeleine Foote of the League of Conservation voters tells the New York Times. "Given EPA administrator nominee Scott Pruitt's record of fighting fracking regulations, it will be important during the confirmation process for senators to ask him if he will follow the recommendations of the agency's scientists, or continue to rely on industry spin." (The EPA shut down 17 wells after a strong quake in Oklahoma earlier this year.)

Then a teacher said they needed to get out, and the class ran out the door as she heard two more shots. The killer was identified as 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer, according to a government official who was not authorized to speak publicly and provided the name on condition of anonymity. Sheriff John Hanlin said during a Thursday night briefing at a fire station near the Roseburg campus. I will not give him the credit he probably sought prior to this horrific and cowardly act," he said. (Michael Sullivan/The News-Review via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT (Associated Press) President Barack Obama pauses as he speaks in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2015, about the shooting at the community college in Oregon. "A huge sigh of relief that we were going to be OK." Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said at least two officers acted heroically in the shootout, but it was not clear if the gunman was killed by authorities or whether he took his own life. (Michael Sullivan /The News-Review via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT (Associated Press) Police search students outside Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., Thursday, Oct. 1, 2015, following a deadly shooting at the college. Shortly thereafter, officials confirmed the shooter had been "neutralized," but not before he killed nine people and wounded seven others. The FBI has created a tips line -- 800-225-5324 -- for those with information about the attack.

– The man who opened fire at a community college in Oregon Thursday has been identified, but the local sheriff refuses to say his name. Multiple law enforcement sources have identified the shooter as Chris Harper Mercer, a 26-year-old who lived in Winchester, Ore., a few miles away from Umpqua Community College, the BBC reports. Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin, however, says he will never utter the man's name, the Oregonian reports. "I will not name the shooter," the sheriff told reporters at a Thursday night briefing in Roseburg. "I will not give him credit for this horrific act of cowardice." The sheriff says the shooter is among the nine dead, and although he exchanged fire with deputies, it's not yet clear whether he was killed by police gunfire or took his own life. In other developments: The father of a wounded student tells CNN that the gunman targeted Christians. He says his daughter has told him that after the shooter entered the classroom, students dropped to the ground and he told them to stand up if they were Christian. "They would stand up and he said, 'Good, because you're a Christian, you're going to see God in just about one second,'" the father says. "And then he shot and killed them." Mercer lists "organized religion" as one of his dislikes in a dating site profile where he describes his views as "conservative, republican," reports the Daily Beast. His online presence also includes a Myspace page where he shows support for the IRA, and a blog in which he talks about Roanoke gunman Vester Flanagan. "A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone," he writes. "His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you're in the limelight." Mercer has also been linked to an account on a torrent upload site with the username "Lithium Love," the Guardian reports. His final upload, around three days ago, was a documentary on the Sandy Hook school shooting. A California man who was married to the suspect's aunt tells the Daily Beast that Mercer is biracial, with a black mother and a white father who was "out of the picture" before he was born. He says the mother is from a "very upper middle class" household in Torrance, Calif. The apartment complex where Mercer lived has been surrounded by police tape, the AP reports. A neighbor says Mercer would "sit by himself in the dark in the balcony with this little light." She says he lived with his mother, who was "crying her eyes out" Thursday afternoon. (A visibly angry President Obama called for stronger gun laws in the 15th statement on a mass shooting of his presidency.)

"Whilst conducting an acoustic search this afternoon a RAAF AP-3C Orion aircraft has detected a possible signal in the vicinity of the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield," Angus Houston, head of the Australian agency co-ordinating the search, said in a statement. The mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared more than a month ago, has sparked the most expensive search and rescue operation in aviation history, but concrete information has proven frustratingly illusive. The data would require further analysis overnight but it showed the potential of being from a "man-made source", he said. The black boxes record cockpit data and may provide answers about what happened to the plane, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it vanished on March 8 and flew thousands of kilometres off its Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route. Hide Caption 7 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Operators aboard the Australian ship Ocean Shield move Bluefin-21, the U.S. Navy's autonomous underwater vehicle, into position to search for the jet on April 14, 2014. The first four signals were detected by a U.S. Navy "Towed Pinger Locator" (TPL) aboard Australia's Ocean Shield vessel, while the latest was reported by an aircraft picking up transmissions from a listening device buoy laid near the ship on Wednesday. "That does provide a lot of sensors in the vicinity of the Ocean Shield without having a ship there to produce the background noise," said Australian Navy Commodore Peter Leavy, operational head of the Australian search. Search areas shrinks Up to 12 military aircraft, three civil aircraft and 13 ships were assigned to assist in Friday's search for the Boeing 777-200ER, which was carrying 239 people when it vanished March 8 on a fight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing.

– An aircraft searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane picked up the fifth "ping" detected in recent days, bolstering hopes that searchers are indeed closing in on the plane's location, Reuters reports. The latest signal appears to be from a "man-made source," says the head of the Australian agency coordinating the search, meaning it could be from the airplane's black box recorders; it will be further analyzed overnight. It was picked up thanks to one of the dozens of "sonobuoys" dropped yesterday; they listen underwater and transmit data to aircraft. More reason to hope the plane will be found soon: CNN reports that the signals picked up over the weekend have been analyzed, and authorities say they likely did come from electronic equipment, not marine life, and they seem to be consistent with signals from a flight data recorder. Meanwhile, Malaysian sources have given CNN more details about the search and the plane's final moments. They say: Police played the recording of the final words spoken from the cockpit to air traffic controllers for five Malaysia Airlines pilots who knew the pilot and co-pilot of Flight 370, and those pilots confirmed it was in fact the captain speaking. "There were no third-party voices," one official source says. Sources add that there was no apparent stress, nor anything else unusual, in his voice. The plane vanished from military radar for about 120 nautical miles after crossing back over the Malaysian Peninsula, meaning it likely went as low as 4,000 feet.

Di moito cun pouco When you see a Tweet you love, tap the heart — it lets the person who wrote it know you shared the love.

– On one of the last days of his presidency, President Obama sent out the most popular tweet ever tweeted from the @POTUS account, the AP reports. "Thank you for everything," Obama tweeted following Tuesday's farewell address. "My last ask is the same as my first. I'm asking you to believe—not in my ability to create change, but in yours." The tweet had more than 550,000 retweets by Wednesday afternoon, topping the account's previous most popular tweet about gay marriage becoming legal. The @FLOTUS account also sent out a tweet following Obama's farewell address, per ABC News. "So proud of @POTUS and all that we've accomplished together," Michelle Obama tweeted. "An incredible journey filled with remarkable people. I love you Barack."

– Rapists will soon be in for a nasty surprise from a medieval-looking female condom designed to deliver on-the-spot punishment. The "Rape-axe" device sports jagged hooks that latch onto a man's penis during penetration. South African doctor Sonnet Ehlers, the inventor of the mini-torture chamber, is distributing 30,000 of the condoms during the World Cup. "It hurts," Ehlers said. "He cannot pee and walk when it's on. If he tries to remove it, it will clasp even tighter." South Africa has one of the highest rape rates in the world, and some 16% of the population has HIV, reports the New York Daily News. Rape-axe is inserted like a tampon. Once embedded in a man's penis, it can only be removed safely by a doctor. "It's time to fight back," Ehlers announces on her web site.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered 755 US diplomats to leave the country in retaliation for Congress’ approving new sanctions for Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. “We waited for quite some time that maybe something will change for the better, had such hope that the situation will somehow change, but, judging by everything, if it changes, it will not be soon,” Putin said in an interview on Russian television, according to Interfax news agency. ​Putin made good on a threat he issued on Friday when he said he would ​expel 455 US diplomatic staff in Russia and seize two American properties after the Senate and the House voted overwhelmingly for new sanctions against Moscow. The diplomats have to leave Russia by Sept. 1. He said the ouster of the US diplomatic personnel will put the two former Cold War foes on equal footing. “The personnel of the U.S. diplomatic missions in Russia will be cut by 755 people and will now equal the number of the Russian diplomatic personnel in the United States, 455 people on each side,” Putin said. The Russian president left open the possibility that he could take additional measures against the US. “I am against it as of today,” he said. ​Earlier Sunday, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, appearing on ABC’s “This Week” said retaliation is “long, long overdue” after the Senate “voted so overwhelmingly on a completely weird and unacceptable piece of legislation​. I​t was the last drop.” Asked how Russia would strike back, Rybakov said the Kremlin has a long list of options. “We have a very rich toolbox at our disposal. It would be ridiculous on my part to start speculating on what may or may not happen​,” he said, adding “I can assure you that different options are on the table and consideration is being given to all sorts of things.” Russia has denied it meddled in the election despite the US intelligence community concluding otherwise. The Senate approved the bill by a 98-2 vote last week. The House previously approved the measure by a 419-3 margin. ​It awaits President Trump’s signature, and the White House said he “intends” to sign it.​ Russia has denied meddling in the election despite the US intelligence community concluding otherwise. A number of congressional panels – as well as the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller – are investigating Russian involvement and whether Trump associated colluded. Moscow is also still fuming over former President Obama’s decision in December to oust 35 diplomats and seize two Russian diplomatic compounds in Maryland and Long Island because of the Kremlin’s involvement in the election. Still, Rybakov said he hopes that the US and Russia can find common ground on other issues. “I believe there are several areas where the U.S. and Russia can and should work together cooperatively. Nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, countering terrorism, illicit immigration, trafficking in people, climate change, you name it,” ​he said.

– Russian President Vladimir Putin says the US embassy in Moscow will have to cut staff by 755 under new Russian sanctions, reports the AP. The move comes swiftly after the sanctions were overwhelmingly approved by Congress and the White House announced that President Trump intends to sign the legislation. The measure, which will limit Trump's ability to suspend sanctions, targets Russia for interfering in the 2016 US election and for military aggression in Ukraine and Syria. According to the New York Post, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said moving forward with such sanctions would cause retaliation. “We have a very rich toolbox at our disposal. It would be ridiculous on my part to start speculating on what may or may not happen?,” he said early Sunday on ABC’s This Week. “I can assure you that different options are on the table and consideration is being given to all sorts of things.” An official from the US Embassy in Moscow told the Post that there are currently around 1,100 diplomatic and support staff serving in Russia.

Supreme Court Justice Scalia speaks to Washington Metro Area Corporate Counsel Association at Ritz Carlton Tyson's Corner at their annual luncheon, with Justice Scalia in Washington, DC.

– The death of Antonin Scalia has many wondering whether President Obama will be able to fill his Supreme Court seat. But there's lots more coverage pouring in about the late justice: So what happens if a case ends in a 4-4 tie before a new judge is in place? The lower court ruling stands, and the case ends up being kind of a waste of time for the Supremes, reports the New York Times. Votes cast by Scalia in cases that have been argued but not publicly decided are now void, and SCOTUSBlog says his death will have the biggest effect on a major union dispute. A conservative majority is now unlikely in the case. The Washington Post rounds up 10 of Scalia's most memorable lines. USA Today takes a look at five of his most notable dissents. Dahlia Lithwick at Slate explains why Scalia's "staggeringly original mind" will leave such an important legacy. The liberal site ThinkProgress lays out why the consequences of Scalia's death are "breathtaking." The Wall Street Journal is collecting reaction from the legal world.

The witness who was with Kim and Huang stated that both individuals had taken LSD earlier in the evening, and at some point Huang began to act very strange, becoming aggressive, removing his clothing and he began to destroy the apartment. NEW BRUNSWICK - City patrol officers found Andrew Kim, 23-year-old Rutgers University student, outside a Sicard Street home bleeding profusely from the neck on Saturday morning at about 1:20 a.m. Kim and another witness identified Kevin Huang, 22-year-old city man and Rutgers University student, as the suspect who stabbed Kim inside the Sicard Street residence. Officers quickly located Kevin Huang on the second floor of the Sicard Street home, naked and pacing back and forth. The victim, who has not been charged with a crime, was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and treated for his injuries, police said. A witness left the apartment to get help, and upon returning found the victim trying to flee the apartment and bleeding profusely from the neck. As officers secured Huang's apartment and took him into custody, they observed large quantities of drugs and paraphernalia about the apartment. A subsequent search warrant uncovered approximately 15 pounds of marijuana, approximately 500 bars of Xanax, a significant amount of cocaine, other unidentified pills and crystals, packaging materials consistent with drug distribution and a significant amount of cash. Huang is charged with Attempted Murder, Possession of a Weapon for an Unlawful Purpose, Unlawful Possession of a Weapon, and a series of narcotic-related offenses including possession, distribution and distribution in a school zone. Police said their investigation is continuing, and that anyone with information can contact Detective Drew Weiss at (732) 745-5217.

– Talk about a bad trip: Police say two Rutgers University students dropped acid last night, and one got so aggressive that he stabbed the other in the throat, My Central Jersey reports. According to a witness, Andrew Kim, 23, and Kevin Huang, 22, took LSD inside a residence yesterday evening in New Brunswick, New Jersey. When Huang began acting weird, taking off his clothes and wrecking the apartment, the eyewitness fled—and says he returned to find Kim running out of the apartment with a bloody neck wound. Police arrived at roughly 1:20am this morning, found Kim bleeding badly outside, and Huang inside the residence, pacing around without a stitch on. Kim was taken to hospital, where police say he's in serious condition and should survive the attack, the Star-Ledger reports. Huang, of course, was arrested, and faces a slew of charges including attempted murder, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and several drug-related charges. The latter probably stem from a search warrant police obtained for his apartment, which allegedly contained about 500 bars of Xanax, 15 pounds of marijuana, a large amount of cocaine, crystals, pills, a wad of cash, and packaging that seemed intended for drug distribution.

– In four days, The Interview pulled in $15 million, Sony Pictures says in a press release. That's in the period through Saturday, during which, Sony says, the film was rented or bought two million times online, deadline.com reports. But its success so far isn't something to be proud of, writes David Rogers at Politico. It's all about "a real live person" being assassinated, and that's not funny. "When did assassination become a subject for American humor?" Rogers wonders. "This is a nation that still mourns Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, and Martin Luther King." "If America is to be a moral force, doesn’t it have to look inside itself as to what killing really is?" he asks, questioning how we'd react if, for instance, "North Korea made a comedy about white racists plotting to assassinate Obama." As for the president's own comments on the movie: Obama may make light of the Seth Rogen effort, but killing, Rogers writes, is "a shadow on your soul that you carry forever." He compares the silly film to another recent movie, Clint Eastwood's American Sniper, which tells the story of former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. Kyle was killed last year: Would he find The Interview funny? Rogers asks. Click for the full piece, or read another stance from a critic who calls the film "an insult to satire."

He also wrote to his wife, “my Best Friend, Soul Mate and at last, my Lovely Wife Thank You for your support and putting up with Me.” Authorities investigate the scene of a fatal Amtrak train crash in Cayce, South Carolina on Feb. 4, 2018. It was quite a crash.” Sunday’s crash brought back memories for many people of a disastrous train wreck that occurred in Graniteville 13 years ago, when a freight train ran off a main line and collided with a parked train on a side track. "There were a few people with noticeably bad injuries, but most people didn't seem super injured," Kinney added. (Lexington County Sheriff's Department via AP) (Associated Press) CAYCE, S.C. (AP) — An Amtrak passenger train slammed into a freight train parked on a side track in South Carolina in the early morning darkness Sunday, killing two Amtrak crew members and injuring more than 110 people, authorities said. This is the second fatal Amtrak crash nationally in a week and the third in the last few months. The Silver Star was en route from New York to Miami with nearly 150 people aboard around 2:45 a.m. when it plowed into the CSX train at an estimated 59 mph, Gov. The two people who died were Amtrak workers, McMaster said. Investigators now are trying to determine if the switch was misaligned, causing the passenger train to run off the main line and collide with the parked freight train, according to the S.C. Office of Regulatory Staff. Tim Dominick / The State via AP Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, said that the Amtrak train was diverted from the main track, where it was supposed to have been, onto a side track where the CSX freight train was. Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board will be arriving on site all day, and that includes NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt, a Columbia native. The NTSB sent an investigative team, and Amtrak and CSX said in statements that they were fully cooperating with the safety board. It did not address the cause of the crash but said CSX maintains all the tracks and signal systems where the accident happened and controls access to the sidings and yards. CSX did not immediately return an email and telephone call. We were waiting for a few minutes before they evacuated us." And 116 people were taken to four hospitals, according to the governor. At least three patients were hospitalized in critical or serious condition, with nearly all the rest treated for minor injuries such as cuts, bruises and whiplash, authorities said. “The first engine of the freight train was torn up and the single engine of the Amtrak train was barely recognizable. "It's a horrible thing to see, to understand the force involved," the governor said after touring the scene. Smith said he and his friend saw passengers limping along the tracks, while others tried to get everyone out of the cars. Before being sent on their way, those who were not hurt were taken to a shelter set up at a middle school, and local businesses provided coffee and breakfast. The engineer of the Amtrak train, Michael Kempf, 54, of Savannah, Georgia, and the conductor, Michael Cella, 36, of Orange Park, Florida, were killed, Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher said. And on Dec. 18, an Amtrak train ran off the rails along a curve during its inaugural run on a route south of Tacoma, Washington, killing three people and injuring dozens. The Amtrak train was traveling about 50 mph, within the posted 59 mph speed limit, according to the regulatory staff agency. According to the Federal Railroad Administration, Congress required some railroad mainlines, including those with commuter rail passenger service, to fully implement positive train control by the end of 2015. The statement added that the company “hosts more passenger trains on its network than any other major railroad in the United States, and passenger rail remains one of the safest ways to travel.” The collision was yet another crash highlighting Positive Train Control, a system that among other things is designed to prevent trains from speeding. The worst rail tragedy in recent South Carolina history took place in 2005 when a freight engineer parked a train on a side track near a textile mill in Graniteville and forgot to flip the switch back to the main track. A freight train passing through went barreling down the side track and slammed into the parked train, killing nine people, most of them millworkers choked by chorine gas that leaked from a damaged tanker car.

– The cause of Sunday morning's deadly train crash in South Carolina appears to be the most basic one imaginable: The Amtrak train that plowed into a parked freight train was on the wrong track, say state officials. Now the big question is how that happened. Two people are dead—the conductor and engineer aboard the Amtrak train—and more than 110 people injured, per the latest count from the AP. At least three of the injured were in serious or critical condition, and almost everyone else had relatively minor cuts or bruises. The Amtrak Silver Star from New York to Miami had been traveling about 50mph when it crashed into the empty CSX train, well within the 59mph speed limit for that stretch of tracks in Cayce, South Carolina, reports the State. The best guess at this point is that a switch in the wrong position sent the Amtrak train onto the wrong path. “Part of the preliminary indications are that it would have to be a switching issue,’’ says a state transportation official. "It was no derailment caused by a flaw in the track. The Amtrak was on the wrong track.’’ He adds that CSX owns the track and would be the one responsible for maintaining the switches. Amtrak emphasized that point in its own statement, which also said it was "saddened" at the death of its two employees. NBC News reports that the Amtrak train received verbal permission to use the set of tracks because the CSX signals were offline for maintenance. The crash might have been avoided if the tracks had a safety system known as the Positive Train Control system, which sends warnings to trains ahead of a possible collision. PTC is being phased in around the country, but it's not up and running yet on these tracks.

Law enforcement officers gather near the scene where the body of a woman was found near Interstate 35 north of Laredo, Texas on Saturday, Sept. 15, 2018. He was found just after 1 a.m. at a gas station near San Bernardo Avenue and Jefferson Street but fled on foot when approached by state troopers, according to the affidavit. AP Juan David Ortiz (Photo: Webb County Sheriff's Office) The arrest of a veteran Border Patrol agent as a serial murder suspect in the shooting deaths of four people has rocked the border community of Laredo, Texas. He had been hiding in a hotel parking lot after fleeing from officers and was arrested at 2:30 a.m., according to an affidavit provided to The Washington Post by county prosecutors. (Webb County Sheriff’s Office/AP) “We consider this man to be a serial killer who was preying on one victim after another,” Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar said. Webb County District Attorney Isidro R. “Chilo” Alaniz sought to drive that point home during an impromptu press conference Saturday following the arrest of 35-year-old Juan David Ortiz on multiple counts of murder and other charges. He is being held on $2.5 million bond. More: Updated: Border Patrol agent charged with murder Ortiz, a 10-year veteran of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is being held on four counts of murder, as well as one count each of evading arrest or detention, unlawful restraint – expose to serious bodily injury, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, according to online jail records. Those two individuals were only identified in the affidavit as "Jane Doe" and "John Doe," but both had been shot to death. Alaniz is also overseeing another case involving a Border Patrol agent in Laredo, a man accused of killing his lover and their 1-year-old son. "It's not a big city like San Antonio, Houston, where you see that a lot," she said. Texas Rangers and investigators with the sheriff's department went to Ortiz's home and searched it, but Ortiz was not home. Ortiz, a 10-year-veteran of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, was arrested Sept. 15 for the murder of four women. Ortiz reportedly told investigators that he picked Ramirez up in the area of San Bernardo Avenue on Sept. 3, then drove outside the city limits, according to the affidavit. When they arrived at the location, Ramirez got out of the vehicle to urinate, at which point Ortiz used a handgun to shoot her multiple times in the head before driving away, according to the affidavit. Ramirez was a mother of two young children, the Laredo Morning Times reported. Ten days later, investigators said, Ortiz drove Claudine Ann Luera outside the city a few miles from where he said he killed Ramirez. Ortiz stated that he pulled over after Luera "became nervous" and began accusing Ortiz of being the last person seen with Ramirez. A truck driver later found Luera's body, and she was transported to a local hospital where she died. According to the affidavit, after Pena escaped Ortiz's vehicle at the gas station, he went on to kill two more people that same evening. His arrest capped what had been a 10-day period during which authorities found the bodies of four people who each had been shot to death. They discovered it behind gravel pits, near a single shell casing, the document says. The Laredo, Texas, home of 35-year-old Juan David Ortiz, center. (Photo: AP) A fifth person – a woman named Erika Pena – was nearly kidnapped on Friday but was able to run from Ortiz and flag down a state trooper at a nearby gas station, according to an affidavit provided by the Webb County District Attorney's Office.

– Police say a woman who escaped from an accused serial killer in Laredo, Texas, likely saved lives. Authorities were still piecing together the details of the case of veteran Border Patrol agent Juan David Ortiz, who allegedly killed four people and attempted to kidnap a fifth before his arrest over the weekend. The woman who escaped, a sex worker, told police that Ortiz, 35, picked her up on the street and took her to his home, reports the Corpus Christi Caller Times. She said he began acting "weird" when she kept talking about the recent murder of two other sex workers, one of them a friend. They left his home, and the woman, by now afraid for her life, made a break for it at a gas station, according to the police affidavit. Ortiz allegedly pulled a gun on her in his pickup truck, and she leaped out of the vehicle as he tried to grab her shirt. She then ran to a trooper at the gas station. Police arrested Ortiz hours later, at 2:30am, in a hotel parking lot, but they say he had killed two more women, also sex workers, in the interim, reports the Washington Post. One of the latter victims was transgender. Ortiz reportedly told investigators that he shot his first victim by the side of the road on Sept. 3 after a sexual encounter and the second after she accused him of being the last person to see the first victim alive. "This guy is cold," says Webb County-Zapata County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz. Ortiz is a 10-year veteran of the US Customs and Border Protection, and authorities say he committed the murders while off duty. He is being held on $2.5 million bond. "It's not a big city like San Antonio, Houston, where you see that a lot," says one Laredo resident of the killing spree.

– A group of female protesters detained by Egyptian soldiers say they were beaten, stripped, given electric shocks, and humiliated with so-called "virginity tests" while male soldiers were allowed to watch and take photos, reports AOL News. The women complained to Amnesty International, which found the allegations credible and demanded that the new government investigate. (Amnesty's report is here.) The 18 women were arrested in Tahrir Square not during the protests to oust Hosni Mubarak, but in a rally weeks after he left office. They were told they'd be charged with prostitution if they failed the virginity tests. “Forcing women to have 'virginity tests' is utterly unacceptable," Amnesty says. "Its purpose is to degrade women because they are women." For more, click here.

Krystal, an Atlanta-based fast food restaurant that specializes in sliders, also extended an offer to the royal fast food giant via Facebook : We'd be honored to join y'all (Burger King and Peace One Day) in continuing your day of peace in Atlanta.

– More change at McDonald's: The chain has made a big change to how it cooks items, including McMuffins and biscuits, ditching liquid margarine for real butter, reports CNBC. Sources say the change is happening at restaurants nationwide once they exhaust their supplies of liquid margarine, and signs are being posted saying the chain is "proud to cook breakfast items on the grill with real butter," which should also warn the lactose-intolerant. Meanwhile, McDonald's has rejected Burger King's offer to team up and make a McWhopper for a day, but Denny's has offered to team up for a "Slopper," and slider specialist Krystal says it's up for making a "Kropper," Fortune reports. (A few weeks ago, McDonald's quietly made its burgers beefier.)

According to the Australian Associated Press, the photo was was titled "cat pajama-jam" and was sent within an email titled "meeting," as part of a fake meeting invitation sent by the Department of State to recipients. This article is over 3 months old Officials say ‘training error’ to blame for email featuring cat in pyjamas holding a plate of choc-chip biscuits The US embassy in Canberra has apologised for a “training error” after distributing a fake meeting invitation, complete with a photo of a pyjama-wearing cat. "Sorry to disappoint those of you who were hoping to attend this 'cat pajama-jam' party, but such an event falls well outside our area of expertise," U.S. Mission to Australia public affairs counsellor Gavin Sundwall wrote in a subsequent email two days later. “It was a training error made by one of our new staff testing out our email newsletter platform.” Sundwall said “strong new management controls” would be added to prevent a repeat of the mistake.

– The US hasn't had an ambassador to Australia in place for two years, the longest stretch since WWII—which may explain why things are getting low-key chaotic Down Under at the American embassy. The BBC reports that an apology has been issued after a "training error" resulted in a rather odd email, subject line "meeting," blasted out to an unknown number of people. Included in the now-viral message from the US State Department: a picture of a cat in a Cookie Monster-style outfit, grasping a plate of cookies, and an invitation to attend an upcoming "cat pyjama-jam." (See the image here.) The message also included words in Latin and an RSVP button for the "jam." "It was a training error made by one of our new staff testing out our email newsletter platform," State Dept. rep Gavin Sundwall tells the Aussie AP, acknowledging many will be disappointed by the rescinding of the invite, but that "such an event falls well outside our area of expertise." Sundwall promises "strong new management controls" are being looked at to make sure Cookie Monster Cat and other non-governmental mascots don't go viral via email again, per the Guardian. Mashable adds that the photo was likely taken by Jennifer Stewart of Melbourne; her photos of onesie-clad cats post to the Instagram account @my_furry_babies. (Read about another email goof, this one in Utah.)

Nicky Hayden won the 2006 Moto GP championship in Valencia Former MotoGP champion Nicky Hayden has died aged 35, five days after being involved in a crash while cycling. "The medical team has verified the death of the patient Nicholas Patrick Hayden, who has been undergoing care since last Wednesday May 17 in the intensive care unit of the Bufalini Hospital in Cesena following a very serious polytrauma which occurred the same day," the hospital statement said. A hospital statement issued on Thursday said Hayden had suffered "a serious polytrauma", which is a medical term to describe the condition of a person who has multiple traumatic injuries. Hayden, who was nicknamed the Kentucky Kid, had competed for Red Bull Honda in the World Superbike Championship in Italy on 14 May. His family were such a huge part of who he was.

– The motorcycle racing world is mourning the loss of former world champion Nicky Hayden, who died Monday after sustaining severe injuries during a training collision. Hayden, 35, was struck by a vehicle while bicycling along the Rimini coastline in Italy Wednesday, reports the BBC. Over five days, he was treated in an intensive care unit for multiple traumatic injuries, including cerebral damage. According to ESPN, the 30-year-old driver of the Peugeot that struck Hayden was brought in for questioning and passed a breathalyzer test. "We would like everyone to remember Nicky at his happiest—riding a motorcycle," says brother Tommy Hayden, who is also a professional racer. Hayden was in Italy riding for the Red Bull Honda team at the World Superbike Championship in nearby Imola, where he came in 13th days before the accident occurred. He is best known for winning the coveted 2006 MotoGP world champion title, for which he bested legendary Italian racer Valentino Rossi. Athletes and friends took to Twitter to remember Hayden for his professionalism and friendly demeanor, including British racer Danny Kent, who shared a sweet personal message from Hayden congratulating him on his own world championship in 2015. The city of Owensboro in Kentucky, where Hayden was born, commemorated Hayden—known as the “Kentucky Kid"—by flying its flags at half-staff.

Play Video 0:46 The moment Trump baby blimp lifts off - video Trump’s verbal attack on Khan came after the London mayor refused to block a plan to fly a giant inflatable “Trump baby” near parliament to coincide with the president’s visit to the UK. As a politician I should not be the arbiter of what is good or bad taste.” Khan said there would be far-right and pro-Trump demonstrations taking place on Saturday. Sadiq Khan has hit back at “preposterous” claims by Donald Trump after the US president criticised the London mayor for doing a “a bad job” on terrorism and crime in the capital. I think he has done a very bad job on terrorism. The US ambassador himself commented that one thing [the] USA and the UK have in common is freedom of speech, and the idea of restricting that and [the] right to assemble because someone is offended by something is [a] slippery slope,” he said. And, responding to Mr Trump's criticism of his response to terrorism, Mr Khan said it was "interesting" that he "is not criticising the mayors of other cities" which have also experienced terror attacks.

– London has seen countless strange sights over the centuries—but a blimp depicting President Trump as an angry orange baby rising outside the Houses of Parliament is a new one. The blimp—part of protests against Trump's visit that are planned in dozens of British cities—went up Friday morning, held with lead lines by 16 people calling themselves "babysitters," the AP reports. Tens of thousands of people are expected to march in London against Trump amid the UK's biggest police mobilization since riots in 2011. But the president will be elsewhere: His plans for the day include meetings with Prime Minister Theresa May at Chequers, her country retreat, and tea with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle. Trump's meeting with May is likely to be an awkward one: In an interview published late Thursday, he accused of her wrecking Brexit and praised leadership rival Boris Johnson. Tom Newton Dunn, the journalist who interviewed him, says Trump is "really quite stung by the criticism he's been getting," the BBC reports. "He knew all about the baby blimp. I think it hurt him," Newton Dunn says. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has hit back against claims Trump made in the interview, the Guardian reports. Khan slammed Trump's "preposterous" claims blaming immigration for crime. The mayor, accused by Trump of doing a "bad job," said he had authorized the blimp because he didn't want to restrict freedom of speech.

The nanny charged with stabbing to death two children she cared for on the Upper West Side of Manhattan told detectives that she had resentment toward the family, who she complained were always telling her what to do, a law enforcement official said this week. The nanny, Yoselyn Ortega, 50, was interviewed in her hospital bed on Saturday by detectives at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, the police have said. There’s not a mom who isn’t devastated by this.” “We will always miss Leo and Lulu and think of them everyday,” Sarah Krim said. Ms. Ortega was charged with first-degree murder in the killings.

– The New York City nanny charged with killing two children in her care was fed up with being bossed around, she reportedly told detectives from her hospital bed. "She had resentment towards the parents," because "they were always telling her what to do," says a police official. Earlier reports said Yoselyn Ortega was frustrated with extra housework. She also told detectives that the children's mother, Marina, "knows what happened," the official says, adding that Ortega seemed "spacy." Ortega has not admitted to the killings, but did acknowledge being in the bathroom where they allegedly occurred, the New York Times reports. A memorial for the children last night drew some 300 to Riverside Park in Manhattan, the New York Post adds. Manhattan's borough president and two of the children's aunts took part in a candlelight procession. "We will always miss Leo and Lulu and think of them every day," said an aunt. "Thank you for sharing in our heartache." Added a family friend: "There’s not a mom who isn’t devastated by this."

Canadian researchers have discovered a new kind of organism that's so different from other living things that it doesn't fit into the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, or any other kingdom used to classify known organisms. Two species of the microscopic organisms, called hemimastigotes, were found in dirt collected on a whim during a hike in Nova Scotia by Dalhousie University graduate student Yana Eglit. A genetic analysis shows they're more different from other organisms than animals and fungi (which are in different kingdoms) are from each other, representing a completely new part of the tree of life, Eglit and her colleagues report this week in the journal Nature. "They represent a major branch… that we didn't know we were missing," said Dalhousie biology professor Alastair Simpson, Eglit's supervisor and co-author of the new study. "There's nothing we know that's closely related to them." In fact, he estimates you'd have to go back a billion years — about 500 million years before the first animals arose — before you could find a common ancestor of hemimastigotes and any other known living things. (Submitted by Yana Eglit) The hemimastigotes analyzed by the Dalhousie team were found by Eglit during a spring hike with some other students along the Bluff Wilderness Trail outside Halifax a couple of years ago. When studying the microbes under a microscope, Eglit noticed that the flagella (or tiny hairs) on the organisms appeared to be moving in a random rather than a coordinated fashion – that's unusual, and one of the signs of a rare hemimastigote. The first hemimastigote was identified in the 19th century, but before now scientists haven't been able to do a detailed genetic analysis on these microbes. (Yana Eglit/Nature) Like animals, plants, fungi and amoebas — but unlike bacteria — hemimastigotes have complex cells that have mini-organs called organelles including a nucleus that holds chromosomes of DNA, making them part of the "domain" of organisms called eukaryotes rather than bacteria or archaea. (Michelle Léger) New species Eglit wanted to see if she could find more of the creatures in the dish, and, as she was looking, she spotted another kind of hemimastigote. A second completely new species was then discovered – the scientists named it Hemimastix kukwesjijk, after the Kukwes ogre in the folklore of the local Mi'kmaq people. We have also established the first culture of a hemimastigote (Hemimastix kukwesjijk sp. The researchers were even able to feed and breed captive Hemimastix kukwesjijk microbes, which means we won't have to rely on fortunate woodland hikes to have more opportunities to study them.

– Scoop up some dirt, and what do you get—a whole new branch on the tree of life. We can thank Canadian grad student Yana Eglit, who took a dirt sample while hiking and found two microscopic species that have long proved impossible to classify, the CBC reports. "They represent a major branch ... that we didn't know we were missing," says Alastair Simpson, a professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax. "There's nothing we know that's closely related to them." In analyzing her sample, Eglit spotted two kinds of minuscule organism called hemimastigotes—one of which had never been seen before. Scientists already know of roughly 10 hemimastigote species but haven't been able to classify them. And no hemimastigote had ever undergone genetic analysis before. So Dalhousie researchers sequenced their genes using a new technique that gathers useful data from just a few cells, per Science Alert. The upshot: These organisms are as unlike other living things as fungi and animals are from one another. Technically they're eukaryotes (possessing complex cells, like human beings) and protists (not within the fungi, plant, and animal kingdoms), but don't fit patterns in the Eukaryota domain—so the Dalhousie team assigned them their own "supra-kingdom." They also named the newly discovered hemimastigote Hemimastix kukwesjijk after an ogre from indigenous Canadian lore. After all, the tiny being has hairs and ruthlessly grabs its prey. The local Mi'kmaq people "have an ogre-like creature [named Kukwes] who is also hairy and terrifying and eats other creatures," says Eglit. (Meanwhile, science has solved how to make a great pizza at home.)

Image copyright AFP Image caption Amsterdam Central Station is used by an estimated 250,000 travellers every day An Afghan man accused of injuring two people in a stabbing at Amsterdam's central railway station on Friday had a terrorist motive, officials say. The man, who has been named in Dutch media as Jawed S, was shot and wounded by police during the incident. "We are aware that both victims were US citizens and have been in touch with them and their families," Pete Hoekstra said in a statement on Saturday. German authorities did a search of the suspect's house, where they found and seized data storage items that will be analyzed, police said.

– Two people who were stabbed in Amsterdam's main railway station Friday have been identified as US tourists. The pair, who have not been named, suffered serious but not life-threatening injuries, reports CNN. "We are aware that both victims were US citizens visiting the Netherlands and have been in touch with them or their families," said the US ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra. Police have identified the suspect as a 19-year-old Afghan man and continue to investigate a motive. "All scenarios are taken into consideration, including a terrorist motive," says a police statement, per the BBC. Officers shot and wounded the suspect inside the railway station. He has not been named, but authorities say he is an Afghan citizen who lives in Germany, and Dutch police were working with German authorities to track down his background. Authorities say they don't think he deliberately singled out his victims but struck randomly.

Trump's campaign in recent days has been fueling allegations that the Obama administration paid $400 million in cash ransom to win the release of four Americans as part of the agreement implemented in January to restrict Iran's efforts to develop a nuclear weapon. Republicans and the Trump campaign have said the timing of the payment and use of cash give the appearance that the U.S. was paying ransom. Earlier, an unmarked white cargo plane with $400 million on wooden pallets in Swiss francs was delivered to the country of Iran, and right now, people are saying, “wait, that’s hostage money, right? KOOIMAN: And Donald Trump tweeted this earlier, and he has reason behind it. The point is, $400 million in cash that most likely ended up in terrorist camps used against the west was given in exchange for hostages and the President of the United States lied to the American people, that's the point." At a rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., on Wednesday afternoon, Trump announced that the months-old video had been recorded by the Iranian government and released to embarrass the United States. You know, the paparazzi doesn't do so well over there, right?"

– As the White House continued to deflect accusations from conservatives that a $400 million payment to Iran was ransom for four American detainees released earlier this year, Donald Trump twice this week claimed he had seen video of a "top secret" transaction in which the huge supposed payout was unloaded from a US airplane in Iran, per the Washington Post. At a rally Wednesday in Daytona Beach, Fla., Trump claimed the "military tape" purportedly showing "money pouring off a plane" had been released by Iran to "embarrass" the US. He again voiced the claim about the video during a Thursday rally in Portland, Maine, adding that Iran hoped to personally embarrass an "incompetent" President Obama with the video, the Los Angeles Times and CNN report. His remarks caused a temporary hubbub, as some speculated that perhaps he had seen a classified video during security briefings afforded to presidential nominees. But what Trump had actually seen soon came to light: "b-roll footage," his spokeswoman emailed the Post, that had been playing behind news reports. It showed not a money swap but an AP clip of three US prisoners released by Iran and arriving in Geneva on Jan. 17. That led Trump to point out his own error on Twitter on Friday morning (though CNN notes he did so "without actually saying he was wrong"): "The plane I saw on television was the hostage plane in Geneva, Switzerland, not the plane carrying $400 million in cash going to Iran!" he tweeted.

CBC Radio presents live coverage As CBC Edmonton is the only radio station currently on the air in Fort McMurray, we will continue with live fire coverage throughout the night. Residents by the thousands fled the fire and for hours caused gridlock on Highway 63, even overwhelming oilsands work camps, where beds and meals were offered. They said the fire is burning in several areas in the city's south and said there have been no reports of serious injuries. Emergency officials said whole neighborhoods have been destroyed but did not have an estimate of the number of homes affected. "I can categorically state that everything that was absolutely possible to protect the community was done." By 6:30 p.m., the entire city was under a mandatory evacuation order, making it the largest wildfire evacuation in the province's history, far surpassing the Slave Lake fire that made international headlines five years ago. This photo provided by Tyler Burgett shows flames from a wildfire along Highway 63 in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Tuesday, May 3, 2016. Alberta Premier Rachel Notley called it the biggest evacuation in the history of the province and said officials were doing all they could to ensure everyone's safety. "All Albertans are with the people of Fort McMurray." Brian Jean, the leader of Alberta's opposition party and a resident of the city, said much of downtown Fort McMurray is being destroyed by fire, but the fire chief said there had mostly been spot fires which have been extinguished "My home of the last 10 years and the home I had for 15 years before that are both destroyed," Jean said. A local radio reporter said a trailer park that had been evacuated on Monday was on fire and flames were advancing toward businesses. "When you leave ... it's an overwhelming feeling to think that you'll never see your house again," she said, her voice breaking. Will Gibson, a spokesman for Syncrude, which also has a plant north of the town, was himself one of the evacuees heading north away from the flames. The province was calling in more reinforcements to Fort McMurray, including 100 more firefighters and a giant helicopter that can dump more than 2,000 liters (500 gallons) of water at a time. "So tomorrow is expected to be a more intense burning day than today is," Mayer said.

– The entire population of the Canadian oil sands city of Fort McMurray, Alberta, has been ordered to evacuate from a wildfire that officials say destroyed whole neighborhoods. More than 80,000 residents were ordered to flee as flames continued to make their way into the city Tuesday, the AP reports. Highway 63 is the only road out of the city and flames jumped the road, panicking residents. Emergency officials say whole neighborhoods have been destroyed, but they don't have an estimate of the number of homes affected. There have been no reports of serious injuries. The wildfire, whipped by unpredictable winds on a day of high temperatures, worsened dramatically in a short time and many residents had little notice to flee. "It was absolutely horrifying when we were sitting there in traffic," a woman who drove to an evacuation center with her son and cat says. "You look up and then you watch all the trees candle-topping ... and you're thinking, 'Oh my God. We got out just in time.'" Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says it's the biggest evacuation in the history of the province and said officials are doing all they can to ensure everyone's safety. Oil sands work camps north of the city are being pressed into service to house evacuees. "We've had a devastating day" and the city has been "overrun by wildfire," fire Chief Darby Allen tells the CBC. "It's been the worst day of my career. It's a nasty, ugly fire and it hasn't shown any forgiveness."

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– The stunning cliffside walkway in Spain once known as one of the world's most dangerous is a lot safer now, authorities say—but still no place for the fainthearted. The recently reopened Caminito del Rey trail includes 2 miles of thin boardwalks that hang 300 feet over the Guadalhorce River gorge, reports the New York Daily News. The famous pathway was officially closed in 2000 after four people fell to their deaths, but authorities launched a major renovation project after daredevils continued to traverse the path, even though parts of it were completely gone and they had to get over big gaps, reports National Geographic, which lists it among the world's most thrilling trails. The trail's website says that after the $6 million renovation project, visitors "aren't risking their lives," but the boardwalks and hanging footbridge, "as well as steep walls, make many visitors feel inevitably dizzy," ABC News reports. It will be free to walk the renovated trail, which started out as a path for hydroelectric workers in 1921, the Daily News reports, but hiker numbers will be limited to 600 per day—and they'll be required to don helmets. (For those with a longer hike in mind, officials are making progress on the 1,000-mile Mountains-to-Sea Trail in North Carolina.)

Kondek, a 17-year veteran of the local police department and originally from New York, was shot and killed... (Associated Press) A forensic science investigator with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office investigates the scene where 45-year-old Tarpon Springs police officer Charles Kondek was shot and killed, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2014,... (Associated Press) Flowers are placed on a police car near the scene of the shooting of Officer Charles Kondek in Tarpon Springs, Fla. on Sunday, Dec. 21, 2014. Officer Charles “Charlie” Kondek, 45, was shot around 2 a.m. near Glen’s Eureka Apartments by Marco Antonio Parilla Jr., 23, who was released from prison in March, said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri. Parilla, who was wanted for a probation violation, had been knocking on doors in the apartment complex at 199 Grand Blvd., looking for a person who he believed got him into recent trouble with law enforcement, Gualtieri said. When Parilla, who was wanted on a probation violation, saw Kondek, he allegedly fired seven rounds at the officer from a .40-caliber gun — striking Kondek in the neck just above his bullet-resistant vest. Parilla was arrested on one count of first-degree murder. The Tarpon Springs Police Department identified... (Associated Press) Tarpon Springs Police Department Chief Robert Kochen speaks during a news conference regarding the police shooting in Tarpon Springs, Fla. on Sunday, Dec. 21, 2014. The sheriff said Parilla told investigators that when he saw the officer he "felt like a caged rat" and didn't want to return to prison. As he was led into the Pinellas County Jail Sunday, Parilla said that killing Kondek “was not my intention.” The incident, from the first shot until Parilla was apprehended, took eight to 10 minutes, Gualtieri said. Parilla had lived at the apartment complex and Delk remembered him from that time, she said. An autopsy revealed he died from the gunshot, Gualtieri said. According to the Florida Department of Corrections, Parilla served more than two years in prison for several offenses, including drug charges, and was released in March. If Kondek’s children are in school, the foundation will help with their education, he said. "He served most of his career on the midnight shift, away from his family, allowing citizens to sleep peacefully in their bed because he faced the danger for them."

– A Florida man who allegedly told investigators he killed an officer because he felt like a "caged rat" and didn't want to go back to jail now has little hope of ever leaving prison alive. Authorities say Marco Antonio Parilla Jr., 23, who was wanted on a probation violation, was searching an apartment complex in Tarpon Springs early yesterday morning for the person who reported the violation when Officer Charles Kondek arrived to investigate a noise complaint, NBC reports. Parilla allegedly fired seven shots at the officer, hitting him once above his bulletproof vest, and then ran him over as he fled the scene. He was arrested after crashing his car and now faces first-degree murder charges. Officials in Florida say Parilla got out of prison in March after serving more than two years for various offenses, including drug charges, the AP reports. "His reason for shooting the officer was he 'felt like a caged rat,'" the local sheriff says. "Well, he's going back to prison and he can be a caged rat in prison because that's where he belongs." Kondek, 45, was married with six children and had served five years with the NYPD before joining the Tarpon Springs force 17 years ago. He spent most of his career on the midnight shift, where people he dealt with describe him as pleasant and fair-minded. "I don't always get along with cops, but nobody deserves to die like that," a homeless man who stopped in front of a flower-covered squad car that served as a memorial told the Tampa Tribune.

Now MacFarlane’s branched out from his insular Sunday-night-on-Fox empire and made a movie, Ted, starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis (who does one of the main voices on Family Guy). Mr. MacFarlane is best known as the creator of “Family Guy,” an animated television series that has hung around in the company of “The Simpsons” and “South Park” like an annoying younger cousin, bullying and whining its way into a measure of public acceptance. It’s a wasted effort though. There are jokes that are funny only because a stuffed bear says them, jokes that are not funny even though a stuffed bear says them and jokes that may or may not be funny because of Mark Wahlberg .

– Seth MacFarlane's first feature film is, well, pretty much what you'd expect from the Family Guy guy: a lot of bathroom humor and not a lot of story. So is it worth seeing? That depends on your tastes: "Tolerant amusement is pretty much the best this harmless little picture is able to manage, even though it strives for obnoxious hilarity," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. MacFarlane "has no particular visual knack, little interest in storytelling, and nothing better to do with his naughty bear besides stuff him into a soft, sentimental comedy that seems almost proud of its lack of wit or conviction." The Globe and Mail is more forgiving: "As unabashedly idiotic movie comedies go, Ted goes fairly well," the paper notes. "It’s rude, crude, lewd, and often funny. In other words, it’s a lot like MacFarlane’s animated show transferred to the big screen in a live-action story." At Newsday, Rafer Guzman sees "a very real heart" to the film. "This may sound silly, but the two humans and one bear make a pretty convincing dramatic triangle." Heart? David Haglund firmly disagrees. "There’s a cruel edge to so much of MacFarlane’s comedy—the quintessential MacFarlane joke may be a punch in the face," he writes in Slate.

Jayme Closs (Photo: Barron County Sheriff's Department) BARRON - A 100-person search party and some 800 tips still have not led Barron County authorities to Jayme Closs, a 13-year-old girl missing since her parents were found shot to death in their home early Monday. Motive in parents' death is unclear Deputies are also trying to solve the killings of Jayme's parents, James Closs, 56, and Denise Closs, 46, in the small city of Barron. (CNN) Volunteers and law enforcement combed the side of a highway on Thursday looking for evidence in the disappearance of a missing Wisconsin teenager whose parents were found dead in their home this week. Thursday's search took place about 3 miles from the family's home, according to CNN affiliate WCCO Since authorities received a cryptic 911 call and discovered the bodies of Jayme's parents in their home near the town of Barron early Monday, investigators have received more than 800 tips and have not confirmed any credible sightings of the girl. (Photo: Haley BeMiller/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin) On Thursday afternoon, Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald posted a plea on Facebook for 100 "able-bodied volunteers" to help in the search for evidence related to her disappearance. Stetzer and Badge visited with students and staff reeling from the disappearance of schoolmate Jayme Closs and the shooting deaths of her parents, James and Denise Closs.

– Plenty of people answered the call when Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald asked for 100 able-bodied volunteers to search for "missing and endangered" teen Jayme Closs on Thursday—but the search along a 14-mile stretch of Highway 8 near Barron, Wis., didn't find anything that could provide a breakthrough. The sheriff's office said in a Facebook post that "nothing of evidentiary value" was found, though they have received more than 800 tips, CNN reports. Closs, 13, has been the focus of an intensive search since early Monday, when her parents were found shot to death in their home minutes after a cryptic 911 call was placed. The town of Barron, which has fewer than 3,500 people, has been deeply shaken by the murders and the disappearance, reports the Wausau Daily Herald. Police have said they don't know whether it was a random attack or a targeted one. "We don’t know anything and that’s hard," says Barron resident Cyndi Bragg. She says the community is "stuck in limbo" while the search continues—and she has told her own children to be extremely cautious. Fitzgerald has said he has a "100% expectation that she's alive," though there have been no credible sightings confirmed since her disappearance. The sheriff's office says Jaymee is 5 feet tall and 100 pounds, with strawberry-blond hair and green eyes. (The sheriff believes Jaymee was home when her parents were killed.)

DETROIT A Satanic organization unveiled a controversial bronze Baphomet sculpture in Detroit just before midnight on Saturday, after trying in vain to have it installed near a 10 Commandments monument in Oklahoma. The group’s website defines Satan as “a symbol of man’s inherent nature, representative of the eternal rebel, enlightened inquiry and personal freedom rather than a supernatural deity or being.” The Temple originally applied for the statue to be installed in 2012 near a Ten Commandments monument on the Oklahoma State Capitol grounds. Jex Blackmore, director of the Satanic Temple Detroit chapter, said temple members planned to transport the sculpture to Arkansas, where earlier this year the governor signed a bill authorizing a 10 Commandments monument on the State Capitol's grounds.

– A good day for the devil's disciples? The statue that Satanists wanted to erect outside Oklahoma's Capitol building has found a more welcoming, but apparently temporary, home in Detroit. The 9-foot, 2,000-pound statue of winged, goat-headed idol Baphomet was unveiled just before midnight on Saturday at a private ceremony in a Detroit industrial building, where some of the crowd of hundreds shouted "Hail Satan," reports Reuters. The Satanic Temple had sought to erect the statue in Oklahoma to protest the presence of a Ten Commandments monument and give the state a chance to show it espouses "the basic freedoms spelled out in the Constitution." Detroit has more Satanists than most American cities, according to the Christian Science Monitor, though the director of the local chapter of the Satanic Temple says there's a lot of confusion about what Satanism is, and the group's website defines Satan not as a supernatural being but as "a symbol of man's inherent nature, representative of the eternal rebel." Hundreds of people attended a Catholic mass to protest the statue's presence in the city. It's expected to stay in Detroit while the Satanic Temple tries to get it erected in Arkansas, where another Ten Commandments monument is planned at the statehouse, the AP reports. (Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has rejected a state Supreme Court ruling ordering the removal of the monument.)

A British school girl has amassed a small fortune after building a website to help Chinese parents choose English names for their children. Beau, a pupil at Cheltenham Ladies College, hit on the idea during a family visit to China, when she was asked by friends during a meal out to suggest an English name for their newborn baby. Unfortunately that has led to mixed results, with some Chinese children now blessed with names such as Cinderella, Gandalf and even Rolex. In addition to traditional Chinese names, it is seen as important for Chinese children to be given English names to use for emails, and for future study or business with Britain. Most popular UK baby names of 2015 After choosing their child’s gender, the site invites parents to select five traits to best describe their aspirations for their child and then suggests a shortlist of three names. Each suggestion is printed on a certificate with its meaning and an example of a famous person with that name. This has seen the site take around £16,000 in sales each month which has netted Ms Jessup £48,000 so far.

– A 16-year-old British girl came up with an odd, but apparently very good, idea: Start a website designed to help Chinese parents choose an English name for their babies. Her specialname.cn asks parents to pay a small fee, input their baby's gender, and choose five personality traits, out of a dozen options, they hope their child will have. Teen entrepreneur Beau Jessup has assigned those personality traits to English names, and three are chosen, shared with the family, and printed on a certificate along with their meanings and a famous person who shares the name. Jessup has offered up more than 200,000 names and has made nearly $64,000 from the venture so far, the BBC reports. The website also offers a photo gallery where parents can add pictures of their babies, the Independent reports. She came up with the idea while on a family vacation in China, when she learned that Chinese parents make sure to give their babies English names in case they later study or work in the UK or the US, the Telegraph reports. Jessup was asked to pick an English name for the newborn baby of a family friend while on the trip, and after hearing some "embarrassing" English names that had been given to other Chinese babies, she stepped in and later came up with her website idea. "Being exposed to luxury items and things like Harry Potter, Disney films, and Lord of the Rings means [Chinese parents] use those for reference," she explains. "I once heard of someone called Gandalf and another called Cinderella." Jessup, who is studying Mandarin, is saving the money she earns for college tuition. (Here's why a 61-year-old just became China's second-oldest mom.)

Any student should be proud of a 4.2 GPA —incl. @ DavidHogg111. On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland. For the record, I believe my show was the first to feature David...(1/2) — Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) March 29, 2018 ... immediately after that horrific shooting and even noted how "poised" he was given the tragedy. At least nine advertisers have pulled support from the show since Ingraham mocked Parkland, Fla., school shooting survivor David Hogg for being rejected by colleges. “The decision of an adult to personally criticize a high school student who has lost his classmates in an unspeakable tragedy is not consistent with our values,” the company said.

– Laura Ingraham offered an apology to Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg Thursday—after multiple major advertisers heeded his call to pull their ads from her Fox News show. Hogg, who has become a prominent gun-control advocate since the mass shooting, called for the boycott after Ingraham taunted him for "whining" about being rejected from colleges, the New York Times reports. "On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland," Ingraham tweeted Thursday, inviting the 17-year-old to appear on her show. At least nine advertisers have announced their intention to boycott Ingraham's show, including TripAdvisor, Nestle, Hulu, Wayfair, Nutrish, and Stitch Fix, reports the Hill. "In our view, these statements focused on a high school student cross the line of decency," TripAdvisor said. Hogg rejected Ingraham's apology, noting that it was only issued after advertisers started pulling out. "I will only accept your apology only if you denounce the way your network has treated my friends and I in this fight," he tweeted. "It's time to love thy neighbor, not mudsling at children." The Washington Post notes that the episode shows the Parkland survivors have power "not just in organizing rallies but in spurring corporate America to act."

Try to set up an interview with Brad Pitt, and you instantly plunge into his almost Dada-esque world. A restaurant rendez­vous would devolve into a scrum of gawkers and gapers; his suggestion that we meet at this reporter's office creates such a stir among jaded journalists, it is rapidly nixed; and Pitt's house in the Hollywood Hills is apparently out of bounds, reserved for his partner, Angelina Jolie, and their six kids -- and those inquiring minds eager to know about a decapitated head found nearby only days before. So, The Hollywood Reporter executive editor, features, Steven Galloway found himself feeling like a participant in the witness protection program, ensconced in a 14th-floor-suite at Hollywood's W Hotel Jan. 20, because Pitt’s Cadillac Escalade can make a quick in-and-out to avoid the paparazzi thirsting to behold him.On this particular morning media reports surfaced revealing that police had interviewed his bodyguard about human limbs scattered near the Hollywood sign. Still, he can't help being bemused. “I was watching CNN, and they said, ‘Brad Pitt’s home!’ and, ‘Brad Pitt’s bodyguard!’ ” he laughs in disbelief. "I'm like: 'Why? Why?’ ”The report is nonsense, of course: His security chief happened to pass a policeman who asked if Pitt’s surveillance cameras had recorded anything strange, which led to CNN’s proclamation: “Police interview Brad Pitt’s bodyguard, search Hollywood Hills for more body parts.” PHOTOS: Outtakes from Brad Pitt's THR Cover Shoot Still Pitt remains unfazed. PHOTOS: Brad Pitt's Most Memorable Movies Such is the life of a megawatt star, though Pitt has learned to handle it. Despite a quarter-century as an actor, this Pitt has overshadowed the actor-producer and perhaps factors into his never having won an Oscar, which might change this year thanks to his multiple nominations -- two for acting in and producing Moneyball and probably a third as a producer of Tree of Life (the Academy has yet to determine which producers qualify). (On Jan. 27, the Academy did not give producing credit to Pitt on The Tree of Life for the film's best picture nomination.) Even when we broach the subject of Jodi Kantor's new book The Obamas, which describes Pitt as "awkward" in a meeting with the president ("I probably was -- you don't want to impose on a busy man," he says), he's more interested in Obama than himself, particularly whether the commander in chief has stopped smoking, as Pitt would dearly like to do. While backing Obama, he nonetheless was glued to the Republican debate Jan. 19. "I'm an Obama supporter, no question," he says. “But it doesn’t mean there’s nothing to learn from the other side.” PITT ON RELIGION All his life, Pitt has learned from the other side. That's what led him to make a leap of non-faith when he rejected his Southern Baptist upbringing. "I grew up very religious, and I don't have a great relationship with religion," he reflects. During an afternoon together, Pitt was thoughtful, pensive and discussed everything from his politics (supports President Obama) and religion (he veers between agnosticism and atheism), to his relationship with parter of over six years, Angelina Jolie and their six kids. I stopped grass then — I mean, pretty much — and decided to get off the couch.” GETTING MARRIED: "WE'D LIKE TO" He oscillates, too, on the subject of whether he’ll get married, and it’s clear Pitt has shifted from his promise that this won’t happen until gay marriage is legalized. "We'd actually like to," he says of his seven-year partner, Jolie, "and it seems to mean more and more to our kids. We made this declaration some time ago that we weren't going to do it till everyone can. But I don't think we'll be able to hold out. It means so much to my kids, and they ask a lot. And it means something to me, too, to make that kind of commitment.” Has he asked Jolie to marry him? "I'm not going to go any further," says Pitt. “But to be in love with someone and be raising a family with someone and want to make that commitment and not be able to is ludicrous, just ludicrous.” VIDEO: Q&A with 'Moneyball' actors Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill MAYBE MORE KIDS -- EVEN IF THEY STEAL HIS CANE Having children, he says, has been “the most grounding thing.” Would he have more? Some of the other personal details he shared in THR's cover story: PHOTOS: The Hollywood Reporter Cover Stories WHY SCOTT RUDIN CREDITS HIM AS MONEYBALL'S SAVIOR The project began its long journey five years ago, when Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal showed Pitt Michael Lewis' 2003 nonfiction book about baseball team GM Billy Beane and the statistics wunderkind who helped him transform the Oakland Athletics. At the time, writer Stan Chervin and director David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) were developing it with a decidedly comedic touch. Pitt looked at the screenplay, and at Beane himself, and wanted to go in a different direction: "I read the book, and this idea of second chances and how we sometimes let ourselves be rated too much by others -- we put so much emphasis on a paycheck or what a magazine says -- made me think, 'Oh my God, there's something much bigger here.' " He offered to leave the film with Frankel, but the director graciously departed, allowing Pitt to develop the story as he saw fit. Not a baseball fan (though he says he loves sports, especially football and soccer), it was the nuances of Beane's character that intrigued him. And so, working with producers Michael De Luca and Rachael Horovitz, he brought on Steven Zaillian (Schindler's List) to script and asked his friend Steven Soderbergh (Ocean's Eleven) to direct. "We were supposed to leave on a Sunday to start shooting, and Steven handed it in on a Wednesday or Thursday, and the studio was not feeling good," says Pitt. "It's not that they didn't like the idea; they did not like the price" -- about $60 million. PHOTOS: 'Moneyball' Premiere in Oakland What happened next has been amply recounted: how Pascal pulled the plug; how she gave Soderbergh and Pitt several days to shop the project; how everybody passed. "Nobody wanted to buy disgraced goods," he adds. "It was dead." But Pitt refused to let it die, calling Pascal and urging her to stick with the movie. "There would be no Moneyball without him," says producer Scott Rudin. "He saved it single-handedly, and he deserves the credit for its existing at all." PHOTOS: Behind the Scenes of 'Moneyball' With Brad Pitt DEPRESSION, POT AND HOW HE GOT THROUGH IT While Pitt’s star ascended with 1992’s A River Runs Through It, 1994’s Legends of the Fall and 1995’s Seven, his personal life declined.“I got really sick of myself at the end of the 1990s: I was hiding out from the celebrity thing; I was smoking way too much dope; I was sitting on the couch and just turning into a doughnut; and I really got irritated with myself,” he says. "I got to: 'What's the point? I know better than this.’ ” Pitt wrestled with dark thoughts: “I used to deal with depression, but I don’t now, not this decade — maybe last decade. But that's also figuring out who you are. I see it as a great education, as one of the seasons or a semester: ‘This semester I was majoring in depression.’ I was doing the same thing every night and numbing myself to sleep — the same routine: Couldn’t wait to get home and hide out. But that feeling of unease was growing and one night I just said, ‘This is a waste.’ PHOTOS: 'Moneyball' Premiere in Oakland A trip to Casablanca, Morocco, in the mid-to-late 1990s, “where I saw poverty to an extreme I had never witnessed before, and we talked about inequality and health care, and I saw just what I felt was so unnecessary, that people should have to survive in these circumstances — and the children were inflicted with a lot of deformities, and things that could have been avoided had become their sentence. It stuck with me.” Almost overnight, he decided something had to give. "I just quit. "We haven't closed the book on it. There’s a really nice balance in the house right now, but if we see the need and get that lightning bolt that says, ‘We can help this person; we could do something here,’ then absolutely.” It was while carrying Vivienne — one of his children, many adopted, whose ages range from 3 to 10 — that Pitt fell and hurt his knee, causing him to walk with the cane his friend George Clooney spoofed during the Golden Globes. It wasn't a skiing accident, contrary to reports. "I think George went down the line, making things up," Pitt laughs. "I was just walking in our backyard, on a hill, carrying my daughter, and I slipped -- and it was those parental instincts: me or her. And she’s fine.” The cane is nowhere to be seen today, and he jokes about how his children kept stealing it until he gave them canes of their own. STORY: Pitt as Producer: When the Oscar Nominated Actor Goes Off Camera HIS NEXT BIG PROJECTS World War Z, based on the Max Brooks book about a global zombie war — and the first of a planned franchise — drew him because “I thought it was an interesting experiment. I thought, ‘Can we take this genre movie and use it as a Trojan horse for social-political problems?’ ” Twelve Years a Slave, to be filmed by Shame helmer Steve McQueen, tells the story of “a free black man in the north who is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South. I’m only doing a small cameo, but it stars Michael Fassbender and Chiwetel Ejiofor and there’ve been very few movies about slavery, certainly that had the impact of Roots.” Read the cover story in full here

– Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie seem to spend most of their time telling magazines that no, they're still not married, but in a new interview in the Hollywood Reporter, Pitt sings a slightly different tune. "We’d actually like to" get married, Pitt admits, "and it seems to mean more and more to our kids. We made this declaration some time ago that we weren’t going to do it 'til everyone can. But I don’t think we’ll be able to hold out. It means so much to my kids, and they ask a lot. And it means something to me, too, to make that kind of commitment." He also, of course, addresses the topic of having more children. "We haven’t closed the book on it," he says. "There’s a really nice balance in the house right now, but if we see the need and get that lightning bolt that says, 'We can help this person; we could do something here,' then absolutely." (Recent tabloid reports claim Jolie is pregnant again.) And, as he already did so controversially last year, Pitt once again slammed his life in the 1990s. "I got really sick of myself," he says. "I was hiding out from the celebrity thing; I was smoking way too much dope; I was sitting on the couch and just turning into a doughnut; and I really got irritated with myself." Read the full interview here.

After more than four decades on the airwaves in Atlanta, Neal Boortz this morning announced that he is ending his syndicated talk show on January 21, 2013, replaced by former presidential candidate Herman Cain. He emailed back, and said ‘I’m not an investigative reporter.’ This was Fox News! “We’re going to call this Neal’s happy ending,” he added later with a glint in his eye. “I’m here to support Mr. Cain in whatever he does,” says Temple. He is now heard locally on 95.5FM and AM750 News/Talk WSB from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. weekdays. “Neal is my brother from another mother,” Cain said on air. Cain is known to many as the high point of weirdness in the 2012 GOP presidential primary season. “Herman Cain is becoming the man of the moment, as far as the Tea Party’s concerned,” says Phillips. The libertarian-leaning host has more than 6 million weekly listeners, according to WSB, and is known as the "the high priest of the church of the painful truth." The most impactful was 2005’s “The Fair Tax Book,” which advocates dropping the federal income tax in favor of a national sales tax. And yet here he is, still beloved by the movement that briefly made him a legit threat to Mitt Romney. Here’s Mark Block, Cain’s chief of staff, still Internet-famous for the campaign video that featured him free-associating about Cain’s “campaign like no other” and smoking a cigarette in front of a brick wall. Its flagship show, confusingly enough will be called Cain TV.

– Herman Cain may not be a professional has-been after all. The former pizza entrepreneur, talk show host, and GOP presidential candidate is returning to the airwaves on Atlanta's News-Talk WSB radio, the Los Angeles Times reports. The man with the "9-9-9" tax plan will take over from libertarian-leaning Neal Boortz, who has hosted his own show for 20 years. Cain will grab the reins full-time after inauguration day, January 21, 2013. “I promise the torch Boortz is handing off to me will blaze as bright, as bold, and as loud as ever,” said Cain, calling himself "The Dean of the University of Common Sense." Cain appeared on air with Boortz to toast his announcement with champagne, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. “For all practical purposes, I am done with politics," Cain said. "Essentially, I wanted to continue to express my views and help educate what’s going on in this country.” (If you happen to miss Cain's gospel singing, click here.)

Conan O'Brien during the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 11, 2016. (Charles Krupa/AP) U.S. District Court Judge Janis Sammartino recently refused to toss out an unusual lawsuit accusing late-night host Conan O’Brien and his writing staff of stealing jokes from a professional joke writer’s blog and Twitter feed, claiming some were entitled to “thin copyright protection.” Robert “Alex” Kaseberg, a writer who has penned more than 1,000 jokes for Jay Leno, accused O’Brien of telling five of his jokes in his monologue on “Conan.” Kaseberg said he wrote and posted the jokes online between Dec. 2, 2014, and June 9, 2015. Kaseberg wrote on his blog he was convinced O’Brien’s team was stealing his material after the third time he heard the comedian tell a joke he had recently posted. Intellectual property lawsuits involving comedy are exceedingly rare; it's been "decades and decades" since the last one, says Sprigman, co-author of a 2008 paper, There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy, that explored how comedians protect their jokes against thieves by enforcing their own comedy-community norms, and not through intellectual property law. "Comics rarely sue one another, and to some degree this case illustrates why," says New York University law professor Christopher Sprigman , a leading expert in intellectual property law involving comedy. "The judge (in the O'Brien case) ruled the case could go forward but the ruling makes it difficult" for the plaintiff to prevail. Even so, Kaseberg’s lawyer, Jayson Lorenzo, called the ruling “a victory for comedy writers, especially lesser known writers,” in a statement to the New York Times. The three jokes in question, according to court documents: The Tom Brady joke Kaseberg: “Tom Brady said he wants to give his MVP truck to the man who won the game for the Patriots. It’s a pickle no matter what." And one will have to change from a Cul-De-Sac to a Cul-De-Sackless.” O’Brien: “Some cities that have streets named after Bruce Jenner are trying to change the streets’ names to Caitlyn Jenner. If you live on Bruce Jenner Cul-de-sac it will now be Cul-de-no-sack.” The Washington Monument joke Kaseberg: “The Washington Monument is ten inches shorter than previously thought. Of course, the monument is blaming the shrinkage on the cold weather.” “The only consolation I can take from this horrifying violation is I wrote three jokes that were good enough to be on the monologue on ‘Conan.’ And they all got good laughs,” Kaseberg wrote on his blog in 2015. “Since I cannot watch the show again — it is too painful — and I have lost respect for one of my comedy idols, that consolation will have to be enough.” O’Brien also appeared to be emotionally affected by the situation. “Accusing a comedian of stealing a joke is the worst thing you can accuse them of, in my opinion, short of murder,” O’Brien said during a deposition in the case, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “I think it’s absolutely terrible.” The trial is on pace to take place in August, CBS reported.

– Conan O'Brien might soon find himself in court over allegations that are nightmarish for any comedian: He's accused of stealing jokes. As USA Today reports, a judge has allowed a federal civil suit to go forward in which Robert "Alex" Kaseberg accuses O'Brien and his writers of stealing jokes he posted online in 2014 and 2015. It's possible, perhaps even likely, the case will be settled before it goes to trial, given how tricky intellectual property cases can be. "Accusing a comedian of stealing a joke is the worst thing you can accuse them of, in my opinion, short of murder," said O'Brien himself in a deposition. Kaseberg makes his case in a blog post here. The judge said three jokes in particular are in question. Here they are, via the Washington Post: Kaseberg: "Tom Brady said he wants to give his MVP truck to the man who won the game for the Patriots. So enjoy that truck, Pete Carroll." O’Brien: "Tom Brady said he wants to give the truck that he was given as Super Bowl MVP … to the guy who won the Super Bowl for the Patriots. Which is very nice. I think that’s nice. I do. Yes. So Brady’s giving his truck to Seahawks coach Pete Carroll." Kaseberg: "Three towns, two in Texas, one in Tennessee, have streets named after Bruce Jenner and now they have to consider changing them to Caitlyn. And one will have to change from a Cul-De-Sac to a Cul-De-Sackless." O’Brien: "Some cities that have streets named after Bruce Jenner are trying to change the streets’ names to Caitlyn Jenner. If you live on Bruce Jenner Cul-de-sac it will now be Cul-de-no-sack." Kaseberg: "The Washington Monument is ten inches shorter than previously thought. You know the winter has been cold when a monument suffers from shrinkage." O’Brien: "Yesterday surveyors announced that the Washington Monument is ten inches shorter than what’s been previously recorded. Yeah. Of course, the monument is blaming the shrinkage on the cold weather."

Robin Thicke's Girlfriend April Love Geary Pregnant with Girl Exclusive Details Robin Thicke is about to be a father again, with a girlfriend who is barely able to legally drink. The due date is March 1st, [Robin’s late father] Alan’s birthday!” In addition Geary, 22, shared a photo of her sonogram, which was dated Aug. 14. Robin and Paula are still not divorced, and they have had an on-and-off custody war over their 7-year-old son, Julian. 40-year-old Robin has been dating April for 3 years ... shortly after his wife, Paula Patton, filed for divorce.

– Robin Thicke is expecting his second child, his first baby with girlfriend April Geary. Geary announced the pregnancy with an ultrasound photo on Instagram, noting that the little one is due March 1—the birth date of Thicke's late father, Alan. Thicke, 40, has a 7-year-old son with ex-wife Paula Patton. The singer started dating Geary, 22, soon after his 2014 split with Patton, People reports. According to TMZ, their baby is a girl.

An American official said the soldiers were shot in an apparent insider attack, also known as a " green-on-blue " incident because of the color-coding system used by NATO. Attahullah Khogyani, spokesman for the provincial governor in Nangarhar province, said that two other U.S. soldiers are wounded in the attack, which took place in the Achin district. He said the Afghan soldier was killed after the attack. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement that a Taliban loyalist had infiltrated the Afghan army "just to attack foreign forces." White House spokesman Raj Shah told reporters traveling with the President Donald Trump in New Jersey that Trump was "following the emerging situation in Afghanistan." A statement from the U.S. military said merely that the military was "aware of an incident in eastern Afghanistan." Afghan police killed in another incident In Kabul, meanwhile, the US military command said an unspecified number of Afghan police were killed and wounded in a "friendly fire" incident during a joint Afghan-US operation overnight Saturday. 01:48 US Forces Afghanistan said members of the Afghan Border Police in Helmand province were killed and wounded during an operation involving US and Afghan defense and security forces.

– Three US soldiers were killed Saturday when an Afghan army solider opened fire on them in eastern Afghanistan, US officials tell CNN. One other US soldier was wounded in the attack, which took place in the Achin district. An Afghan official said the Afghan soldier was killed after the attack. The AP reports the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement that a Taliban loyalist had infiltrated the Afghan army "just to attack foreign forces." A statement from the US military said merely that the military was "aware of an incident in eastern Afghanistan." White House spokesperson Raj Shah told reporters traveling with President Trump in New Jersey that Trump was "following the emerging situation in Afghanistan." Such insider attacks have happened before in Afghanistan. In March, another Afghan soldier was killed after he opened fire on foreign forces at a base in Helmand province, wounding three US soldiers.

Three children pushed mock buttons in front of the Whale’s Tail fountain on Parade Plaza on Saturday, as the city electrician activated the sculpture to send streams of water from the sculpture’s fins.

– The people of New London, Connecticut, have been letting city officials know exactly what they think of their very, very expensive whale tail fountain … and it’s not pretty. The city was forced to shut off water flowing out of the public fountain—an 8,000-pound bronze sculpture built as part of an $11 million project—after receiving calls that people had been urinating, defecating, and showering in it; some people reportedly used the water to rinse off blood after cutting themselves, reports the Day of New London. "It's an $11 million bathroom," complains one New London resident. "I'm concerned with the sanitary aspect of the water," says the city councilor, who notes that the offenders are regulars. "Let's call them frequent fliers,'' he says. The city manager says police are developing a plan to better keep an eye on the area, reports the AP. The fountain features a sculpture of a whale's tail with water spilling over it, which visitors were actually encouraged to run through. Click here to see the fountain for yourself.

Apparently, Sanford and Boardman have been “making the scene” too, first at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner last week (where sources say they “needed to get a room”) and more recently at a concert where we’re told Jenny had more than her fair share of adult beverages.

– Jenny Sanford is open to dating again. “I just have to make sure I pick someone who maybe loves me back,” she told Dr. Phil in an interview airing today, reports Politics Daily. “I've chosen to move on, and I've chosen to be happy about it.” But gossip has it that she's already found someone. She's been spotted at least twice now canoodling with new boyfriend Clay Boardman, a businessman, Fitsnews.com reports. The two made quite a show in particular at the White House Correspondents Dinner, where one observer said they “needed a room.” As for the ex-hubby, Jenny told Phil that Mark was now a better father than he'd been pre-divorce, and that she had “no idea” if he was still seeing Maria Belen Chapur. Hint: He is. He's admitted that he'd spent last weekend with Chapur in the Florida Keys.

“We do not need tears or sympathy or even prayers: we desperately need a zone free from bombing over eastern Aleppo to stop the attacks, and international action to ensure Aleppo is never besieged again,” the doctors wrote. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Doctors in Aleppo are calling on the US president to come to the aid of civilians The last doctors in the rebel-held east of the Syrian city of Aleppo have urged US President Barack Obama to come to the aid of the 250,000 civilians there. "Death has seemed increasingly inescapable." Image copyright Reuters Image caption Countless civilians have been killed or injured over the past few weeks in Aleppo The letter, signed by 15 of the doctors remaining in eastern Aleppo, says that five years into the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, doctors have "borne witness as countless patients, friends and colleagues suffered violent, tormented deaths". For five years, the world has stood by and remarked how ‘complicated’ Syria is, while doing little to protect us. Recent offers of evacuation from the regime and Russia have sounded like thinly veiled threats to residents - flee now or face what fate?" A letter signed by 15 physicians warns that if attacks on medical facilities continue at their present rate, there could be none left within a month. Supplies dangerously low The doctors say there is an attack on a medical facility every 17 hours, meaning services in the area could be annihilated within one month if no action is taken soon. What pains us most, as doctors, is choosing who will live and who will die Aleppo doctors "What pains us most, as doctors, is choosing who will live and who will die," said the letter, which was first released with the signatures of 29 doctors, and later revised to 15. "Young children are sometimes brought into our emergency rooms so badly injured that we have to prioritize those with better chances, or simply don't have the equipment to help them." "Two weeks ago, four newborn babies gasping for air suffocated to death after a blast cut the oxygen supply to their incubators. Gasping for air, their lives ended before they had really begun.” They warn Obama that “unless a permanent lifeline to Aleppo is opened, it will be only a matter of time until we are again surrounded by regime troops, hunger takes hold and hospitals’ supplies run completely dry. "We do not need tears" -- Last doctors in Aleppo write letter to Obama pleading for help https://t.co/95zYed2B5N https://t.co/OeUM2XavX8 "We have seen no effort on behalf of the United States to lift the siege or even use its influence to push the parties to protect civilians," said the letter.

– The last 15 doctors in war-ravaged Aleppo in eastern Syria are calling on President Obama to help bring an end to the bombardment of hospitals there, the BBC reports. If no action is taken, the doctors warned, there won’t be any medical facilities left within a month. "We do not need tears or sympathy or even prayers: we desperately need a zone free from bombing over eastern Aleppo to stop the attacks, and international action to ensure Aleppo is never besieged again," the doctors write. A medical facility in the rebel-held enclave is attacked every 17 hours, forcing the diminishing number of doctors to make horrifying choices such as which children will be provided with life-saving resources, they write, per the Guardian. The plea for help came as the Russians said they would suspend their air campaign over Aleppo for three hours each day to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered. The UN, however, said a 48-hour halt is needed, along with safe access to a two-lane road. Fighting in Aleppo has intensified recently as rebels have cut off the government’s main route to the west. "We have seen no effort on behalf of the United States to lift the siege or even use its influence to push the parties to protect civilians," say the doctors, whose full letter is at CNN. A US official tells the network that the White House is working with the UN and Russia on a way to allow in humanitarian aid.

McAfee said Sunday, Dec. 9, 2012, a live-stream... (Associated Press) A lawyer for John McAfee said Tuesday that a judge has ordered the software company founder released from a Guatemalan detention center where he has been fighting being returned to Belize. Judge Judith Secaida ruled that McAfee’s detention was illegal, attorney Telesforo Guerra said, adding that the judge also said McAfee should be given 10 days to straighten out his immigration status. Attorney Telesforo Guerra said the judge notified him verbally of the ruling, but added that it might take a day for formal written notification to win McAfee's release, possibly as soon as Wednesday. Guerra said he expects his client to be released by Thursday or Friday, and believes he will seek to return to the United States immediately. If there’s not any crime, the immigration office has to release him.” He was arrested last week after officials said he’d entered the country illegally, in an attempt to dodge Belize police who named him a “person of interest” in the fatal shooting of his neighbor, American businessman Gregory Faull. Belize police maintain they merely want to question McAfee, who lived near Faull on an exotic island off the coast of Belize. ALSO: John McAfee hospitalized in Guatemala, delaying his deportation McAfee founder surfaces in Guatemala after giving Belize the slip John McAfee denied asylum in Guatemala, could be deported to Belize

– Looks like there may not be a trial in McAfee's future: A judge has ordered John McAfee freed from a Guatemalan detention center, a lawyer for the colorful antivirus tycoon says. The lawyer says that the judge has declared McAfee's detention illegal and given him 10 days to resolve his immigration issues, the AP reports. McAfee has been fighting deportation to Belize, where he is wanted for questioning over the murder of a neighbor. McAfee has said he wants to return to the US with his Belizean girlfriend and "settle down to whatever normal life" he can and his lawyer says that would be his best option. "For me, it's best that McAfee go to the United States, that's definitely the country where he will be safest," the lawyer says. "In Guatemala, he runs the risk that anything could happen to him." A spokesman for police in Belize, however, says he hopes the "good working relationship" his country has with the US will help them close the murder case even if McAfee makes it back to America, the Los Angeles Times reports. Click here for more on the McAfee saga.

The presence of children at home is associated with significant increases in stress, sadness, and worry (6).

– To live comfortably in America's richest city, you'll need $124,561 a year. That's according to a CheatSheet analysis, which defines the wealthiest cities as those with the highest percentage of people making more than $150,000 per year, the Washington Post reports. The analysis also reveals how much you need to make to live comfortably in those cities. The findings are based in part on a 2010 study that says daily "emotional well-being" doesn't climb with income once a household makes at least $75,000; CheatSheet tweaked that figure based on the idea that Phoenix is a fairly "average" city when it comes to income and cost of living. Here are the cities ranked by richness, plus the salaries needed for comfort (which don't necessarily follow the same order): San Francisco: $124,561 San Jose: $115,515 Washington, DC: $108,092 Seattle: $93,634 San Diego: $101,984. Boston: $106,082 Click for the full list.

A U.S. official says the 2018 Veterans... (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — The Defense Department says the Veterans Day military parade ordered up by President Donald Trump won't happen in 2018. Col. “We originally targeted November 10, 2018 for this event but have now agreed to explore opportunities in 2019.” Manning provided no reason for the apparent postponement, which came amid a spate of news reports that the event, which is expected to include aircraft, vehicles, period uniforms and symbols of U.S. power, could cost up to $92 million, far more than originally estimated. The announcement came several hours after The Associated Press reported that the parade would cost about $92 million, according to U.S. officials citing preliminary estimates more than three times the price first suggested by the White House. Some social media users questioned the purpose of the parade at all, and said instead the money should be used to directly help veterans. The parade's cost has become a politically charged issue, particularly after the Pentagon canceled a major military exercise planned for August with South Korea, in the wake of Trump's summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The affected exercise would have cost about $14 million, far less than the parade’s current expected cost. The Pentagon said the military would march from the White House to the Capitol, and the parade would feature a "heavy air component at the end". It also said there would be "wheeled vehicles only, no tanks — consideration must be given to minimize damage to local infrastructure." The city's governing District of Columbia Council was critical of the plan when announced, voicing its displeasure on Twitter. Earlier this year, the White House budget director told Congress that the cost to taxpayers could be $10 million to $30 million. Those estimates were likely based on the cost of previous military parades, such as the one in the nation's capital in 1991 celebrating the end of the first Gulf War, and factored in some additional increase for inflation. The American Legion, a veterans organization, said earlier Thursday that while it appreciated that Trump wanted to show support for U.S. troops, other priorities should win out. Trump decided he wanted a military parade in Washington after he attended France's Bastille Day celebration in the center of Paris last year.

– Cost estimates of up to $80 million over initial predictions appear to have rained on President Trump's parade. Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning says Trump's plan for a military parade in Washington, DC, this fall have been postponed until next year at the earliest, the BBC reports. "The Department of Defense and White House have been planning a parade to honor America’s military veterans and commemorate the centennial of World War I," Manning said Thursday, per the Washington Post. "We originally targeted November 10, 2018, for this event but have now agreed to explore opportunities in 2019." Manning gave no reason for the postponement of the parade, which Trump called for after being impressed by Bastille Day celebrations in France last year. The parade would have been the first of its kind in the US since a Gulf War victory parade in 1991. Critics, however, said it would have been reminiscent of authoritarian regimes and even some veterans' groups spoke out against it, the AP reports. American Legion National Commander Denise Rohan said they appreciate Trump's desire to show support for the troops, but until "we can celebrate victory in the War on Terrorism and bring our military home, we think the parade money would be better spent fully funding the Department of Veteran Affairs and giving our troops and their families the best care possible."

On April 22, Griner and Johnson were arrested in Goodyear, Ariz., after police were called to a residence for a domestic dispute. It’s not correct … Brittney pled guilty … Brittney understands why I pled not guilty, and I understand why she pled guilty … she was even willing to speak to whoever she needed to, to get the point across.” WNBA Johnson, who is 6'4" said police officers told her she was being arrested along with the 6'8" Griner (despite the fact that neither wanted to press charges) due to official policy. There's not anything with male or female in domestic violence laws," he says. "For example, in cases related to intimate partner violence involving same-sex couples, local officers still continue to arrest both parties." In spite of the media storm surrounding her arrest, Johnson said she is enjoying being a newlywed and looking forward to playing against her spouse this season.

– This looks messy: WNBA players Brittney Griner and Glory Johnson seem headed for a breakup just 28 days into their budding marriage, People reports. The move comes right after Johnson announced her pregnancy, and six weeks after the 24-year-olds were arrested and got league suspensions for getting in a fight at home. "Last Wednesday, Glory and I agreed to either legally separate, get divorced, or annul our marriage," Griner says in a statement; she filed papers to annul their marriage on Friday, TMZ reports. Hours later, Johnson posted an Internet meme about "unperfect people refusing to give up on each other," but deleted it soon after and said Griner's move blindsided her. Johnson revealed her pregnancy Thursday in an Instagram photo of a bun going into a cake shaped like an oven, but Griner says the pair agreed to call it quits Wednesday. She also claims to know very little about the pregnancy. On Friday, Johnson posted on Instagram, "One day until I'm reunited with my wife @brittneygriner. . . This is about to be one CRAZY SUMMER!!!" All of this follows a Sports Illustrated interview with Johnson published Tuesday, in which she claims Griner targeted her in their Goodyear, Arizona, domestic dispute. Medical records say Johnson was hit twice "on the back of her head by a hard carrying case," giving Johnson spinal trauma and a concussion, while Griner escaped with minor injuries. Adding to the mix, Griner now says Johnson threatened her into getting married in the first place, but doesn't dish on details, notes TMZ.

Oliver’s book, which he announced over the weekend, is called “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents a Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo.” The story is the same, almost: This Marlon Bundo has fallen for a male bunny. “This is a sweet story about Marlon Bundo falling in love.” Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence let children pet their family rabbit "Marlon Bundo" during and event with military families on May 9, 2017 in Washington, DC. In addition, all proceeds of the Last Week Tonight book go to non-profit organizations the Trevor Project and AIDs United. While Oliver and his team probably hoped that their creation would beat the Pence book in sales, they couldn’t have predicted the book shooting all the way up the Amazon charts, beating out heavy titles like James Comey’s not-yet published A Higher Loyalty.

– One book about Marlon Bundo is the top-seller on Amazon, and it's not the one written by the family that actually owns the pet bunny. NBC News reports A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, John Oliver's parody of children's book Marlon Bundo's Day in the Life of a Vice President, has risen to No. 1 on Amazon. It sold over 180,000 copies after being announced on Last Week Tonight on Sunday, according to Variety. The latter book—which was written and illustrated by Vice President Mike Pence's daughter and wife—was only at No. 11. Oliver released his book, in which the Pence family pet falls in love with a male rabbit, to draw attention to Pence's anti-LGBTQ beliefs and raise money for LGBTQ causes. There doesn't seem to be any hard feelings with the Pence family, as the Hill reports daughter Charlotte was one of the thousands who bought a copy of Oliver's book.

‘Researchers and engineers are studying bed rest as an experimental analog for space flight because extended exposure to a head-down tilt position can duplicate many of the effects of a low-gravity environment.’ Two test subjects participate in the bed rest research project (Picture: Nasa) Successful candidates will stay in a tilted bed 24 hours a day as part of the 70-day project, where they can play computer games, surf the internet or watch TV. The couch potatoes will get paid around £3,000 a month as part of the US space agency’s research into the effects of microgravity on the human body. Share this article with Google Plus Guitar hero: Nasa volunteers will spend 70 days in bed (Picture: NASA) Does staying in bed sound like your dream job?

– Best job ever? NASA wants test subjects to spend 15 weeks in bed and get paid about $5,000 a month for doing it, the Metro reports. Sounds like a dream job (literally), until you realize that you'd be prohibited from sitting or standing up, the Houston Chronicle notes. In the meantime, you'll be a subject for seven different research projects. And even though you'll be lying down, you'll still have to be active, doing exercises in bed in the Galveston center. You can't be exposed to much sunlight, either; you'll get a vitamin instead. Subjects "experience the same physical changes that astronauts go through on long missions," says a researcher. The project investigates "the musculoskeletal and psychological effects of long-term confinement to a reduced gravity environment," NASA says, per Gizmodo UK. Subjects are encouraged to work on something in the meantime, whether it's a personal project or Internet-based work. At the end, there's a two-week rehab session. (In other NASA-themed news, this NASA photo has been making waves.)

– Thursday's Brexit vote is over and done, and John Oliver, who last week tried to give America (and his fellow Brits) an education on why Brexit would be a "huge destabilizing decision," took to Last Week Tonight on Sunday to discuss Britain's defection—and his reaction was neither patient nor SFW, the Week reports. Oliver first blasted the United Kingdom's name ("after this week's events, [the name] is beginning to sound a bit sarcastic"), then took to task some prominent "Leave" pioneers' remarks that June 23 should now be known as Britain's "independence day." "The sequel to the movie they're quoting actually opened this week and features the wholesale destruction of London, which is beginning to feel pretty f---ing appropriate right now," Oliver noted. He added that the resignation of PM David Cameron "should make me happy, but … it's like catching an ice cream cone out of the air because a child was hit by a car." But it was British citizens who hadn't done their homework and were experiencing "Regrexit" that he reserved the most ire for—and who should serve as an example for the US. "You might think, well, that is not going to happen to us in America—we're not going to listen to some ridiculously haired buffoon peddling lies and nativism in the hopes of riding a protest vote into power," he said. "Well, let Britain tell you, it can happen, and when it does, there are no f---ing do-overs." (Other strong Brexit reactions here.)

With more and more cities across the U.S. banning the use of plastic straws and numerous companies following suit, demand is skyrocketing for Aardvark, the only maker of paper straws in the U.S. To better keep up, the Fort Wayne, Indiana-based company announced Monday that it has been acquired by Hoffmaster Group, a Wisconsin-based firm that makes premium disposable paper napkins and other tableware. However, it is intended to provide the paper straw maker with adequate resources to fill orders, which can currently take several months depending on the size of the order. Hoffmaster has a 6- to 9-month plan for expansion and ramping up Aardvark's production, according to Sammi Coppedge with Dittoe Public Relations, representing the paper straw company. But at least one thing will stay the same—the composition of the straw itself, which Aardvark claims is distinct from the cheap imports that get soggy and disintegrate. Connect with IndyStar’s environmental reporters, join The Scrub on Facebook.

– The sole US producer of paper straws has been bought up in the latest sign that plastic straws are becoming a thing of the past. In a deal announced Monday, disposable tableware manufacturer Hoffmaster Group will acquire Indiana-based Aardvark Straws, whose degradable and compostable paper straws have been in high demand and short supply, reports the Indianapolis Star. Indeed, the company founded in 2007 saw 5,000% year-over-year growth last year with straws it claims don't get soggy the way cheap imports do, per Fortune. Hoffmaster plans to "aggressively ramp up Aardvark's manufacturing capacity to meet the rapidly accelerating demand for paper straws." Financial terms remain under wraps.

(CNN) Scores of people were killed Thursday night when a large truck plowed through a Bastille Day crowd in Nice, France, in what President Francois Hollande called a terror attack. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, asked if he could confirm the attacker’s motives were linked to jihadism, said: “No. The driver first shot a gun into the crowd before driving two kilometers along the Promenade des Anglais, the main street in Nice, mowing down people who had gathered to watch fireworks, regional President Christian Estrosi told CNN affiliate BFM-TV. “France is filled with sadness by this new tragedy,” Hollande said in a dawn address that called it an act of terrorism. “We will further strengthen our actions in Syria and Iraq,” Hollande said, calling the tragedy - on the day France marks the 1789 revolutionary storming of the Bastille prison in Paris - an attack on liberty by fanatics who despised human rights. Hollande recommended that an existing state of emergency, put in place in the wake of the Paris attacks in November 2015 and due to expire later this month, be extended for three further months. It was not immediately clear who would have been behind an attack, but France has recently seen a spate of dramatic assaults from by jihadist groups, including the Islamic State group which straddles Iraq and Syria. The Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation for "murder, attempted murder in an organized group linked to a terrorist enterprise." U.S. President Barack Obama issued a statement saying, "We stand in solidarity and partnership with France, our oldest ally, as they respond to and recover from this attack." Here are the latest developments: • Hospitals in the city have launched an urgent appeal for blood donors. ... We have an individual who was not known to intelligence services for activities linked to jihadism.” A U.S. official familiar with Washington’s assessment said the attack was thought to have been carried out by a “lone wolf” inspired but not directed by Islamic State. "People were flooding the streets, just walking away from the show, and I heard a lot of loud noises and people were screaming and so to the west, a big moving truck was driving on the promenade, just barreling over people and hitting -- running people over." Molina said her teenage son witnessed the carnage. • Paul Delane, an American, described the chaos. Well, my partner took my hand immediately and we started running with everybody and honestly in my head I had no idea what was going on and the music was so loud and I didn't really see a truck, but just people running and screaming and crying and people carrying their children, and it was just very frightening." The Consulate said it was working with authorities to determine whether any U.S. citizens were injured. “Why would my brother do something like this?” he told Reuters, adding: “We’ve been calling him since yesterday evening but he’s not responding.” Investigators continue to work at the scene near the heavy truck that ran into a crowd at high speed killing scores who were celebrating the Bastille Day July 14 national holiday on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, July 15, 2016. Hide Caption 1 of 25 Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice A woman cries, asking for her son, as she walks near the scene of the attack. NICE, France (Reuters) - French authorities were trying to determine on Friday whether a Tunisian who killed at least 84 people by plowing a truck into Bastille Day crowds had acted alone or with accomplices, but said the attack bore the hallmarks of Islamist militants. In this video grab taken Thursday July 14, 2016, a policeman chase people out of the cordoned-off area after a truck drove on to the sidewalk and plowed through a crowd of revelers who’d gathered to watch... (Associated Press) NICE, France (AP) — A truck loaded with weapons and hand grenades drove onto a sidewalk for more than a mile, plowing through Bastille Day revelers who'd gathered to watch fireworks in the French resort city of Nice late Thursday. Hide Caption 15 of 25 Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice Medical workers attend to an injured woman. He said so far there is no evidence Bouhlel had any association with any religious group or faction but that there was evidence he was estranged from his family and going through some kind of divorce. On Sunday, a weary nation had breathed a sigh of relief that the month-long Euro 2016 soccer tournament had ended without serious incident. Recent weeks have also seen major attacks in Bangladesh, Turkey and Iraq. • An American witness at the scene said the driver of the truck was mowing bodies over, and that he appeared to accelerate as he hit those bodies. Wassim Bouhlel, a Nice native who spoke to the AP nearby, said that he saw a truck drive into the crowd. I got extremely frightened and ran away from the promenade," she said. In televised remarks he later said the United States would stand with France and keep up the fight against Islamic State: “We will not be deterred.

– Authorities say at least 77 people are dead and dozens more injured after a truck plowed into a Bastille Day celebration Thursday in Nice, France. Reuters reports the crowd was leaving holiday festivities at the Promenade des Anglais seaside walk when the truck hit it. The truck drove for more than a mile through the crowd, according to CNN. A witness tells the Guardian the truck was going between 25mph and 30mph. “I was walking for nearly a mile, and there were dead bodies all over the place,” a journalist at the scene says. “We saw people hit and bits of debris flying around,” another reporter says. “It was absolute chaos." The Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation for "murder, attempted murder in an organized group linked to a terrorist enterprise," reports AP. There are reports the driver of the truck, who was believed to be the only person inside, fired on the crowd. The driver was shot and killed by police, and authorities say they found weapons, including guns and grenades, inside the truck. Authorities are asking people to stay inside their homes. CBS News reports French anti-terror police are now investigating the attack. President Obama condemned what "appears to be a horrific terrorist attack," adding, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and other loved ones of those killed."

The 1991 “Beauty” always felt like minor Disney to me, a step down for the “Little Mermaid” team Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. And as the Beast, Dan Stevens is a virtual invisible man, remaining hidden beneath a part wolf, part water buffalo false face. I’m not suggesting they should have had more screen time to develop their characters. In their snowball fight, he actually goes through with lobbing a gigantic one at her, knocking her to the ground. The film stars: Emma Watson as Belle; Dan Stevens as the Beast; Luke Evans as Gaston, the handsome, but shallow villager who woos Belle; Oscar® winner Kevin Kline as Maurice, Belle’s eccentric, but lovable father; Josh Gad as Lefou, Gaston’s long-suffering aide-de-camp; Golden Globe® nominee Ewan McGregor as Lumiere, the candelabra; Oscar nominee Stanley Tucci as Maestro Cadenza, the harpsichord; Oscar nominee Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, the mantel clock; and two-time Academy Award® winner Emma Thompson as the teapot, Mrs. Potts. A pompous narcissist, he’s seemingly clueless about why his oh-so-warm helper, Le Fou (Josh Gad), wants to go from being Gaston’s faithful sidekick to his best friend forever and ever. Those who always desired a little more depth from “Beauty and the Beast” will be happy, too: There’s something there that wasn’t there before.

– Disney's original Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. In other words, its live-action remake starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens has a tough act to follow. According to critics, it's good—but doesn't quite measure up to the original. The general reaction: "If you thought it was a bad idea to mess with a classic, Beauty and the Beast will persuade you that a tale as old as time is worth retelling," writes Calvin Wilson at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. While it's "not quite as good as its predecessor," it's still "a vastly entertaining film that combines old-school charm with technological wizardry," he adds, giving props to both Watson and Stevens. Colin Covert agrees this retelling is "less magical" than the 1991 original, "an underperforming example of more being considerably less," he writes at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. But he also finds much to enjoy, from "the subplot of egotistical Gaston" to the impressive detail in the computer imagery. In short, "it is a visually sumptuous, highly watchable extravaganza." Sara Stewart actually thinks this new version is better than the original, partly because the Beast is "more engaging." But the film as a whole "has something for everyone," she writes at the New York Post. "If you want your old favorite dressed in sumptuous new clothes, that's what you'll get. Those who always desired a little more depth from Beauty and the Beast will be happy, too." One who was not happy: Joe Morgenstern. He argues the film "betrays the essence of what made the 1991 animated feature a beloved classic" through "a succession of disjunctures, missed moments and dubious deviations from the earlier script." It feels "crazily cluttered" and Watson's Belle is bland to boot, he writes at the Wall Street Journal. He does, however, praise the "huge jolts of visual energy." The film features Disney's first "exclusively gay moment," even if the reference is subtle.

– Are you a glass-half-full or a glass-half-empty type? Because that will have a lot to do with how you read the American Community Survey, a compilation of 2011 Census data and unofficial figures from the first quarter of 2012 giving us a glimpse at the US economy. With that much data you're bound to find both positive and negative signs. For instance: Half empty: Poverty increased for the fourth consecutive year, NPR observes. Half full: But it rose at a slower rate than it has in any of the previous three reports. "There's at least a hint that we've hit bottom in this post-recession malaise," one demographer says, because "we're going down at a slower pace." Half empty: The national median income fell 1.3%, and it fell a lot more than that in states that saw big hits in home values, the Wall Street Journal reports. Half full: "These are also the states that boomed the most, so we're talking about a higher peak to fall from," one economist says. Half empty: Homeownership is down for a fifth straight year to 64.6%, the AP reports. Half full: But Americans are on the move again, with about 12% moving, up from a record low of 11.6%, which is generally a positive sign. Even better: More young adults are moving out of their parents' homes. Half full: More good news for young adults: Many are benefiting from ObamaCare's provision allowing them to stay on their parents' health insurance. That provision alone sent the number of insured up 3.5%. Half empty: This one has nothing to do with the Census, but with two half-fulls in a row we thought you might be getting cocky. A new European Union survey that gauges business activity came in drastically lower than expected, pointing to a possible deepening of the economic recession there, the AP reports.

ROME — Rudy Guede, the only person serving time for the 2007 Perugia murder of British Erasmus student Meredith Kercher, has spoken publicly outside a court of law for the first time, giving his version of the story. Judges in a Florence court gathered to decide whether US Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito are guilty of the 2007 murder of British exchange student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, 2014 8/14 Kercher's sister, Stephanie Kercher and brother Lyle Kercher Kercher's sister, Stephanie Kercher (L) and brother Lyle Kercher speak during a press conference in Florence, 2014 9/14 Appeals Court Judge Alessandro Nencini reads out the verdict Appeals Court Judge Alessandro Nencini (C) reads out the verdict for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Florence, 2014 10/14 Layers of Raffaele Sollecito Luca Maori, Giulia Bongiorno and Amanda Knox's lawyer Carlo Della Vedova (L-R) Layers of Raffaele Sollecito Luca Maori, Giulia Bongiorno and Amanda Knox's lawyer Carlo Della Vedova attend the final verdict of the Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito retrial at the Courthouse of Florence of Nuovo Palazzo di Giustizia in Florence, 2014 11/14 Amanda Knox on NBC News' 'Today' show Amanda Knox speaks to Matt Lauer (L) as she appears on NBC News' 'Today' show in New York, 2013 12/14 Amanda Knox at a news conference at Sea-Tac International Airport Amanda Knox cries and gestures to friends while her mother Edda Mellas sits next to her during a news conference at Sea-Tac International Airport, Washington after Knox landed there on a flight from Italy, 2011 13/14 Amanda Knox leaves the court Amanda Knox breaking in tears as she leaves the court after the announce of the verdict of her appeal trial in the Meredith Kercher' murder at Perugia's court, 2011 14/14 Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito stand outside the rented house where 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher was found dead in Perugia, 2007 He said: "When I was found in the house of the crime I fled because I was afraid. Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaelle Sollecito (not pictured) were finally acquitted in March 2015 Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito were initially also convicted of Mr Kercher’s murder in 2009 before being acquitted two years later. Guede described in blushing detail how he had met Kercher a few months before her murder and how, on Halloween, the two shared a kiss on the dance floor of a local nightclub, saying it “isn’t that difficult to get a kiss on the dance floor in a college scene.” He brushed off reports that Kercher’s friends denied such a kiss with what amounted to a wink and a nod, and talked about how dark a nightclub really is. “I saw the silhouette of a man in front of her door.” He said the man and Knox ran off after they realized there was someone else in the apartment. Earlier on Meredith complained about her stealing money, so I didn’t worry too much, and remained in the bathroom.” The interviewer asked Guede to confirm that he believed Knox was in the apartment. The man convicted of murdering the British student Meredith Kercher in Italy has said she was trying to tell him something in the moments before she died and that he is "101 per cent convinced" Amanda Knox was there. “I am 101 percent certain Amanda Knox was there,” he said, before describing how the unnamed man warned Knox that they had “been discovered” and ran out of the building, but not before saying, “black man found, guilty found.” Guede said he knew Knox from flirting with her at the bar where she worked, and he described in detail how they found a connection when he told her he also had a friend from Seattle. He admitted to going into Kercher’s room after Knox and the unnamed man left with fluffy towels to try to stop the flow of blood from the stab wounds to Kercher’s neck. Her bra—which was covered with blood splatters, implying she was wearing it when she was stabbed—had been cut from her body and lay in shreds on the floor. Guede also said that when he ran out of the house, he left Kercher’s bedroom door open, which, of course, is not how it was found. The morning after the murder, Knox and Sollecito were alone in the house and say Kercher’s door was locked from the inside and had to be broken down.

– Rudy Guede, the man currently serving a 16-year sentence for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher in Italy, gave his first television interview on Thursday, NBC News reports. In the interview with an Italian news program, he asserts he's "101%" sure Amanda Knox was in the apartment when Kercher was murdered and says that Kercher tried to give him a message in her final moments of life, according to the Independent. The Daily Beast reports Guede says he was making out with Kercher at her apartment when he went into the bathroom for "10 or 11 minutes" because of a spicy kebab he had eaten earlier. While in the bathroom, he says he heard Knox, Kercher's roommate, enter the apartment and start arguing with Kercher, according to NBC. Then he heard a scream. Guede says he left the bathroom to see Knox and a man he didn't identify fleeing the apartment, NBC reports. According to the Independent, Guede says the bedroom had been "staged" to look like a burglary, and Kercher was bleeding heavily from a stab wound in her neck. He says he grabbed some towels to stop the bleeding. "She was trying to tell me something," he says. "I wrote in blood on the wall to understand." Guede was convicted after his DNA was found on Kercher's body and his footprints in her blood, NBC reports. According to the Independent, police believe Kercher was killed by Guede, Knox, and Knox's boyfriend Rafaelle Sollecito during a "sex game." Knox and Sollecito were exonerated in March after being tried four times, NBC reports. According to the Daily Beast, Guede will likely be eligible for parole in 2018.

Port Arthur Mayor Derrick Freeman said on his Facebook page that the "city is underwater right now but we are coming!" Greg Abbott -- who spoke by phone Wednesday with the president while the commander in chief was on board Air Force One, returning from Missouri -- said most of the deaths were due to people driving vehicles into high water. The city has asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for more supplies, including cots and food, for an additional 10,000 people, said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who hoped to get the supplies no later than Wednesday. "Catastrophic and life-threatening flooding continues in southeastern Texas and portions of southwestern Louisiana," the service said in an advisory this morning. A much-weakened Tropical Storm Harvey steered into new territory, coming ashore again early Wednesday just west of Cameron, Louisiana, with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (72 kph), the National Hurricane Center said. • Houston officials had at first limited the city’s main shelter, the George R. Brown Convention Center, to 5,000 evacuees, but by Tuesday morning it had swelled to more than 9,000, with more arriving by the hour, Mayor Sylvester Turner said. The previous record was 48 inches in Medina, Tex., from Tropical Storm Amelia in 1978, and with the rain still falling along the Gulf Coast, Harvey could top the 52 inches recorded in Kauai, Hawaii in 1950 from Hurricane Hiki. To wit, the recent caveat-free promise Pence made to Houston station KTRH: "I think what you're going to see is the national government — and we anticipate the Congress — are going to make the resources available to see Texas through the rescue operation, through the recovery."

– Harvey has made landfall again, this time as a tropical storm near the Louisiana-Texas border on the day after the 12th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. ABC News reports the storm came ashore just west of Cameron, La., around 5am ET, with CNN noting that winds of roughly 40mph and a storm surge of 2 to 4 feet are expected. NOAA's public advisory now predicts another 3 to 6 inches of rain in southwestern Louisiana, the eastern Texas border area, and western Kentucky through Friday, with some areas getting as many as 10 inches. But as one National Hurricane Center meteorologist puts it, it's not the end, but the "end of the beginning": Per NOAA, "While the threat of heavy rains has ended in the Houston/Galveston area, catastrophic and life-threatening flooding will continue in and around Houston eastward into southwest Louisiana for the rest of the week." More: The AP describes things as "dire" in Port Arthur, Texas, near the Louisiana border, on Wednesday morning, as rising floodwaters inundated homes. Port Arthur Mayor Derrick Freeman said on his Facebook page that the "city is underwater right now but we are coming!" The AP also suggests some potential relief, at least from the rain, for Houston, with expected rainfall for Wednesday at less than an inch. People reports on one of Harvey's victims: a 41-year-old mother from Beaumont, Texas, who police say "absolutely" saved the life of her 3-year-old daughter; the child was found floating in a canal with her mother after the two became stuck while driving. "The baby also had a backpack that was helping her float on her back and she was holding on to her mom," says an officer. Add this to Harvey's toll: two ExxonMobil refineries, which sustained storm-related damage that facilitated the release of pollutants. The Washington Post has the details on the damage at the Baytown oil refinery, America's second-biggest, and the Beaumont petrochemical refinery. NPR explains that the cleanup bill for Harvey could be as much as $100 billion, and while Congress will likely approve the funding needed, "it probably won't be easy." It explains why, and the waves in which the funding would be issued. The New York Times reports that a 12am to 5am curfew is now in place in Houston, and came partly in response to reports of "small-scale looting." The Times puts the death toll at no less than 30. A longtime Houston cop is among the dead.

Story highlights Man approaches Portland, Oregon, mayor with a Pepsi at a City Council meeting Move comes as Pepsi yanks controversial ad featuring Kendall Jenner as protester (CNN) Turns out Pepsi isn't a panacea for everything. (Photo: YouTube, KGW) PORTLAND, Ore. – In a very topical gesture, a man attending Wednesday’s Portland City Council meeting approached the commissioners and handed Mayor Ted Wheeler a Pepsi. The man identified himself as Carlos Enrique (spelling unclear), and said he was a former journalist for the Boston Herald (the Herald says he's not, according to OPB, which isn't much of a surprise). "I'm very surprised how there's so many people who show up to city council and just kind of like get angry at you and yell at you and stuff like that," he said. Some commissioners voiced concerns about safety. "It made me kind of wonder how could someone just endure people coming and berating you every week.... What I realized is that the language of resistance has not been properly translated to you. So this is for you.” That’s when Enrique stood up, walked up to the commissioners, reached into his pocket, and handed Wheeler a can of Pepsi. The man was quickly approached by security and ushered out of the meeting. “Not a smart move. I do appreciate it, but don’t do that again,” Wheeler said, chuckling. "If this were the Boston City Council that would have ended differently." There's no way you don't get what Enrique was up to at this point, but just in case, here's yesterday's infamous Pepsi ad, featuring Kendall Jenner spontaneously joining a cheesy fake protest and handing an officer a soda.

– A man has proved just how ridiculous it is to think that a can of soda can defuse a tense situation, as Pepsi's ridiculed ad would suggest. At a city council meeting in Portland, Ore., on Wednesday, a man identifying himself as Carlos Enrique addressed Mayor Ted Wheeler, who is also the city's police commissioner and has instituted new safety measures in response to angry protesters appearing at recent meetings, per KGW. Enrique told Wheeler he was amazed he could "endure people coming and berating you every week," per the Portland Mercury. "What I realized is that the language of resistance has not been properly translated to you. So this is for you," Enrique said, before walking up to Wheeler with a hand in his jacket. Rather than crack a smile like the officer in Pepsi's yanked ad, Wheeler appeared alarmed as Enrique reached inside and pulled out a can of Pepsi. After setting the Pepsi in front of Wheeler, Enrique pulled out a second soda for himself, though he didn't have time to take a sip before security officers approached him. "Whoa whoa whoa, not a good move," Wheeler said. Once it was clear that no one's safety was at risk, Wheeler did have a good laugh at the joke. But he also warned others in attendance not to approach the dais "for your own safety," the Mercury reports. "If this were the Boston City Council that would have ended differently," he added. "Turns out Pepsi isn't a panacea for everything," quips CNN.

My name is Julie, I'm 28, female, and live in Clearwater, Florida, USA. After 3 years of physical and mental torture, pain, stress, anguish, heartache, no income, no help, no support, and no cure, I'm not sure how much more a person is expected to suffer daily like this. Unable to work, she's lost her health insurance. Three years ago, in March 2013, I was working at a gymnastics gym for my fourth year in a row, and I was also a dance teacher. The 28-year-old Clearwater transplant suffers from Cholinergic Urticaria, a rare hypersensitive skin condition that causes her to break out in hives all over her body because she is allergic to her own sweat and tears. "I'm allergic to myself," she said. The Florida heat and sun are just too much for her. On a website to draw attention to her case, Reid said she has gained significant amount of weight and had to quit her job because the sweat would cause her to break out in massive hives for hours or days. And having my passions just stripped from me out of the blue one day, along with my whole life as I knew it, I cannot describe to you the depths of depression that exist when your life is just, taken from you. And you may think, 'oh big deal' but you dont realize how much your body sweats until you become allergic to it. I would say it's one step shy of being allergic to breathing or blinking!" She admits she's turned to eating food to cope with her condition. The hives can last anywhere from an hour to several days. And for two and a half years now, I have applied for government, social security disability benefits/assistance, and I have been denied each time. This has DESTROYED my life! Over the past three years, she has put on more than 100 pounds. It is a condition that came on suddenly two years ago. Fearful of her mental condition and emotional state, Reid reached out to ABC Action News for help. These everyday hives are so unbearable that I scratch my skin open and still continue to scratch because it just itches so bad. According to Reid, one doctor who previously treated her told her she could go into anaphylactic shock and requires an Epipen. She claims she has developed agoraphobia and fears to leave the house and deal with public scrutiny. Reid said without a job she has had difficulty paying for doctors appointments and has become depressed about her inability to return to her old life. "I used to be so beautiful, now I look like a monster," she added. I went from being an outgoing, friendly, happy person, to someone who, has cried everyday for three years, has no friends or family, and never leaves my apartment. "I went from being a gymnast and a dancer, to not being able to walk through the grocery store, during the day, without receiving hurtful stares," Reid said on her website. "It is just as emotionally painful as it is physically." I have no, I have nothing, I have nothing, no friends, no furniture, no help, no family here," she said.

– A 28-year-old Florida woman says her life has been destroyed by horrible allergies. But it's not pollen, cats, or peanuts she's allergic to; it's her own sweat and tears. "You don't realize how much your body sweats until you become allergic to it," Julie Reid writes on her blog. "I would say it's one step shy of being allergic to breathing or blinking." Reid, a gymnastics and dance instructor, was diagnosed with a rare condition called cholinergic urticaria three years ago, ABC News reports. People with the condition, which comes on for seemingly no reason, have overly sensitive skin that reacts to sweat, tears, and even hot showers. According to WFTS, the painfully itchy hives Reid breaks out in can last for days on end; her blog features graphic pictures. Since developing cholinergic urticaria, Reid has lost her job and gained more than 100 pounds. She says she can't go the store without getting horrible looks due to her hives. "I used to be so beautiful; now I look like a monster," she tells WFTS. "I just stay in bed and cry and cry." Reid says the Florida heat makes going out during the day impossible anyway. She says she's depressed and barely bothers to get out of bed anymore. "It's torture living like this," she says. The condition is known to disappear as spontaneously as it comes, though there is no timeline. Doctors can provide antihistamines, but without a job or health insurance, Reid has a hard time paying for appointments. She's hoping her plight will bring more attention—and hopefully a cure—to cholinergic urticaria. (Some people are allergic to vibrations, and scientists now think they know why.)

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– Ever done something you wished you could take back? Like accidentally sent an email to 33,000 Thomson Reuters employees? That's what some guy named Vince apparently did yesterday, flooding inboxes and setting off a "reply all" chain that some say slowed down Reuters email and provided the Internet with Twitter gold, the Wall Street Journal reports. Some tweets using the #ReutersReplyAllGate hashtag expressed frustration at the hundreds of reply-all emails asking people to stop replying to all, while others used the chaos to grab their 15 minutes of fame (being listed in the "to" field) and laugh at the inherent inanity of it all. "Should I just start live tweeting every single reply?" one recipient wondered, while another called for extraordinary assistance, imploring, "Any Super Hero currently in the U.S. Your help is needed to stop this email chain." But as the debacle continues to generate fresh reply-all emails this morning, what's happened to poor Vince? One Reuters worker remains concerned, tweeting, "Where is Vince? Hope he's ok! #ReutersReplyAllGate #prayforvince." (Gmail users need not make Vince's mistake.)

Judge Brad McCall sentenced Tipton... (Associated Press) DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A former lottery computer programmer who admitted to rigging computers to enable him to pick winning numbers and cheat four states out of $2.2 million in several lottery games over six years was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison in Iowa on Tuesday. Former lottery computer programmer Eddie Tipton, center, speaks during his sentencing hearing, Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017, at the Polk County Courthouse in Des Moines, Iowa. "I certainly regret" what happened, Tipton said in Polk County District Court before his sentencing, where some of his former coworkers sat in the courtroom. "It’s difficult even saying that with all the people I know behind me that I hurt, and I regret it. "The fact that he's going to spend years of his life in prison is appropriate," he said. Tipton, 54, was a longtime computer programmer in the Iowa offices of the Multi-State Lottery Association who installed software that allowed him to manipulate winning numbers in some of the nation’s most popular lottery drawings. The games Eddie Tipton fixed included Colorado Lotto in November 2005, Megabucks in Wisconsin in December 2007, 2by2 in Kansas and Hot Lotto in Iowa in December 2010, and Hot Lotto in Oklahoma in November 2011. Blame the money, critics say After years of investigation, Eddie Tipton was arrested in 2015 and ultimately pleaded guilty in June to three felony charges related to the crimes. Tipton has agreed to pay about $2.2 million in restitution, including $1.1 million to the Colorado lottery, $644,000 to the Oklahoma lottery, $391,000 to the Wisconsin lottery and $30,000 to the Kansas lottery. As part of his plea deal, Tipton also admitted to committing theft by fraud and a computer crime in Wisconsin, where he'll be sentenced Sept. 18. Wochit His attorney, Dean Stowers, argued his Iowa sentence should be suspended because Eddie Tipton still stands to be sentenced in Wisconsin under an agreement in which he will spend three or four years in prison. Tipton's brother Tommy Tipton, a former judge in Texas, is currently serving a 75-day sentence in Texas for a misdemeanor theft charge and deferred judgment on a felony charge of conspiracy to commit theft. He will be allowed to serve the Iowa sentence concurrently with a sentence of up to five-and-a-half years in Wisconsin, where he pleaded guilty to theft by fraud and computer crime. Under Iowa law, Tipton is likely to serve far less than 25 years — probably between three and five years, said Iowa Assistant Attorney General Rob Sand, who prosecuted the case. The investigation against the Tipton brothers began in 2010, with a suspicious claim for a $14.3 million Hot Lotto jackpot in Iowa that lottery officials refused to pay.

– An ex-lottery computer programmer who rigged the system in several states to enable himself to win $2.2 million in jackpots is going to prison. An Iowa judge sentenced Eddie Tipton, 54, to up to 25 years in prison on Tuesday, though the Des Moines Register reports he could be paroled in as few as three due to Iowa law. "I certainly regret" what happened, Tipton told Judge Brad McCall, who cited Tipton's "greed" in handing down the maximum sentence. As part of the deal, Tipton agreed to pay $2.2 million in restitution to state lotteries in Colorado, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Kansas; he was also accused of fixing games in Iowa, where he tried and failed to cash in a $16.5 million Hot Lotto ticket in 2010. When the judge asked him how he intended to pay the money back, Tipton said, per CNN, "Initially, I really don't know." As the information technology manager of the Multi-State Lottery Association, Tipton had access to computers that picked winning numbers in lotteries such as Powerball and Mega Millions in more than 30 states and US territories. He pleaded guilty in June to writing computer code that produced winning numbers on certain days; he then fed those numbers to accomplices, including his brother, who bought lottery tickets. The team then split the winnings. Tipton "had the keys to the kingdom," the Iowa lottery CEO tells the AP, noting that "checks and balances" have been added to secure the drawings. (This man traveled 1,000 miles to claim winnings in a lottery scam.)

Last Friday morning, as light snow fell on D.C., Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White posted a video on his personal Facebook page in which he promoted a conspiracy theory that accuses a prominent Jewish family of manipulating the climate. “Man, it just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man," he said. Y’all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation,” he says. “And D.C. keep talking about, ‘We a resilient city.’ And that’s a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. He did not answer specific questions about what he meant by his comments in the video and where he had heard about the Rothschilds controlling the climate. Asked to clarify what he meant, he wrote, “The video says what it says.” However, about four hours after The Washington Post published this story online Sunday, White sent a statement of apology via text message. He texted a version of it to City Paper: In response to my social media post on Friday, as I leader I work hard everyday to combat racism and prejudices of all kinds. I want to apologize to the Jewish Community and anyone I have offended,” he said. “The Jewish community have been allies with me in my journey to help people. I did not intend to be anti-Semitic, and I see I should not have said that after learning from my colleagues.” White said his “friends” at Jews United for Justice, a group that advocates for progressive causes and endorsed him in 2016, were “helping me to understand the history of comments made against Jews and I am committed to figuring out ways continue to be allies with them and others.” D.C. Council member Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1), who is Jewish, released a statement Sunday night saying White had apologized and “expressed his sincere regret . Established by another dynastic family, the Rockefeller Foundation runs an initiative called 100 Resilient Cities to help cities adapt to major challenges.

– A DC council member is apologizing after he pushed a conspiracy theory that a wealthy Jewish family controlled the weather. In a story first reported by the Washington Post, Trayon White posted a video to Facebook Friday with the following narration: "Man, it just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man. Y'all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation. And DC keep talking about, 'We a resilient city.' And that's a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. Be careful." The criticism began quickly, and White eventually offered a mea culpa: "I work hard everyday to combat racism and prejudices of all kinds," said the African-American lawmaker, before apologizing "to the Jewish community" and adding, "I did not intend to be anti-Semitic." The Washington City Paper describes the 33-year-old as an "up-and-coming District pol" but says observers were wondering, "What was he thinking?" White declined to comment on the source of his original comments, but the Post notes that the Rothschilds "are a famous European business dynasty" and the subject of numerous conspiracy theories in the nether regions of the internet. The "resilient city" remark apparently refers to an initiative by another prominent family, the Rockefellers, about which similar conspiracy theories abound. Fellow council member Brianne Nadeau, who's Jewish, took note of White's apology and sounded forgiving about the mess: "It is my sincere hope that my colleague has learned from this experience."

– It's one thing to carve your initials into a tree trunk. It's another thing entirely to carve your names into the protected red rocks of Sedona, Arizona, which is what Vanessa Hudgens and her boyfriend, Austin Butler, appear to have done over Valentine's Day weekend. Hudgens, who was posting quite a few photos of the couple's Sedona trip over the weekend, tweeted one photo of a rock with "Austin + Vanessa" inside a heart carved into it, the Arizona Republic reports. The tweet has since been deleted. It's illegal to damage the iconic rocks, with a maximum punishment of six months in jail and/or a $5,000 fine. A Coconino National Forest spokesperson says the incident is being investigated. (Hudgens recently performed in Grease Live the day after her dad died.)

PAJU, South Korea North Korea suspended its sole remaining major project with the South on Monday, after weeks of threats against the United States and South Korea, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said any nuclear conflict could make Chernobyl look like a fairy tale. Earlier on Monday, the South's Defence Ministry denied suggestions that a nuclear arms test was imminent in North Korea, saying reported movements around the reclusive country's atomic site were routine, contradicting earlier government comments. South Korea has said the North prepared two tunnels for a nuclear test, but used only one Feb. 12. Either a nuclear test or a missile test would escalate tensions that have been rising for weeks on the Korean Peninsula, and would likely invite a new round of U.N. Security Council sanctions over North Korea's nuclear and rocket activity. After Ryoo's initial comment, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged North Korea on Monday not to carry out a new nuclear test, saying it would be a "provocative" act amid soaring tensions. "Making any threat relating to nuclear weapons is not a game." North Korean authorities told embassies in Pyongyang they could not guarantee their safety from Wednesday - after saying conflict was inevitable amid the joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises due to last until the end of the month. Kim Jang-soo, director of national security for President Park Geun-hyeof South Korea, said during a meeting of security-related officials on Sunday that the North “may launch a provocation, such as missile launch,” around Wednesday. The South Korean government’s new warning came three days after its defense minister said that the North had moved a missile with a “considerable range” to its east coast, although it is not capable of reaching the mainland United States. The missile that was moved is widely believed to be the Musudan, which the South Korean military and analysts say has the range to hit South Korea and Japan and perhaps American bases in Guam as well. “The Chinese government has already requested that North Korea abide by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and other international laws and practices and thoroughly ensure the safety of Chinese Embassy and consular personnel resident in North Korea.” The North gave similar warnings to some of the 123 South Korean factories in the joint industrial park in the North Korean city of Kaesong, said Mr. Kim, the South’s national security director. Thirteen factories have stopped operations due to lack of raw materials, according to the South's Unification Ministry. A senior North Korean official, quoted by the official KCNA news agency, said after a visit to Kaesong that authorities would withdraw North Korean workers and then decide on whether it would continue to operate. "It will temporarily suspend the operations in the zone and examine the issue of whether it will allow its (continued) existence or close it," KCNA quoted Kim Yang Gon, secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, as saying. And no one should be allowed to throw the region, or even the whole world, into chaos for selfish gains," Xi said Sunday at the Boao Forum for Asia, a China-sponsored talk shop for the global elite. Pyongyang has been further angered by weeks of joint military exercises by South Korean and U.S. forces and threatened both countries with nuclear attack. North Korea successfully shot a satellite into space in December and conducted its third nuclear test in February.

– Tensions on the Korean peninsula eased marginally today after South Korean officials backed off earlier reports that Pyongyang was getting ready for another missile test. A top official told reporters that he had misspoken when he said there was an "indication" that another test was imminent, and had been "startled" to learn that his remarks had been widely reported, the AP reports. Defense officials in Seoul say there has been activity around the North's nuclear test site, but nothing out of the ordinary. A new nuclear test from the North would have raised tensions even higher after weeks of threats from Pyongyang, and Beijing appears to be becoming increasingly fed up with its neighbor's antics, Reuters reports. Leaders in China have said they will not tolerate any "chaos" or "trouble-making" over the border and Beijing wants to see a nuclear-free peace prevail, with all parties taking part in talks. Sens. Charles Schumer and John McCain sharply criticized China yesterday for not doing more to rein in its troublesome ally, the New York Times reports. "It’s about time they stepped up to the plate and put a little pressure on this North Korean regime," Schumer told Face the Nation.

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City mayoral candidate says he's "shocked" that so little attention has been paid to his arrest for trying to hijack an airliner at gunpoint 17 years ago. He later explained that he had planned to parachute into Antarctica to destroy the “Cabal,” a secret organization that wanted to “take over the world through mass destruction.” In the end, the plane never took off and nobody was injured, while Commey was arrested and charged with five crimes, including attempt to commit aircraft piracy. I was definitely severely mentally ill. And in addition to recovering from my mental illness without medication, I am a completely different person in terms of how I approach situations and I’m committed to nonviolence.” In September 2003, Commey was found not guilty on all counts by reason of insanity. “And it shaped me into the person I am today.” Commey said that government officials and judges refused to let him go for years, despite having doctors say he had fully recovered. “Experiencing my own personal injustice, seeing injustice happen to other guys,” he said, “that’s one of the things that had driven me to wanting to get involved to try to change the system.” It also turned him into a Libertarian.

– A New York City mayoral candidate says he's "shocked" that so little attention has been paid to his arrest for trying to hijack an airliner at gunpoint 17 years ago. In July 2000, Aaron Commey (it's pronounced KOH-may) boarded a National Airlines plane in New York and ordered the pilots to fly to Argentina or Antarctica, per the AP. It never took off and nobody was injured. He was acquitted by reason of insanity in 2003 and was released from a prison medical facility in 2015. The Libertarian candidate tells the news magazine City & State New York that it's reasonable for voters to wonder if he's suited for office and that he's surprised the issue has gotten so little attention. "I was shocked, because I expected this to be the first thing out the gate and like nobody said anything." Commey, who was 22 at the time and suffering from delusional disorder and paranoid schizophrenia, says he has fully recovered and is "committed to nonviolence." Commey says he has experienced and witnessed injustice and wants to change the system.

Photo An offer to take BlackBerry private does not end the uncertainty surrounding the ailing smartphone maker. BlackBerry said on Monday that it had signed a letter of intent from a group led by Fairfax Financial Holdings, a Canadian insurance and investment company, to pay shareholders $9 a share in cash, pending a variety of conditions, taking the company private. Related Links Document: BlackBerry press release The $4.7 billion offer from Fairfax, which already owns about 10 percent of BlackBerry, is a powerful symbol of the phone maker’s decline. In June 2008 — a time when BlackBerrys defined smartphones — the company had a stock market value of $83 billion. Any deal is far from done. Fairfax did not identify the other investors in its consortium, which is seeking financing. And while the offer could flush out potential rival suitors, it is unclear who might be tempted to come forward, given the company’s uncertain prospects. Investors gave a muted endorsement on Monday, with BlackBerry shares rising 1 percent, to $8.82, but failing to reach the $9 bid price. The offer came after the company announced on Friday that it expected to report a quarterly loss of nearly $1 billion, stemming largely from the failure of the BlackBerry 10 line of phones that were supposed to revive the company. BlackBerry also outlined plans to lay off about 40 percent of its already reduced work force, or around 4,500 people. Photo Sensing the opportunity to halt the fall in company’s stock prompted by that announcement, and the potential to kick off an auction, BlackBerry’s board seized on the offer, quickly signing a letter of intent. The particulars of the deal’s announcement came together in a matter of hours Monday morning. V. Prem Watsa, Fairfax’s chairman and chief executive, told shareholders in March that the company paid an average price of $17 for its BlackBerry shares, giving him an obvious interest in at least stalling the slide in BlackBerry’s shares. Yet not only are there questions about the offer, several analysts say it is not clear how the Fairfax group could stem BlackBerry’s rapid decline or stabilize the company. “Last week was essentially an announcement that they are leaving the handset business,” said Jan Dawson, a telecommunications analyst with Ovum. “But pick any market they’re trying to go into and there are strong, entrenched competitors.” Given the high risk involved in investing in BlackBerry, one of the most pressing questions surrounding the deal is the identity of anyone prepared to invest in the company alongside Fairfax. One possible clue came from the fact that Byron D. Trott, the banker used by Warren E. Buffett, was advising Fairfax. Mr. Trott and his firm, BDT & Company, often work with wealthy private investors. Mike Lazaridis, the co-founder of BlackBerry who stepped down as co-chief executive in 2012, has been interested in making an offer with private equity investors, people familiar with the situation said. That led to speculation on Monday that he might join the Fairfax group. Through a spokesman, Mr. Lazaridis declined to comment. Neither Fairfax nor Mr. Watsa responded to requests for comment. Just as unclear is how a buyout would be financed. Fairfax did not say how much cash it was prepared to put toward the deal, or how much debt it might expect BlackBerry to take on in a buyout. BlackBerry is largely debt-free and had about $2.6 billion in cash at the end of the last quarter, leaving just a couple of billion dollars needed to conceivably strike an acquisition. But any bank that provides financing could be taking a risk. The company consumed about $500 million of its cash during the last quarter, while the coming layoffs and sluggish sales raise the possibility that even more than that may vanish in the current quarter. By signing the letter of intent, BlackBerry effectively opened the door to other bidders. It now has six weeks to shop itself around as Fairfax conducts due diligence, or scrutinizes its books. If BlackBerry accepts another deal or walks away from Fairfax’s offer before a definitive agreement is signed, it will owe Fairfax about $157 million. If it walks away after a formal deal is signed, it will owe Fairfax about $262 million. Neither does the agreement appear to bind Fairfax to its $9 a share bid; after due diligence, Fairfax may decide to lower its offer. The offer establishes a timeline and a price floor for other potential bidders. But with the company in free fall, there is little certainty of another bid emerging in the coming weeks. Brian Colello, an analyst with Morningstar, said that other buyers, if there are any, were unlikely to be interested in BlackBerry’s phone business. “There is no value for the BlackBerry 10 ecosystem,” he said. “The value of this company is cash and patents.” Analysts’ estimates put the value of the patents at about $2 billion. But not only has the market for patents cooled, BlackBerry does not directly control many of its most important patents, which it owns in common with other technology companies like Apple and Microsoft. Still, BlackBerry continues to have a strong booster in Mr. Watsa. He resigned from BlackBerry’s board in August to avoid any conflicts of interest after the company announced that it was engaged in a strategic review that might include a sale. Mr. Watsa’s involvement in a buyout would ensure Canadian control of the company, which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, removing a major hurdle for a deal. While a number of Chinese companies, particularly ones with little market presence in the West, might bid for BlackBerry, the Canadian government would most likely block any such takeover on national security grounds. Historically, Mr. Watsa has favored buying distressed companies and then guiding turnarounds. While the strategy has generally been successful, the company’s recent history includes some prominent failures. CanWest Global Communications, once a large Canadian television broadcaster and newspaper publisher, and AbitibiBowater, a paper maker, both collapsed and ultimately were delisted. Fairfax also began buying heavily in Torstar, the parent company of The Toronto Star and the romance book publisher Harlequin, in 2007. Since then, Torstar’s share price has steadily declined. Fairfax uses hedging and large cash holdings to protect its investors from failed investments. Even without quitting the handset business, BlackBerry’s management has said it plans to expand the company’s software business. BlackBerry has ambitious plans for its relatively new software that allows corporations to control and manage employees’ mobile devices, including iPhones and Android-based phones. It has also made efforts to turn the BlackBerry Messenger instant-messaging service into a social media service. But in those areas, as in the phone business, BlackBerry has come up against large, well-financed competitors like Microsoft and Facebook. If BlackBerry does go private, it would be the second large technology company with outdated products to go that route this year. Dell, the personal computer maker, was bought out by its founder, Michael S. Dell, and Silver Lake Partners this month for $24.9 billion. Yet Dell is a veritable tech powerhouse compared to BlackBerry, whose North American market share has slid to 3.4 percent from 51 percent in just four years. In Dell’s case, revenues are down and demand for its products has weakened because of the growth of tablets, but Dell remains a major provider of commodity PCs and servers, and owns business and government software assets that may provide it with a more certain path forward.

– If you're a BlackBerry shareholder, Rolfe Winkler at the Wall Street Journal thinks you should sell while the selling's good. Fairfax Financial Holdings struck a deal yesterday with BlackBerry that, Winkler writes, is a little like a guy saying "he will buy your falling-down house for millions of dollars, but not until he gets it inspected. And, by the way, he might not have the cash to buy it." All yesterday's "letter of intent" said was that Fairfax would buy BlackBerry after looking at its books. What's more, even if BlackBerry used all of its $2.6 billion in cash to finance the sale, Fairfax will have to find another $1.6 billion, and lenders might be leery given BlackBerry's shaky prospects. Analysts tell the New York Times that they're skeptical Fairfax could turn BlackBerry around, and unsure other, competing bidders will emerge. "There is no value for the BlackBerry 10 ecosystems," one analyst said. "The value of this company is cash and patents." Employees are even more gloomy following the company's announcement that it would lay off 40% of them. "It's not low morale. It's no morale," one employee tells the Journal. "It's like working at a hospice center. It's not a matter of if, but when."