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239,197 | c1ace45a59d27ab20f9cbff891b034c1af9e67da | Nowshera, Pakistan (CNN) -- The start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan coincided in Pakistan on Wednesday with the nation's worst natural disaster, the staggering scope of human suffering revealing itself in wretched ways. From the Swat Valley in the north to Sindh province in the south, as many as 15 million Pakistanis have been affected by torrential monsoon rains that have washed away villages and bloated rivers, authorities said Wednesday. Pakistan's representative to the United Nations said many people have not yet grasped the massive scale of Pakistan's suffering and warned it could still get worse because of ongoing rain. "It is horrendous," said Abdullah Hussain Haroon. "It is going to put us back so many years that we're not even starting on the infrastructure." The Pakistan Disaster Authority confirmed 1,313 deaths Wednesday. It said 1,588 people have been injured and 352,291 people have been rescued. More than 722,000 houses have been damaged. Many Pakistanis now face severe food shortages, and aid agencies stepped up appeals for global assistance. The United Nations launched a flash appeal for $460 million in humanitarian assistance, and the United States pledged another $20 million on top of the $35 million already pledged. The Pakistani military has 55 helicopters and 621 boats taking part in aid and rescue efforts. For many parts of southern Pakistan, the worst is yet to come. The Indus River is expected to crest Thursday in parts of Sindh, according to the Pakistani Meteorological Department. And Pakistanis will be forced to endure the consequences of damaged infrastructure and crops lost to flooding for months. Nowshera's Khushal Pur market, once a vibrant place of 250 food stalls, stood covered in thick, foul-smelling sludge as tractors worked to remove the mud and debris. Among the muck were tons of rotting produce that shop keepers abandoned when they fled the flooding. Juma Gul surveyed the damage. His vegetable stall has been a family business for two decades. He said he has lost more than $1,000 in business, a huge amount in this town in northwestern Pakistan, where the CIA World Factbook estimated the average annual income at $2,600. Gul, who set up a temporary stall on the road, said prices of fresh produce, including tomatoes and cucumbers, have doubled. That made customer Niaz Ali anxious. He has already lost work and money is tight, but with the cost of food soaring, he said he and his family will simply have to eat less. Market manager Ikram Ullah said it would be particularly difficult during the month of Ramadan, when Muslims abstain from food and water during the day and break their fast with a feast at sunset. The back-breaking clean-up tasks will be hard, too, because of Ramadan fasting. The economic impact of the disaster is sure to be felt for a long time with crops sitting in soggy fields. "The crop has been lost and it is a race against time to ensure the next sowing season can be met," said United Nations special envoy Jean-Maurice Ripert. John Holmes, U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said the disaster is "one of the most challenging that any country has faced in recent years." Although the death toll is lower, the 14 million people affected are more than those affected in the 2005 Pakistan earthquakes, the 2004 Indonesia tsunami and the January earthquake in Haiti combined. "The death toll has so far been relatively low compared to other major natural disasters, but the numbers affected are extraordinarily high," Holmes said. "If we don't act fast enough, many more people could die of diseases and food shortages." Holmes said thousands of villages and at least 288,000 homes have been destroyed. "Six thousand villages wiped out the face of the earth," Haroon said. "From 5,000 to 50,000 per village, we have no way of counting. We have nothing operational as to how many of those have died and how many are alive." Huge swaths of Pakistan remain without power, clean water or communication. Bridges and roads have been destroyed, and many regions are accessible only by air or water transport. Millions of hectares of crops have been washed away in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KPK), Punjab and Sindh, and seed stocks have been destroyed, "severely compromising the possibility to plant staple food crops in September for hundreds of thousands of farmers," Holmes said. The floods, which started in Pakistan's northern regions, are traveling through the southern province of Sindh. "Millions more are expected to suffer from the combined impact of continuing torrential rains and unprecedented water levels in the rivers," Holmes said. "The monsoon could last for at least another month, worsening the flooding we have seen so far." The money will enable U.N. organizations, international partners and NGOs to partner with the Pakistani government to address emergency needs of flood-affected families, Holmes says. The agencies will provide food, drinking water, tents and supplies in the seven hardest-hit areas: Balochistan, Punjab, the Federally Administered Tribal Area, Gilgit Baltistan, KPK, Pakistan-Administered Kashmir and Sindh. The U.N. reports $99.5 million has been pledged, and donors have committed or contributed $47.8 million to the U.N. emergency response in Pakistan, but $300 million more is needed. Individual countries have also gotten involved. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Wednesday authorized 19 Marine and Navy heavy-lift helicopters to Pakistan to relieve six U.S. Army helicopters that have been taking part in flood relief since Saturday. The new group of helicopters will come from units on board the USS Peleliu which has been off the coast of western Pakistan in recent days in anticipation of orders to assist. Gates said the USS Kearsarge -- another helicopter landing ship -- is headed to Pakistan to relieve the Peleliu. Gates said the Pakistanis will decide the speed of distribution. "We want to be as helpful as we can be," he said. "We don't want to overstretch the capacity of the Pakistanis to absorb the help." Also Wednesday, Germany said it was increasing aid for flood victims to about $12.8 million. In total, about $600 million in aid is heading to Pakistan -- the equivalent of about $40 for each of the nation's 15 million residents. Islamic militants, however, called on the Pakistani government to reject any aid provided by the United States for flood relief. "For the sake of God, don't accept donations from the U.S. because they are our enemies," said Azem Tariq, spokesman for the Taliban in Pakistan. "Whatever amount the U.S. will give as donation, we will give the government of Pakistan more." Many Pakistanis have not been happy with the government's response to the floods, calling it slow and ineffective. The Taliban's offer of aid may be an attempt to win the hearts and minds of flood victims. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has taken much of the heat. He was in England for talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron during the worst of the crisis. CNN's Reza Sayah, Dan Rivers, Samson Desta, Brooke Elliott and journalist Nasir Habib contributed to this report. | The death toll now tops 1,313, Pakistani authorities say .
The U.N. launches a flash appeal for $460 million in aid .
Pakistanis face soaring food costs and long-term shortages .
The Taliban tell people to reject U.S. aid . |
247,476 | cc3cd4ee74d25e5dbb8cc76b52a499df068835ff | By . Mario Ledwith . PUBLISHED: . 12:01 EST, 23 August 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 02:01 EST, 24 August 2012 . Criminal: Laurence Kilby, member of the 13-strong gang of cocaine dealers, lived the high life on the proceeds of drug smuggling . A socialite who led a double life as the ringleader of a drug-smuggling gang was sentenced to 18 years in prison yesterday. Laurence Kilby is the former son- in-law of Lord Vestey, a close friend of the Queen and one of the Royal Family’s top serving officers. His conviction will come as a shock to the family of Lord Vestey, whose friendship with the Queen is so close that he holds the ceremonial title of the Royal Family’s Master of the Horse. Bristol Crown Court heard how Kilby boasted about his high society connections as he led a playboy lifestyle, indulging in fast cars. But despite his privileged background, police said that it was the proceeds of crime that funded his lavish lifestyle. They described Kilby as the ‘main man’ in the international gang that smuggled more than £3million of cocaine into the UK. Kilby, who owns a motor racing business, entered the social elite when he married Flora Vestey, daughter of beef baron Lord Vestey. The Vestey family owns a 6,000-acre estate in Gloucestershire and Lord Vestey is the former chairman of Cheltenham racecourse. But the marriage was short-lived, as the couple separated in 2010 after barely two years together. Kilby, of Cheltenham, was yesterday jailed for conspiracy to supply cocaine alongside three other criminals. Another three gang members were jailed earlier this year. The 40-year-old was also charged with stealing money from the armed services charity, Help for Heroes. Kilby pleaded guilty to defrauding the charity of between £3,000 and £4,000, and received a ten-month sentence to run concurrently. Detective Inspector Steve Bean, of Gloucestershire Police, said: ‘He portrayed himself as a well-connected socialite and businessman, whilst indulging his ambition as a minor league racing driver. Despite a privileged background, the reality was that his lifestyle was funded by the ill-gotten gains of drug-dealing.’ He added: ‘He displayed an air of arrogance and thought he could get away with it because he didn’t get his hands dirty.’ Seized: Cocaine which was found by Avon and Somerset Serious Crime Group which worked closely with Gloucestershire police to stop the gang supplying cocaine across the South West . Stashed: A secret compartment inside of a van where cocaine was found . Packaged and sealed: The gang smuggled more than £3 million-worth of cocaine . The gang operated a sophisticated network that saw cocaine shipped from Heathrow Airport to Gloucestershire and Bristol. A police surveillance operation was launched in September 2010 as they began to infiltrate the gang’s activities. The undercover sting culminated in a . day of raids in July last year when more than 100 officers swooped on . addresses in Cheltenham, Bristol and London. Police seized cocaine with a . street value of more than £1million. Addressing Kilby, Judge Martin Picton said: ‘You are at the heart of the conspiracy. You made the arrangements. ‘You attempted to make sure you kept . your hands clean and you made sure you could not be found in . possession of the drugs. You made sure others took the risks. ‘You have made a complete mess of your life, both financially and personally.’ | Aspiring racing driver Laurence Kilby lived like a millionaire playboy .
Kilby turned to crime to maintain lifestyle of fast cars and high living .
He also defrauded Help for Heroes charity of over £3,000 .
Gang of 13 smuggled more than £3m worth of cocaine from London to South West and Wales . |
216,955 | a4e390fc5e4202b8f5f4f3b631addba82dc8d3a7 | By . Paul Bentley . PUBLISHED: . 08:52 EST, 26 August 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 17:27 EST, 26 August 2012 . Role model: Critics say Bear Grylls should not use his position as leader of the scouting movement to push his own products . Bear Grylls has been accused of exploiting his position as Chief Scout to push sales of a range of children's knives. In a promotional video, the TV adventurer endorses a range of Gerber outdoor kit by mentioning his role as head of the Scout movement. While he has not broken the law, critics say he has entered a murky area by attempting to cash in on his association with a voluntary organisation. He is also promoting the range of 'Bear Grylls Scout and Compact Scout Knives' despite the fact that the Scout Association advises that penknives should not be taken on camping trips unless there is a specific need. In the video, which has been watched online by more than 318,900 people, Grylls says: 'One of the jobs I do is to be Chief Scout and figurehead to 28million scouts worldwide, and it's a post I'm really proud of. 'For me, scouting is all about bringing adventure to young people, and we've developed two knives aimed at scouting.' He demonstrates how to open and grip the knife, adding: 'You never know when you might need it. Safe scouting, and remember: a knife's a tool – use it responsibly.' 'Born survivor': Chief scout Grylls has starred in several television programmes documenting his adventures . Labour MP Paul Flynn said: 'We would . expect the figureheads of charitable bodies to be beyond any commercial . interests. 'There should be a line drawn between the charitable and very . honourable aims of the scouting movement and any commercial interest.' Sir Stephen Bubb, chief executive of . the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, said: 'I . feel certain that Bear Grylls will be wanting to donate any profits he . makes back to the scouts. 'Many charities and voluntary bodies . have come to rely on well-known public figures becoming figureheads, and . that relies on the public believing they are giving up their time . without private profit.' Grylls, who became Chief Scout in . 2009, said that the organisation was aware of the promotional work. 'I . am sure being Chief Scout helps TV ratings and sales, so, yes, it does . benefit me – just as hopefully I benefit them in some small way,' he . said. 'Hopefully, everyone wins.' The Scout Association would not say . whether Grylls had shared any profits from sales of the knives. 'There . is no restriction on businesses using the word “scout”,' a spokesman . said. 'Bear is always incredibly generous with giving freely his time, energy and support.' Last night, Grylls told the Mail: 'I . take being Chief Scout very seriously and never develop licensees with . the intent to profit off my position.' 'Safe scouting': Bear Grylls, pictured facing the elements on an expedition in the Canadian Rockies, urges fellow adventurers to use his knives responsibly . | Promotional videos linking adventurer's range of branded survival kit to role with the scouts criticised .
Grylls says he's 'disappointed' by 'misleading' accusations he's using position as chief scout . |
281,284 | f85dc5bf36e5ae1dcc075b57750059cc7492c8d8 | Bangkok, Thailand (CNN) -- Bangkok faces the highest flood levels yet and is preparing for the worst, the governor of the Thai capital told CNN. Residents are urged to flee the rising floodwaters, which have already forced the closure of Bangkok's Don Muang airport and the evacuation of flood victims who have taken refuge there. Thailand's government has declared a five-day public holiday in flood-affected provinces to try to encourage people to seek safety elsewhere before high tides expected this weekend. But Bangkok Gov. Sukhumbhand Paripatra told CNN the authorities could not evacuate a whole city and it was difficult to persuade the Thai people to leave their homes, despite the risk. CNNGo: Updated info for tourists . "Apparently there will be large volume of water runoff coming toward the city tonight onwards, and over the weekend," he said. "At the point of high tide, it will be very high, the highest this year. We are bracing for the worse." Thongthong Chantharangsu, a spokesman for Thailand's Flood Relief Operations Center, appealed on TV for Bangkok residents to head to the countryside. Floodwaters extend from Rangsit, north of Bangkok, to Don Muang airport and Yingcharoen Market, state-run news agency MCOT reported. The water has reached 30cm (12 inches) in places and is overflowing on to sidewalks and some roads, causing problems for small vehicles and leading to traffic congestion, the agency said. In a televised address Tuesday night, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said the capital could be submerged by as much as 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) of water. Of particular concern were areas along the Chao Phraya River, which winds through the capital and is expected to overwhelm embankments this weekend. The Airports of Thailand declared Don Muang airport, which primarily services domestic flights, closed Tuesday night, after floodwaters flowed onto runways and affected the lighting. Nok Air, which usually operates from Don Muang, was forced to cancel flights but should be able to run an almost normal schedule by Friday after moving its operations to the main Suvarnabhumi Airport, the airline's chief executive Patee Sarasin said Wednesday. Some 3,000 Nok Air passengers were affected by flight cancellations Tuesday, he said. The flood relief operation will continue to be based at the airport, the Thai government said Wednesday. More than 600 prisoners held at Bang Kwang Central Prison have been evacuated, according to the Department of Corrections. The high-security prison has about 4,000 inmates, the chief of the prison said, some of them high-profile. The floods have also forced the Dusit Zoo to evacuate some animals, including goat antelope and Sika deer, to a zoo in the countryside, according to Dusit Zoo's chief, Karnchai Saenwong. The U.S. ambassador to Thailand, Kristie A. Kenny, said the crisis was slow moving and it was hard to know what would be hit next. The United States has already provided civilian relief resources including water pumps, purifiers and life vests, she said, and two U.S. helicopters are helping the Thai military survey the extent of the flooding. Nationwide, the floods have killed 373 people and affected more than 9.5 million people, authorities said. The public holiday announced Tuesday will be from Thursday to next Monday and will be effective in 21 provinces, including Bangkok, that are still under water, a government spokeswoman said. The government has called the flooding the worst to afflict the nation in half a century and said it might take more than a month before the waters recede in some areas. The government has set up more than 1,700 shelters nationwide, and more than 113,000 people have taken refuge. Overall damage from the floods has risen and could top $6 billion, with the worst yet to come as the waters destroy shops and paralyze factories nationwide, the Thai Finance Ministry said. Thailand derives a significant portion of its revenue from tourism, which has been diminished by the flooding. CNN's Elizabeth Yuan, Kocha Olarn and Paula Hancocks contributed to this report . | NEW: Bangkok's governor warns of the highest water levels in next few days .
Evacuations include 600 inmates at a prison, some animals from a zoo .
PM warns capital could be submerged by as much as 1.5 meters (4.9 feet)
Authorities: Floods have killed 373 people and affected more than 9.5 million . |
273,573 | ee60c1bc4069a24f67d27411b7857a016844fc68 | Your pizza delivery man could soon be out of a job. A Russian drone company has developed airborne robots which can carry up to 5kg of weight and fly up to 40km per hour, making them perfect for delivering takeaway meals. CopterExpress has been working with drones, multicopters specifically, for two years, explains a spokesman, in a new video from the company. 'We are the worlds first company who organised this and are now developing a commercial service of small goods delivery by air with the help of robots,' he continues. The devices also have inbuilt GPS systems and cameras, so their journeys can be tracked. The company have already worked with one fast food chain. A Russian drone company has developed robots which can carry up to 5kg and fly up to 40km per hour . The airborne devices have inbuilt GPS systems and cameras, so their journeys can be tracked . Dodo Pizza, in Syktyvkar, north Russia, claimed to be the first pizzeria to offer delivery by drone. In June, they posted a video online showing the first airdrops of pizzas to customers, promising that this was the future of take away deliveries. 'We already sold six pizzas in one and a half hours using a drone, it is a real business model,' manager Ilya Farafonov told AFP. Dodo Pizza, in Syktyvkar, north Russia, claim to be the first pizzeria to offer delivery by drone . The fast food chain promised to get deliveries out within 30 minutes and if it cannot complete an order within an hour, the customer will not be charged. Its plan is to expand delivery by drone to 18 other Russian cities, with a menu featuring a range of flavours priced from £6 (325 Russian rubles). Meanwhile, Domino's posted a video featuring a DomiCopter, a pizza-delivering multicopter drone online in June, and in New York, a Brooklyn pizzeria owner made a test delivery flight by drone back in the same month. CopterExpress claim to be the world's first company to develop a commercial goods delivery via drones . CopterExpress has been working with drones, multicopters specifically, for two years, explains a spokesman, in a new video from the company . 'We are embracing new technology,' said Charles Walters, the CEO of Williamsburg Pizza. 'Our prediction is that within the next five years, food will be flying 300 feet in the air.' 'By 2018, I predict we'll have a fleet of at least 25 drones to deliver pizza,' the entrepreneur told the New York Post. | CopterExpress drones can carry up to 5kg and fly up to 40km per hour .
They're also fitted with GPS systems so their journeys can be tracked .
Dodo Pizza in Russia, claimed to be first pizzeria to use drone delivery . |
272,010 | ec559aef45df8127f5a78ce79b65a910d6359d48 | Less than two years ago Wasps’ players reached the end of each month not knowing if they would even get paid. Losing money at a rate of close to £4million a season and unable to identify a suitable site around the M25 to build a new stadium, one of the most successful clubs in the history of English rugby was sinking. In massive debt to the taxman and with no means of generating profit as tenants of Wycombe Wanderers at Adams Park, Wasps’ decline appeared terminal. On Tuesday, following major investment from Irish businessman Derek Richardson and a new sponsorship deal with Land Rover, Wasps conducted a first training session at their new, 32,000 capacity Ricoh Arena home in Coventry. The sun shines on a new dawn for the Wasps as Dai Young's side train at their new Ricoh Arena, Coventry . Christian Wade goes to line as Wasps get to work on their first day at Coventry's Ricoh Arena . The Premiership Rugby club took over the stadium in November and play their first home match on Sunday . Wasps' veteran fly-half is enjoying a homecoming after the club's move - he was born in Coventry . The former England playmaker and lynchpin for the former London side practises his kicking from the tee . There is talk of significant further investment, ‘world-class’ training facilities, record crowds and a major recruitment drive. Despite early resistance from a significant number of fans when the plan to relocate to the Midlands was first announced in October, it is hard to escape a sense that the good times are once again just around the corner for the two-time European champions. ‘It’s just a massive sigh of relief,’ said fit-again winger Christian Wade, who is expected to feature in the club’s first Aviva Premiership clash at the Ricoh on Sunday against London Irish, when a record home crowd of more than 27,000 is expected. Joe Simpson enjoys some space on the new temporary surface laid by Wasps ahead of their arrival . James Haskell, who will lead his side against London Irish on Sunday, passes among his forward allies . Fans and schoolchildren were out in force for the open session at Wasps' Ricoh Arena . ‘You feel like you can relax now and just focus on the rugby rather than worry about all the other stuff. Pretty much all the time we were always worrying about what was going to happen. Are we moving or are we going to have a club next year? Do I need to speak to my agent? Do I need to move clubs? ‘This facility is amazing. It’s probably the dream for any player in the world to have your own stadium and your own training ground in the same area.’ Sportsmail understands Wasps have already secured the services of Leinster fly-half Jimmy Gopperth, and chief executive Nick Eastwood confirmed that the club will be in a position to spend up to the £5.5million salary cap next season for the first time. Tom Varndell takes on the wing of England Christian Wade during training on Tuesday . Wade could make his comeback following England duty and injury in the Coventry debut for the club . Nathan Hughes, who was a try-scorer in Wasps' seven-try demolition of Castres, poses on Tuesday . In October the club announced a contract extension with England lock Joe Launchbury — who will see a specialist tomorrow to discover if he needs surgery on a persistent neck injury which is threatening his Six Nations. Director of rugby Dai Young said: ‘Everyone realises now that we are in the market for top quality international players, whereas probably 18 months ago we weren’t. ‘Teams are built, you can’t just buy teams, but it certainly helps if you can buy a little bit of stardust to sprinkle on solid foundations.’ Revenue from ticket sales for Sunday’s opener against the Exiles has already passed £500,000 and with the possibility of a winner-takes-all final European Cup pool game in January, the business logic behind the move is evident. Wasps director of rugby Dai Young lords over his new headquarters before Sunday's match . Injured England and Wasps star Joe Launchbury watches his team-mates be put through their paces . Sportsmail understands Wasps have already secured the services of Leinster fly-half Jimmy Gopperth . ‘This will be the most successful game we have ever staged,’ said Eastwood, who is predicting a massive increase in the club’s annual turnover from £7m to more than £20m. ‘The revenue will be three times the highest grossing game we had at Adams Park. ‘In 18 months we have gone from being bust, tenants in a fourth division football ground to owning probably the best arena in club rugby in Europe and financial security. It is pretty remarkable.’ n London Irish are today expected to announce that director of rugby Brian Smith will leave at the end of the season. Former Ireland coach Declan Kidney is favourite to replace him. | Wasps held open training session to mark the club's move to Coventry .
The Premiership Rugby side farewelled Adams Park for Ricoh Arena .
Wasps were losing almost £4million a season and were terminal .
‘World-class’ training facilities and a recruitment drive are next .
The club's first home game there is Sunday against London Irish . |
118,229 | 24a72495a226c2c81a2dc0562f72ad4827434715 | (CNN)Several terror attacks. Deadly counterterrorism raids. And a wave of suspected jihadist arrests from France to Greece to Belgium. European Union officials are scrambling to stop the spread of terrorism and threats, with foreign ministers meeting Monday in Brussels, Belgium, to tackle the issue. "We start with obviously a discussion on how to counter terrorism, not only in Europe but also in other parts of the world," said Federica Mogherini, EU high representative for foreign affairs. She said she had just met with Arab League Secretary-General Nabil el-Araby "as the threat is not only the one we faced in Paris, but also spreading in many other parts of the world starting from Muslim countries. "And we need to strengthen our way of cooperating together, first of all with Arab countries, and then internally." With new developments sprouting up across Europe, here are the latest: . • The hunt is still on for the ringleader behind a terrorist cell targeted in raids last week, Belgium's justice minister said. The suspected leader and key link between senior ISIS operatives in Syria and the Belgian terrorist cell, Belgian-Moroccan ISIS fighter Abelhamid Abaaoud, is still at large, a senior Belgian counterterrorism official said. Abaaoud's last known location was believed to be Greece, the official said. • An Algerian national who may have links to Abaaoud was arrested over the weekend in Greece and is being extradited to Belgium. • The man detained by Belgian police after last week's raid has been identified. His attorney says he isn't a terrorist; he was just delivering shoes to a friend when he was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But investigators believe the man played a key role in the terrorist cell's plot, the Belgian counterterrorism official said. • Investigators are looking for a man whose DNA was found on a gun magazine used by Amedy Coulibaly, who killed four hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris. • Sales of counterfeit goods by Charlie Hebdo attacker Cherif Kouachi helped fund the purchase of weapons, a source familiar with the ongoing investigation in France told CNN. Five Belgian nationals have been charged with participation in a terrorist organization in connection with last week's raid in Verviers, federal prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt said. The terror cell planned to target police officers, he said. Belgian counterterrorism agencies think the suspected ringleader of the cell is likely Abaaoud, the senior Belgian counterterrorism official said. According to Guy Van Vlierden, a reporter at the Belgian newspaper HLN who tracks Belgian foreign fighters in Syria for the blog "emmejihad," Abaaoud is a 27-year-old from the Molenbeek district of Brussels who traveled to Syria in January 2014 and joined ISIS soon afterward. The two gunmen killed in the Verviers raid, Belgians of North African descent from the same Brussels district, were in phone contact with an ISIS ringleader in Greece, who Belgian authorities believe was likely Abaaoud. But Belgian authorities have not ruled out the possibility that an Algerian suspect arrested in Greece over the weekend was the key link between the terror cell and ISIS. That 33-year-old suspect was wanted in Belgium on charges of terrorist activity, Greek police said Monday. Belgium is requesting an extradition. And Greece isn't done yet; police there say they have made multiple arrests and are looking for more suspects. Other countries are also helping Belgium nab suspected jihadists. French authorities captured two suspects as they were trying to cross from France into Italy, Van Der Sypt said. Four days after police raided a suspected terror cell in Verviers, Belgium, killing two people who authorities said were part of a terrorist cell on the brink of a major attack, we now know the name of the surviving suspect. Marouane El Bali was taken into custody and faces charges of participation in a terrorist organization and possession of explosives with intent to commit a criminal attack, among other charges, said his attorney, Didier De Quévy. But De Quévy said his client was not involved in any terrorism. "He went to Verviers to see his fiancée and was dropping off a pair of sneakers," De Quévy said. "He did not know that these guys were connected to international terrorism. He arrived, he sat down and, the moment he sat down, the policemen starting shooting. He managed to escape by jumping out the window. The other two, however, took their guns and responded and got killed." Authorities say it wasn't just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Investigators believe El Bali played a key role in the terrorist cell's plot and was a key intermediary between two dead gunmen and a wider network in Brussels, the senior Belgian counterterrorism official said. El Bali is also believed to have fought with ISIS in Syria at some point. There are still concerns that part of the terror cell remains at large in Belgium, and could take revenge for the death of their comrades, the senior counterterrorism official said. Belgian security services suspect around 10 people were involved in the cell, but they don't know the number for sure and that worries them. Belgian counterterrorism officials believe the cell had ambitious attack plans beyond attacking police, given bomb-making chemicals found in their safe house in Verviers and police uniforms. They also suspect terrorists were plotting multiple attacks. The belief is that the cell has now been disrupted and will take some time to get back on its feet. The wider cell was being monitored for less than two months. Over the last several weeks, Belgian security services started monitoring the Verviers group 24/7. Why did police move in last week? One reason, the official said, is that the cell obtained weapons and Belgian police could not continue round-the-clock surveillance indefinitely. Investigators say DNA found in a car used to transport Jewish market attack gunman Coulibaly has been traced to a man who is already in custody in connection with the attacks, according to a source familiar with the ongoing investigation. Investigators are still looking for a person whose DNA was found on a magazine for Coulibaly's gun. Coulibaly is the gunman who killed four hostages on January 9 at a kosher grocery store in Paris before police killed him. Before the siege, he had proclaimed his allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. The assault happened during three days of terror in France that began with the attack on offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper in Paris. In all, 12 people died in the Charlie Hebdo attack on January 7. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate, claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo shootings. On Monday, CNN affiliate BFMTV reported Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Laurent Sourisseau will succeed editor Stephane Charbonnier, who died in the attack. Although French officials said they thought Cherif Kouachi had given up terror-related activities and moved to end surveillance on him after he began selling counterfeit goods, it turns out the proceeds from those sales were being used to buy weapons, a source familiar with the ongoing investigation in France told CNN. That's just one of several missteps by intelligence agencies in France being revealed by the investigation into the attacks, the source said. Other failings include a lack of communication and delays in circulating information, according to the source. In one case, a French surveillance agency received an alert about one of the Kouachi brothers' phones in February 2014, but it took four months for information to be passed on to the country's main domestic spy agency, the source said. By then, neither brother was under surveillance, the source said. The surveillance on Cherif Kouachi ended in November 2013; the surveillance on Said Kouachi, the older brother, ended in June, sources have told CNN. Also, authorities now say they think both Said and Cherif Kouachi traveled to Yemen in 2011 via Oman, even though Cherif's passport had been confiscated in 2010. However, investigators have been unable to find either brother's name in travel databases, according to the source. CNN's Phil Black, Ivan Watson and Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report. | Official: The suspected ringleader behind the Belgian terror cell remains at large .
Source: Charlie Hebdo attacker sold counterfeit goods; proceeds were used for weapons .
Source: DNA found in car used to transport market gunman traced to a man in custody . |
56,153 | 9f25e62e2f661bd0122a725a2fc9843abba42f54 | By . Daniel Martin . PUBLISHED: . 17:47 EST, 6 August 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 17:48 EST, 6 August 2013 . British children are suffering thanks to an epidemic of online bullying - with the number of calls to ChildLine from victims almost doubling in just one year. In 2012/13, a total of 4,507 children - around 12 a day - rang the helpline to complain they were being abused by peers on social networking sites. That is up a startling 87 per cent from the 2,410 calls the year before, with the head of the NSPCC revealing many were ringing in ‘utter panic’ after suffering months of ‘torment’. Despair: Childline was contacted on more than 4,500 occasions by cyber bullying victims last year - around 12 a day (file picture) Girls are three times more likely to call than boys and, worryingly, one in six calls are received from children aged 11 or younger. The revelation follows the death of 14-year-old Hannah Smith, who hanged herself on Friday after months of abuse on the internet. Her father said he had found bullying posts on his daughter’s ask.fm page from people telling her to die. She had been urged to ‘drink bleach’ by her anonymous tormentors and taunted over her weight, the death of an uncle and an apparent propensity to self-harm. The notorious ask.fm website - described as a ‘stalker’s paradise’ - has been linked to at least four teenage deaths over the past year. Now an analysis of calls received by ChildLine show that these victims are far from alone - and that cyberbullying is now one of the fastest growing issues young people contract them about. Bullying: The head of the NSPCC revealing many were ringing in 'utter panic' after suffering months of 'torment' Misery: The controversial Ask.fm website which has been blamed for the deaths of four UK children following cyber bullying . The shocking increase has happened just as the number of calls about traditional playground bullying has started to fall - indicating that attackers are retreating to the virtual word as schools take a tougher approach. NSPCC chief executive Peter Wanless said: ‘When I was young you could at least escape the bullying when you got home from school and closed the front door behind you. ‘But now it follows children into their homes, into their bedrooms via mobile phones and laptops.’ He added: ‘Many young people suffer in complete silence not knowing what to do or who to turn to. They internalise the pain blaming themselves going over and over it in their head.’ Victim: Hannah Smith, 14, has killed herself after being bullied by anonymous trolls online . ChildLine, the helpline founded by former That’s Life presenter Esther Rantzen, is now provided by the NSPCC. Their analysis of calls revealed that in 2012/13, more than 1,000 boys rang advisers because they are being intimidated online. And while cyberbulling mostly affects teenagers, the figures reveal that around 16 per cent of calls - more than 700 - are from children aged 11 or younger. One girl told an adviser: ‘I feel really depressed and like I want to fade away. I have no one to talk to and no one understands what I’m going through. ‘This girl has been sending me really horrible messages on the internet, telling me I should kill myself and that I am fat and ugly. 'Everyone tells me to ignore it, but it really upsets me that someone would say such awful things. I don’t know what to do?’ Another said: ‘I’m not feeling good. Someone has set up a fake social network account and is pretending to be me. I don’t know who it is, but I’m really upset because they have been sending horrible messages to people I know and now people are starting to hate me because they think it’s me doing it. ‘I’m really upset and don’t know what to do. I don’t want my parents to find out because I’m too embarrassed. I want to find out who is doing this to me.’ Mr Wanless said that the examples last week of older women suffering abuse from online trolls on twitter shows just how ‘horrible and draining’ bullying can be for the strongest of people. He said: ‘For children and young people, desperate to be liked and to “fit in”, the consequences can be particularly devastating. ‘Can you ever imagine a situation in the office where people came up to you on a daily basis and called you fat, ugly or stupid? Can you imagine receiving emails from your work colleagues telling you they wish you were dead? New trend: The shocking increase has happened just as the number of calls about traditional playground bullying has started to fall - indicating that attackers are retreating to the virtual word as schools take a tougher approach . 'No, and action would be rightly taken immediately. Others would step in just as others stepped in to defend the women facing abuse on twitter.’ He added: ‘Children and young people need to know that there is always somewhere they can turn. 'They can talk to their parents, their teachers and if they really feel they can’t speak face to face with a trusted adult, ChildLine is always here to listen and to support. ‘But these social networking sites will not go away; they must take more responsibility for what happens on their sites just as a school takes responsibility for what happens within its gates. 'We are writing to the regulators of these sites asking for an urgent meeting to discuss how we can tackle this problem. ‘But this is also about education. About being clear with bullies that their actions will not be tolerated and being clear to victims that they have done nothing wrong and it can and will be stopped if they speak out.’ A spokesman for the Department for Education said that no-one ‘should have to suffer the fear and victimisation of bullying’. ‘The law is clear that what is illegal off-line is also illegal on-line,’ he said. ‘Perpetrators of grossly offensive, obscene or menacing behaviour face stiff punishment. ‘Through the UK Council of Child Internet Safety we are working with social networking sites and internet providers to make the internet a safer place for a young people.’ The spokesman added that under the new curriculum, children would be taught from the age of five ‘how to stay safe online, and how to communicate safely and respectfully’. | In 2012/13, a total of 4,507 children rang Childline complaining of cyber bullying .
The figure is up 87 per cent from the 2,410 calls received the previous year .
The head of the NSPCC said many are ringing in 'utter panic' after months of torment . |
96,229 | 07c3c5ceb7c8f22436816c45047fadfb02071e35 | By . Ashley Collman . PUBLISHED: . 15:40 EST, 27 December 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 16:52 EST, 27 December 2013 . Central Park is one of the first stops for tourists visiting New York City, but in the not-so-distant future out-of-towners will need flash if they want to take pictures of the Carousel. Once a series of seven super-slim luxury high-rises are built, the southern quarter of the park will be largely covered in shadows according to a new study conducted by the Municipal Art Society (MAS). Every December 21, on the winter solstice, the park will hit its darkest point, with shadows extending 20 blocks into the park - reaching the Lake and Ramble. A blanket of darkness: When seven luxury high-rise buildings are completed, the southern quarter of Central Park will be obscured by shadows . A look into the future: A new report by the Municipal Arts Society shows how seven new skyscrapers will impact light in the park. The above rendering shows what shadows will be case on the equinox . 'It will basically plunge the park into a solar eclipse in the middle of the day,' Layla Law-Gisiko, chair of the Landmarks Committee for Community Board 5, told CBS New York. Sheep Meadow, the large field where New Yorkers spend nice days soaking in the sun, will be obscured and useless for tanning every equinox. While Central Park was created as a public place for rich and poor to enjoy, the buildings in question are being marketed at Russian oligarchs and Chinese tycoons who want apartments with Central Park views (Skyscraper Museum Director Carol Willis calls these views the 'money shot'). Worst case scenario: On the shortest day of the year, shadows in the park will be as long as 20 blocks - reaching the Lake and Ramble . Seeing the shadow: On the equinox, the new skyscrapers will cast shadows to reach a dozen blocks into the park . The under-construction One57 is one of the buildings in this so-called 'Billionaire's Belt' and two of its penthouses sold for a reported $90million each. While outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg has argued that it's in the city's interest to attract wealthy foreigners to live here, most of them buy up New York apartments as second-homes, and therefore avoid having to pay the city's income tax. Another problem is that most of these buildings are being constructed 'as of right' meaning they don't need to undergo an environmental assessment or public review. The new New York: The buildings in orange are the current developments planned for the 'billionaire's belt' south of the park . Shooting up: Wollman Rink is pictured in this foreground view of Central park with the new future buildings in orange . And these buildings will be some of the tallest in the Western Hemisphere. The Nordstrom Tower will be 1,424 feet tall, which is higher than the top floor of 1 World Trade Center and the proposed 1,350 foot 111 West 57th Street building will be higher than the Empire State Building's observation deck. These buildings are able to reach such heights because they've bought up the air rights from their surrounding buildings. Before and after: A view of 57th street now and what it will look like with the addition of the skyscrapers in development . Casting shadows: The graphic above shows how large a shadow the 1,000-foot-tall building at 217 West 57th Street will create . Only for the wealthiest: One57 is expected to be one of the tallest high-rise apartments in the world. Two of their penthouses recently sold for $90million each . Advances in skyscraper engineering mean these buildings can be constructed super slim - about two townhouses wide in some cases - occupying plots of land originally suited for 40-story buildings. In their report, the Municipal Art Society proposes a re-appraisal of zoning codes to ensure that there's more oversight and public involvement in making this new breed of skyscrapers. 'It's troubling that the sky's the limit when it comes to one of our most precious public spaces,' MAS President Vin Cipolla told the New York Daily News. 'We need to protect these spaces.' Tunnel vision: 57th Street itself will be significantly darkened with these new constructions . Pushing the boundaries: The buildings under development will be some of the tallest in the Western Hemisphere - not to mention the New York skyline . The new breed of skyscraper: Innovation in . skyscraper engineering means these new buildings can be super-slim and . occupy lots that are just two townhouses wide in some cases . | A new report released by the Municipal Art Society shows how the lower quarter of Central Park will be obscured with the construction of seven new skyscrapers . |
156,541 | 566326a8663e4892a5ce9c40b2a4c6c66ba560d9 | By . Jennifer Newton . Helicopters are used to airlifting precious cargo to safety but nothing could have prepared the crew for transporting this heavy load. A four tonne white rhino needed to be transferred to a different enclosure in the Zululand region of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa so the animal was airlifted using a harness. Em Gatland captured the moment the rhino was lifted up by the helicopter in a programme by KZN Wildlife Ezemvelo Game Capture. The white rhino was being transferred to a different enclosure in the Zululand region of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa . Conservationists relocate pairs of rhinos every year in the hope of ensuring the strength of future blood lines in the animals. The location of their new home has not been revealed so the animals can be kept safe . The photographer said: 'Taking pictures of the rhino was a surreal feeling and a mixture of emotion. 'With the current rhino crisis, to be so up close and personal to the prehistoric creature was a breath-taking experience.' Rhinos in that area of South Africa are relocated in pairs every year for the benefit of the species and in order to ensure the strength of future bloodlines. But the location they are moved to is kept secret, to keep the animals safe. After sedating the animal, conservationist prepare for the airlift by securing it in a harness . The helicopter flies in, ready to take the rhino to a new enclosure, which remains secret to protect the animal's safety . Conservationists prepare to catch the rhino as it comes into land in its new enclosure in South Africa . The rhino was first darted with anaesthetic in order for the animal conservationists to undertake the mammoth task of securing the rhino so it could be safely airlifted to its new home. Ms Gatland added: 'Airlifting the rhino was a big team operation and the biggest difficulty for me was manoeuvring in-between people to get a good picture of the rhino. 'I didn't want to get in the way of the people working to get the massive mammal airlifted but I'm glad I managed to get some good shots. 'It was a very moving and emotional moment and a completely new experience for me. To be up so close and personal to a prehistoric creature is a breath taking experience. The four tonne rhino begins to rouse from the sedation after being transported to its new home . The rhino will now be closely monitored for five weeks to make sure it is happy in its new environment . 'I became emotionally aware of how vulnerable they really are. It was a humbling experience to say the least and I couldn't but feel a completely overwhelming desperation for the precious creature. 'There is an element of danger as I was in a Big 5 reserve in complete wilderness and I needed to have my wits about me. 'It really gave me a feeling of perspective in this world.' The rhino will now be closely monitored for five weeks to make sure it is happy in its new environment. | The rhino, who weighs four tonnes, was airlifted to a new enclosure in Zululand, Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa .
Conservationists relocate the animals in pairs annually to ensure the strength of their bloodlines .
Images of the dramatic relocation were taken by photographer Em Gatland, who described the experience as 'surreal'
Animal will now be monitored for five weeks to check it is happy in its new enclosure . |
272,680 | ed2c078445dee59e1cbb79012feb8be3c0d4cfed | Washington (CNN) -- How many people died of marijuana overdoses last year? "Spoiler alert -- it's zero!" said Oregon Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer, putting his hands over his head in the shape of a zero. The comments were made at an event Thursday with a bipartian group of House members calling for Congress to jump on the bandwagon of marijuana legalization initiatives passed in Oregon, Alaska and D.C. on Election Day. Colorado passed a similar ballot initiative in 2012. Representatives Eleanor Holmes Norton from, D-D.C., Dana Rohrabacher, R- California and Jared Polis, D-Colordao, were also at the event touting the health and economic benefits of legal marijuana. "There were many close elections across America last week, but there was one clear winner: ending our failed prohibition of marijuana, and instead legalizing, regulating, and taxing adult use," Blumenauer said. "It's not more dangerous than methamphetamines or cocaine." "Or tequila," Rohrabacher jumped in. Marijuana legalization in the District requires approval from Congress, which is still pending. Norton said that newly elected D.C. Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser is unsure about how Congress will react. "I think she has some concerns about what Congress will do," Norton said. "We have to do it in a way so that we don't become the place to come for pot." . CNN's Courtney Battle contributed to this report. | Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer points out there are no deaths from marijuana overdoses .
"It's not more dangerous than cocaine," he said .
Pot legalization passed in ballot initiatives in Alaska, Oregon and D.C. Nov. 4 . |
31,190 | 58a9f6b64d34bb12016a672c583f0f34082e8597 | (CNN) -- It's the latest landmark on Singapore's already busy skyline. It features a 55,000 seater stadium, swimming pool complex and water sports facilities. It's also the winner of a World Architecture award and is described by the projects chief operating officer as less of a venue and more of "a brand new city." Welcome to Singapore's Sports Hub, which opened in June at a cost of more than $1 billion. This 350,000 square meter site, in one of the most land scarce countries in the world, is the result of a government driven initiative to firmly place Singapore on the global events calendar. It also hopes to get citizens moving and involved in all manner of sporting activities. According to Jonathan Rose, principal of design firm Aecom, the project has raised the bar in terms of its look, feel and goals. "Sports Hub really is setting a completely new standard for how major sports infrastructure is being integrated to the community and ... the life of the city," Rose said. Inside, the main venue is decorated in a patriotic red and white, the national colors of Singapore. For COO, Oon Jin Teik, the building was designed to be versatile as well as symbol of national pride. "Singapore is not a one sport nation," Oon said. As such, the sports hub will cater for football, athletics, rugby, cricket and even concerts under one giant roof. At 310 meters across the distinctive roof is the largest free spanning dome in the world. "It takes away the heat, the direct sunlight, it takes away the heavy rain," Oon said. But it also does more than that. A 200 meter by 100 meter section of super lightweight steel can be moved on demand, taking 22 minutes to open and close. The traditional air conditioning system featured at similar retractable roof venues, meanwhile, has been replaced by an innovative bowl cooling system. These nifty features bring a host of benefits unseen elsewhere. "You can sell tickets for banks of seats and then you can switch on the cooling for different banks of seats," said lead architect, Clive Lewis. "In that way you reduce the energy by a sixth ... of the energy you would use to cool a conventional closed stadium." But while the design may lead towards the environmentally friendly it also creates some unique challenges -- including grass that isn't quite the normal shade of green yet. As described by Oon, "at different parts of the pitch the humidity is different, the wind is different, and therefore soil conditions are different." The Sports Hub has suffered its share of embarrassment because of its sandy pitch in recent months. But there are signs a solution may be in sight. "We found that we needed a more even blend of regular sunlight all the time," Oon said. "We want to get it right more badly than our harshest critic." That's required the stadium operators to adapt their plans for the facility. Luckily for them, the engineering flexibility afforded by the stadiums high tech design allows fine tuning for long term success. | The Singapore Sports Hub is a new stadium and events complex in the Southeast Asian country .
The project comes in at a cost of more than $1 billion dollars .
Sports Hub has not been short of challenges including struggles with the quality of the stadium playing surface . |
141,328 | 42bf83e12d00f7a9f7d2a30a83a384c11304d4e5 | By . Ellie Zolfagharifard . A sleek solar car, which uses the same amount of energy as a hairdryer, has won the American Solar Car Challenge for the fifth consecutive time. Dubbed Quantum, the University of Michigan car won the eight-day, 1,700-mile (2,735 km) as it travelled through seven states using solar power. The event started on July 20 in Austin, Texas and ended on Monday in Minneapolis. Scroll down for video . A sleek solar car, which uses the same amount of energy to power a hairdryer, has won the American Solar Car Challenge for the fifth consecutive time . As Quantum approached the finish line around noon, teammates cheered around the sidelines while race crew member Mikhail Gorelik waved the checkered flag. Michigan won the race despite an early 20- or 30-minute setback when the motor failed and needed to be swapped. Five of the 22 other teams passed Michigan in the process. Electricity produced by the solar panels of the car were stored in a pack of lithium-ion batteries and used to power the small direct current motor mounted at the rear hub. The unit only produces three horsepower, but that was enough to allow Quantum to race at an average 60 miles per hour. Video courtesy Evan Dougherty. Dubbed Quantum, the University of Michigan car won the eight-day, 1,700-mile (2,735km) as it travelled through seven states using solar power . The event started July 20 in Austin, Texas and ended on Monday in Minneapolis. As Quantum approached the finish line around noon, teammates cheered around the sidelines while race crew member Mikhail Gorelik waved the checkered flag . To ensure a level playing field in the United States, all teams relied on 516 photovoltaic panels, or solar cells, made in America and patched together in Germany. But each entrant had to develop their own Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) system, which connects inverters, battery chargers and other devices to optimise the car's performance. The skill and key to winning wasunderstanding the course and detecting the angles of the sun's rays during a day's racing, starting at 9am and ending at 6pm local time, with each team using four drivers. The Quantum car had previously taken third in the World Solar Challenge in Australia in 2011 and first in the American race in 2012. It is the team’s 11th vehicle and car weighs in at just around 320lbs (145 kg) without a driver. The 16-foot-long (4.8 metre) Quantum stretches about 10 inches (25.4cm) beyond the length of an original 1965 Ford Mustang and is around 37 inches (93cm) tall. The car previously took 3rd in World Solar Challenge in Australia in 2011 and first in the American race in 2012 . The 16-foot-long (4.8 metre) Quantum stretches about 10 inches (25.4cm) beyond the length of an original 1965 Ford Mustang and is around 37 inches (93cm) tall . The road up to Minneapolis had not been an easy one for the team. For the entire day, the University of Minnesota challenged Michigan to be first across the line. Throughout the trip, the two teams moved between first and second, even driving alongside one another on a few occasions. In the end, Quantum prevailed, defeating Minnesota to win the stage by a mere 45 seconds. 'This isn't just a win,' said Pavan Naik, project manager and junior industrial and operations engineer. 'It's a win after one failure after another. We've learned so much from that - how to work as a team and how to help each other out. I'm excited for the next World Solar Challenge.' Quantum is the University of Michigan's 11th vehicle and car weighs in at 320lbs (145 kg) without a driver . | The event started in Austin, Texas and ended on Monday in Minneapolis .
It involves solar cars racing across U.S on a 1,700-mile (2,73 5km) course .
Michigan University won the race despite setback when the motor failed .
The car previously took third in the World Solar Challenge in Australia in 2011 and first in the American race in 2012 . |
149,843 | 4dbc29fecdee7c47085aba80a74a3611fa1bb0d6 | By . Mark Duell . PUBLISHED: . 10:41 EST, 30 March 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 12:04 EST, 30 March 2013 . Bombed to pieces in a raid which could have come straight out of the film Top Gun, it was a stark symbol of Saddam Hussein's rule over Iraq having been broken and destroyed. The Al Mansur, translated as ‘The Victor’, was the dictator’s £25million yacht which was blasted during the Iraq War in March 2003 - and 10 years on it is still a stark reminder of a fallen tyrant. The 400ft boat, weighing 7,400 tons, could seat 200 guests under a glass atrium in the middle and even had a secret escape route descending down from Hussein’s room into a submarine launch pod. Bombed: Saddam Hussein's private yacht, the Al Mansur, lies at the dockside in Basra on April 10 2003 . Blasted: The 400ft boat, weighing 7,400 tons, could seat 200 guests under a glass atrium in the middle . It was designed to Saddam's personal specifications and sumptuously decorated all over in marble, exotic woods, and with silver and gold fittings. Measuring 350ft long, the boat weighed 7,359 tons and looked more like a smart cross-Channel ferry than a private yacht. Saddam's love for al-Mansur was proved just five days before the war began. Despite all the other urgent war preparations, he had ordered the yacht . to be moved under a full naval guard from its normal berth in the far . southern port of Umm Qasr to Basra's inner harbour in a vain attempt to . offer it better . protection. But it was blown up in Basra harbour . by 500lb Mark 82 bombs during the Anglo-American invasion by two VF-2s . with TARPS (Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance Pod System) from USS . Constellation. These ‘Bounty Hunter’ F-14 Tomcats . attacked the yacht on March 27, 2003, more than 20 years after it had . been launched in 1982. It had escaped damage during the Iran-Iraq War of . 1980 to 1988. In profile: Saddam Hussein's presidential yacht took its name, Al Mansur, from an 8th century caliph described by historians as a merciless potentate who destroyed any threat to his rule . Up in the air: A U.S. F-14 Tomcat is pictured on the flight deck of the USS Harry S. Truman. It was F-14 planes that bombed Hussein's ship . Dictator: Saddam Hussein was hanged in Baghdad, Iraq, for crimes against humanity in December 2006 . The F-14s were flying near the . Euphrates River for a standard TARPS reconnaissance mission when a . British Army forward air controller asked them to attack the yacht, . reported The Aviationist blog. The . Combined Air Operations Center had realised that radio equipment on the . ship was being used for battlefield communication, although the vessel . had never been used for military purposes before. The ship had already been hit by a . shot from an S-3B Viking - a primarily anti-submarine plane - but it was . missed by two laser-guided bombs from F/A-18 Hornets, reported The . Aviationist. However, on March 27 the attack was led by a Tomcat team of Lt Mark Callari and Lt Jeff Sims, which dropped two bomb runs while Lt Pat Baker and Lt Sean Mathieson provided cover in the second F-14 above. They then switched positions and Baker and Mathienson dropped their bombs, hitting the hull above the water. Both planes headed back to the Constellation with the Al Mansur on fire. The team knew their attacks had not sunk the vessel. The bombs were designed with fuses intended for ground support, but not for sinking the ship - because they exploded before hitting. But the Al Mansur was rendered unusable by the bombs and was decommissioned almost three months later before being scrapped at Basra in 2005. In 2009 the boat's sister ship which was also built in secret for the Iraqi dictator went on sale for £17million. Decor aboard the floating palace - originally called Qadissivat . Saddam - included Arabesque arches, dark wood carvings, deep pile . carpets, and loose rugs woven in Islam's holiest cities. As well as other typically Muslim features, including prayer . rooms and ornate fountains, the Danish builders also installed . gold-tap bathrooms, whirl pools, steam rooms, and hi-tech . bathrooms. Unlike the Al Mansur, the Qadissivat Saddam was kept abroad after it was built in . Denmark in 1981 and was completely untouched by the . numerous wars Saddam was involved in during his reign. The statue of Muslim caliph Al Mansur, founder of Baghdad, sitting in a dreary square in the city . Al Mansur (712 to 775) was the second caliph of the Abbasid dynasty and is generally regarded as the real founder of the Abbasid caliphate. His father was a great-grandson of Mohammed's uncle Abbas. Al Mansur wiped out the last remnants of the deposed Omayyad dynasty, and cut the Abbasids free from the revolutionary movement that had brought them to power. He achieved power with the aid of Persian troops, and he established his new capital at Baghdad. Arab historian Al Masudi in Meadows of Gold recounts a number of anecdotes that present aspects of this caliph's character. He tells of a blind poet on two occasions reciting praise poems for the Umayyads to one he didn't realize was this Abbasid caliph. Al Mansur rewarded the poet for the verses. Al Masudi relates a tale of the arrow with verses inscribed on feathers and shaft arriving close to Al Mansur. These verses prompted him to investigate the situation of a notable from Hamadan unjustly imprisoned and release him. There is also the account of the foreboding verses Al Mansur saw written on the wall just before his death. A very impressive aspect of this caliph's character is that when he died he left in the treasury six hundred thousand dirhams and fourteen million dinars. In 2008, MBC 1 had depicted the life and leadership of Al Mansur in a historical series aired during the holy month of Ramadan. | Al Mansur ('The Victor') was bombed during Iraq War in March 2003 .
Boat could seat 200 guests under glass atrium and measured 400ft .
'Bounty Hunter' F-14 Tomcats attacked yacht although it didn't sink .
But the bombs did enough damage and it was later decommissioned . |
179,799 | 74ce5bb5698213fd30f378327be44a7d9c6cb159 | A newborn baby is in intensive care at a Brisbane Hospital, as police investigate the cause of the two-week-old’s life threatening head injuries. The investigation has been launched by the Child Protection Investigation Unit on the Gold Coast, according to the Courier Mail. The infant was rushed to Gold Coast University Hospital on Sunday and is now in the ICU at Brisbane’s Mater Children’s hospital. The two-week-old baby was first taken to Gold Coast University Hospital (pictured) on Sunday . The child’s parents, from Maudsland on the northern Gold Coast, are understood to be cooperating with police. | Two-week-old baby in intensive care with 'serious' head injuries .
Gold Coast police have launched an investigation to determine the cause .
Infant taken to Gold Coast University Hospital on Sunday before transfer .
Child's parents, from Maudsland, are cooperating with detectives . |
270,072 | e9c7568051d382a954857bb0825e670d5e828713 | Thousands of Australians scored illegal drugs from a website run like eBay, where they could check out reviews on dope, meth, ecstasy and cocaine and order their highs through the post at a quarter of the street price. A 30-year-old Texan man named Ross Ulbricht is alleged by the FBI to have created the website and to have run it from a Bondi apartment in Sydney for the first six months, but he has plead not guilty to the charges against him. Lawyer turned journalist Eileen Ormsby, from Melbourne, began investigating online drug supermarket Silk Road in 2011 after a woman she met at a party told her how easy it was to buy drugs from it. Despite it being a global website, reportedly founded in the US, ‘Australian users were definitely over represented because there were higher quality drugs on there,’ Ms Ormsby told Daily Mail Australia. Scroll down for video . Texan man named Ross William Ulbricht has been charged as being the site's pseudonymous founder Dread Pirate Roberts . ‘The drugs were also much, much cheaper than in Australia,’ she explained. 'The most popular drug was MDMA. A gram is $300 on the street but only $80 online.' Silk Road, which has since been shut down by the FBI, was an online black market and part of the Deep Web that it operated as a Tor hidden service, meaning online users were able to browse it anonymously and securely without being detected by authorities. The journalist began hanging out on the site’s online forums, which you could access by downloading tor software to your computer and by trading in the online currency Bitcoin, and spoke with many users of the site. ‘The online forums were very busy and there were a lot of Australians. I was gobsmacked that it existed or that it worked,’ she said. Ms Ormsby was also shocked at the type of people she met on the website. ‘They came across as quite intelligent and engaged, then I got interested in the whole business model and how it was so openly advertised on forums like Reddit,’ she explained. Mr Ulbricht was arrested by the FBI in 2013 and will go on trial on January 5 in New York . On Silk Road people could buy dope, meth, ecstasy and cocaine and order their highs through the post . As well as people looking to buy drugs, Ms Ormsby also spoke with the in-house doctor for the website that was there to provide advice. His family and friends believe he is falsely accused and innocent of the charges . ‘He’s just interested in harm reduction and giving realistic advice about drugs. There is no point in just saying “don’t do it” to people who are already using,’ she reasoned. Ms Ormsby had correspondence with a person who created the website who goes by the pseudonym of Dread Pirate Roberts. Texan man Mr Ulbricht has been charged as being the site's pseudonymous founder Dread Pirate Roberts and was arrested by the FBI in 2013. Mr Ulbricht allegedly wanted to create a Utopian market place and during the site’s early stages he lived in Bondi. The 30-year-old will go on trial on January 5 charged with conspiracy to narcotics trafficking; computer hacking; money laundering; engaging in a criminal enterprise; and conspiracy to traffic in fraudulent IDs. He was taken into custody by federal agents at a San Francisco public library in 2013. But his family and friends believe he is falsely accused and innocent of the charges. He has also pleaded not guilty to all charges. Ms Ormsby spoke to Dread Pirate Roberts by private direct messages online. ‘We had lots of private messages. He tended to be fairly guarded but he was always polite and he really believed in what he was doing. Lawyer turned journalist Eileen Ormsby investigated the website for two years . She has written the 'true story of the world's most notorious online drug market' (left) ‘By all accounts he lived very simply considering he allegedly had nearly one hundred million dollars in Bitcoin,’ Ms Ormsby said. Silk Road had over a million registered users by the time it was shut down and Ms Ormsby believes it provided a safer alternative for people to buy drugs than on the streets. ‘Obviously it’s impossible to have any form of violence taking part online. There is also quality control because people get rated out of five just like on eBay,’ she explained. ‘There were people doing independent testing of all the drugs so you know what you are getting, not like the so called legal highs that are mimicking the real drugs and getting sold in nightclubs.’ Although people did still get ripped off on the site, it was run in an organised way were people would sign up and advertise their wares for sale. Despite Silk Road being shut down on 6 November 2013 Silk Road 2.0 came online soon after . Users would come online and search for what they wanted, for example ecstasy pills, and pop it in their online baskets. ‘The money would go into the site until the user had received their drugs in the post,’ Ms Ormsby said. Despite Silk Road being shut down on 6 November 2013 Silk Road 2.0 came online, said to be run by former administrators of Silk Road. It was also closed on 6 November 2014 but at least 20 more similar sites are available for drug users. Ms Ormsby doesn’t believe authorities will ever really be able to control them. ‘There is a whole move to decentralise the markets and purely online currency is being used more and more,’ she said. The incredible true story of Silk Road's rise and fall, Silk Road by Eileen Ormsby, is out now with Pan Macmillan Australia. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article. | An eBay like drugs website named Silk Road was founded in 2011 but was shut down in 2013 by the FBI .
Ross Ulbricht has been charged in the US with creating the website .
Journalist Eileen Ormsby has written a book about 'the world's most notorious online drugs market'
She says Australian's were prolific users of the site because it made drugs cheaper for them to buy . |
173,865 | 6cfa1d122bb912233feb6bfa03a0aee9675b1988 | By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 10:34 EST, 20 April 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 12:27 EST, 20 April 2012 . Florida polo millionaire John Goodman, convicted of DUI manslaughter earlier this month, has reached a settlement of $46 million with the family of the 23-year-old victim who died in the crash. Goodman, 48, faces up to 30 years in prison after being convicted of drunk-driving manslaughter and leaving the scene of a crash that left Scott Wilson dead in February 2010. The huge payout relates to lawsuits brought against the tycoon by the victim's parents’, Lili and William Wilson, and comes before Goodman’s sentencing on April 30. Polo tycoon: John Goodman has reached a settlement of $46 million with Lili and William Wilson - whose son, Scott, died after Goodman crashed into his car . Justice: Lili Wilson leaves the courtroom after the guilty verdict was read out - she and her husband have reached a settlement with Goodman . The Wilson’s attorney, Christian Searcy, confirmed the . figure to the Palm Beach Post and said that $6 million of the amount would be paid by The . Player’s Club – the bar where Goodman was drinking before the crash. The settlement comes after Goodman, . the founder of the International Polo Club Palm Beach in Florida, . adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend Heather Hutchins . last October, entitling her to up to a third of his biological . children's trust fund, worth $300million. Scott Wilson was only 23 years old when he was killed in the car crash . At the time the Wilson’s lawyers slammed the move as an attempt by Goodman to shield his assets. The revelation of the $46 million pay . out also comes after last week’s news that Goodman’s lawyers had filed a . motion for a new trial based on alleged jury misconduct. The motion was made after an . alternate juror called Goodman’s lawyers claiming that it was ‘clear’ to . her that the other jurors had decided the defendant was guilty before . the trial was over. Prosecutors successfully claimed that . Goodman was drunk when he rammed his black Bentley convertible into . Wilson's car two years ago, causing it to roll into a canal. The millionaire disputed the claims and argued in court that the crash was the result of a malfunction with his brakes. Goodman left the scene and waited an . hour to call 911 while Scott drowned. He gave a dead cell phone battery . as the reason why he walked away from the crash scene. After the crash, Goodman's blood alcohol level was measured at .177 per cent, more than twice the legal driving limit. At trial Goodman said he was sure of . one thing: he had two shots of tequila and two shots of vodka before the . crash, yet he was not drunk and that he drunk after the crash to . alleviate his pain. After leaving a bar, he said his car . suddenly lurched forward into an intersection 'and I began to apply my . brakes, and the car did not seem to be stopping as easily as I was used . to,' he said. Impact: The crumpled car driven by Wilson, left, and the Bentley driven by Goodman, right. Goodman said he drank from a bottle of liquor he found after the crash - the reason he was over the limit . Deadly: Wilson family members look at the Bentley Goodman was driving when he ran a stop sign in 2010 . Unable to control the vehicle, it . slammed into the side of Scott's - even though Goodman said he was not . aware he had hit another driver so left the scene. If he had known someone had plunged into the canal, 'I would have done whatever I could have done to help', he claimed. Goodman then went to a nearby barn where he found a bottle of liquor, the Miami Herald reported. 'I ... drank it to alleviate, . thinking it would help with my pain,' he said, claiming it was the . reason his blood alcohol content was more than double the legal driving . level when his blood was taken three hours after the crash. Goodman’s lawyers are now hoping for a . new trial or for the conviction to be overturned after an alternate . juror came forward saying the jury had broken pledges they made to the court. Grieving: Lili Wilson, the victim's mother, wept when Goodman's 911 call was played in court last month . Bill: The court is shown Goodman's receipt for drinks, allegedly bought for himself and others before the crash . The defense claims that the jurors . ignored the court’s orders by discussing evidence before the end of the . case, making derogatory remarks about Goodman’s wealth, and by reading . media coverage of the case. The motion detailed how an alternate . juror reported the alleged misconduct to the court but when she did not . hear back she called Goodman’s lawyers. She told them that the jury of five . men and one woman discussed the case among themselves ‘throughout the . trial’ despite being told they shouldn’t. Newest family member: Goodman, right, adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend Heather Hutchins last fall. The move means she is entitled to up to a third of his biological children's $300 million trust fund . 'We all had things to say about the . trial as it progressed each day,' the juror said in an affidavit. 'On . one occasion I reminded the jury that we had been instructed by the . court not to discuss the case until the end. In reply, I was teased by . being asked by another juror if I had a crush on Mr. Goodman.' The juror also claimed that members of the jury often mentioned Goodman’s wealth' 'Based on the negative talk about Mr. Goodman's wealth and the issues discussed about the case, it was clear . to me that these jurors had already made up their minds before Thursday, . March 22,' the juror stated in her affidavit. Lap of luxury: The International Polo Club, which Goodman founded, attracts A-list celebrities . Home sweet home: Goodman sold his mansion in Wellington, Florida to his children's trust for $3.8million and now pays $2,000 in rent each month . The motion details that one juror . started writing a book about the case while the trial was still ongoing . and that jurors made ‘false statements’ to cover up another’s . ‘prejudicial gesture.’ The juror who spoke to Goodman’s . lawyers claimed that one of the jurors was keen to finish the case by . Friday March 23 because they had a weekend boating trip planned. Wilson was a University of Central . Florida graduate and was working as a civil engineer at the time of the . crash. He had been driving home to Wellington to visit his family when . Goodman ran a stop sign. | Polo mogul John Goodman reached settlement with victim's parents'
Awaits sentencing April 30 and faces up to 30 years in prison for 2010 DUI death of Scott Wilson . |
181,325 | 76bd30414b563e38ed1e41d0b1ce14887f667924 | By . Ryan Gorman . PUBLISHED: . 10:28 EST, 6 September 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 13:51 EST, 6 September 2013 . A Catholic high school teacher suspended last week after a racy skit on the ‘Tonight Show’ has been reinstated. Introduced by host Jay Leno as an audience member taking part in a ‘sizzle reel’ skit, Steve Endemano is featured in a fake movie trailer for an anti-steroids film. The risqué ending caused Whittier Christian High School in La Habra, CA., to be suspended, but has been returned to the classroom after a groundswell of support from students. Mr Endemano, 64, is depicted as a cycling enthusiast who wants to turn pro, and believes he can win without taking steroids. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO . Oh my God: A student tells Steve Endemano 'they're huge' after he drops his towel . .Initially removed from the classroom for the skit, which ended with him in a locker room dropping a towel and a student saying ‘oh my God, they’re huge,’ the teacher and coach has been allowed to return for his 35th year at the school. When first introduced, Mr Endemano explained he teaches Bible, calculus and physics, and that he dreamed of being a professional cyclist. ‘I love to ride bikes, I ride bikes all the time, and I would love to be a professional cyclist’ he told Mr Leno, before adding that he’s ‘only 64.’ The talk show host then introduces the faux trailer for ‘Get Some Balls: The Steve Endemano Story.’ 2 and half minutes of fame: Mr Endemano (right) was featured in an 'audience sizzle reels' segment on the 'Tonight Show' with Jay Leno (left) The trailer shows Mr Endemano’s disappointment in disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong admitting having taken performance enhancing drugs in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. ‘Lance! Why?’ Mr Endemano yells out. The voiceover then says ‘one 64-year-old man is determined to beat father time,’ before Mr Endamano is shown riding a bike and training before eventually ending up in a locker room with the city champ, whom he calls ‘dirty’ for taking steroids. Mr Enemano then drops his towel and the student says ‘they’re huge,’ to which the teacher replies ‘and they’re comin’ for you.’ No juicing: Mr Ednemano is depicted as a 64-year-old man who wants to be a professional cycler, but doesn't need steroids to win . The school suspended the teacher shortly after skit aired. Students responded by creating a Facebook page demanding he be reinstated, and several students who spoke to local media agreed that while regrettable, the skit should not result in his dismissal. ‘I think he should come back to school, because we miss him as a teacher, and he’s great to have on campus,’ a student told KTLA before Mr Endemano was reinstated. He’s just overall a good teacher, I love him, another student said. ‘Come back Mr Endemano,’ said another student. The effort appears to have paid off, as Mr Ednemano will be in class after only a week suspension. | Steve Endemano, 64, has been a teacher and coach at the school for 34 years .
He was removed from the classroom after appearing in a skit depicting him disrobing in a locker room and a student observing how big his genitalia are because he doesn't use steroids .
With students calling for him to be returned to the classroom, the suspension lasted only one week . |
99,289 | 0be15e08b35ded27d874f64272cbd0844a63f830 | Montevideo, Uruguay (CNN) -- The tiny faces pressed against the airport window stare in wonder at the aircraft waiting for them at the end of the sky bridge: this is the plane that will take them to a new life. Syrian refugee Nassar and his family - he has five sons and five daughters, aged from three to 22 -- fled their home in Idlib as the country's bloody civil war took hold. Now, after almost three years of fear and uncertainty, they are on the move again, flying more than 12,000km from their temporary base in Lebanon to a more permanent home on the other side of the world. "Returning to Syria is not an option," Nassar told CNN a day before he began the daunting 23-hour journey to Uruguay, where he and his children are being resettled at the invitation of the country's President Jose Mujica. "I'm excited to go to Uruguay but I'm also nervous. I'm going because I want my kids to continue their education," he said. "Traveling to the other side of the world to find a new chance to live, this is not easy," said Uruguay's Human Rights Secretary Javier Miranda, who accompanied the group, along with a CNN team. "They are very brave to choose a new destiny for their lives because they want to educate their kids with dignity. They deserve our help and they deserve the opportunity." Uruguay has offered to take in up to 120 refugees to help with the humanitarian crisis sparked by the conflict in Syria. Nassar and his family are among the first 42 - five families -- to make the move. A second group is expected to follow by February 2015. Together, they will live at Hogar San Jose, a Catholic home on the outskirts of the capital, Montevideo, for two months, learning Spanish and adjusting to a new culture before moving on. First though, they have to get there. It's a lengthy and life-changing journey - from Beirut, via Frankfurt and Buenos Aires - and one filled with mixed emotions. After one final briefing from Pierre King, operations manager at the International Organization for Migration, which has organized the trip, and a last medical check-up, they are cleared to set off. For most of the refugees, it is their first time on a plane, so there is an air of excitement as well as of apprehension about what awaits them on arrival in Montevideo. Nassar's eldest sons, Mohammed and Bassel are keen to learn all they can about their soon-to-be-adopted home, peppering me with questions when we first meet. "What is life like there?" "What is the nature like?" "How can we live there and adapt quickly? How can we make friends?" "What is the weather like there?" "Which places can we visit?" They are all too aware that their first challenge will be the fact that they don't speak Spanish, but both young men are desperate to continue their education, having been forced to abandon their university studies when they left Idlib. Inevitably, the conversation turns to football; the brothers say they are looking forward to playing and watching it in Uruguay. Their favorite players? Neymar, Messi, and -- of course -- Luis Suarez. As the plane makes its way across the vast South American continent, Nassar studies the flight's interactive map on a screen. "Hours have passed and we are still flying above Brazil!" he says in amazement at the size and scale of the countries passing below. After a brief stop in Buenos Aires - a chance for the refugees to stretch their legs after more than 19 hours flying - they are finally on the last leg of the journey, a short hop to Montevideo. The children, by now familiar with the in-flight entertainment system, keep themselves occupied as they near their destination. Two of their fellow passengers, Uruguayans, greet the children with hugs and kisses after realizing who they are. "We are very happy to welcome them to our country," they told CNN. Eventually, tired but with broad smiles on their faces, the enthusiastic group of refugees emerges from the Air France flight at Montevideo's Carrasco International Airport. They are greeted by President Mujica after their arrival. Mujica later told reporters he hopes more countries will follow Uruguay's example and offer homes to Syria's refugees. "We must insist that the world moves in this direction; we can't continue with statements on human rights and [saying] that we support human rights if later we don't put our words into action, above all for the children." According to the U.N., there are more than 1.1 million Syrian refugees like Nassar's family registered in Lebanon, while the country's population is just over 4 million people. Lebanon's Minister of Social Affairs, H.E. Rashid Derbas, and UNHCR's Representative in Lebanon, Ninette Kelley, recently called for renewed investment in Lebanese infrastructure to help the country manage the influx of refugees from the Syrian conflict. "Lebanon today faces an unprecedented challenge to manage both its own population and Syrian refugees," said Kelley. "The presence of over 1.5 million Syrians across Lebanon has directly affected the public and service sectors at the national scale," Derbas explained. "From Akkar all the way to the South, our towns and villages have been at the forefront of the humanitarian response to an incessantly escalating crisis. The inhabitants of these communities have opened their hearts and homes to the refugees. Therefore, the projects undertaken since 2011 have brought much needed breathing space to our communities and improved our lives and the lives of our Syrian kin." Walking from the plane towards his new home, one of the children proudly showed off his football shirt, bearing Suarez's number 9. At last, he and his family have reached their final goal: a new country and a new life, leaving memories of war behind. | Five Syrian refugee families have been flown to Uruguay to begin a new life there .
The group are the first of up to 120 Syrians who will be resettled in the South American country .
Father-of-ten Nassar told CNN he was moving for the sake of his children's education .
"They deserve our help and they deserve the opportunity," said Uruguay's Human Rights Secretary . |
199,328 | 8e07554675b9cef839e000ce045918b0652dc5a1 | Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- With South Korea returning to an uneasy calm down after a fatal artillery attack on an offshore island Tuesday, North Korean watchers in Seoul were scrambling to explain what may have been the thinking behind Pyongyang's fatal attack. Experts offered a range of opinions, saying that recent events could be a show of strength designed to bolster the reputation of the successor to the state's leadership, and suggesting that North Korea's recent actions fit into a predictable pattern of provocation. Others, however, warned that North Korea's military brinksmanship will continue regardless of who is in charge in Pyongyang, and warn that if South Korea does retaliate, it could ignite a potentially lethal --- and uncontrollable -- cycle of escalation. Read more CNN coverage on North Korea . Even South Korea's defense minister was drawn into the speculation. "Our judgment is that North Korea carried out the attack to consolidate the succession process in the country by showing off the leadership of Kim Jong Un," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted Defense Minister Kim Tae-young as saying in a meeting with lawmakers. Kim Jong Un, the third son of ailing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, was named a four-star general just before a rare Workers Party Congress in September, and was named to the party's powerful military committee. He has since been seen widely alongside his father and senior generals, leading North Korea watchers to believe that a succession process is now under way, designed to place the younger Kim in his father's place on the latter's passing. South Korean pundits agreed with the minister. "The first reason for this attack is the instability of Kim Jong Un. That is the fundamental reason," said Young Howard, who heads the NGO Open Radio for North Korea, which maintains a network of contacts north of the two Koreas' demilitarized zone. "Constant military tensions help him to keep the support of his military, and to unite the North Korean people." Others suggested that it is the militaristic nature of North Korean society, rather than the current succession process that is the key to its behavior. "I think there is a danger in the West's tendency to interpret all North Korean actions in the context of topical events, in other words, by saying everything North Korea is doing is aimed at ensuring a smooth succession for Kim Jong Un," said Brian Myers, author of "The Cleanest Race," an authoritative study of North Korean propaganda. "This is implying that once Kim Jong Un is firmly seated in power, this behavior is not going to continue, and I think that is dangerous. If you are a military first regime, you flex your muscles; this is what North Korea is, and this is what it does." While some in the South had hoped that Kim Jong Il's successor might be reform-minded, recent events, and Kim's strong identification with the North Korean People's Army, suggests a continuation -- or possibly a buttressing -- of the regime's current Songeun, or "military first" policy. Still, the apparently calibrated pattern of recent North Korean provocations --- last week, it was revealed that North Korea had displayed a new and well-equipped uranium enrichment plant to visiting U.S. scientists -- is predictable, another expert said. "The North Koreans asked in late summer for a resumption of aid and essentially they were ignored, so now they are sending a message to South Korea --- by shelling an island -- and to United States --- with their uranium plant --- that they are not withering away, they are still here and still dangerous," said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Kookmin University. "They chose the soft spots of both sides, so this is a way to a send a message to both the White House and the Blue House: "We are here, we are crazy, we are dangerous. And our last paycheck is long overdue." Read more from Andrei Lankov . The Blue House is the South Korean presidential residence. Alternatively, North Korea could have felt legitimately threatened, said another expert, citing the fact that Pyongyang had demanded the halt to a South Korean firing exercise off their shared coast --- the South Korean side refused to heed the demand -- before it opened fire. "The North Koreans sound like communist lunatics, and fanatics, when in fact most soldiers in the North Korea army are tending rabbits and farming crops," said Michael Breen, a biographer of Kim Jong Il. "There is good reason for them to be nervous: There is firing off their coast. They have to make a judgment call, so they start, and the whole world thinks they are bad guys, and that Kim Jong Un is strengthening its position, but it could have been a miscalculation." Tuesday's attack was the second time this year that the North Korea has introduced a weapons system that has been unused on the peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War, South Korea says. In March, a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, was sunk in what a South Korean investigation says was a North Korean submarine torpedo attack. The North has denied sinking the warship. Tuesday's artillery exchange was the first such since an armistice, rather than a peace treaty, halted the fighting in summer 1953. While South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has demanded massive retaliation should North Korea repeat its actions, that raises a risk of dropping the peninsula into a potentially uncontrollable vortex of retaliation and counter-retaliation. Still, there are limits to the country's forbearance. "The South has been pretty tolerant, but how much can you tolerate?" asked Dan Pinkston, who heads the International Crisis Group's Seoul office. "I don't know what the red line is, but if you don't retaliate, this is giving a green light" to North Korea. Should retaliation take place, could it unleash Korean War II? "I think it is unlikely, I think it will cool off," Pinkston said. "But it is dangerous." | Opinions vary widely among North Korea watchers .
Theories include a show of strength and a miscalculated reaction to an apparent threat .
Another expert says the North is frustrated by being ignored diplomatically .
Yet another theory: Pyongyang needs constant military tension to unite its people . |
34,292 | 61662c925447e3eb8595e8f0487378dd38092bc9 | A pensioner is lucky to be alive after blundering doctors failed to notice four times she had dentures stuck in her throat, leaving them lodged there for an amazing nine weeks. Umit Maddock, 46, of Braintree, Essex, has claimed it is a 'miracle' that her mother, Nermin Keating, survived after she swallowed her false teeth. Despite checking her over on four occasions doctors failed to spot the obstructing top set of 11 teeth. Astonishing: Umit Maddock, with her mother, Nermin Keating, whose dentures got stuck in her throat for 9 weeks and doctors failed four times to spot them . When the dentures first disappeared in early November 2012, science teacher Mrs Maddock assumed they had fallen out somewhere in the house that she shares with her mother. But when Nermin started feeling unwell, Mrs Maddock feared the worst and took her to St Michael's Hospital, Braintree the following day where doctors assured her there was no way that the teeth had been swallowed. They instead diagnosed her with a lung infection and prescribed her with antibiotics. During the following nine weeks, her mother continued to have problems, especially when she was eating. The pair visited Mount Chambers Surgery in Coggeshall three times Between November 13 and December 3 yet still the dentures were not spotted. It was only on their fourth visit to try to resolve why the pensioner was still unwell that a doctor Dr Noel Pereirafinally spotted them. Rescue: After nine weeks lodged in her throat Nermin Keating was rushed to Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, where doctors removed the top set of 11 teeth . Mrs Keating was immediately referred to Chelmsford's Broomfield Hospital where medics used a set of forceps to remove them. 'It's a miracle that mum even survived for so long with the dentures down her throat,' Mrs Maddock said. 'I can't quite believe what has happened - I was just so relieved when they came out. 'I almost feel guilty about what happened but my friends are telling me that I did what I could.' Mrs Maddock quit her teaching job at Alec Hunter Humanities College, Braintree, so she could become a full-time carer to her mother who has dementia and struggles to speak. Peter Hadfield, the practice manager at the Mount Chambers Surgery said he had never seen anything like it in his career. He said: 'It was an extraordinary find - very unusual. 'The patient had difficulty swallowing for quite some time and she had been seen by the out-of-hours service but her condition kept changing and nobody ever suspected the obstruction was a set of dentures. 'I have worked for all my career and I have never heard anything like this.' | Nermin Keating, 75, accidentally swallowed her top set of 11 teeth in November and then began to feel unwell .
Over nine weeks her worried daughter took her to hospital once and to the local GP surgery four times until they were spotted .
Doctors had assured them there was no way she could swallow the teeth and said it was a lung infection . |
152,149 | 50a8665da7a801fd7722d61f192f6956e60b99fd | (CNN) -- Peru's president arrived Tuesday night at a mine in southern Peru, where he was expected to lead an operation to reach nine trapped miners. "We have been able to talk with the miners. Their spirits are quite high," President Ollanta Humala told reporters outside the mine. But more work needs to be done before the rescue begins, Humala said. Engineers were working to make sure the mine was secure "so there are no victims," he said. "Those same engineers tell us that we have to wait a few hours. They haven't said how many," the president said. The miners have been stuck since Thursday in the wildcat Cabeza de Negro mine in southern Peru. Earlier Tuesday, one of the mining engineers in charge of the rescue declined to give a specific time frame for the operation. "We can't say how long it will take right now to get them out, but I can guarantee that they are alive, that they are in good health, and that ultimately they are going to be freed alive," engineer Carlos Bejarano said. A cave-in over the weekend complicated efforts. "It's very complicated work. We're taking into account all the necessary security measures to avoid risks among the rescuers themselves," said Cesar Chonate, a regional head of Peru's civil defense agency, the state-run Andina news agency reported. Video from state-run TV Peru showed workers, wearing hard hats and headlamps, loading rocks into a pushcart by hand. It was not clear what caused the initial collapse. The miners have been getting oxygen, food and water through a tube, which has also allowed them to stay in contact with people above ground, Andina reported. Peruvian Mining Minister Jorge Merino was also in the area and appealed to mining companies for their expertise, according to a statement from his office. Mining is big business in Peru, which is a major world producer of copper, silver, gold and other minerals. "The important thing is that the nine people are alive. We won't abandon them," Merino said. The ordeal stirred memories of a 2010 Chilean mine collapse in which 33 men were trapped underground for 69 days. All those miners were rescued, pulled one by one from hundreds of meters beneath the Earth's surface with a specially designed capsule. | NEW: Peru's president says it will be "a few hours" before the rescue begins .
NEW: The miners' "spirits are quite high," President Ollanta Humala says .
Nine miners have been trapped since Thursday .
In 2010, 33 miners were rescued after being trapped underground for 69 days in Chile . |
153,847 | 52d6191a87bdc6caf6cc9ddc688a35f5eed9052d | An elderly woman has died after a car without a driver rolled down a hill and knocked her over - before the owner retrieved the vehicle and accidentally ran over her again. Lee Sheila Mahoney, 73, was walking outside her home in Edgewater, Maryland on Monday afternoon when a car that did not have its parking brake secured drifted towards her. The 2010 Ford Mustang struck Mahoney and came to a stop on top of her, the Anne Arundel County Police Department said in a press release. The owner of the car, 23-year-old David Adam Garman, was in a nearby home when he saw the car rolling down the street, which has a gentle incline. Tragic loss: Lee Mahoney, pictured, was walking . along her Edgewater, Maryland street when she was knocked over and . killed by a driverless car on Monday. The owner then accidentally backed . over her . Garman reached the car, climbed inside and began to reverse - unaware that Mahoney was underneath, police said. Emergency services arrived on the scene and rushed Mahoney to Anne Arundel Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead. Public records indicate Mrs Mahoney was married with children and that the couple had lived in the same house on the street for nearly 40 years. On Facebook, one family friend said the Mahoneys were in their prayers. 'I . think Ms. Lee helped raise almost every kid on this street and then . some,' Heather Price LoBianco wrote. 'She will be missed by so many . people.' Error: The car's owner, David Adam Garman (believed to be pictured right) saw the car rolling and ran to it . Scene: The street, where Mrs Mahoney has lived (in the house left) for nearly 40 years, is on a slight incline so when the car was not properly secured, it began rolling towards her . One relative said: 'She was the heart and soul of our family', while her sister Elaine Ritchey, added: 'God I just want to pick up the phone and call her and better yet, tell her again how much I love her.' Police said the preliminary cause of the crash is driver error. 'The driver failed park the vehicle with its wheels turned properly towards the curb with the parking brake set,' Anne Arundel County Police spokesman Justin Mulcahy said. It is unclear if Garman could face charges. Authorities said the investigation is ongoing and being conducted by members of the Traffic Safety Section. Investigators will also be consulting with the State's Attorney's Office. | Lee Sheila Mahoney was walking outside her home in Edgewater, Maryland when the car hit her and pinned her to the ground .
Owner David Garman, 23, saw the car rolling down the street and jumped inside and reversed - unaware she was underneath .
Police say the driver had not set the parking brake or turned the wheels to the curb, causing it to roll down the slight hill .
Friends and family remembered Mrs Mahoney as a caring woman who helped bring up numerous children on the street . |
65,052 | b8b794dce997faf6d9ad1a13d6aa17b4c871db5d | After two triumphant trips to Wembley in 2014 and promotion to the Football League after a nine-year exile, Cambridge United chairman Dave Doggett had fixed his hopes for the New Year on something a little more mundane. He would settle for a solid season in League Two with perhaps a small sign of progress in the quest to build a new stadium. Then they were drawn at home to Manchester United and Doggett, like many fellow Cambridge fans, spent the day in a daze, snuggling into the warm embrace of the FA Cup, a competition which in its modern guise promises financial reassurances besides the traditional romance. Cambridge United players celebrate FA Trophy success at Wembley last season . Cambridge manager Richard Money (left) and Dave Doggett (right) celebrate the club's promotion at Wembley . 'Last year was incredible,' said Doggett. 'To be sat in the Royal Box at Wembley twice last year, felt good. It's only a couple of years since we were losing £25,000-£30,000 a month, and we've come through it all on a reasonably stable footing. 'We thought 2015 might be a time for consolidation, nothing too spectacular. Then, we're drawn against one of the top club teams in the world.' Doggett was in the BBC Radio Cambridgeshire studios, on Monday, along with manager Richard Money, previous chairman Paul Barry and director Colin Proctor for the fourth-round draw. They were the third team out of the hat. United were next. 'I don't think we saw the rest of it,' he admitted. Three television crews descended on the R Costings Abbey Stadium and the phones went wild with ticket enquiries. The tie is certain to be the BBC's first pick for live broadcast, which guarantees Cambridge a windfall from the FA of £234,000 in prize money and television payments. It is an incredible boost for a club with a wage bill of £1.25m per year - roughly what Wayne Rooney earns in five weeks - and which has teetered often on the brink of extinction during a decade of turmoil. The R Costings Abbey Stadium - the home of League Two side Cambridge United . Wayne Rooney looks on during Manchester United's third round FA Cup win at Yeovil on Sunday . United boss Louis van Gaal will be the latest of a number of high-profile visitors to the Abbey Stadium . AFC Wimbledon's live third-round tie against Liverpool on Monday drew a BBC audience of 6.5million, Manchester United, at Yeovil on Sunday, drew 1.3m on BT Sport. This tie will remind the world that Cambridge United is alive and kicking – and that is largely thanks to its fans. The club has always led an up-and-down existence. Elected to the Football League in 1970, they went up to the second tier with help from Ron Atkinson and back to the fourth before John Beck took them to the brink of the Premier League in its inaugural season. Cambridge reached the FA Cup quarter-finals twice, in 1990 and 1991, and finished fifth in Division Two in 1992. They were six points from automatic promotion and were beaten in the play-offs by Leicester. This proved to be the high watermark before a steady decline turned serious soon after the turn of the millennium. In 2005, Cambridge were relegated from the Football League and forced to sell the Abbey Stadium as they were plunged into administration. The view of the terrace at the R Costings Abbey Stadium which will be packed to the rafters . The tunnel where the Cambridge and Manchester United players will line up prior to the FA Cup fourth round . The sale of the ground for £1.92m to director John Howard and his business partner Stephen Clark saved the club in the short term but would haunt it for years. Rent bills had a crippling impact on finances and a bitter struggle erupted inside the club until Howard sold the ground to the current landlords Grosvenor Estates for £3.5m. Proctor was among those who made sacrifices to save the club. The 76-year-old, a fan for more than 70 years, sold his entire collection of memorabilia – programmes, shirts and autographs dating back to 1947 and valued at more than £35,000 - for £10,000 to raise instant cash, and gave every penny to the club's administrators. Luke Chadwick is set for a reunion with his former side Manchester United in the FA Cup fourth round . Money holds aloft the FA Trophy after Cambridge's win against Gosport Borough at Wembley last March . 'We were in a position where we needed £10,000, just to get through the weekend,' he said. 'We've been close to the edge many times. We've suffered and without the loyal supporters who have stood shoulder to shoulder, this fantastic club wouldn't be here. There would be houses here instead. 'Dave Doggett has put megabucks in. So did his predecessor Paul Barry. These people have put their hands in their pockets.' Fans pitched in with volunteer work: manning tea bars, answering phones, selling tickets and tending the pitch to keep it going and the Cambridge Fans United have grown to play an influential role during the recovery years. Money took over as manager in 2012, replacing Jez George, a former youth team coach, who had stepped up when the club couldn't afford to appoint anyone else. He was in charge for nearly two years and is now the director of football. Cambridge clinched promotion to League Two via the play-offs and also won the FA Trophy last year, but the visit of Manchester United will eclipse that, certainly in terms of exposure. 'I feel like a 30-year-old again,' said Proctor. 'I took a call at 3.30am from a friend in the USA who forgot the time difference but had heard about the draw. I couldn't get back to sleep and I've spent the whole day at the club. It's been full of people after tickets that don't go on sale until Monday.' First though, to Carlisle this Saturday, for something a little more mundane. | Cambridge host Manchester United in the fourth round of the FA Cup .
The newly-promoted League Two side won twice at Wembley last year .
They lifted the FA Trophy and won promotion to the Football League .
The fourth-round tie is certain to be the BBC's first pick for live broadcast .
Cambridge guaranteed a windfall of £234,000 . |
208,657 | 9a2b64b570581a3f7d278309fc3f5e7695573798 | By . Kate Lyons . and Freya Noble . Police have arrested Scott Allen Miller, 42, over the murder of a woman found on Saturday morning in Melbourne. Miller will face court in NSW . Scott Allen Miller, who was identified as the key suspect in the rape and murder of a Melbourne woman will face court in southern NSW, police have revealed. The 42-year-old homeless man was arrested on the far south coast of NSW on Monday after a national alert was issued by Victorian police. This follows the discovery of the naked body of a 32-year-old Chinese woman in a Melbourne park early on Saturday morning. Miller will appear before Bateman's Bay Court on Tuesday, where Victorian police are expected to apply for his extradition. CCTV footage has emerged which police believe shows Scott Allen Miller chasing the young woman across St Kilda Road into the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. Police had been searching for Miller since Saturday when he was named as as a suspect in the 'extremely violent' assault and murder of a woman in Melbourne. He was taken in for questioning over the rape and murder of a woman whose naked body was found by joggers under a tree at Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens on Saturday morning. The woman is a 32-year-old Chinese national who moved to Australia to work in the hospitality industry. She has been identified by police and some of her relatives in China have been contacted, but police are yet to forensically confirm her identity and have not released her name. Homicide Squad Detective Inspector John Potter confirmed on Monday that the woman had been sexually assaulted before she died. 'This is a particularly violent assault on this woman, she has been sexually assaulted and she has been physically assaulted,' Insp Potter said. Police have no confirmed the cause of death but said the woman died at the scene. It is believed she was on her way to work at 5.20am on Saturday when she was approached by Miller. Left: Scott Allen Miller was captured on CCTV footage at a shopping centre on Springvale Road in Glen Waverley at midday on Saturday. Right: Detectives are looking to speak to the man (right of picture) who was seen on CCTV walking north along Swanston Street past the Melbourne Town Hall with 42-year-old Scott Allen Miller around 1.50am on Saturday . CCTV footage from the morning of the crime shows a woman being chased across St Kilda Road into the Botanic Gardens near the corner of St Kilda Road and Linlithgow Avenue. Miller had been sleeping rough in the rotunda at the botanic gardens, 200 metres from where the body was found. Miller was born in the U.S. and once lived in an affluent Perth suburb. In the 1990s he was a leading figure in the illegal dance party scene in Perth as director of E-Nerve Pty Ltd a company that organised raves, The Age reported. Earlier this afternoon Homicide Squad detectives appealed for help to identify a second man who was seen out drinking with Miller on the night of the crime and may be able to assist with the investigation. Police confirmed on Monday evening that the man seen on CCTV footage walking along Swanston Street with Miller about 1.50am on Saturday has now contacted police. He attended a city police station and made a statement on Monday evening, police say. Earlier on Monday, Homicide Squad Detective Inspector John Potter urged the man to make contact with police or call Crime Stoppers. The woman's naked body was discovered in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Southbank . Her body was discovered by joggers on Saturday morning under a tree in the popular park . 'We do not believe this man was involved in the woman's death, but it's important we speak to him as he may be able to help with regard to Miller’s whereabouts,' Det Insp Potter said. Miller and the other male were seen entering a licensed premises on Bourke Street between Swanston and Russell streets around 2am, where it's believe they stayed for a number of hours before leaving separately. Detectives have been told that Miller was asked to leave the establishment around 5am. He is then seen on CCTV shortly after walking south along Swanston Street and across Princes Bridge. It is believed he approached the victim at 5.20am and chased her into the botanic gardens. Police say they have connected Miller to several items found at the crime scene. Miller, who is originally from Western Australia, has been sleeping on the streets of the city for at least six weeks and is known to police in other states, although he does not have a criminal history in Victoria. While police issued a national alert, they concentrated their search on the Melbourne area. They also engaged transit police and were looking around train stations as Miller is known to travel by train. Anyone with information about the death is urged to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visit www.crimestoppersvic.com.au. Police have not released the woman's name, but say she is a Chinese national who was in her 30s . Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article. | The naked body of an unidentified Chinese woman was found by a jogger on Saturday .
Police arrested Scott Allen Miller as a suspect in the murder after a nationwide manhunt .
They have now announced he will face court in southern NSW .
Her body was found near the Royal Botanic Gardens in Southbank, Victoria .
Police have found CCTV footage that shows a man confronting and then chasing a woman down St Kilda Rd into the botanic gardens .
Police have warned women to be 'vigilant' when walking at night . |
10,371 | 1d7e188d0be8a5c22b97c0debf2648b427dbd112 | By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 06:53 EST, 11 November 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 07:33 EST, 11 November 2013 . A vineyard has become the first in the UK to commercially produce a Sauvignon Blanc wine from grapes grown on its own estate. Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey planted the Sauvignon Blanc grapes four years ago on the three acre trial plot and this is the first year they have been harvested. The green grapes originate in Bordeaux in France, but improving weather conditions means they can now be grown successfully in England. 'We have been very pleased with this year's harvest and we hope to have the Sauvignon Blanc bottled and ready to sell by next summer,' said Christopher White, general manager of Denbies, which is in Dorking. Golden fields: Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey planted the Sauvignon Blanc grapes four years ago on the three acre trial plot and this is the first year they have been harvested . Good grape: This year the vineyard has picked one tonne of Sauvignon Blanc grapes (left), which will make around 1,000 bottles of wine (right) Idyllic: A milder Autumn has allowed vineyards to leave the grapes out on the vine for longer this year . 'In the last 20 years we have seen a direct benefit of changing weather conditions on the wine industry in the UK and we have been able to grow some varieties of grapes which were never possible before. 'Sauvignon Blanc is a very popular wine and its nice to think it can now be produced in the UK.' This year the vineyard has picked one tonne of Sauvignon Blanc grapes, which will make around 1,000 bottles of wine. The grapes have now been pressed and the juice has gone into oak barrels for fermentation, which takes around a month. It will then be put in stainless steel vats and left for eight months to mature, before it is bottled and sold next summer. 'As it's the first year we can only pick a small amount of grapes so we don't over stress the vines,' added Christopher. Wide range: The vineyard lies in a sheltered bowl of land opposite Box Hill and is the largest privately-owned vineyard in the UK . Overflow: Denbies' general manager Christopher White said the company had a huge volume of grapes this year so they have taken longer to ripen . Early potential: White said because there wasn't any frost at the start of the season, and a sunny summer, Denbies have experienced 'favourable conditions throughout with all the early potential come to fruition' Late harvest: This has been one of the latest harvests ever for the vineyard . 'Next year we hope to be able to pick three times as much. We have been extremely impressed with the flavours and how well it has done.' This has been one of the latest harvests ever for the vineyard, which lies in a sheltered bowl of land opposite Box Hill and is the largest privately-owned vineyard in the UK. A milder Autumn has allowed vineyards to leave the grapes out on the vine for longer this year. 'We have had a huge volume of grapes this year so they have taken longer to ripen and we wanted to leave them for as long as possible for optimum quality,' added Christopher. 'We nearly always finish our harvest by the end of October so it's very unusual to still be out picking now. 'It has been a very good year for the grapes, after two poor years when it was very wet and cold. Bacchus, god of wine: The grapes have now been pressed and the juice has gone into oak barrels for fermentation, which takes around a month . Bottled up: It will then be put in stainless steel vats and left for eight months to mature, before it is bottled and sold next summer . Out of wine: This year's bumper harvest was particularly good news in light of the fact the world is facing a global wine shortage . Wine's up: A recent report by America's Morgan Stanley financial services firm said demand for wine 'exceeded supply by 300 million cases in 2012' 'We didn't have any frost at the start of the season, and a sunny summer has meant that we have experienced favourable conditions throughout with all the early potential come to fruition.' Mr White said this year's bumper harvest was particularly good news in light of the fact the world is facing a global wine shortage. A recent report by America's Morgan Stanley financial services firm said demand for wine 'exceeded supply by 300 million cases in 2012.' | Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey planted the grapes four years ago and this is the first year they have been harvested .
The green grapes originate in Bordeaux but improving weather means they can now be grown .
successfully in England .
This year the vineyard has picked one tonne of Sauvignon Blanc grapes, which will make around 1,000 bottles of wine . |
215,011 | a2581f15bc4e7fcae914bd50736b69628d74f195 | Rudy Giuliani turned an MSNBC segment about racially proportionate police forces in the wake of Ferguson into a soapbox for his thoughts on black-on-black crime. The former mayor appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday to address a debate about disproportionately white police forces in predominately black cities like Ferguson. Giuliani must believe there is value in making police forces representative of the population, stating it was a goal not only of his administration but of all New York mayors since Ed Koch. Sound off: Rudy Giuliani appeared on Meet the Press and turned a segment about racially proportionate police forces in the wake of Ferguson to say white cops wouldn't be needed 'if you weren't killing each other' 'We've tried to make the police force of New York City as proportionate as we possibly can. We go out of our way to do that. I think we do a pretty good job, not a perfect job.' He quickly diverted from that subject, arguing with MSNBC contributor and Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson about black crime. 'I find it very disappointing that you're not discussing the fact that 93 percent of blacks in America are killed by other blacks,' said Giuliani. Giuliani did not mention the source used, though a study from the Bureau of Justice Statistics found in reported crimes from 2005, 93 percent of black murder victims were killed by someone black. The study also found in the same year that 85 percent of white murder victims died at the hands of a white person. Dyson pushed back against Giuliani, calling the link made by the mayor a 'false equivalency.' 'First of all, most black people who commit crimes against other black people go to jail,' Dyson said. Back and forth: On a segment about racially proportionate police, Giuliani first stated he worked to keep a balanced force, then later argued in favor of more white cops in black neighborhoods . 'Number two, they are not sworn by the police department as agents of the state to uphold the law,' he added. Giuliani took off his glasses and cut in to argue for more police in black neighborhoods as Dyson questioned officers' ability to effectively police those communities. 'The police presence cannot make a distinction between those who are criminals and those who call the police to stop the criminals,' he stated. The segment eventually turned into both talking over each other while Anthony Gray, attorney for Michael Brown's family, sat silent, before Giuliani capped his rant. 'Why don’t you cut it down so so many white police officers don’t have to be in black areas?' Giuliani shouted. 'The white police officers wouldn’t be there if you weren’t killing each other.' | The former New York mayor was on Meet the Press to talk about racially proportionate police forces .
He proclaimed it was 'very disappointing' the conversation wasn't about blacks killing blacks .
A study from the Bureau of Justice Statistics found in 2005, 93 percent of black homicide victims were killed by another black person .
The same study found 85 percent of white murder victims died at the hands of a white person . |
276,025 | f19d5c405b7157f4447a39bb9533297c0e66baf6 | This is the moment a music-lover sparked a mass sing-along by passengers standing on a platform at a London Underground station. An Erasure fan led an impromptu version of the band's 1980s classic 'A Little Respect' while he was waiting for a train at Kentish Town. After breaking into song in what started as a solo performance, dozens of passengers decided to join in. An Erasure fan led an impromptu version of the band's 1980s classic 'A Little Respect' while he was at the Kentish Town underground station in London . The video was posted online by one of the vocal participants and soon proved a hit on social media. Today, the leader of the singalong was revealed as Erasure fan Neil Francis, who sings at venues in and around the Great Yarmouth area in Norfolk. He launched into the rendition on his way back from an Erasure gig at the nearby Forum music venue - and judging by the reaction, some of the passengers had been to the same concert. Video footage first shows him taking on the tune himself, before the camera turns to show hoards of other music fans chiming in. Video footage captured the moment crowds joined in with the singalong after the Erasure fan had started his rendition of the band's 1980s classic 'A Little Respect' Today, the leader of the singalong was revealed as Erasure fan Neil Francis, who sings at venues in and around the Great Yarmouth area in Norfolk . He told the BBC: 'I love the sound of the acoustics in the tube station, so I thought "give it some". 'It went mental, and got louder and louder.' Mr Francis admitted to having one or two drinks before plucking up the courage to start the singalong. But the performance proved so popular that passengers then asked him to carry on once he had got on a train. | Dozens of tube passengers join a singalong of Erasure's 'A Little Respect'
Impromptu version of hit took place at Kentish Town underground station .
The mass singalong was started by singer and Erasure fan Neil Francis .
He started singing the hit after watching the band earlier in the evening .
Video footage shows how hoards of other passengers then joined in . |
113,492 | 1e76fcc1e8afc34ccfaea584f5ca28294104d388 | By . Sarah Griffiths . PUBLISHED: . 09:18 EST, 22 October 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 09:20 EST, 22 October 2013 . Allergy medicine is known to unblock noses, but it could also help to loosen and wipe bad memories, Swiss scientists claim. Diphenhydramine, which is the antihistamine ingredient in Benadryl, plays a role in blocking the recall of painful, haunting memories in humans, according to a new study. The research could have have huge implications for people who have lived through a traumatic experience and suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Diphenhydramine, which is an ingredient in allergy drugs such as Benadryl (pictured), plays a role in blocking the recall of painful, haunting memories in humans, according to Swiss scientists . Almost eight million people are plagued by bad memories and have the disorder in the U.S. alone, according to the National Institutes of Health. Geneticists from the University of Basel, Switzerland believe tiny traits in a person's genome might be to blame. They compared the genomes of 2,500 healthy, young volunteers who had completed an emotional memory performance test and found a cluster of gene traits that were common in the volunteers who more easily recalled painful memories, Medical Daily reported. The scientists them cross-checked the traits with a list of commonly used drugs to see if any of them had a positive effect on helping to block bad memories. Eliminating compounds known to trigger unhelpful side effects, the geneticists focused on a set of nine gene-drug pairings. The research could have have huge implications for people who have lived through a traumatic experience, such as soldiers at war, and suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder . Concentrating on these nine genetic traits, the scientists looked at biological data from a group of 340 holocaust survivors. By studing this group of people, the scientists aimed to finally target a single gene that was found to be linked to the recall of bad memories and discovered it is the gene for histamine receptor H1 (HRH1). This is the same gene that when overstimulated by allergies, triggers a runny nose and even asthma in certain people. To test whether allergy medication could block negative memories, 40 individuals took diphenhydramine and were asked to recall upsetting events in their lives. The scientists discovered that while the drug reduces the recall of bad memories, it had no effect on neutral and happy recollections. Professor Andreas Papassotiropoulos, of the Psychiatric University Clinics at the university, and co-lead author of the study, said: 'The rapid development of innovative methods for genetic analysis has made this new and promising approach possible. 'In a further study, we will try to identify and develop memory enhancing drugs,' he added. The scientists discovered a single gene for histamine receptor H1 (HRH1) was found to be linked to the recall of bad memories. The same gene triggers a runny nose and even asthma in certain people when it is overstimulated by allergies . | Swiss scientists claim Diphenhydramine helps to block the recall of painful, haunting memories in humans .
University of Basel research could have implications for .
people who have lived through traumatic experiences and are plagued by bad memories .
Geneticists discovered the gene for histamine receptor H1 is linked to the recall of painful memories - as well as allergies . |
145,738 | 48735b7fb1f23bcd10c717aa5491b7a90930bffd | St Helens are preparing to lay down the red carpet for Hollywood actor Russell Crowe, who has hinted that he will be attending the World Club Series next month. The star of films including Noah and Gladiator has revealed on his Twitter account that he will be supporting NRL champions South Sydney, the club he part-owns, in their clash with Saints at Langtree Park on Sunday, February 22. Crowe tweeted: 'Aiming to be at St Helens for the WCC, will fans of other ESL teams don the red and green and turn up for South Sydney?' Hollywood star and South Sydney fan Russell Crowe looks set to attend the World Club Series next month . South Sydney forward Cameron McInnes passes the ball in training ahead of the World Club Series . Aaron Gray is tackled by Joel Reddy during South Sydney's open training session at the Redfem Oval . St Helens chief executive Mike Rush said: 'We've not heard anything but we'd be delighted to welcome Russell Crowe to our club. 'He is a massive rugby league fan and, by tweeting his support for this game, he is demonstrating what a prestigious fixture it is.' Saints, who launch the defence of their Super League crown on Friday, February 6, are confident of drawing a capacity 18,000 crowd to Langtree Park for the visit of the Rabbitohs, with just 2,000 tickets left on sale. St Helens prop Kyle Amor bursts forward against Catalan Dragons at Langtree Park in October 2014 . Paul Wellens lifts the Super League Grand Final trophy after St Helens triumph over Wigan Warriors in 2014 . The fixture will bring the curtain down on the new World Club Series, which also sees Wigan play Brisbane Broncos and Warrington take on St George Illawarra on the same weekend. Crowe, who rarely misses a Souths home game, was an advocate of the expansion of the annual challenge between the champions of the NRL and Super League. Five years ago he and golfer Greg Norman watched Souths play a challenge match against Leeds in Florida. Hooker Michael McIlorum in action for Wigan Warriors against Warrington Wolves at the DW Stadium . | Russell Crowe looks set to attend the World Club Series next month .
Hollywood star will cheer on South Sydney, the Australian club he co-owns .
The Rabbitohs are due to face St Helens on February 22 .
St Helens are 'delighted' to welcome Crowe to Langtree Park . |
68,793 | c312938e3f093080546be5be7560da29de4ff28c | By . Matt Chorley, MailOnline Political Editor . George Osborne believes Britain’s exit from the European Union is ‘no longer unthinkable’ and is backed by more than ‘just the crazies and the bores’, a new book claims. The revelation comes as the Tory party threatens to tear itself apart over Europe in the wake of the dramatic defection of MP Douglas Carswell to UKIP. An updated biography of Mr Osborne claims the Chancellor’s view of the EU has ‘hardened’ since coming to power in 2010 and he could now see how the UK could sever ties with Brussels. Chancellor George Osborne is said to have 'hardened' his views on Europe since taking office, and now takes seriously the prospect of Britain severing ties with Brussels . David Cameron is under growing pressure to set out a tougher stance on Europe, with up to 100 Tory MPs set to defy the Prime Minister by pledging to vote to leave the EU no matter how much power he manages to claw back from Brussels. Such a move would be widely seen as a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister’s ability to win a good deal for Britain as part of his plans for a renegotiation of powers before an in-out referendum. Mr Carswell, the former Tory MP who defected to Ukip last week, claimed that that Mr Cameron was not ‘serious’ about EU reform and wanted to recommend an ‘in’ vote. There is speculation that Mr Cameron will use his speech to the Conservative conference next month to say he will back an exit from the EU if he fails to overhaul Britain’s membership. Prime Minister David Cameron, pictured at a Brussels summit at the weekend, is under intense pressure from Tory MPs to go further in his demands to return powers to the UK . Mr Osborne, who is expected to play a key role in the renegotiation, is now said to consider leaving the EU a possibility, according to an updated version of George Osborne: The Austerity Chancellor, by Janan Ganesh. Mr Osborne also fears the two-speed EU, with some countries inside the Eurozone and others like Britain on the outside, might not last. According to extracts of the book published by The Times, Mr Ganesh writes that Mr Osborne’s views on Europe have hardened since becoming Chancellor. ‘He remained a supporter of British membership and shook his head at the casualness with which some colleagues talked of exit.’ The Conservative party has been rocked by the dramatic defection of Douglas Carswell (right) to join Nigel Farage's UKIP . However he has arrived at two conclusions. ‘The first was that exit was no longer unthinkable: a sequence of events leading to that end could be imagined, and it was not just the crazies and the bores who were enthused by this.’ The second conclusion was that the countries outside the Eurozone were suffering. ‘The currency bloc was becoming the real decision-making crucible and voting weights were shifting in its favour on matters of vital British interest, such as banking.’ In speech in January, Mr Osborne said the Tory plan for renegotiation was is to ‘change the EU and to change Britain’s relationship with it, and then to place the decision in the hands of the British people: do you want to stay in a reformed Europe, or would you prefer to leave?’ But at the time he stressed that his preference was to remain in the EU. | Osborne believes exit is no longer just backed by 'the crazies and the bores'
Views have 'hardened' since becoming Chancellor in 2010, book claims .
Tories at war over Europe after defection of Douglas Carswell to UKIP . |
32,713 | 5cf957c70aa55dbdc5910b0519e15e7709278d7b | By . Paul Bentley . PUBLISHED: . 19:15 EST, 5 May 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 07:21 EST, 8 May 2013 . The nation's busiest roads could be resurfaced with rubber from used car tyres resulting in a quieter drive . If you are driven to distraction by the noisy traffic outside your house, this could be the road to a good night’s sleep. Recycled car tyres could soon be used to surface roads across the country after a pioneering trial found they made roads quieter. One of the busiest roads in Scotland was resurfaced last year with the asphalt, containing shredded rubber from old tyres. Tests were performed on grip and skid resistance, with engineers reporting that the rubber road, on a stretch of dual carriageway between Perth and Dundee, resulted in a quieter drive. The surface is also more environmentally friendly. Since 2006, EU rules have banned the disposal of tyres in landfill sites, leaving about 480,000 tonnes of recyclable shredded rubber each year. Experts claim the road requires less maintenance and still allows for drainage, while tyre recyclers claim the technique will also save money because the new material is thinner than standard roads. Rubber roads were first built in the 1960s in the US, where today there are 20,000 miles of road made of recycled tyres. Rubber roads are also popular in China, Brazil, Spain and Germany. The technique has been found to cut traffic noise by about 25 per cent. The asphalt is made by breaking down used tyres into rubber ‘crumbs’ which are added to bitumen and crushed stone, which are typically used to make asphalt. EU rules have banned the disposal of tyres in landfill sites, leaving about 480,000 tonnes of recyclable shredded rubber each year . Experts say it makes roads quieter because the rubber thickens the bitumen – the binding agent which keeps the crushed stones together – allowing the road surface to trap and disperse sound waves. The rubber material is also springy and absorbs sound. Reducing road noise could save lives. According to the World Health Organisation, around one heart attack in every 50 in European countries is caused by chronic exposure to loud traffic. It can also cause mental health problems and hormonal imbalances. A spokesman for Transport Scotland said: ‘This adopts a sustainable approach in making the best use of resources available, by re-using an abundant waste material.’ | Recycled car tyres could soon be used to .
surface roads across the country .
A pioneering trial in Dundee found that they .
made roads quieter .
EU rules have banned the disposal of .
tyres in landfill sites, leaving about 480,000 tonnes of recyclable .
shredded rubber each year . |
72,308 | ccf84778a33c3c40b4cf314139a70e5a3e6947f4 | By . Deni Kirkova . PUBLISHED: . 06:12 EST, 7 March 2014 . | . UPDATED: . 07:25 EST, 7 March 2014 . An obese baker has lost five and a half stone despite being surrounded by sugary, icing-smothered cakes every single day. Jenny Prideaux, 46, from Kettering, Northamptonshire, saw her waist line expand as she constantly tucked into her own creations at the the bakery where she creates handmade wedding and celebration cakes. But at 17 stone and size 22, the mother--of-one realised it was time to beat the bulge and, since embarking on a gruelling slimming plan, she has slimmed down to 11 stone 5lbs in just five months. Jenny Prideaux found herself picking at her cakes and making her weight soar, she has now slimmed down . Jenny, who is mother to Joseph, 10, said: 'I love all food, and being a cake maker made it way too easy to just pick at sugary foods all day. 'After Christmas 2012 I saw some photos of myself and I couldn't bear to look at them. I suddenly realised that I need to shift the weight and I wanted to do it quickly. 'Now, I still love my job, but I've learnt not to eat what I bake.' Jenny was not new to dieting plans and had previously tried various well known ones, but had not been able to shift the weight. Growing up she says she had a normal diet and never had any weight issues. Instead her problems began as Jenny got older and she would find herself picking at more and more goodies but didn't realise she was piling on the pounds. After her wedding to IT technical sales director husband Andy, 46, in 2002, her weight rocketed. Jenny slimmed for her wedding by her weight started to increase shortly afterwards . I love all food, and being a cake maker made it way too easy to just pick at sugary foods all day, said Jenny . One of her weaknesses was to indulge in her favourite treat of lemon cake. But after seeing the snap of herself, Jenny signed up to Cambridge Weight Plan, replacing foods with shakes, soups and porridge. The weight began to roll off, and on average the baker would lose around a stone a month. Jenny said: 'It wasn't easy, I often had days where I could have easily chucked out the scales and shakes and ate some food that made me feel more content. Jenny, pictured on holiday a few years ago, weighed 17 stone as she indulged in cakes . Jenny, pictured before the weight loss, had previously tried various diets bu wasn't able to shift the weight . 'But unlike other dieting groups I have . one-to-one appointments with my own consultant so it's not so easy to . not just turn up, the pressure of the scales keeps me going. 'My family and friends were never bothered about my weight but they have all been incredibly helpful and supportive.' After just five months on the plan Jenny now weighs a healthy 11st 5lbs and is a size 14. Jenny said: 'I'm now much more aware of what I eat, if I have something naughty I will watch what I eat for the rest of the day. 'I no longer pick at my baking goodies whilst I'm at work and throw the leftovers out for the birds instead. 'I've had to buy a whole new wardrobe for my holiday, none of my old clothes hit me and I can't afford to keep buying new ones so I'm using that as an incentive not to pile the pounds back on. 'I feel like a completely new person, I'm happy with my weight now but I still have a shake a day and regularly use the scales, I would eventually like to be an easy size 12 but I'm proud of my progress so far.' After just five months on the plan Jenny now weighs a healthy 11st 5lbs and is a size 14 . | Jenny Prideaux, 46, from Kettering, Northamptonshire, ballooned to 17st .
After realising dream of own baking business she indulged in cakes .
Lost 5.5st in just 5 months on liquid shakes and slimmed to size 12/14 . |
14,351 | 28b098b1751a0bbcd5bc8cda29d9e009ff0e8551 | By . Anthony Bond . UPDATED: . 16:32 EST, 15 February 2012 . The one thing 14-year-old Moshe Kai Cavalin dislikes is being called a genius. All he did, after all, was enroll in college at the tender age of 8 and earn his first of two Associate of Arts degrees at 9 - graduating with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. Now, at just 14, he's poised to graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO . Talented: Moshe Kai Cavalin, 14, is about to graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) The talented teenager has also just published an English edition of his first book, 'We Can Do.' The 100-page guideline explains how other young people can accomplish what Moshe did through such simple acts as keeping themselves focused and approaching everything with total commitment. He's hoping it will show people there's no genius involved, just hard work. 'That's always the question that bothers me,' Moshe, who turned 14 yesterday, says when the G-word is raised. 'People need to know you don't really need to be a genius. You just have to work hard and you can accomplish anything.' And maybe cut out some of the TV. Although he's a big fan of Jackie Chan movies, Moshe says he limits his television time to four hours a week. The precocious graduate and Jackie Chan fan is also publishing his first book . Hard worker: The talented teen enrolled in college at 8, earned his first of two Associate of Arts degrees at 9 and is poised to graduate from UCLA, pictured . Not that he lacks for recreational activities or feels that his parents pressured him into studying constantly. He writes in 'We Can Do' of learning to scuba dive, and he loves soccer and martial arts. He used to participate in the latter sport when he was younger, winning trophies for his age group, until his UCLA studies and his writing made things a little too hectic. Indeed one of the key messages of his book is to stay focused and to not take on any endeavor half-heartedly. 'I was able to reach the stars, but others can reach the "Milky Way,"' he tells readers. It was a professor at his first institution of higher learning, East Los Angeles City College, who inspired him, Moshe says. He didn't like the subject but managed to get an A in it anyway, by applying himself and seeing how enthusiastic his teacher, Richard Avila, was about the subject. In We Can Do, which has been translated to English, Moshe explains how to accomplish a lot by keeping focus and approaching everything with total commitment. He's hoping to show there's no genius involved, just hard work . Mr Avila, he says, inspired him to write a book explaining his methods for success so he could motivate others. It took four years to finish, in part because Moshe, whose mother is Chinese, decided to publish it in Mandarin, and doing the translation himself was laborious. Han Shian Culture Publishing of Taiwan put the book in print, and it did well in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, as well as in several bookstores in Southern California's Asian communities. He then brought it out in English for the U.S. market. Because of his heavy study load, Moshe has had little opportunity to promote the book, other than a signing at UCLA, where he also lives in student housing with his parents and attends the school on a scholarship. After earning his bachelor's degree, the math major plans to enroll in graduate school with hopes of eventually earning a degree. After that, he's not so sure. He points out that he's still just barely a teenager. 'Who knows?' he says, chuckling at the thought of what lies ahead in adulthood. 'That's a very distant future, and I'm pretty much planning for just the next few years. That's too far into the future for me to see.' | Talented teenager has also just published an English edition of his first book . |
247,440 | cc332713756da5081b2cd6b8f5532c5aa4d3f558 | By . Carl Markham, Press Association . Stoke utility player Geoff Cameron is to undergo surgery to fix a troublesome hernia problem. The United States international has made just one appearance this season, in the Capital One Cup victory over Portsmouth, but was forced off with the long-standing injury before half-time. Cameron's absence is the second injury blow to hit the Potters after forward Peter Odemwingie had an operation on damaged knee ligaments. Problem: Stoke defender Geoff Cameron will undergo surgery on a hernia issue as he bids to get fully fit . 'It's been troubling him for a while, so the time has come for an operation,' assistant manager Mark Bowen told The Sentinel. 'He started feeling it last season, then obviously went to the World Cup and came back to us still feeling a bit sore. 'These things tend to manifest themselves over a period of months and now the time has come, but it's difficult to say how long we will lose him for.' Odemwingie, who has been omitted from Stoke's 25-man squad submitted to the Premier League for the first half of the campaign because of the length of his lay-off, has yet to start rehabilitation but Bowen remains optimistic. Ruled out: Peter Odemwingie has not been included in Stoke's 25-man squad after damaging knee ligaments . 'The operation seems to have gone well, which is obviously great news and it always helps a recovery when you've got someone of Peter's great spirits,' he added. There was more positive news on midfielder Stephen Ireland, who returned to training on Tuesday after a rib injury sustained on August 22. 'He (Ireland) came through training okay and if he isn't ready for this weekend, then I'm sure he'll be banging on the door for the weekend after,' said Bowen. Boost: Stoke boss Mark Hughes could have Stephen Ireland available against Leicester after a rib injury . | Geoff Cameron has made just one appearance for Stoke this season .
The USA international began struggling with a hernia towards the back of last season .
Peter Odemwingie has undergone an operation on injured knee ligaments .
The Nigerian is set to be out until the start of 2015 .
Stephen Ireland has returned to training after a rib injury . |
47,406 | 85a3fffd0d424295733f20d79e0bed04aa9e14c9 | The suspect, Jason James Burr, 34, of North Logan, was shot several times at Cache Valley Hospital in North Logan. He is listed in critical, but stable condition. “He [the gunman] was met by an officer and challenged and ultimately shot by the officer,” Logan Police Chief Jensen told the Salt Lake Tribune. North Park Police Chief Kim Hawkes, whose jurisdiction covers North Logan, said the incident began at about 8:10 a.m. when Burr entered the hospital made unspecified demands and produced two handguns. Jason James Burr, 34, is loaded into an helicopter to be transported to another hospital after he entered the Cache Valley Hospital with two gun and was shot by officers on Friday morning in North Logan, Utah . Law enforcement officers stand outside the the hospital where Burr inside the emergency room Friday after he made demands and pulled out two guns . Hospital security officers tried to calm him down, unsucessfully. When Burr confronted one of a pair of Adult Probation and Parole officers, he allegedly pointed his weapon at the weapon at the officer, who returned fire with four shots. bUrr, pictured here in an older mug shot, has a criminal history that includes drug possession and falsely obtaining a prescription . Burr was flown to University Hospital in Salt Lake City for treatment. Burr’s ex-wife, Rebecca Burr, who was at his home Friday afternoon told The Salt Lake Tribune she had 'no idea' why Jason Burr would go to the hospital with guns. Burr has a criminal record that includes a 2001 conviction for class C misdemeanor intoxication, He was also charged in 2010 with three counts of second-degree felony drug possession and three counts of third-degree felony for falsely obtaining a prescription. | Jason James Burr, 34, is alleged to have walked into the emergency room at Cache Valley Hospital in North Logan and showed two guns .
Burr was shot at four times by officers after he pointed a gun at one of them .
He has a criminal record that includes intoxication, drug possession and falsely obtaining a prescription . |
18,131 | 33588fef608ab2a53028d47c4647e16b219ba12b | (CNN) -- After just one season in charge at Bayern Munich, coach Louis Van Gaal has led the German side to the verge of European supremacy with a place in the Champions League final. The 58-year-old Dutchman will be hoping for his second victory in the tournament which he first won with Amsterdam-based team Ajax back in 1995, when he goes head-to-head with Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan in Madrid on 22 May. Van Gaal will also be attempting to achieve the historic triple having already taken his team to the Bundesliga title and to victory in the German Cup. Things didn't begin so well for Van Gaal's opening season at the Munich club though, and after almost crashing out of the Champions League competition following two successive defeats to Bordeaux, many fans would not have expected their team to reach the final stage. Can Mourinho beat Van Gaal to become king of Europe? But many are now praising Van Gaal for turning the clubs fortunes around, and neutrals are widely backing him to finish the job at the Bernabeu on Saturday. Record . Van Gaal has won an impressive 18 titles from the four clubs he has managed over the course of his career and some of his greatest achievements arguably come from his time in charge of Ajax in the mid 90's. Winning three Dutch league and cup titles as well as the UEFA Cup in 1992 and Champions League in 1995, Ajax were a dominant force under Van Gaal's reign, providing the majority of players for Holland's national team. Moving onto Barcelona in 1997, Van Gaal led the Spanish side to two La Liga titles. He finally left his position at Barca in 2003 after seeing through a brief spell as boss of the national side between 2000-02. Returning to his home country, Van Gaal went on to manage AZ Alkmaar, a team his steered to the league title in 2009 -- a feat he described as is his "most beautiful achievement" -- before leaving for Bayern Munich. Personality . Declaring himself as self-confident, arrogant, dominant, honest, industrious and innovative, at the press conference where he was unveiled as the club's new coach, Bayern boss Van Gaal showed he was no slouch at self-assessment. Such is the dedication he brings to his job, Van Gaal famously shut himself away in a German monastery in 2009 to fast track his learning of the new language. However, Van Gaal will undoubtedly always be remembered for his fiery temper which has seen him clash with some of his players in recent times. He famously let rip at Frenchman Franck Ribery who dared to sit down and take his boots of during a training session on a hot day last year and at Italian Luca Toni, who left Bayern for AC Roma shortly after being reprimanded by Van Gaal for falling asleep at a team lunch. But his meticulous and sometimes harsh style of management has also nurtured some major talents of the game. Van Gaal oversaw the fledgling careers of players such as Patrick Kluivert and Edwin Van der Sar at Ajax. Previous clashes . Van Gaal has described his meeting with Portuguese Mourinho in the Champions League final as "God vs The Son of God." Mourinho was an assistant to Van Gaal during his time at Barcelona in the late 1990's, and has often described the Dutchman as his mentor. And Van Gaal is full of praise for his former pupil. "I think I educated him a little. I could immediately see he had an understanding of the game. Jose was very modest back then. It was nice watching his development, to see that he has become such a personality." It is thought that the pair communicate regularly via text message, but despite being friends they are rivals on the pitch. Tactics . Given their history it is unsurprising the two men have a similar approach to the way they manage their football teams. However, Van Gaal has been keen to point out the differences: "He trains to win. I train to play beautiful football and win. My way is more difficult." Van Gaal will have a full squad of players to pick from on Saturday, with the exception of Ribery who is suspended following a booking in the previous round. It is expected that Turkey's Hamit Altinop will replace him in midfield. Fellow Dutchman Arjen Robben is also expected to play a big role in the match, as the forward is as keen as Van Gaal to beat Jose Mourinho, who he used to play under at Chelsea. | Bayern Munich coach Louis Van Gaal is on the verge of leading the German giants to a unique treble .
58-year-old Dutchman will be hoping for his second victory in the tournament which he first won with Ajax .
Van Gaal has won an impressive 18 titles from the four clubs he has managed over the course of his career . |
222,590 | ac272fc4514d84fa8805ccf85367deb5714a12ca | Mauricio Pochettino is happy to take the flak if his Tottenham side are knocked out of the Capital One Cup on Wednesday night. Newcastle are the visitors to White Hart Lane as both sides look to make it into the semi-finals and be two matches away from a March final at Wembley. Tottenham overcame Brighton in the last round despite making 10 changes from their previous Premier League fixture, and Pochettino had a similar rotation philosophy during his time at Southampton. Mauricio Pochettino is willing to take responsibility if Tottenham lose to Newcastle in the Capital One Cup . Pochettino could make wholesale changes from the team that won 2-1 at Swansea on Sunday afternoon . TOTTENHAM vs NEWCASTLE UNITED . Kick-off: 7.45pm at White Hart Lane . TV: Highlights on BBC One at 11.05pm . Radio: 5 Live Sports Extra from 7.30pm . Referee: Andre Marriner . Although he would not be drawn on who would feature against Alan Pardew's men other than to confirm Emmanuel Adebayor's absence, Pochettino insists any team he picks will be good enough to get the job done. When asked about being criticised for making changes he replied: 'It was a lack of respect for my players. 'I always defend my players. If we have players in the squad, it is because we believe in them. If not, why are the players in the squad? 'But always when you lose, people take something to criticise you. For me, it's a lack of respect, not for me but for the players who played in the game. 'I accept the criticism, but I can't accept criticism for the players.' Christian Eriksen celebrates scoring Tottenham's winner at Swansea in Sunday's match . Pochettino would only confirm that Emmanuel Adebayor is absent from the match against Newcastle . VIDEO Pochettino calls on fans to get Spurs into semis . A packed early-season schedule in the Premier League, Europa League and the Capital One Cup means Pochettino would be ready to freshen up his side on Wednesday - and would face the consequences if the decision backfired. When asked if there would be changes, he said: 'Maybe. At the beginning of the season, we played a lot of games, 26. 'For tomorrow, maybe one player is tired and not fresh, and if another team-mate is in better condition then why not? 'But I am a manager and I need to make a decision. You cannot pick a team to guarantee that we go to the semi-final. Harry Kane was on target as Spurs beat Brighton 3-1 in the last round of the competition . 'In football it is easy to talk after the game. But the important thing is taking the decision before. When you are the coach, you have all the information and if you win, you are the best and if you don't, you are a s**t who made the wrong decision. This is true.' One player who will not be considered is Adebayor, with Pochettino insisting it is 'impossible' for the 30-year-old to play a part. The striker was granted compassionate leave last week as he flew to Ghana for 'personal reasons' and his future at White Hart Lane remains unclear. Pochettino said: 'He was back yesterday, but play tomorrow? No. 'He began training after one week yesterday so it would be impossible for him to be ready tomorrow.' | Tottenham take on Newcastle United in Capital One Cup quarter-finals .
Mauricio Pochettino is preparing to make changes to his team .
But Spurs manager would only confirm Emmanuel Adebayor's absence .
He said he would accept the criticism if they were knocked out . |
186,932 | 7e14bf20b18ce72a0046ce28fa66f1f26c7d1ca6 | Stongehenge has stood frozen in time for thousands of years, but this replica was never going to survive to welcome the summer solstice. Using chainsaws and ice cutters, five friends created their very own freezing homage to the ancient structure on a frosted Wisconsin lake. Each of the gigantic ice pillars used to make the frozen circle weighed a back-breaking 300 pounds. The blocks placed on top of the model of the neolithic monument weighed a further 200 pounds. Scroll down for video . Frozen in time: Five friends created this homage to Stonehenge using huge blocks of ice cut from Rock Lake, Wisconsin . This was the second time Drew McHenry, Kevin Lehner, Quinn Williams, Alec Seamars and Patrick Shields had attempted to recreate Stonehenge. Last year they had to abandoned their Icehenge plans due to persistent below zero temperatures and the thickness of Rock Lake. The team took two weeks to create the giant frozen structure using chainsaws and ice cutters . Male bonding: This is the second time that the friends have tried to create a replica of Stonehenge . This year the huge structure took shape in just two weeks after the group were blessed with perfect weather conditions. The reproduction of the monument was enjoyed by hundreds of people before it had to be taken down due to safety concerns as the ice began to melt. 'It is a great example of how a small group of folks can collaborate to make something magic,' said Mr Lehner. The group first started experimenting with ice cutting four years ago. No-one is sure why the original Stonehenge, which can be found in Wiltshire, UK, was built or how. Over the years people have suggested that it was a temple, parliament and a graveyard. Back breaking: Each freezing ice pillar weighed 300 pounds, with the top slabs a further 200 pounds . Spoil sports: The structure had to be taken down for health and safety reasons after it started to melt . | Frozen replica to Stonehenge created on Rock Lake, Wisconsin .
Five men used chainsaws and ice cutters to create frozen homage .
Gigantic ice pillars each weighed a back-breaking 300 pounds .
Freezing structure took two weeks to create and has now melted . |
118,739 | 2552c0166bd60e601a21f8d4853faefc8dcaecae | By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 09:56 EST, 5 February 2014 . | . UPDATED: . 13:23 EST, 5 February 2014 . A Southern California man has been arrested after federal authorities say he sent pornographic images of his 3-month-old son to England. Robert Schrader, 33, of Littlerock, was apprehended Monday and remains jailed on federal charges of producing child pornography. Prosecutors say British authorities alerted a U.S. diplomat last month that someone had sent the X-rated images to an undercover investigator. Scroll down for video . 'Pervert': Robert Schrader (not pictured), 33, has been charged with producing child pornography after he allegedly sent X-rated images of his infant son to a British undercover officer . Authorities say data embedded in the images showed they were taken in the area of Schrader's one-story home in Littlerock. Investigators searched the home and determined the boy in the pictures is his son, Los Angeles Daily News reported. . A Homeland Security official says the baby is one of the youngest child pornography victims ever identified in the Los Angeles area, if not the youngest. The allegations against Schrader, a landscaper, first came to light January 29 when a British official contacted a Homeland Security attache in London about an American national who was caught using a Yahoo email account to send explicit images featuring an infant to an undercover officer in the UK. Law enactment in California searched Schrader’s home after identifying him as the user of the Yahoo account and found his 3-month-old son, who was removed the same day by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. House of horrors: Officials searched Schrader's home in Littlerock, California, and discovered a cache of exploits images, among them some featuring his 3-month-old son . Officers armed with a search warrant also seized baby clothing from the suspect's home along with computer equipment. They also allegedly uncovered hundreds of explicit images and a video showing children, among them the suspect’s son. Schrader had sole custody of the infant. It remains unknown what has become of the child's mother. According to court documents cited by CBS Los Angeles, Schrader discussed with the undercover officer his sexual interest in young boys. ‘I have a 3mo boy. Do u like boy? If so, Tell me what u want me to do to him,’ Schrader allegedly wrote in an email. The nine-page criminal complaint states that the 33-year-old landscaper ‘got caught up in the moment for the purpose of sexual gratification. He would communicate with people online sexually abusing children…and stated that it was just a game.’ Schrader has been charged with two counts of producing child pornography. If convicted, he could face up to 60 years in prison. | Robert Schrader, 33, charged with producing child pornography after he allegedly sent X-rated images to British undercover officer .
Homeland Security official says Schrader's infant son is possible the the youngest victim of child pornography ever in Los Angeles .
The 33-year-old landscaper stated in criminal complaint he 'got caught up in a moment' and said it was just a game . |
75,796 | d6f073ea90b18f2ef11ebe01008e100d8dcbdba0 | Life expectancy for girls born in certain areas of the country could exceed 105, new government data suggests (library image) Life expectancy for girls born today in some parts of England could average more than 100 years. Those . living in part of one northern town might expect to reach 105, while . those in one Home Counties town will notch up 104 birthdays, Government . data suggests. The . statistics from Public Health England have also exposed the staggering . disparities in life expectancy in different parts of the country. At . the other end of the spectrum, for example, girls born in parts of . Bradford and Salford will, on average, fail to reach their 73rd . birthdays. Men born in the most affluent parts of London and in part of Crawley, West Sussex, could average lives lasting nearly 98 years. They . can expect to live more than 30 years longer than their contemporaries . born in the worst part of England for longevity – Rock Ferry, in . Birkenhead, where male inhabitants will be lucky to reach the age of 67. A . girl born on the Northburn Estate near Cramlington in Northumberland . has an average life expectancy of 105. For those born in Beggarwood, in . Basingstoke and Deane, the figure is 104.3. The . other top areas for women are Marlow in Wycombe, Grange Park in Swindon . and Lyppard Grange in Worcester. In all three the average girl will . live to over 95. The worst . area for women is part of Holme Wood in Bradford, a council estate . thought to be the largest in Europe. The other areas in the female worst . five are Patricroft in Salford, Portwood in Stockport, part of St . Helens, and an area west of Hull city centre. The data suggested a baby born near Cramlington in Northumberland could live to 105, but one born in Bradford will not reach their 73rd birthday (library image) For . men, the shortest lives are likely to be lived by boys born in Rock . Ferry, Radford in Nottingham, Grange Park in Blackpool, and two areas in . central Leicester. The Northburn estate is a surprise in the best five because it is not particularly affluent. The average house costs £130,000. The . Rev Stephen Hewitt, team rector for Cramlington, said he had been . struck by the number of women he had met who were 100 or well into their . nineties. ‘I would say it’s . likely down to them being a hardy breed, rather than their lifestyle,’ he told the Sunday Times. ‘Many of them grew up in a tough area, through . the depression and war.’ Professor . John Newton of Public Health England said that from 2000 to 2012 life . expectancy in England rose by 3.2 years for men and 2.4 years for women. But he said ‘profound inequalities’ remained and public agencies needed to work with local people to create healthy communities. | A girl born on the Northburn Estate, Northumberland, will live to 105 .
Those born in affluent parts of central London and West Sussex to 93 .
But children born in parts of Bradford and Salford will not reach 73, government data suggests . |
75,061 | d4cd166ca1e8d1e6b90ed7159e9a11d2c7d9bb2a | LONDON, England (CNN) -- If FIFA president Sepp Blatter is to be believed, it's the biggest issue that faces football. No, not diving, or Premiership hegemony or even the tackle from behind but rather the naturalization of players from other countries, especially Brazil, becoming common currency in the international game. Brazilian-born Mehmet Aurelio was the first naturalized footballer to play for the Turkish national team. "If we don't take care about the invaders from Brazil," Blatter controversially said at the draw for the 2010 World Cup. "Then at the next World Cups... we will have 16 [teams] full of Brazilian players. It's a danger, a real, real danger." Players born outside of their country of citizenship have always played for their newly adopted countries. Alfredo Di Stefano started life with an Argentine passport before turning out for Colombia and Spain. Ferenc Puskas also represented Spain after making his name for Hungary. Do you think you players should be able to adopt a new country and play for them? But two things have changed. The first is the globalized nature of the sport, which has allowed Brazil to sell arguably its greatest export -- talented footballers -- to every corner of the world. The second is the emerging power and wealth of smaller states willing to use their financial muscle to attract better players to their national team. FIFA has been extremely critical of countries that have handed passports--some after playing in their new country for less than two years-- to talented footballers. The problem FIFA has found is separating the naturalization of a player who has genuinely put down roots in their new country -- as with Eduardo who moved to Croatia when he was 15 -- and those whose allegiances are bought and sold in a rudimentary international transfer system. One country that has stretched the rules to breaking point is Qatar, who has used its vast gas wealth to attract and naturalize a host of players from Uruguay and Brazil. The Qatari FA even offered to pay Brazilian striker Ailton, then the top scorer in the German Bundesliga, $1million to come and play for Qatar in 2004, even though he had never set foot in the country. The move led to FIFA introducing emergency legislation banning naturalizations from taking place if there was no connection between the player and their prospective country. FIFA has tried to tighten up the rules. Last May FIFA agreed a rule change which stated that a player must live in their new country for five years before they can play for the national team. Have the rules on naturalization of footballers devalued international football? But for a country the size of Qatar, which has a population of fewer than one million, there are few other options. "The only way Qatar or Bahrain are ever going to be competitive is to import players and naturalize them," explains Jesse Fink, an Australian writer on Asian football and author of "15 Days in June: How Australia Became a Football Nation." Yet ultimately Qatar's experiment in footballing naturalization looks to have paid off. They currently sit third in their Asian World Cup qualifying group and are on course for a play-off spot for South Africa 2010 thanks, in no small part, to the goals of their Uruguayan-born striker Sebastian Soria. If they qualify they will be the smallest country to ever make it to the finals. Even more established footballing nations -- like Spain with Marcos Senna and Turkey with Mehmet Aurelio -- have looked at naturalization to fill problem positions in their team. While English-born John Wilkinson swapped the vagaries of lower league football in the UK for Singapore after being released by non-league Exeter City. Five years later he married his Singaporean girlfriend after some gentle persuasion from the national team coach and now anchors the team's midfield. "I didn't even know where Singapore was!" he told The UK's Guardian newspaper last year. Arsene Wenger suggested that his Spanish goalkeeper Manuel Almunia, who qualifies for a British passport after living in the UK for five years, is the answer to England's goalkeeping problems. So will Brazilian imports really takeover the international game? Many are skeptical. "Blatter is fearful that World Cups will be overrun with naturalized Brazilians and has proposed strict rules for naturalizing players, but these are just scare tactics," concludes Fink. "At the end of the day people want to see the majority of the players in their national team 'represent' them." What do you think? Let us know your views in the Sound-off box below. | A look at a team of naturalized players plying their trade in world football.
The team is largely made of Brazilians want a taste of international football, .
FIFA is trying to stamp out the phenomenon .
What do you think? Let us know via the Sound Off box below . |
117,293 | 23790bf31c73ff00fae97ef48821c24e04ee4099 | (CNN) -- Teams of investigators were out at daybreak Wednesday examining damage to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility after an unmanned rocket exploded shortly after launch on the Virginia coast, NASA spokeswoman Rachel Kraft told CNN via email. NASA is warning people in the area not to touch debris if they find any. The Antares rocket, built by NASA contractor Orbital Sciences Corp., and its Cygnus cargo spacecraft "suffered a catastrophic failure" shortly after liftoff Tuesday evening, the company said. The crash caused a huge fire and scattered debris over a large area. Orbital Sciences told CNN it would issue a statement on the status of the investigation later Wednesday. The cargo module was carrying 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments meant for the International Space Station. Officials say no one was injured or killed in the explosion, but NASA says debris may be scattered around the launch area and some may have fallen into the ocean. Rocket explodes in fireball. What happened? The public is being warned to forget about grabbing up rocket debris as souvenirs. "It had a lot of hazardous materials on board that people should not be looking for or wanting to collect souvenirs over," said Frank Culbertson, a former NASA astronaut and now a manager at Orbital Sciences Corp. "If you find anything that washes ashore in the local area or came down on your farm or in your yard ... definitely do not touch it and keep people away from it." "There may be a possibility of debris washing up onto some of the beaches into some of the areas surrounding the island," Bill Wrobel, director of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, said a news conference Tuesday. If people do find any debris, they're being urged to call NASA at 757-824-1295. NASA says teams started assessing damage to Wallops at daylight Wednesday. "Damage was contained to kind of the south end of Wallops Island," Wrobel said. "That's predominately where many of the pieces came down." Opinion: Rockets blow up; we move on . 'You see a big fireball' The rocket lifted off at 6:22 p.m. ET, but about six seconds after launch, there was an explosion and the rocket fell to the ground, engulfed in a huge fireball. It seemed to be going perfectly when Ed Encina saw the launch brighten up the sky from his vantage point about 3 miles away. "And then, all of a sudden, you see a big fireball," said Encina, a Baltimore Sun reporter. He recalled a loud boom that caused "your feet (to) shake a little bit," as well as flames enveloping a roughly 100-yard area around the launchpad in a marshy area with brush. CNN iReporter Dymetria Sellers, who watched from a drawbridge because the NASA visitors station was full, recalled a "breathtakingly beautiful" sight when the rocket ascended, followed by mass confusion as flames lit up the early nighttime sky moments later. "About 30 seconds later, we could hear and feel two booms reach us, and it was apparent the rocket had exploded," she said. Did you witness the rocket explosion? Please share your images . Mark Kelly, a former NASA astronaut, said such a colossal fire was to be expected after the launch failure. "It takes a lot of propellant to take a spacecraft of that size moving 25 times the speed of sound," Kelly told CNN, explaining how fast the rocket should have gone on its way to the space station. "So when it fails, it's usually pretty catastrophic." Orbital Sciences will lead the investigation into the explosion. NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration will assist. "What we know so far is pretty much what everybody saw on the video," Culbertson said. "The ascent stopped, there was some, let's say disassembly, of the first stage, and then it fell to Earth. ... We don't really have any early indications of exactly what might have failed, and we need some time to look at that." They'll examine debris and review video of the launch and telemetry from the spacecraft. "We have reams and reams of data that comes down from the rocket during launch," Culbertson said. Payload included student experiments . The cargo included crew supplies, hardware for the space station, spacewalk equipment and several experiments designed by students. No classified payloads were on board the spacecraft, said Kraft, the NASA spokeswoman. One experiment from Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart in Houston would have tested how pea shoots grow in space. The school said on its website that students, parents and teachers were shocked and disappointed by the explosion, but that it wasn't a total loss. "The amount of learning that occurred as a result of being part of this program through the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) is incredible and the students and their teachers ... should always be proud of this accomplishment," the school said. Also lost in the blast was a study called Drain Brain, which was designed to help learn more about blood flow in space, and an experiment called Meteor, which may have helped find previously undetected meteor showers. The cargo also included more than 1,300 pounds of food for the space station. NASA four to six months' worth of food is stashed on board, so there is no worry the crew will go hungry. Also, a Russian Progress resupply vehicle arrived at the space station Wednesday. And SpaceX is scheduled to take up supplies in December. "The station is in great shape; the crew is in good shape," said Mike Suffredini, the space station's program manager. Opinion: Don't overreact to rocket explosion . CNN's Greg Botelho, Chandler Friedman, Kevin Conlon, Jareen Imam and Dave Alsup contributed to this report. | Public urged to stay away from rocket debris .
NASA teams checking damage to Wallops Flight Facility .
The International Space Station has plenty of supplies, NASA says . |
1,192 | 03602d3a510410e4cf2c7630116b2aaeb4bced49 | A 29 -year-old man is in a critical condition after being shot in the head and arm by police at a property in Brisbane. The man was shot on Priestdale Road at Rochedale South on Tuesday morning after two patrol officers were called to the property to investigate a stolen ride-on mower. Police have confirmed that the officers were 'confronted' by the man who was driving a four-wheel-drive, and towing a mower on a trailer, when the officers opened fire. It has been reported that the man was shot once in the head and four times in the arm, however police have not confirmed the extent of his injuries other than to say he was in a critical condition at Princess Alexandria hospital in Brisbane. A male passenger was in the car at the time of the shooting, but was not injured in the shooting and is currently in police custody. Scroll down for video . Officers responded to an incident involving a man at the Rochedale South property at 8.30am on Tuesday which resulted in officers firing shots at the man . Police confirmed officers shot the man on Priestdale Road at Rochedale South on Tuesday morning . The Police Ethical Standards Command and the Crime and Corruption Commission are investigating the incident . Assistant Commissioner Stephen Hollands would not comment in a press conference at the scene on how far the car was from the officers at the time. 'It is certainly concerning that police were in a situation where they had to resort to that use of force,' he said. The Police Ethical Standards Command and the Crime and Corruption Commission are investigating the incident. The Courier-Mail has reported that a senior constable from Springwood shot the man after officers went to the property to track a stolen trailer. Local resident Blaze Greene told The Courier-Mail she heard the shots. 'There were four to five shots, really quick,' she said. A male passenger was in the car at the time of the shooting, but was not injured in the shooting and is currently in police custody . Assistant Commissioner Stephen Hollands (pictured) would not comment in a press conference at the scene on how far the car was from the officers at the time . A man is in a critical condition after being shot in the head and arm at the Brisbane property . It has been reported that officers were called to the Rochedale South property to investigate a stolen trailer . | Man shot in head by police on Priestdale Road at Rochedale in Brisbane .
Police have confirmed officers wounded the man from opening fire .
29-year-old was driving a four-wheel-drive at officers before being shot .
The man was in a critical condition at Princess Alexandria hospital .
Male passenger was in the car at the time but is uninjured and in custody .
Paramedics said the man was shot in the head and forearm . |
5,181 | 0eaef4c6fb4e96ba83b3c9ac836ba95ec77f0867 | Scientists have mapped the quietest places in America, as well as some of the noisiest. Researchers from the National Park Service collected more than 1.5million hours of acoustical monitoring data from around the country and found that the quietest areas were in national parks. The team found sound levels that are as quiet as before European colonization in some wild places of the country, according to Science. Scientists from the National Park Service used a computer program to map the noise levels throughout the entire country. This map shows the combined decibel levels from both natural and human-made noise, which ranged from below 30 decibels to above 60 . National parks, such as Yellowstone in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, were the quietest places in the entire country, with low levels of human noise . While the most peaceful places saw less than 20 decibels of background noise on a typical summer day, places such as New York City can average up to 60 decibels. The map shows a stark difference between the noisy eastern half of the country and the West, where large swaths of land see measurements below 30 decibels. Noise is measured logarithmically in decibels, with a jet engine around 100 decibels, an office environment measured at about 60 and a whisper at 20. The quietest places in the US are found at the Rockies and westward, with secluded areas such as Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado leading the way. Haleakalā National Park in Hawaii was also among the quietest, lead author Dr Daniel Mennitt told Daily Mail Online. Urban environments and towns along the interstate system got the noisiest ratings, according to maps from a study by Dr Mennitt, Dr Ken Fristrup and Dr Lisa Nelson. Researchers have previously pointed out how long-term exposure to loud background noise can cause health problems. Dr Fristrup has said that constant noise may be creating a 'deaf generation' that is unable to use our bodies' ability to hear sounds far away. The researchers also made a map of the country's noise if humans were taken out of the equation (above). Large amounts of natural noise, which was mapped on a smaller scale than the total noise, was found in areas with rivers and insects, such as the Southeast . The naturally noisiest parts of the country include the area around the Mississippi River (pictured) while naturally quiet places were generally high,dry shrubland . However, the difference between the bustling East and the more peaceful West was not only limited to areas with large amounts of human development. A map of sounds created by natural sources, where scientists redid the map as if there were no people, also shows a country split in half. Warm areas in the Southeast and interior Midwest saw high values and appear in yellow, though the scale for the amount of noise is smaller than for when human sounds are included. Non-human noise came mostly from running water, rain and 'wind-induced vegetation sounds'. The wetlands and area around the Mississippi River also support a huge amount of wildlife and the constant buzz of insects can be heard even in areas with few or no people. Humans' contribution to the noise levels were mapped by subtracting the natural levels from the soundscape (seen above). Even areas without large human populations saw man-made noise from roads and airplanes flying overhead . Big cities such as New York (pictured) can see background noise levels as high as 60 decibels, roughly the same as an office environment or a conversation in a restaurant . The quietest places in terms of natural sounds were high, dry shrubland and barren, flat terrain'. Dr Mennitt and his team then measured the affect that humans have on the soundscape by finding the difference between the total noise and natural noise levels. Even remote spots saw some man-made noise, with the rumble of aircraft overheard destroying the natural stillness. Other patches of would-be quiet were also broken up by roads or other transportation networks. One aircraft can be heard 25 miles from from its path and cars can be heard six miles from the road, the study said. The largest areas without large amounts of unnatural noise were the Adirondacks in northern New York state and parts of the Rocky Mountains. Half of 'low impact' areas were in protected lands. The scientists were unable to collect data from every point in the entire country, and used Random Forest, a 'tree-based machine learning algorithm' to create their maps. Though the researchers originally began looking just at the country's national parks, their more recent research has included data from urban areas and airports. The noise study's combined map bears a striking resemblance to NASA's map of nighttime light, with much of the activity clustered around humans in big cities . | National Park Service scientists created maps of human and natural noise .
Quietest places are national parks such as Yellowstone; cities are loudest .
Some areas can be as quiet as they were before European colonization .
Large amounts of natural noise from water and insects heard in Southeast . |
228,251 | b38b048c12020378917dd16e514bf50b30c7e92f | Deflate-gate has consumed the sports world in the run-up to the Super Bowl on Sunday - and it's all hurting Tom Brady's feelings. The New England Patriots quarterback says he took football tampering allegations personally after 11 of the 12 footballs tested by the NFL were found to be two PSI less than league minimums. Brady once again denied having anything to do with the fact that his footballs were improperly inflated in an interview with WEEI sports radio in Boston on Monday. Scroll down for audio . New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, says speculation that he was involved in deflate-gate and tampered with his footballs 'hurt his feelings' Brady appeared on Monday alongside owner Bob Kraft (second right) and head coach Bill Belichick (right) at a send-off ceremony before the team headed to Phoenix to prepare for the Super Bowl . 'I’ve tried to wrap my head around it, too. I’ve done that and I’m trying to move past that, because I continue to try to rehash things,' he said. 'I personalized a lot of things and thought this was all about me, and my feelings got hurt. 'Then I moved past it, because it’s not serving me.' The Patriots are still fending off cheating allegations less than a week before the Super Bowl, where they will face the Seattle Seahawks this coming Sunday. Embattled: Belichick, who has been caught cheating once before, has denied any wrongdoing. Critics have suggested that billionaire team owner Bob Kraft (left) could get the team out of trouble . Adoring fans braved the cold - and threat of blizzard - to send their team off to Phoenix on Monday . Investigators found that 11 out of the 12 footballs used by the Patriots offense during the AFC Championship game were under-inflated, which makes them easier to throw, catch and carry . Already, some Seahawks are speaking out about the NFL's investigation of 'deflate-gate.' Richard Sherman, the Seattle cornerback, says he doesn't believe the Patriots will be punished for breaking the rules because Patriots owner Robert Kraft is so close to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. 'Will they be punished? Probably not. Not as long Robert Kraft and Roger Goodell are still taking pictures at their respective homes. He was just at Kraft's house last week before the AFC Championship. Talk about conflict of interest. As long as that happens, it won't affect them at all,' Sherman fumed. Brady told WEEI that he has now blocked out the deflate-gate speculation and is working to focus 100 percent on the upcoming Super Bowl - his sixth appearance with the Patriots. On Sunday, he told ESPN that he hadn't been contacted by NFL investigators - and didn't expect to hear from them until after the big game. The Indianapolis Colts complained that the Patriots' footballs were under-inflated during their 45-7 drubbing in the AFC Championship game on January 18. Under-inflated balls are easier to catch and throw in bad weather and they are also easier to carry and harder to fumble. Sports statistician Warren Sharp wrote last week that the Patriots' historically low fumble rate - once every 187 plays - is almost statistically impossible, and dramatically better than even the runner-up team. This Patriots team was able to achieve the record while running more than 200 more running plays than the team with then next-lowest fumble rate - the 2006-2010 Indianapolis Colts. | Brady says he 'took it personally' that he was accused of cheating .
Says he's now 'moved past it' ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl against the Seattle Seahawks .
Brady says he hasn't heard from NFL deflate-gate investigators and doesn't expect to until after the big game .
Seahawk Richard Sherman lashed out at the Patriots, saying the team won't be punished because New England owner Bob Kraft is so close with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell .
For the full interview, visit WEEI here. |
46,359 | 82a347a25b45f6400a647ea09faa1a1ac506f641 | By . Daily Mail Reporter . Last updated at 7:03 AM on 3rd July 2011 . A fierce thunderstorm swept through a rural Wisconsin county that was packed with holiday campers, toppling trees that killed an 11-year-old girl, blowing ashore boats and injuring more than three dozen people, officials said Saturday. The storm moved across Minnesota and Wisconsin on Friday, packing winds up to 110 miles per hour and hail as large as softballs. In northern Wisconsin's Burnett County, at least 37 people went to hospitals after the storm toppled hundreds of trees and left several thousand utility customers without power. Loss: Lory and Dan Deasey of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, sit on the steps to their ruined trailer at the Log Cabin Hollow campground on Yellow Lake near Webster, Wisconsin on Saturday, July 2, 2011 . The Log Cabin Hollow campground on Yellow Lake near Webster, Wisconsin sustained heavy damage in Friday evening's storm . Three of those injuries were reported as critical. Dawn Sargent, a Burnett County public information officer, told MailOnline.com that all missing persons had been accounted for by Saturday evening. A search was undertaken earlier in the day along the St. Croix River for missing canoeists, the Wisconsin Emergency Management Office reported. Boats were upended and blown ashore in the area, while an airport hangar in neighbouring Douglas County collapsed. Law enforcement reported the girl who died was killed when a tree fell . on her at a campground in the country. Ms Sargent would provide additional details of the girl's death, claiming that not all of her family has been notified yet. But the local Inter-County Leader quoted the Burnett County Sheriff's Department as claiming that the 11-year-old was from . Hinckley, Minnesota. The paper reported that the girl was killed when a tree fell on her at Scenic View . Campground on Poquette Lake, about 15 miles east of Siren. Dave Mann, manager of Batten International Airport in Racine, Wis., inspects a Lockheed C-130 airplane that was moved 31 feet by storm winds . Downed: Megan Martinez poses next to a felled silver maple tree Friday, July 1, 2011 after it was uprooted in her family's backyard in Racine, Wisconsin . Ms Sargent told MailOnline.com that a . second death was believed to be connected to the storm, after a man . between the ages of 50 and 60 died of a heart attack. The Inter-County Leader reported that the man's death was initially thought to . have been related to the storm but that authorities said Saturday afternoon . it was not related. The . storm came at one of the worst times of the year for rural Burnett . County: a summer holiday weekend, when the area's lakes and rivers . attract tens of thousands of visitors, said Julie Kittleson of the . county's emergency response centre. Ms . Kittleson said: 'The population here is about 15,000. But this weekend . there's probably about 80,000', she said of the county, which is about . 90 miles northeast of Minneapolis. The . storm moved into southwest Minnesota on Friday afternoon and took . nearly six hours to pass through before slipping into northwest . Wisconsin, said Matt Friedlein, a National Weather Service . meteorologist. The bad weather had moved out by Saturday morning, when skies were clear and sunny with temperatures in the 80s. Most of the damage occurred from the west side of Yellow Lake northeast to Birch Island Lake. The village of Grantsburg is shut down as authorities worry about gas leaks from uprooted trees. Scene of tragedy: An 11-year-old girl died in this week's storm after being hit by a tree at Scenic View Campground on Poquette Lake in Wisconsin . Authorities aren't yet releasing the young girl's name, since not all her family has been notified of the accident . The Burnett County Emergency Operations Center has been activated in Siren for victims of the storm. Anita . Frase, the owner of Bay Park Resort & Campground in Trego, said she . and the resort's 300 visitors knew a storm was coming but they didn't . expect it to hit so swiftly and with such intensity. Ms Frase said: 'About 9 o'clock the winds picked up and within five minutes it was upon us. Those were probably the darkest skies I've ever seen up here'. She added that the storm knocked down several trees, with some landing on vehicles. 'A lot of people were very nervous. Some of the kids were crying', she said. Workers were also rattled at a Grantsburg store near the St. Croix River that rents canoes, kayaks and gear. Store clerk Aimee Van Tatenhove said the wind was so strong and loud that no one realized a medium-sized tree had fallen into the roof until employees went outside. A map of Scenic View Campground, where a young girl died in this week's storm . Peaceful scene: Scenic View Campground in happier days, before a storm ravaged its grounds . In Minnesota, a driver was injured when hail the size of a baseball hit a vehicle's windshield, said Meeker County Sheriff Jeff Norlin. Roofs were torn away in several towns. McLeod County Emergency Management Director Kevin Mathews said: 'Some communities had multiple passes at this storm - including golfball-, baseball- and softball-sized hail'. Mr Mathews added that two tractor-trailers were blown off local highways. Two Minnesota state parks sustained tree damage so heavy that a conservation officer who was making sure no campers were in the area had to abandon his vehicle and hike through on foot, said Chris Niskanen of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Mr Niskanen urged people to stay out of Camden State Park and St. Croix State Park, which are technically closed because of the state's government shutdown but could still attract campers because they're public land. He cautioned that some trees may have fallen over but gotten hung up on other trees. Mr Niskanen said: 'It's an issue of health and safety. Since those parks are closed they don't have the personnel to go in and remove (the trees). People need to know there's a danger if they start wandering around'. | Thunderstorm with 110 mph winds ripped through Minnesota and Wisconsin .
Girl died in campground after being hit by falling tree .
37 people were injured in Wisconsin's Burnett County, 3 critically .
Tens of thousands of people were out enjoying nature for the holiday . |
10,239 | 1d112f2776a2bd0b116970ffc5674112c2206b5a | (CNN) -- For the past 49 years French animal trainer, Thierry Le Portier, 63, has been a calm handler of wild felines. Growing up he had originally wanted to be a gym teacher, but after catching a glimpse of a lion tamer during a trip to the zoo in Marseille, Le Portier decided to give up his hobbies -- rugby and judo -- to spend every free afternoon watching the tamer at work. On his 17th birthday, Le Portier was finally given the opportunity he had patiently been waiting for when before the show began, as the lights dimmed, the trainer surprised the teenager by forcing him on to center stage. "He grabbed me by the shoulders, pushed me in the cage just before a show with a lioness and said, "go!" And I did the whole show," he said. The show was so successful that Le Portier was confident he had found his vocation and was soon touring Europe with his act. So remarkable was his skill that Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini called on the talented young tamer for a scene involving a lion in his 1974 film "Arabian Nights." Le Portier quickly became a specialist of big-cat scenes and after Pasolini came other famous screen directors such as Jean-Jacques Annaud with "Two Brothers," Ridley Scott with "Gladiator," and more recently Ang Lee with "Life of Pi," which stars a digital tiger. The trainer -- along with his three tigers -- was flown out to Taiwan for four months and filmed extensively for reference. During this time he developed a close bond with the film's director. "Every time we went somewhere [film producer] David Womack called me the quality control and Ang Lee would say 'and inspiration,'" Le Portier said. Read more: Director finished film using phone . Le Portier believes he and Lee struck up a close friendship because of a shared work ethic. "I work with tigers for the same reason Ang Lee is in the movie business: because we can't do anything else." It's this passion for taming which makes Le Portier arguably the best animal trainer in the world. When talking about his work, his whole body becomes animated. "Training is an art; it takes time and an understanding of the animal you are with." Read more: 'Life of Pi' is bold and wondrous . Le Portier doesn't use food as a means of enticing the animal, or a whip to control it. He simply uses his brain. "You don't train with physical abuse because he's so strong, it's a mental arm-wrestle," he explained. "It's a real psychology, mental manipulation." In fact, Le Portier said he was only scared of one type of animal, the kind which has been raised by humans as an exotic "pet," the one that "looks dead behind the eyes." Le Portier believes these are prowling "time bombs." He warns that one day their natural instincts flood back and without warning they turn aggressive -- these wild animals were never made to be patted. "I'm not meant to be his friend; you are never his real friend. You have to intimidate him," Le Portier said. Read more: What's the buzz on 'Life of Pi'? In the cage Le Portier is the boss. But even just a few lapses of concentration in the past have cost him dearly, and he has the scars to prove it. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud believes Le Portier's job could one day cost him his life. "Whenever Thierry confronts a wild animal, he risks his life. I think he secretly hopes to die taming, as Molière died acting, in the exercise of his art." | Frenchman Thierry Le Portier has been training big cats for the past 49 years .
Three of his tigers were used as references for the Oscar-nominated film "Life of Pi"
Le Portier says training is "an art" that takes time and an understanding of the animals .
He says the only animals that scare him are those that have been made "exotic pets" |
12,577 | 23a6c9c55df5d2518c838bc407d9460e9a56abb3 | By . Brian Marjoribanks . Celtic have issued a firm denial on behalf of winger Aleksandar Tonev after the Bulgarian was accused of racially abusing Aberdeen defender Shay Logan during his debut for the Scottish champions. The 24-year-old international is facing a Scottish FA probe after being reported by the Dons for an alleged incident during Saturday's 2-1 Premiership win for Ronny Deila's side at Parkhead. The pair were direct opponents for much of the match and Englishman Logan is understood to have told referee Bobby Madden that Tonev said to him: 'Get your hands off me, you black c***.' Shay Logan has accused Aleksandar Tonev of racial abuse during Celtic's 2-1 win over Aberdeen . The SFA are likely to investigate the incident once they receive a report from the referee on Monday . But Tonev vehemently denied the claims when quizzed by manager Ronny Deila and assistant John Collins. And on Sunday night a Celtic spokesman told Sportsmail: 'We have spoken to the player and he has stated that the accusation made is not true.' Logan, 26, was left so incensed by the alleged confrontation with Tonev that after alerting Madden he also directed Dons skipper Mark Reynolds to take up the matter formally with the match official. He then informed his manager Derek McInnes, with the Aberdeen management team alerting fourth official Crawford Allan as well as Celtic to the allegation. The alleged incident will be mentioned in Madden's report which is due to arrive on the desk of new SFA Compliance Officer Tony McGlennan at Hampden on Monday. It is also expected to feature prominently in the report by SPFL delegate John Connelly. It is alleged that Tonev called the Aberdeen defender a 'black c***' during the game at Celtic Park . Both Logan and Tonev, as well as opposing managers Deila and McInnes, are now likely to be contacted by the SFA's Disciplinary Department, as well as Madden. The SFA's Disciplinary Department would then investigate before deciding whether or not there were grounds to issue a Notice of Complaint against Tonev. They confirmed the disciplinary process would only begin when Madden's report is received. But with Tonev denying the claim, unless the alleged exchange was witnessed by another player or caught on camera it is likely to remain a case of one man's word against another. Aberdeen privately accept that they Aleksandar Tonev is unlikely to be found guilty without more evidence . Celtic said on Sunday night that Aleksandar Tonev 'has stated that the accusation made is not true' Aberdeen declined to comment ahead of a potential SFA investigation but Sportsmail understands they privately accept it may be hard to prove Logan's claim. A source close to the club on Sunday added that they felt obliged to take their player's word and report his complaint. Celtic signed Tonev on a one-year loan from Paul Lambert's Aston Villa last month and have an option to buy him permanently next summer. He is expected to be part of the squad who travel to Austria this week for Thursday's Europa League clash with Salzburg. Aleksandar Tonev is still expected to travel to Salzburg for Celtic's Europa League tie on Thursday . He had to wait until Saturday to make his debut after recovering from a groin injury and played for 70 minutes before being replaced by Nir Biton. Fraser Wishart, chief executive of PFA Scotland, said it would be 'inappropriate to comment at this time' because the incident could result in an investigation by the SFA. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article. | Shay Logan alleges that Aleksandar Tonev called him a 'black c***'
Celtic spokesman says 'we have spoken to the player and he has stated that the accusation made is not true'
Likely to be difficult to prove as it is only one man's word against another .
SFA likely to investigate after referee's match report filed on Monday .
Tonev could still travel to Europa League clash in Salzburg on Thursday . |
236,189 | bdbd3dd515b875e06d12efa2ae568a82184579b7 | (CNN) -- Lance Armstrong's fall from grace has left one of the cyclist's former sponsors not only "sad" -- but also without one of its biggest marketing tools. Premier sports eyewear firm Oakley was one of several companies -- including Nike, Trek and Anheuser-Busch -- to end lucrative deals with the American when he was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles after refusing to answer charges of systematic drug use. Oakley said the 41-year-old had been a "symbol of possibility" when he signed up, having inspired millions when he returned to competition after recovering from testicular cancer and then won cycling's blue riband event from 1999-2005. He also raised hundreds of millions of dollars for charity through his Livestrong foundation before a report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency this year left his legacy in tatters. British Armstrong effigy causes outrage . "The Lance story is a sad one, with our emotional connection with that athlete," Oakley chief executive Colin Baden told CNN. "We have been very consistent in how we view cheating and we've always stuck with this over the 16 years I've been with the brand, so that if the governing body rules that an athlete has broken the rules, we can't be a sponsor. "I don't think we'll change any of our strategic views of who we want to promote the brand, but how that person behaves is critical to having a positive relationship." Many people who once backed Armstrong, following years of allegations about his potentially being a drug user, have now expressed their anger at his apparent duplicity but Baden said there was no point in recriminations. "For me personally, it's an emotional response. I've never found anger to lead to anything constructive in life -- it's just a disappointment," Baden said. "I can be angry, but it won't change the situation, so I'm just left with the grief of what was a great story." Baden said there had been no question of Oakley dropping Armstrong until he was officially stripped of his titles. "We've had athletes fall in the category before and still followed the same rule. Once the recognized governing body rules against them, we follow that governing body's recommendations," he said. "I feel like we're not responding to emotion, we're not responding to the story of the day -- we're following the law." Cycling's governing body has told Armstrong to return a reported $5 million in prize money he won at the Tour, though it will not reallocate his victories. Texas company SCA Promotions is also seeking the return of $12 million it paid Armstrong, but Baden said Oakley would not be following suit. The company, which has been endorsed by the likes of basketball legend Michael Jordan, tennis star Andre Agassi and now golf's rising star Rory McIlroy, will have to plug the gap left by the fall of one of its most marketable names. "I like to think of us as a premier sports performance company and we do really extreme product development -- and sometimes the products we develop are unique and it requires somebody in what we call 'the front row' to explain to the masses that this is the best," Baden said. "So any athlete that we're targeting to have a relationship with has to be perceived as the best. There's a reason he's choosing our products -- it's not because we pay him to do it, it's because it pays to do it." | Former Lance Armstrong sponsor Oakley says it is "sad" but not angry about his demise .
Chief executive Colin Baden says he is "left with the grief of what was a great story"
He says Oakley will not follow other bodies by asking for its money back .
Baden: Armstrong was a key endorser due to his worldwide popularity . |
110,109 | 19f6fc3bd6e78c2fa2ed3dbc2418cc8adf3c22c1 | (CNN) -- The chairman of the club that hosts America's most prestigious golf tournament skirted the prickly issue of women's membership Wednesday, saying it is a private matter. During his annual media session, Billy Payne, chairman of Augusta National Golf Club, did not comment specifically on Ginni Rometty, the top executive at IBM and, undoubtedly, one of the corporate world's most powerful women. IBM's sponsorship of the Masters tournament guarantees club membership for its officers, but Rometty is a woman, and the club does not allow women to join. "Well, as has been the case, whenever that question is asked, all issues of membership are now and have historically been subject to the private deliberation of members," Payne said. "That statement remains accurate; it remains my statement." IBM spokesman Ed Barbini told CNN Wednesday that the company would not comment on the controversy. The question of Rometty's membership has again brought the gender controversy to the forefront. Women's rights activist Martha Burk tried to change the exclusionary policy nine years ago when she showed up at the Augusta entrance to lead a series of protests against men-only membership. Her efforts were in vain. Now, she says, "the boys" at Augusta, members and sponsors alike, find themselves in a big bind. "The 'woman problem' is back," she wrote in a column for CNN on Tuesday. Burk says there are only two choices at hand: Augusta can open its doors to women, or IBM can yank its money and force its male executives to resign from the club. "Those are the only two options that are viable that are going to wash with the public," Burk told CNN last week. Augusta's membership -- which includes titans of industry and finance -- has been male-only since the club's opening in 1932. When Burk tried to change things in 2002, Augusta's then-chairman, Hootie Johnson, resisted, saying that gender integration would not come "at the point of a bayonet." In 2006, Burk was among a group of Exxon shareholders who accused the company of violating its discrimination policies by supporting the tournament. Nonmembers can play on the course only when hosted by members. Augusta is famously secretive about its membership, and the club declined to comment on the issue, as did IBM spokesman Chris Andrews. "Augusta is a private club, and their personal membership is an internal matter," he said. IBM, however, has played a role in changing policy before. The company pulled television ads from the PGA Championship when it was played at the whites-only Shoal Creek golf club in Alabama. The club admitted its first African-American in 1990 and now claims former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a member. Augusta also did not welcome its first black member until 1990, when Gannett television division president Ron Townsend joined the club. On the eve of the 2012 Masters opening Thursday, speculation surfaced that Payne, known to be more progressive than his predecessor, will offer Rometty a membership, but only after the tournament ends and the gender debate dies down. "Sorry, but that dog won't hunt," Burk wrote. "Telling Rometty to be a good girl and wait a little longer with IBM's collusion would be a disaster -- not only for the company's image, but for Rometty's credibility as its leader." More and more people are asking Augusta to man up and get rid of what they say is a discriminatory policy from the past. Payne did not announce any sweeping changes from the hot seat Wednesday. That means that Rometty will probably not show up this year in a green jacket. The question is: Will she ever? CNN's James O'Toole and Leigh Remizowski contributed to this report. | Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne is asked about the men-only membership policy .
He says membership is "subject to the private deliberation of members"
Ginni Rometty, IBM's top executive, cannot join despite her company's sponsorship .
Her status has reignited the gender controversy as the Masters begins . |
46,501 | 83068ce808b80113aaa5a3f110d2cf3973192088 | Steven Gerrard could be in line for a move to the MLS with Toronto FC, according to reports from Canada. The Liverpool icon has yet to be offered a new deal at Anfield, with his contract up in the summer. And with Jermain Defoe set to cut short his time in Canada, Toronto are on the lookout for a new 'marquee' player, believes NBC's Pro Soccer Talk. Steven Gerrard has yet to sign a new deal for Liverpool with his current contract set to expire this summer . Reds captain on the bench alongside team-mate Glen Johnson against Real Madrid on Tuesday night . Gerrard attempts to play the ball under pressure from Real Madrid forward Karim Benzema during their defeat . Defoe is expected to return to the Premier League with QPR in the January window, as manager Harry Redknapp indicated on Thursday, provided terms can be agreed. The forward only moved to the Canada at the start of 2014, and he was Toronto's top scorer during the 2014 MLS season with 12 goals in 17 games. And reports in Canada suggest Gerrard along with Galatasaray's Dutch veteran Wesley Sneijder top the MLS club's list of potential new recruits. Gerrard could be targeted by the MLS club as they hunt for a marquee signing to replace Jermain Defoe . Defoe is expected to complete a switch back to the Premier League from Toronto FC . Galatasaray midfielder Wesley Sneijder is also a target for the MLS club this summer . 34-year-old Gerrard was left out of the starting line-up for their 1-0 defeat at Real Madrid in the Champions League in midweek along with the likes of Jordan Henderson and Raheem Sterling. But the club captain is set to return to the heart of midfield for their lunchtime clash with Chelsea on Saturday. | Liverpool captain could be in line for Toronto move, say Canadian reports .
Steven Gerrard is yet to be offered a new contract at Anfield .
Gerrard has admitted that he may be forced to join another club .
Jermain Defoe set to cut short his time in Canada after less than a year .
MLS side could target Gerrard to replace Defoe as a 'marquee' player . |
91,805 | 0219d4b7a16561c8aa60f549bb255d81e9d81a4c | By . Bianca London . Forget the Maldives or even Ireland a la Kim Karadashian and Kanye West, two festival fanatics are celebrating life as newlyweds at Glastonbury. Jack and Bianca Vaughan tied the knot in the local town of Glastonbury before arriving with the rest of the revellers at the iconic music festival in Somerset. The couple from Reading gazed longingly into each others eyes and walked hand in hand through the sun-drenched fields last night. Scroll down for video . Just married: After marrying in the town of Glastonbury, Jack and Bianca Vaughan from Reading arrive at the same time as thousands of others ahead of the Glastonbury Festival . Bianca was still wearing what looked like her lace wedding dress, which she teamed with white Hunter wellington boots. Jack, however, had changed (we hope) into a grey T-shirt and shorts, which he wore with a pair of trainers. The loved-up pair joined the rest of the crowds as the music festival gathered pace last night. Come rain or shine, every year the most fashionable - and questionable - of festival goers descend upon Glastonbury for a weekend of well-dressed debauchery. Lovers: Jack and Bianca, who was still wearing her dress, made their way through the crowds at the iconic music festival last night . Casual groom: Jack, however, had changed (we hope) into a grey T-shirt and shorts, which he wore with a pair of trainers . Mind your dress! Luckily Bianca packed her Wellies, which are sure to come in handy if this weekend's weather forecast is anything to go by . How romantic: The loved-up duo walked off into the sunset on the first night of the hotly anticipated music festival . Not only is Glastonbury the world's most . iconic music festival, it is also a catwalk for celebrities and the . bands' glamorous groupies to showcase their style credentials for all . the world to see. Glastonbury may have a . reputation for mud and rain, but as one of the . summer's first festivals, it's also a key indicator of what looks will . pass muster at the rest of the summer's musical events and gatherings and which are better left in the soggy fields of Somerset. Some . looks never go out of fashion - like the perennially popular Hunter . wellingtons, quilted Barbour jackets and floral crowns - and this year . also saw an explosion of neon and 90s grunge as ravers made some serious . sartorial effort. FEMAIL has rounded up the good, the bad and the downright bonkers styles on day one of Glastonbury. You're welcome. Here comes the bride! No one batted an eyelid as the newlyweds made their way through the crowds . All hail festival fashion! Who needs denim shorts and some wellies when you can dress up as an astronaut and a pair of nuns like these revellers, who opted for fancy dress to enjoy the sunset at the stone circle on day one of Glastonbury Festival . Attention to detail: One diligent festival goer ensured that he had every inch of his body inked, wore some bling on his nipples and even treated his toe nails to a colourful pedicure ahead of the iconic music event . Aladdin, is that you? A man who has clearly taken some serious style inspiration from the Disney cartoon relaxes in The Green Futures Field at Glastonbury Festival . Waiting for your UFO? An astronaut sits pensively on the stone circle at the festival, which kicked off last night . Having a fancy old time: A group of lads showed off some leg as they dressed up in their Pacman outfits . Can you see where you're going? Two revellers embrace the fancy dress theme in a skeleton and union jack morph suit . But first, let me take a selfie: A group of well-dressed girls arrive in denim hot pants and converse, which have fast become festival fashion essentials . Taking the bull by the horns: Thousands of revellers flooded through the gates of the Glastonbury Festival as the biggest event in the music calendar got underway today . Anything goes in Somerset: It seems that bunbags are making a comeback from the 90s if these eclectically dressed revellers' outfits are anything to go by . Bottoms up! One stylish female festival goer rocks an on-trend bucket hat, denim jacket and oversized pants, sorry, shorts... Multitasking: Sophie Gray, 25 and Clara Talbot, 26 from Liverpool arrive with rollers in their hair on the first day of Glastonbury....we hope they packed umbrellas! Flower power: Floral headbands seem to be the order of the day at Glastonbury . Lap it up while you can! Four trendy festival fans in barely-there denim shorts enjoy the last of the sun before the havens open . At least those headdresses will protect their hair! Revellers are being warned to expect heavy rain and a possible mudbath this weekend . That's how to do it! Two ladies sport crop tops, hot pants, bumbags and fedora hats at the festival . Red hot! One woman gets into the festival spirit in a glitzy sequined outfit . A colourful display: A throng of festival goers walk through the site at Worthy Farm in Pilton in their most vibrant and eye catching neons . Colour coordinating: One lady is in the pink this year matching her tent, attire and even her hair . Wrapping up warm: One lady fashions a duvet as a dress as she waits in the blustery weather . Nailed it: Natalie Futo, 21, gives even Kate Moss a run for her money in the style stakes as she arrives in an on-trend fringed jacket and fedora . A hair salon and spa have been set up in the Pop-Up Hotel, which offers festival goers alternative luxury camping close to the Glastonbury Festival site - offering a array of facilities such as a reception and waiting area, 200-seat restaurant and bar, luxury showers, make-up areas, hairdresser and on on-site spa. Hair of the dog: A hairdresser cuts the hair of a woman in the hair salon inside a converted railway carriage at the Pop-Up Hotel, which offers festival goers alternative luxury camping close to the Glastonbury Festival site . | Jack and Bianca Vaughan tied the knot in .
local town of Glastonbury .
Bianca arrived in her wedding dress at music festival .
More than 1750,000 will descend on Worthy Farm in Pilton over the next five days to watch hundreds of acts .
Outfits include nuns, astronauts and Kate Moss inspired style .
Main acts start tomorrow, pre-festival events across the 1,200-acre fields keeping revellers entertained .
Kasabian, heavy metal group Metallica and Arcade Fire will be headlining the Pyramid Stage this year . |
73,768 | d12c9552855dffa4e3a7e9d74ea7afac2af2b32e | Lance Elgar (pictured) 'lost it' after rowing with his mother before kicking the animal three times with steel toe-capped boots . A teenage thug who kicked and burned a cat to death after downing a bottle of whisky has walked free from court. Lance Elgar, who was living on a farm in Nether Heyford, Northamptonshire, 'lost it' after rowing with his mother before kicking the animal three times with steel toe-capped boots. While the cat lay paralysed from the vicious assault on April 21 last year, the 19-year-old then picked it up and threw it on a fire. The animal, which belonged to the owners of a farm where Elgar was living, died after suffering broken bones, fractures, internal bleeding and a severed spinal cord. The landscape gardener was handed a 12-week prison sentence suspended for two years after he admitted causing unnecessary suffering to an animal. He was banned from owning animals for 10 years and ordered to pay £2,353.15 court costs and a victim surcharge of £80. Northampton Magistrates Court heard the cat died after enduring 'extreme pain and suffering'. District Judge Tim Daber told Elgar it was 'completely incredible' someone would take their anger out on 'a defenceless animal'. He said: 'Neither arguments, drinking or scratches are any excuse whatsoever. It shows incredible cruelty. 'It is a very close call but your age, remorse and record for making positive contributions to the community have persuaded me to just keep you out of prison on this occasion.' The court heard Elgar attacked the cat after drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels following a row with his mother. He said the cat then scratched him. Prosecutor Janita Patel said: 'We can confidently say that this cat suffered extreme pain and suffering and was most likely still conscious after the first kick. Northampton Magistrates Court (pictured) heard the cat died after enduring 'extreme pain and suffering' 'This could have left it paralysed which would have increased its fear and anxiety. 'A gentle kick to the head would not have caused this. Extreme force must have been used with an intent to injure.' Hayley Pearson, defending, said: 'It was a moment of madness and he does not remember putting the cat on a lit fire. 'He had drunk a whole bottle of Jack Daniels and had had an argument with his mother who he had helped to build a house for. Then the cat scratched him and he lost it.' | Lance Elgar 'lost it' after rowing with his mother before kicking the animal .
19-year-old had drunk a bottle of whisky and claims the cat scratched him .
He kicked animal three times with steel toe-capped boots, a court is told .
Landscape gardener then tossed paralysed cat onto fire, magistrates hear .
The animal died after suffering broken bones and a severed spinal cord .
Elgar given 12-weeks prison sentence which was suspended for two years . |
18,848 | 355875856932fd634aaf7c6b26155403aaf15904 | By . Richard Hartley-parkinson . Last updated at 11:51 AM on 11th July 2011 . Nasa is monitoring a piece of 'Russian' space junk that looks likely to come dangerously close to the International Space Station during a planned space walk tomorrow. The debris is heading towards the station, where Atlantis yesterday docked on its final mission. Scientists are still trying to work out how big the object is and how close it will come to Atlantis. Some believe it originated from a defunct Russian satellite that is orbiting Earth. LeRoy Cain, mission management team leader, said he hopes the space junk will keep a safe distance and as they observe its trajectory throughout today, they will be able to work out how close it will come. In danger? Atlantis docked at the International Space Station yesterday, just hours before Nasa scientists warned a piece of space junk is heading its way . A space walk is scheduled to take place on Tuesday afternoon, but this could now be threatened by the debris . Window on the world: Atlantis crew member Rex Walheim looks up at Earth . Atlantis seen here during a 'back flip' will engage its thrusters if the space junk gets too close . If it appears that the space junk is . getting too close for comfort, the astronauts will be able to use . thrusters to move Atlantis out of its way. Two . weeks ago, the crew of the ISS had to shelter in the lifeboats after a . piece of debris missed them by just over 1,000ft - the closest call to . date. Since the first object, Sputnik One, was launched into space 53 years ago, mankind has created a swarm of perhaps tens of millions of items of debris. The rubbish circling the planet comes from old rockets, abandoned satellites and missile shrapnel. It is estimated that there are 370,000 pieces of space junk floating in Earth's orbit. Yesterday Atlantis landed at the International Space Station for the last time, two days after it became the final Nasa shuttle to blast into space. Writing the final chapter in a 30-year story of triumphs and tragedy, the last shuttle docked successfully after the astronauts on board spent most of their first full day in orbit checking the space shuttle for any damage from Friday's launch. Atlantis will now proceed with its mission to deliver more than four tons of supplies - enough for a year - and spare parts to the ISS as well as clearing rubbish and picking up a broken pump to transport back to Earth for inspection. As the shuttle made its final docking on the space station astronaut Ronald Garan Jr said: 'Atlantis arriving. Welcome to the International Space Station for the last time.' Flight deck: Chris Ferguson and Doug Hurley take their seats at the commander's and pilot's stations . A small bit of earth can be seen through the window above commander Chris Ferguson, right, and mission specialist Sandy Magnus . Right before docking, the shuttle also performed a mandated 'back-flip' in space for the station crew to shoot images of the Thermal Protection System for more analysis. The mission will also fly the Robotic Refuelling Mission (RRM), an experiment designed to demonstrate and test the tools, technologies and techniques needed to robotically refuel satellites in space - even satellites not designed to be serviced. To check the shield yesterday, they used the shuttle's robot arm and an extension to slowly examine the most vulnerable parts of the shuttle's outer edges, a safety check that has become the norm since 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia was destroyed when it returned to Earth because of damage during lift off. On Saturday, the astronauts were woken up at 3.59am by Coldplay's Viva la Vida - dedicated to pilot Doug Hurley - as well as a mass greeting from the many employees of Nasa's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. 'Good morning, Atlantis,' the workers said in a message recorded before launch. 'The Marshall Space Flight Center hopes you enjoyed your ride to orbit. We wish you a successful mission and a safe return home.' Mission control is monitoring space junk to make sure it doesn't get too close during a space walk . With earth in the back ground, Atlantis starts its backflip rotation to expose the heat shield . Mid flip, Atlantis has to carry out the flip so that astronauts can check all is well with the craft . High resolution photographs of Atlantis's heat shield will be thoroughly checked for problems . Atlantis is on its final mission to the International Space Station and Nasa's last craft to go into orbit . An artist's impression of space junk orbiting Earth. Mankind has created a swarm of perhaps tens of millions of items of debris . | Nasa is trying to work out if the junk comes from a defunct Russian satellite .
It is scheduled to pass the space station at around 5pm GMT on Tuesday . |
236,494 | be1b9067929768153c45d3bdd87708b5c8e960b7 | By . Jill Reilly . PUBLISHED: . 08:06 EST, 22 March 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 12:05 EST, 22 March 2012 . When David Bowie sang about green eyes in his eighties song, Cat People, he probably didn't realise that years later his own eyes would be compared to those of a feline. But it appears that Bowie shares similarly mismatched colour eyes to Speedy - a white domestic cat from Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. Speedy, who has one green and one gold eye, was born with a feline form of complete heterochromia, a condition that also occurs in some other animals. The condition most commonly affects white-coloured cats but may be found in a cat of any colour, provided that it possesses the white spotting gene. Mismatched: Speedy was born with bi-coloured eyes - one is blue and the other is gold. She has a feline form of complete heterochromia, a condition that also occurs in some other animals . It appears that Bowie shares similarly mismatched colour eyes to Speedy - a white domestic cat from Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. But Bowie's different colour eyes are the result of being punched at secondary school, by a school friend. The impact tore the sphincter muscles in Bowie's left eye and although he had several operations, his pupil remains permanently open. This causes the eye to look like it is a darker colour, but it is actually the same shade. Lorraine Hudgins took the photographs of odd-eyed Speedy as she kept her company at her desk. Mrs Hudgins said: 'She belongs to the owners of the print shop where I work as a graphic designer. 'I took some photos of her playing with my computer mouse while she was helping me out with my work. 'She's a sweet tempered cat that loves attention - when she's not curled up in a corner asleep.' Speedy is also deaf, but Lorraine and Speedy's owners say she copes well nonetheless. Feline friendly: Speedy, who is deaf, belongs to the owner of a print shop and Lorraine Hudgins took this snap of the white cat when she came and sat next on her desk while she worked . | Appears that Bowie shares similarly mismatched colour eyes to Speedy - a white domestic cat from Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. |
274,776 | eff4ff0b2b6f9c96ae5aad37c1767cbf8b05df06 | For a split-second, it could have been the opening day of last season. Same opposition, same score to protect and a contribution from the same player that brought the same, deafening reaction. Deep into added time, with Liverpool clinging to a 1-0 lead, Charlie Adam hoisted a cross into the penalty area and Anfield gasped for breath. Through a sea of red shirts, Simon Mignolet appeared to pluck the ball from the sky and spark a thunderous ovation. The reaction from the home support, however, was mixed with relief. Mignolet had previously came for but missed a number of balls slung in his direction and irony could be detected in the cheering. VIDEO Scroll down for Brendan Rodgers: I didn't realise it was Gerrard's 16th year . Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet applauds the fans after their 1-0 win over Stoke on Saturday . Mignolet pulls off a fine save against the Potters after diving to tip the ball over the crossbar . Mignolet sheres a laugh with match-winner Glen Johnson (right) and Raheem Sterling at full time . But, at that moment, Mignolet ensured the game would be won. When referee Craig Pawson brought a tense contest to an end shortly after, Mignolet stood on the edge of the box, punching the air in celebration. His emotions needed no explanation. A weight had been lifted. When Stoke arrived at Anfield in August 2013, Mignolet made an immediate impression on his debut, saving an added-time penalty from Jon Walters. That plunging stop launched Liverpool’s push for the title and it was the best possible introduction to his new fans. He once described that as the ‘best moment of his career’ but, highlights have been few since. Liverpool are used to charismatic No 1s but Mignolet, for much of 2014, has done nothing but spread anxiety. It meant the circumstances had significantly changed for this visit from Stoke. Mignolet had a huge question to answer, aware the criticism of him — most notably from former Liverpool keeper Bruce Grobbelaar — had been stinging. Mignolet saved a penalty from Jonathan Walters on his debut for Liverpool at the start of last season . The Belgian goalkeeper celebrates with a fist pump after assuring Liverpool of a 1-0 win in the game . He celebrates vociferously with team-mates Kolo Toure (left) and Jordan Henderson . Having spoken to Brendan Rodgers on Friday, Mignolet — whose error against Ludogorets in the Champions League ensured the spotlight was shining on him — knew that he had to produce. That wasn’t always the case. He was heckled by The Kop at one point when he dithered over a goal kick; his kicking, as a whole, wasn’t always assured and his decision making was hesitant, notably in the second half when he allowed Mame Biram Diouf to close in on him. As the pressure mounted, though, Mignolet produced, not least with a fabulous fingertip save to tip over a Bojan Krkic volley. Then, as Stoke tried to salvage a point, he made that catch and all was right in his world. The question is how long it will stay that way. | Simon Mignolet has struggled since taking the No 1 jersey at Liverpool .
Was unconvincing on several occasions against Stoke on Saturday .
Brendan Rodgers had spoken to him after draw with Ludogorets .
Glen Johnson scored the winner as Liverpool beat Stoke 1-0 at Anfield . |
211,619 | 9e0e359f20a02554d89c403befcbd3cf0377a58c | London (CNN) -- While President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping enjoy the Californian sunshine this week, a different kind of heat threatens Xi in his troublesome backyard, Tibet. Nearly 120 Tibetans have doused themselves in gasoline and set themselves alight in protest against Chinese occupation and repression. Most have died. Theirs is not the only form of protest. In November, students gathered in their hundreds in Chabcha (known in Chinese as Gonghe) county, Qinghai province, to protest the use of Mandarin, rather than Tibetan, as the language of education. In April, unemployed Tibetan graduates in Machu county, Gansu province, protested that Chinese immigrants were taking jobs, while last month, thousands of Tibetans converged on a pilgrimage site on Naghla Dzambha mountain to prevent a Chinese company mining it. The default Chinese response to protest is to use force. In its official human rights report this year, the U.S. State Department described repression in Tibet as "severe," noting abuses such as "extrajudicial killings, torture [and] arbitrary arrests." In March, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee described Tibet as among the world's "most repressed and closed societies." The cycle of repression and protest goes on. Just last week Tenzin Shirab, a 31-year-old nomad, died after setting himself on fire. In 2011, the self-immolation of another young man, Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, was said to be the catalyst for the Arab Spring, an outpouring of long-repressed desire for freedom that was hailed by world leaders. But you will search in vain for any stirring words on Tibetan freedom from President Obama or other world leaders. Western politicians perform a careful dance in relation to Tibet. Those who elect them want them to speak out for freedom and human rights; China, reported to hold more than one-fifth of the United States' total foreign-held debt, wants them to shut up. Realpolitik dictates appeasement: electoral politics requires tough talk. The result is a mess. There have been countless official "expressions of concern" about the situation since the self-immolations started to spread two years ago, and we are constantly reassured that private channels are being used to apply pressure to China. Officials and junior ministers are permitted to issue calls for restraint. But there is a ceiling above which such statements do not go: leaders remain mute. President Obama has not publicly addressed the issue of human rights in Tibet since taking office. Secretary of State John Kerry has made one careful comment since his appointment, but there is no evidence he raised Tibet during his visit to China in April. China recently threatened commercial consequences for the UK unless Prime Minister David Cameron apologized for meeting the Dalai Lama in private last year. His response -- while falling short of an apology -- reassured them that the UK views Tibet as part of China, and failed to mention human rights at all. Sinologists -- and spin doctors -- in Washington or the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth office may argue that Tibet will benefit from a sensitive approach. Late last year, however, two British government ministers who had been leaned on not to meet with the Dalai Lama for fear of offending China again, finally lost patience with that view, writing that "where Tibet is concerned, the Chinese government does not respond positively to any conciliatory gesture ... but instead interprets this as a sign of weakness and so makes further demands for concessions." What goes for London goes for Washington -- and Berlin, Paris and Ottawa for that matter. Western policy on Tibet is pleasing no one -- not China, not the electorates, and certainly not Tibetans. It must be changed. China's economic engine is slowing, and Beijing is acutely conscious that without growth, its 1.3 billion people will be far less tolerant of continued dictatorship. Between 250 to 500 public protests are already estimated to take place every day in China -- foreign trade and investment will dry up if China starts to look like an unstable place to do business. Reform is in China's interests. China also seeks legitimacy as a full member of the world community and is undoubtedly sensitive to criticism on human rights. This year, it seeks election to the U.N.'s Human Rights Council (HRC). While economic muscle helps it win nations' votes for the HRC election, it still needs to offer its potential voters some tokens of sincerity. More tellingly, China actually accepted 42 out of 99 recommendations to improve its performance on human rights following its last full human rights review by the UN in 2009. In choosing not simply to reject that kind of external assessment, China has also accepted the need to demonstrate progress. It faces another such review this year. Beijing has not gone soft, however. It will not choose to show progress on Tibet, unless it is called to account for Tibet. No one expects President Obama to embarrass his guest this weekend with tasteless honesty or Arab Spring-style rhetoric on Tibet. But bringing Tibet to the table will show China and the American people he represents that he recognizes the old model has failed. China, the U.S. and Tibet all stand to benefit from that. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren. | Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren: Obama should raise issue of Tibet during meeting with Xi .
She says world leaders have been silent, despite wave of Tibetan self-immolations .
China has accepted the need to improve its human rights performance, she says .
"China, the U.S. and Tibet all stand to benefit" from addressing the issue, she says . |
225,615 | b023ed39cf11e79e8f6fffa218e44df050623582 | By . Rachel Reilly . PUBLISHED: . 10:19 EST, 15 April 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 10:19 EST, 15 April 2013 . A vaccine against shingles could cut the risk of infection by half and reduce complications associated with the condition. New research has found that vaccine's effectiveness against post-herpetic neuralgia - nerve pain that occurs at the site of a previous attack of shingles - was 59 per cent. Shingles is an infection of a nerve . and the surrounding skin. It is caused by the herpes varicella-zoster . virus, which also causes chickenpox. Battleground: Vaccination has been shown to be incredibly effective in preventing shingles (pictured) Most . people suffer with chickenpox in childhood, and after the illness has . disappeared, the virus remains dormant in the nervous system. The immune system usually keeps the virus in check, but later in life it can be reactivated and cause shingles. Shingles tends to affect adults over the . age of 50. It is not fully understood why the virus . is reactivated, but it may be due to lowered immunity due to age, . stress or another underlying condition. The lifetime risk of developing shingles . is between ten and 30 per cent but this increases to 50 per cent in . those aged 85 years or older. In the new study, Dr Sinéad Langan and her colleagues . at the London School of . Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, studied the medical records of 766,330 . American private healthcare patients aged over 65 between 2007 and . 2009. The vaccine could reduce much unnecessary pain suffering in the elderyl . They found that while almost 13,000 . participants developed shingles, the vaccine reduced the rate of infection by 48 per cent. But the research, published in medical journal Public Library of Science, did find that the vaccine was less effective against shingles in older adults with impaired immune systems. The vaccine is already widely used in the U.S. and the UK Department of Health(DoH) is keen to roll out an immunisation programme for everyone aged over 70. However the DoH has failed to negotiate a large enough contract with manufacturers to enable a national immunisation programme any time soon. This has put the UK in a unique position – 60,000 doses have been supplied to Britain but there is no fair way of distributing them. It is not known when a nationwide scheme will be . brought in. Currently it is possible to get hold of the vaccine, Zostavax, on private prescription for a cost of around £100. Dr Langan said: ‘This study shows the effectiveness of the herpes zoster vaccine to prevent shingles and post-herpetic neuralgia in a general population of over 65s. ‘Our findings should be taken in to consideration by those developing policy, particularly in the UK where plans to offer the vaccine are being made.’ | Each year 250,000 Britons develop the condition .
New vaccine could benefit over 50s most likely to suffer .
Government plans to roll out immunisation programme but date has not been announced . |
172,402 | 6b1d8a268bb802f37324c26715751f2baab29ffa | By . Alison Boshoff . PUBLISHED: . 18:00 EST, 13 September 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 18:52 EST, 13 September 2013 . Split: Helen Fielding pictured with her former partner, Kevin Curran, at the British Academy Film Awards at The Odeon Leicester Square, London, in 2002 . Wearing dark glasses and striding across the dreary London streets in her yoga trousers, she could be any other harried mother on the school run. But Helen Fielding, 55, hasn’t much in common with other North London mums. It’s not just the expensive highlights or £13,000 gold Cartier watch which set her apart from her contemporaries, it’s that she is what her alter‑ego Bridget Jones would call a ‘singleton’ in a sea of smug marrieds. Her relationship status isn’t the only thing causing the multi-millionairess the odd sleepless night. Her principal worry is: does anyone want to hear from Bridget Jones again? For after more than a decade of complete obscurity, Fielding has written a new Bridget Jones book, Mad About The Boy, which will be published next month. The first book, which depicted the life of perennially single thirtysomething Bridget — who memorably chronicled her weight and alcohol consumption each day in her diary with notes such as ‘130lb (terrifying slide into obesity — why? why?), alcohol units 6 (excellent)’ — sold more than 16 million copies. The novel spawned a 1999 sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason, and two films — not to mention a whole genre of copycat, less-than-brilliant novels about thirtysomethings waiting for Mr Right — and made Fielding a £30 million fortune. Following her success, Fielding moved to Los Angeles, where she had two children with Kevin Curran, a television executive on The Simpsons, and virtually retired from writing. Today, she is so fabulously wealthy that she is in the fortunate position of needing to work only if she cares to. So why the return to Bridget and to Britain? Helen said earlier this year that she had ‘surprised’ herself by starting to write a new Bridget Jones’s diary. ‘After the books and the movies I sort of lost my voice; I got all self-conscious. I didn’t want to just churn out another one. I really care about Bridget, about her as a character and about her integrity,’ she said. Renee Zellweger starring in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason - Helen Fielding always denied the character was based on her . ‘But suddenly, about a year ago, I had a story again. I was finding things funny and writing things in my diary, and it started turning into a book.’ The plot of the upcoming novel is a closely guarded secret, but the famous daily headings about alcohol, cigarettes and weight will be a thing of the past. Instead, Helen hints that Bridget is obsessed with Twitter. And gone are the days when all Bridget had to worry about was the circumference of her thighs, for she will be a mother to more than one child in her new incarnation. Fielding said: ‘She is older, so in the same way as I was looking at being a single thirtysomething in Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason, now I’m looking at being older . . . and, yes, looking at motherhood. ‘Where Bridget was trying to be a better girl or sex goddess, to be thinner and eat less, now she’s basically trying not to lose the children by checking her Twitter followers while they are up a tree or something. ‘Motherhood is certainly a rich seam of comedy. But she does keep the children alive throughout the book, otherwise that would rather spoil it.’ While loyal fans will clearly rejoice at the prospect of a new instalment of Bridget’s life, Helen is said to be ‘nervous’ about how it will be received when it is published next month — worried enough to ask the opinion of her teenage goddaughter, Scarlett, who happens to also be the daughter of screenwriter Richard Curtis. Goodbye to Hollywood: Helen Fielding pictured at the arrives at the 59th Annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, California in 2002 . Scarlett, thankfully, was positive and bolstered her godmother’s fragile ego. But, sadly, the wider reaction to news of more Bridget Jones has been mixed, with some dismissing her heroine as irrelevant, irritating and old hat. Indeed, the real reason for Fielding putting pen to paper, and hopping on a plane back to Britain, seems nothing to celebrate. She has abandoned her LA life — which included lunching with her best friend, the actress and author Carrie Fisher, and British actress Tracey Ullman — because her relationship with Curran has ended. She quietly separated from him back in 2009. The pair met in 2000 when she was on an LA-based publicity tour for Bridget Jones and he just happened to be lingering in the lobby of her hotel. They swiftly moved in together, and Fielding upped sticks and left London. Helen Fielding has left Los Angeles where her best friends included A-listers such as Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher (left) and British actress Tracey Ullman (right) She had experienced a series of unhappy romances in her 30s, once remarking that she’d had more than one Daniel Cleaver — the bad boy in Bridget Jones — in her life. But with Curran, who had been married and divorced before, it seemed she had found a late-blooming ‘happy ever after’. She said that he was ‘very sweet’ and ‘very funny’. Baby Dashiell, named after the crime writer Dashiell Hammett, was born in 2004. Curran proposed marriage when she was 48 and pregnant with their second baby, Romy, who was born in 2006. She said at the time: ‘It was a surprise. [Kevin] said he’d got me a present, but I thought it was a slow cooker because I’d been going on about it.’ In fact, they never married — Helen claimed that she was enjoying being engaged too much to spoil it. The couple lived a lovely life of pampered seclusion in Hollywood, where her home is just around the corner from Keanu Reeves’s, and took holidays in Barbados with friends, or at five-star resorts in Mexico. Helen loved her champagne, her pool and the waving palms. Helen Fielding, pictured, can also be 'quite the diva'. But then, one person's diva is another person's successful woman . She looked giddily happy at various Hollywood events and was regularly seen having dinner at the Chateau Marmont with Curran, whose silver hair makes him look older than he is. One Hollywood friend tells me that she and Curran made a ‘wonderful couple’, but adds: ‘He is one of those people who doesn’t suffer fools gladly at all, and she can also be quite the diva — she has a sense of how important she is.’ But then, one person’s diva is another person’s successful woman. Indeed, Fielding, a Yorkshire girl who attended St Anne’s College, Oxford, can be quite assertive. She took on the estate agent and the surveyor who sold them their home after the leaky roof collapsed. And one friend of hers, who I contacted this week, was extremely anxious about Fielding ‘hitting the roof’ over publicity. Another, who has been involved in the Bridget Jones movies, says that Fielding has a reputation for being uncompromising — or ‘difficult’ — when it comes to anything creative. There were ‘really major bloody rows’ over both films and also the mooted stage play, which nearly reached the West End this year but has been delayed until at least next year. There have also been arguments over the possible third Bridget Jones movie, which the film company Working Title has been beavering away on for years now without coming close to shooting. As far as Curran goes, neither has disclosed what caused the end of their relationship. A source close to the family tells me that they remain ‘good friends’ and that Fielding has kept her £2.2 million cream-painted home in Los Angeles so that the children can go to see Curran in the holidays. ‘They are still very good friends. He comes over, while they see him when they go over,’ she said. For her part, Fielding has moved into a tall £2.5 million Georgian townhouse in North London, with a nanny for company in the daytime. She has been quietly moving among the local mums, most of them a decade her junior, for two years now. Apparently she rather sticks out at the school gate, with her lovely blow-dry and penchant for leather trousers and Prada bags — and lack of a husband. There seems to be no new man on the scene for Fielding. Her lifestyle is back to that of the resolute singleton. She is seen out with various good female friends, but never with a man in tow. In January, she took a holiday with another married couple and her children in Oman. Recently, she took another holiday with her old friend Mariella Frostrup, who is a key member of her London circle. Like her, Mariella came late to motherhood, and she left her husband behind in London to go on a mums-only holiday with Fielding. Helen Fielding signing copies of 'Bridget Jones Diary' - she has been inspired to write Bridget Jones as a single mum of two children who is navigating the dating scene . It’s no surprise, then, that Fielding has been inspired to write Bridget Jones as a single mum of two children who is navigating the dating scene. She said: ‘The book will explore this whole world of internet dating where there’s all these cyber-presences who aren’t actually real. ‘And texting. People can have entire relationships via text which are, in some ways, emotionally fulfilling and serve the purpose of a boyfriend, apart from sex.’ If she has had her own dabble with a cyber-romance, then it certainly hasn’t produced a Mr Right. But then, while she has always denied that the character of Bridget is based on herself, maybe the role of perpetual singleton does suit Helen Fielding, after all. | She is what her alter‑ego Bridget Jones would call a ‘singleton’ in a sea of smug marrieds .
Helen Fielding had ‘surprised’ herself by starting to write a new Bridget Jones’s diary .
She has abandoned her LA life because her relationship .
with Kevin Curran has ended .
The author has always denied that the character of Bridget is based on herself . |
63,162 | b36f5294309c9f97e75e48b6ddbac7ad52506db8 | By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 23:44 EST, 1 January 2014 . | . UPDATED: . 05:34 EST, 2 January 2014 . 'Deliberate inflation': Shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint said the so-called Big Six paid £4billion more for power than the market rate . Energy firms ‘deliberately inflated’ the price they paid for electricity from their own power stations - leaving customers out of pocket by up to £150 over the last three years, it was claimed today. The so-called Big Six - British Gas, SSE, E.ON, EDF, npower, and Scottish Power - paid £4billion more for power than the market rate, according to shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint. The Labour politician accused the companies of paying over the odds to increase profits in other divisions of their companies or doing deals that were bad for customers. She told The Guardian: ‘These figures reveal the full extent of the way consumers have been overcharged for their electricity. ‘Energy companies always blame wholesale costs when they put up bills, but it now looks like they could have deliberately inflated prices to boost profits from their power stations. ‘The time has come for a complete overhaul of our energy market. Labour will break up the big energy companies, put an end to the secret deals and force them to do all of their trading on the open market.’ Labour's analysis compared the price paid for electricity by the energy giants, the weighted average cost of fuel, with the average market price a year ahead provided to them by small supplier First Utility. But Energy UK, which represents the big six suppliers, told The Guardian that Labour's research was wrong because the figures could not be compared. A spokesman said: ‘It also covers losses, the energy element of reconciliation-by-difference (RBD) costs and balancing and shaping costs incurred by the supply. ‘The additional costs included in the weighted average cost of fuel make them a totally different figure to the basic wholesale market price.' Ofgem, the government's watchdog for the energy industry, said today they were 'looking into' the accusations, but said the energy markets were so so difficult to analyse that they could not know for sue. Ian Marlee, a senior partner at the organisation, told the Today programme: 'What we identified in our recent work was that actually there isn’t enough transparency to be able to actually look at that.' However, he added that planned reforms to the industry would help eliminate any problems by increasing competition and removing the possibility for such loopholes. He said: 'We’ve effectively created more transparency... [before the reforms] there wasn't enough trading going on at the point at which people wanted to buy energy. 'We’re making it far easier for independent suppliers to buy the electricity they need to compete with the big six.' The accusation from Labour comes as Lib Dem Energy Secretary Ed Davey called for Britain to be part of a fully integrated European power market to bring bills down. The Liberal Democrat dismissed Labour's plans for a price freeze and insisted a giant network of underground and under-sea cables allowing energy to be shifted between the UK and mainland Europe would push down prices. He said there was an urgent need to build a giant network of electricity interconnectors across Europe, allowing vast amounts of energy to be moved between countries, driving down prices - shaving a possible 10 per cent off bills. Urgent need: Energy Secretary Ed Davey has called for Britain to be part of a fully integrated European power market to bring bills down . Mr Davey told The Independent: ‘Literally in the last three or four years, there has been a complete change in the differential between the North American price for gas and energy and the EU price for gas and energy. ‘That represents a strategic change in the terms of trade and is very significant. The EU needs to respond to this very quickly.’ Although there are some gas interconnectors already linking countries within Europe and electricity interconnectors between the UK and France, the Netherlands and Ireland, Mr Davey called for swift action to boost the system to ensure Britain can compete with the United States, where energy prices are far lower. ‘We need much better grid interconnectors around Europe to enable energy to flow across the EU. Connecting the UK with mainland Europe and different parts of the periphery of Europe with central Europe,’ he told the newspaper. The government's energy regulator has said that changes to energy bills coming into force today will show consumers that 'there are savings out there' and stop them being 'bamboozled' by complicated tariffs. 'Bamboozled' no more: Ian Marlee of Ofgem, pictured, said energy market reforms would help consumers . The changes brought in by watchdog Ofgem mean that a wide array of tiered plans and discounts - which often did not provide the savings people expected - have been banned. Now energy companies are limited to offering four tariffs for gas and four for electricity, which is meant to make it easier to compare companies and access the best deals. Hailing 'the most radical set of reforms to the retail and wholesale market since competition began', Ofgem senior partner Ian Marlee told the Today programme that 'this market is getting easier and there are savings out . there they can make. He said: 'We’re responding to what consumers have told us. What they want is that combination of choice and simplicity and that’s what we’re delivering. 'Putting all this package of reforms together is actually about making this market much more competitive so that there’s appropriate pressure on prices, profits and quality of service for consumers. 'The real message to consumers today is this market is getting easier and there are savings out there they can make.' However, Ofgem was criticised by consumer group Which? for not going far enough to help customers. A statement said that the reforms are 'a welcome step in the right direction', but 'do not go far enough... at a time when millions are struggling with the cost of living.' ‘This is why the Government should intervene with more radical measures including simpler pricing, greater transparency and scrutiny of the cost of energy policies, and the separation of supply from generation businesses. 'More must be done to keep prices in check and give consumers confidence that the price they pay for their energy is fair.’ | It's left customers out of pocket by up to £150 over the last three years .
Caroline Flint says Big Six paid £4bn more for power than market rate .
Firms accused of paying over odds to increase profits in other divisions .
Energy regulator says they are 'looking into' accusation, but that the market is not 'transparent' enough to know for sure . |
213,644 | a0b12a81f494c91cfb1a591251756ed62bd2176b | By . Snejana Farberov . A Massachusetts teenager accused of killing his math teacher with a box cutter appeared to be 'psychotic' after he allegedly attacked a youth female clinician in Boston earlier this month. According to the petition to have Philip Chism committed to Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital for 30 days of evaluation and treatment, the 15-year-old was 'out of touch with reality' and 'yelling, screaming incoherently [and] foaming at the mouth while being restrained by staff.' The attack happened June 2 at a Department of Youth Services detention center. Scroll down for video . Danger to others: Prosecutors have requested tighter security for Philip Chism, 15 (pictured in January), after he allegedly escaped carers and tried to choke a youth worker . The details were released Tuesday by a Superior Court judge in response to a motion by The Salem News. Chism . pleaded not guilty to robbing, raping and killing 24-year-old Danvers . High School teacher Colleen Ritzer after following her into a restroom . last October. He was 14 at the time. Essex County prosecutors said 15-year-old Philip Chism slipped away from caregivers before the June 2 incident. Prosecutor . Kate MacDougall said Chism crept along a common hallway 'crouched down . out of view,' followed the woman to a locker room and tried to choke her . while holding a pencil. Other workers came to the woman's aid when she . screamed. In the petition to have Chism committed, psychologist Kenneth Rogers wrote that the teenager strangled, punched and stabbed the female unit clinician. 'Once pulled off her, he was out of touch with reality, screaming, yelling and moaning incoherently for about two hours even as he was taken away,' wrote Rogers. The document also stated that Chism's mother informed officials that before the June 2 attack her son had no history of psychosis. Alleged assault: Chism attacked a youth worker at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Boston, say prosecutors . During a hearing held June 10, the . prosecutor insisted that Chism not be left alone with female staff at . the facility, describing the teen as 'someone who appeared utterly calm . and fine in the moments leading up to the event.' Kate . MacDougall also expressed concern that within the detention center, . patients are free to move around, which could potentially put female . staff and patients at risk . Lester Blumberg, the Department of Mental Health attorney who represented the hospital at the hearing, assured the prosecutor that while the patients' rooms are not locked, Chism remains under guard at night and is rarely alone. Missed: Math teacher Colleen Ritzer, 24, was raped and murdered with a box cutter last October . Authorities . still don't know what motivated the transfer student . from Clarksville, Tenneessee to kill his teacher. He has pleaded not guilty to aggravated rape, robbery and murder in the death of Ritzer, whose body was found in the woods near Danvers High School in October. Her throat was slit and a note reading, 'I hate you all' was found at the scene. Chism, . who had been asked to stay late by Ritzer to help after school, . allegedly followed her into a bathroom on October 22 and attacked her, . sexually assaulted her twice, including once with a stick, stripped her and then stole her cellphone, . credit cars and her driver's licenses. According . to investigators, her body was then placed in a recycling bin and . carted away to a wooded area behind the school and dumped. After . dumping her body, prosecutors say Chism returned to school barefoot . where he changed into his soccer clothes and threw away his bloodied . school clothes. He then went to eat a burger at Wendy's and caught a screening of Woody Allen film 'Blue Jasmine'. Police . arrested him later that evening when he was found walking down a busy . highway. He had a bloody box-cutter in his pocket along with Ritzer's . underwear. Last . month, Ritzer's parents, Tom and Peggie Ritzer, issued a video statement . speaking about their loss while also thanking the community for their . support. 'These . past six months have been a period of great pain and sorrow for our . family and all those who knew and loved Colleen,' mother Peggie said. 'Each . day presents new challenges but we are blessed by the support of family . and friends. Through the many acts of genuine kindness to honor our . daughter and sister, our spirits are lifted. Though difficult, we strive . to follow Colleen's words to find good in every day.' Mental health: Chism's mental state is being evaluated at the Worcester State Hospital . Crime scene: Colleen Ritzer's body was found in a wooded area near Danvers High School following the brutal killing . Heartbroken: In a video shared last month, . Ritzer's family spoke about their loss while thanking the community for . support. Pictured is Ritzer's sister Laura, father Tom, mother Peggie and brother Tom . In the video, Mr Ritzer thanked everyone for turning out to raise money in Colleen's name. 'Thank . you for your kind words, generous gestures and support of the . scholarship fund in Colleen’s name that will empower future generations . of thoughtful, caring teachers to emulate Colleen’s passion to inspire . students to discover their full potential,' Mr Rtizer said, flanked by . Mrs Ritzer and Colleen's sister Laura and brother Tom. Following . his arrest, classmates and teachers at the school expressed shock that . such a quiet and polite boy could commit such a horrendous crime. Chism's . mother Diana - who is separated from father Stacey - said her son was . 'born in love' and that she is 'struggling to understand' the murder. | Philip Chism allegedly raped and murdered Danvers High School math teacher Colleen Ritzer, 24, in a school bathroom last October .
He has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, rape and robbery .
Earlier this month, he allegedly assaulted a female staffer at his youth facility .
He 'crouched down out of view' and followed a female youth worker before trying to choke her in a locker room, say prosecutors .
She screamed and was rescued by other prison workers, according to court documents .
Prosecutors have asked for stricter security over the teenager .
He is undergoing a mental health evaluation in hospital . |
281,236 | f84fd921c2e06daa5127cd04d8fd959a0880d959 | A 20-year-old man was arrested in Darwin after his naked dancing, singing and rock throwing caused 13 vehicles, including a police car, to crash. He was arrested early on Sunday morning after a number of traffic incidents on Wednesday and Thursday in the Hidden Valley area, just outside of Northern Territory capital's CBD. Reports first surfaced on Wednesday night of a naked blond man throwing rocks at cars on Tiger Brennan Drive, one of Darwin's major arteries. Damage: Police said that 13 cars had been damaged by a naked man who had been dancing and hurling rocks in Darwin . Attack: The man has struck a number of times on the Tiger Brennan Drive in Darwin . During peak-hour traffic on Thursday morning, a two-car crash was followed by an accident involving six vehicles, which police said was due to motorists trying to get a glimpse of their dog squad's search operation for the man, who was not found at the time, the ABC reported. A police car on its way to help with the six-car smash hit another car, and then three cars bumped into one another on the Stuart Highway, where traffic had been diverted. The man was arrested on Sunday morning after a resident called police to report he had trespassed on property. 'He was found asleep in someone's yard,' Duty Superintendent Louise Jorgensen told AAP. She said it was still a mystery how long the man had been in the Northern Territory or what he had been doing. He was taken into custody for a mental health assessment because police were concerned about his mental and physical state. 'Apparently he did have a pair of shorts on, we don't know where he got them,' Supt Jorgensen said. Police search for clues after a car was damaged in one of the incidents . Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article. | The 20-year-old was arrested by Northern Territory police on Sunday .
He had been naked and throwing rocks at cars on a major arterial in Darwin .
The incidents happened on Wednesday night and peak-hour on Thursday .
He caused a two-car crash following an accident involving six vehicles . |
237,387 | bf3e24b0c7edbf736e28c8fbe485b353964ae9c5 | When you're engrossed in the latest blockbuster at the cinema, there is perhaps nothing more annoying than another person checking their noisy, luminous phone nearby. But a patent granted to Microsoft may go some way to solving this problem, because if integrated into Windows phones, it could automatically adjust the settings to make it less intrusive. The ‘inconspicuous mode’ would automatically adjust the brightness and volume of a handset, so when a user checked the time, for example, the screen would look dimmer and show simplified information, while the phone would be muted too. Microsoft has been granted a patent for 'inconspicuous mode,' which would automatically adjust the brightness and volume of a handset to show a a dimmer and simplified screen (right) The patent was granted last week, having been submitted in 2013 and shows the feature is intended to be used in theatres, cinemas and when a smartphone user is going to sleep, The Next Web reported. An illustration in the patent shows a simplified version of a home screen, which is dimmed with the time clearly displayed in the centre. The feature would mean that checking the time on a phone in the middle of the night, would be less likely to wake someone up, or distract someone in a cinema. The patent was granted last week, having been submitted in 2013 and shows the feature is intended to be used when a smartphone user is going to sleep as well as in cinemas, where noisy phones with bright screens can be very distracting for people trying to concentrate on a film (illustrated with a stock image) Microsoft applied for the patent in 2013 and it was granted last week. 'Inconspicuous mode' is intended for use before bed, during meetings and in the cinema, for example. It would automatically adjust the brightness and volume of a handset using GPS, or a calendar entry, for example. An illustration in the patent shows a simplified version of a home screen, which is dimmed with the time clearly displayed in the centre. According to the patent, sensors on the device could launch the mode when a smartphone user is visiting a cinema, or it could be switched on manually. Phone features such as GPS, Wi-Fi addresses and other data, such as the online purchase of a cinema ticket in the device’s browser, could also be used to detect when to switch on inconspicuous mode. It could also be turned on based on notes in a user’s calendar – for instance, if someone has a cinema visit marked in for a certain time. According to the patent, sensors on the device could launch the mode when a smartphone user is visiting a cinema, or it could be switched on manually. Phone features such as GPS, Wi-Fi addresses and other data, such as the online purchase of a cinema ticket in the device’s browser, could also be used to detect when to switch on inconspicuous mode. Similarly, it could be turned on based on notes in a user’s calendar – for instance, if they have a cinema visit marked in for a certain time. Users could exit the mode at will, or it would be turned off automatically after leaving a venue, for example. While Windows Phones currently don't have such a sophisticated app, they support a feature called 'quiet hours'. Using Cortana - Windows Phone's personal assistant - a user can block out chunks of time for their phone to be on silent and go straight to voicemail. It can be set up to allow texts through during this time from specific numbers and send a reply to others saying a user is busy. A similar 'do not disturb' app is available for Android handsets that uses calendar notifications to know when to silence a handset or turn on night mode. It mutes calls and notifications during 'quiet time' and can be set up to be silent during office hours, meetings, calendar appointments or overnight. There already similar apps available, including one for Android handsets. The 'do not disturb' app lets people block in 'quiet time' when they do want want any noisy distractions using a calendar (left), and choose excatly which notifications they want to receive (right) | Microsoft has been granted a patent for its 'inconspicuous mode'
Company believes mode could be used in cinemas for before bed .
Mode designed for Windows Phones would use a phone's calendar to detect when to mute a device, or dims its screen .
It could also make use of features such as GPS and Wi-Fi addresses to detect when it is in cinema and automatically put a device on silent . |
211,566 | 9df91eead7454265f55d511fc530afd7f64e3456 | By . Victoria Woollaston . PUBLISHED: . 06:15 EST, 4 July 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 07:03 EST, 4 July 2013 . A professor at Boston University is suing Apple for patent infringement and is calling for the products to be banned in the U.S. Lecturer Theodore D. Moustakas claims he designed the thin gallium nitride film that Apple uses on the semiconductor chips inside its iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air in 1995. He is now also seeking financial damages from the tech firm. A professor at Boston University is suing Apple for patent infringement. The lecturer claims he designed the thin gallium nitride films used on the semiconductor chips inside the iPhone, pictured, iPad and MacBook Air in 1995 and wants the products banned in the U.S. He is also seeking financial damages . Gallium Nitride (GaN) is a semiconductor material that can stand high levels of heat and thermal conductivity. Electricity can be passed through semiconductor materials from one place to another. This is why it is used in semiconductor chips in phones, tablets and laptops. In its pure form, GaN resists cracking and can be used as a thin film on top of various materials. The lawsuit, filed by professor of electrical computing and engineering at the university on 2 July, said: 'Several of the Defendant's products, including the iPhone 5, iPad and MacBook Air include a gallium nitride thin film semiconductor device claimed by the '738 patent and thus infringe one or more claims the of the '738 patent.' It asks that the 'Defendant provide to the University an accounting of all gains, profits andadvantages derived by Defendant' s infringement of the '738 patent, and that the University beawarded damages adequate to compensate them for the wrongful infringement.' Moustakas and the university also want to be 'awarded any other supplemental damages and interest onall damages, including, but not limited to attorney fees.' Plus, the university asks that the court bans Apple from 'making, selling, offering for sale, distributing and/or using prodcuts that infringe the patent' across the whole of America. The professor claims he invented the film in 1995 and the '738 patent was filed in November 1997. The patent, called 'Highly insulating monocrystalline gallium nitride thin films' describes the method used to make these thin films and lists some of the uses for them. This includes using the films as a semiconductor material in devices. This image is a cross-sectional view of a growth chamber used to create the gallium nitride films. Professor Theodore D. Moustakas patented the process behind the chips in 1997 and claims Apple ripped off his designs . Last month a court in the U.S banned the sale Apple products - including the iPhone 4 and the iPad and iPad 2 3G models after an official ruling claimed the devices breach Samsung patents. Apple was given 60 days to stop selling the products but is appealing the decision, which ruled that Apple copied Samsung's 3G technology in its devices. In 2011 a group of nearly 27,000 South Koreans sued Apple for £15.8million over what they claim were 'privacy . violations' from the collection of iPhone user location information. Each person in the suit sought one million won (£568) in damages,. At the time, the groups attorney Kim Hyeong-seok said they were targeting Apple and its South Korean unit to 'protect privacy' rights. The South Korean government had previously fined the company £1800 for privacy infringement. | Professor claims he invented the film used on semiconductor chips in 1995 .
Apple uses a similar film on chips in its iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air .
Boston University wants the products banned and financial damages . |
8,807 | 18d199cd53586aa6ad6e466b1a92f5baa811c860 | (CNN) -- Joe Kistel and Penny Malphrus have never met. But they are connected in a way that may help provide each of them with an answer to the same question: Could strewn pieces of metal recently found partially buried in the sandy ocean floor 20 miles off the coast of St. Augustine, Florida, be what's left of a plane that disappeared without a trace 16 years ago? The story begins on February 17, 1996. That's the day Penny's father, Stewart Dunbar, an experienced pilot, took off on a short solo flight from Swainsboro, Georgia, to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Dunbar was returning home after going to show his twin engine propeller-driven Piper Aerostar to a prospective buyer who, as it so happened, failed to show up for the scheduled appointment. Shortly after he took off around 7:45 p.m., Dunbar, 58, reported feeling dizzy and said he was having trouble seeing. He radioed a distress call and advised the radio control tower in Jacksonville, Florida, of his coordinates. In what would be his last communication, he said he was placing the plane on autopilot and turning toward the ocean. Though never certain, the family believes Dunbar, realizing his predicament and unable to control the light transport aircraft, wanted to steer the plane away from land and avoid hurting anyone. If her father was unconscious, Penny Malphrus, who was 24 at the time, theorizes, his body might have shifted against the controls, putting the plane down off the coast near Jacksonville. Two fighter jets were scrambled from a Navy base at Charleston, South Carolina, and got close enough to see the plane but couldn't see inside the cockpit. The fighters ran low on fuel and turned around. Despite a lengthy aerial and water search by the Coast Guard and Navy, not a single piece of Dunbar's plane was ever found. "I spend countless weeks imagining his fuselage possibly still intact, bouncing around in the ocean like a bottle thrown to sea waiting to be found," Malphrus, now 39, said quietly this week from the same Hilton Head Island home where she grew up. "If there's a chance he could still be alive somehow, he will find me here waiting, same address, same phone number as it was before and always will be," she said with a mixture of hope and resignation. "If he survived, I was certain he was out there floating around like a cork surviving on the snack pretzels, chips and soft drinks that he always kept onboard for his passengers," she reflected. Enter into the narrative: 31-year-old Joe Kistel, the executive director of TISIRI (Think It Sink It Reef It), a non-profit Jacksonville-based marine conservation company in the business of protecting the habitat and building artificial reefs. About three weeks ago, Kistel was preparing to visit reef sites off the Florida coast to take pictures for TISIRI's interactive reef map project used by researchers, tourists and maritime enthusiasts. Kistel said his depth finder detected something on the sea floor and what looked like fish 80 feet below the surface. "We decided to check it out, out of curiosity," he said. "You just never know." He and another diver put on scuba gear and went down but didn't find any fish. They expanded their search. That's when they noticed a weed-shaped object like a coat hanger, a piece of stainless steel and other debris that Kistel initially thought might have fallen off a barge. What they found were plane parts: two Lycoming piston engines, an engine block and a bent propeller, but no fuselage. Lycoming engines were used on Piper Aerostars. They took photos and, once on shore, started looking for answers. Hearing about the discovery, local fishermen led them to a second site about four miles away where there is a second plane, a larger, perhaps military-type aircraft with at least three tires. Kistel went online to post dozens of photos and video of both sites and to ask the public for help in identifying the planes. Were they remnants of World War II era planes or more recent aircraft? See the photos and videos . Kistel and his team planned to dive this weekend to bring up what they could, but bad weather forced them to reschedule. His company, with its limited budget, isn't equipped to raise heavy pieces, but he said they may be able to use a float bag to drag some of the parts to shore. If they don't work quickly, they worry a hurricane will come along and bury the site. Malphrus will be anxiously waiting. "Anything for closure," she said. She acknowledges she never stops looking, wondering. "I still check the horizon of the coastline here in Hilton Head Island every day and the newspapers every night," she said. Just this week, she and her 9-year-old son, Trent, were walking on the beach right after high tide in the moonlight to observe hundreds of turtles hatching. "We watched every single one with their cute little wiggly waddle all the way to the water where they just took off. No fear at all," she said. Around midnight, Malphrus and her son came upon something unusual partly covered in sand. Could this be it, she thought, part of her father's plane? They started digging and eventually uncovered what appeared to be a gigantic rudder from a ship. "Never a day goes by that I don't think of him," she said by phone the next day. "My Dad was the most amazing man." Her search continues. She hopes Joe Kistel finds the answer this time. | NEW: Team cancels plans to dive this weekend due to bad weather .
Penny Malphrus has wondered for 16 years what became of her father .
He disappeared over the ocean after sending a distress call from his small plane .
Diver Joe Kistel found sea-floor debris in an area where the plane might have fallen . |
278,319 | f488ff886cb0a9ec4631a15fe6d4c41908599834 | Auctioneers were stunned last week when a rundown house sitting on a deceased estate in Sydney's eastern suburbs was bought for a whopping $4.31 million. 36 Knox Street, Clovelly, sold for $610,000 above it's reserve, even though the house requires nearly $100,000 worth of renovations. The retro brick house is positioned on a substantial elevated block of land with sweeping views of the eastern beaches and the rolling hills of Clovelly. Auctioneers were stunned last week when a rundown house sitting on a deceased estate in Sydney's eastern suburbs was bought for a whopping $4.31 million . Bidding started on the day at $3.4 million and quickly increased in increments of $100,000. At one stage it looked likely that the house could be taken off the market for $3.9 million, but a last minute buyer secured the hot property for $4.31 million. The five-bedroom home faces north east and locals have apparently been waiting for it to come on the market for years, due to the amazing views. 36 Knox Street, Clovelly, sold for $610,000 above it's reserve, even though the house requires nearly $100,000 worth of renovations . Bidding started on the day at $3.4 million and quickly increased in increments of $100,000 . At one stage it looked likely that the house could be taken off the market for $3.9 million, but a last minute buyer secured the hot property for $4.1 million . According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the buyer was a local man who drove past the house every day and had been waiting for his chance to get his hands on the property. Selling agent Martin Farah told the newspaper that the massive 720-square metre block, which is at the highest point in the suburb, attracted the buyer due to the vast amount of land available. 'He wanted his family to have a big block of land so they are planning to move in and do the big renovation down the track,' Mr Farah said. The five-bedroom home faces north east and locals have apparently been waiting for it to come on the market for years, due to the amazing views . The retro brick house is positioned on a substantial elevated block of land with sweeping views of the eastern beaches and the rolling hills of Clovelly . It is unlikely that the buyer will be packing his bags and moving in just yet, as $100,000 already needs to be spent on a new kitchen, carpets and on the renovation of both of the houses two bathrooms . However it is unlikely that the buyer will be packing his bags and moving in just yet, as $100,000 already needs to be spent on a new kitchen, carpets and on the renovation of both of the houses two bathrooms. The ever-present sea breeze is freely available in the L-shaped living room, which opens up out onto a spacious balcony, overlooking Clovelly bay. According to the house's advertisement on Domain, the land was extremely underutilised by the former owner. The ever-present sea breeze is freely available in the L-shaped living room, which opens up out onto a spacious balcony, overlooking Clovelly bay . According to the house's advertisement on Domain, the land was extremely underutilised by the former owner . Over 1000 properties will go on auction in Sydney this weekend, with buyers opting for more unusual and rundown properties, in the hope of transforming them in to their dream home . 'The land size is currently very under-utilized and in the same breath the home needs only cosmetic upgrades to achieve a first class abode,' the ad said. Over 1000 properties will go on auction in Sydney this weekend, with buyers opting for more unusual and rundown properties, in the hope of transforming them into their dream home. Location and land-size have become more important than the condition of the home, as people scour the eastern suburbs for the perfect location. | A Sydney family has spent over $4 million on a rundown deceased estate .
The house is in Clovelly and was offered up for the first time in 70 years .
It sold for $610,000 above it's reserve .
The buyer lives in the area and drives past the house every day .
He intends to renovate the home in due course . |
192,341 | 85091f5d8fc93f021130227ff396d1a4c1b2c354 | Britain's last Olympic gold-medal winning 4x100m relay team came back together this week, a decade after their phenomenal achievement in Athens. Jason Gardener, Darren Campbell, Marlon Devonish and Mark Lewis-Francis won the Olympic title in 2004, pipping the much-fancied American team into second place. And the four sprinters reunited on Tuesday to help disadvantaged children get into sport, as part of the London 2012 Olympic legacy. Glory: Mark Lewis-Francis celebrates as he crosses the line to win the 2004 Olympic 4x100m relay final . Champions: The four sprinters celebrate their surprise Olympic victory ten years ago . Reunion: The quartet recreate their moment of victory in Battersea on Tuesday . The Olympic champions took part in a variety of everyday volunteering roles at Battersea Summer Scheme in order to highlight the important roles that volunteer play in community sport. The quartet helped children try out a number of sports including archery, mini golf and athletics before demonstrating their prowess on the track. The event was part of the Join In Summer Relay, which will see British stars and top athletes muck in with the everyday volunteer roles that make sport possible in the UK. Small margins: The British team edged their American rivals by fractions of a second to take gold . Big difference: The team were helping athletes from tough backgrounds by volunteering in Battersea . Tasting Gold: The sprinters celebrate on the podium after their glory in Athens . Devonish spoke at the event about the importance of volunteers in his career. 'My very first coach was a volunteer and I was with him for 7 years, he laid the foundation for my success,' said Devonish, who also won Gold medals at the Commonwealth games and World Indoor Championships during his sprinting career. | Jason Gardener, Darren Campbell, Marlon Devonish and Mark Lewis-Francis won 2004 gold in 4x100m relay in Athens Olympics .
Quartet helped volunteers in Battersea to celebrate anniversary of win .
Event part of the Join In Summer Relay, part of the London 2012 legacy . |
219,568 | a839f3b79e63e6589751b74886a270f4a47190cd | (CNN) -- Bread served hot out of the oven. Fluffy pancakes topped with huckleberries. An espresso bar. These are the kinds of hotel breakfasts that keep guests from venturing out to a nearby restaurant. The following properties want each element of your stay to be unforgettable, starting with the first decadent bite of the day. Each of the following breakfasts is included in the nightly rate, so go ahead -- indulge in that second still-warm croissant. Bespoke Inn, Cafe & Bicycles, Scottsdale, Arizona . The four-room boutique Bespoke Inn, Cafe & Bicycles offers a three-course breakfast full of indulgences for every palate. If you have a sweet tooth, try items such as ginger scones with fresh peaches drizzled in local honey or vanilla French toast with toasted almonds, berries, and real maple syrup. For those that prefer a savory start to the morning, tuck into a croque madame with black forest ham and gruyere or asparagus topped with poached eggs, extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and parmesan. These breakfasts will set you up for a day of exploring Scottsdale on complimentary Pashley bikes. Starting nightly rate: $259. The New Hotel, Athens . Countless affordable restaurants with a tasty breakfast fill the capital city of Greece, but the flaky croissants at New Taste -- the ground-floor restaurant in the New Hotel -- are irresistible. Pastries are baked fresh in-house every morning, filling the restaurant with that just-out-of-the-oven aroma. The bread and pastries are served alongside a refined buffet of fresh fruit, cheeses and meats, along with eggs cooked to order and an espresso bar ready to whip up your favorite morning coffee. Starting nightly rate: About $240 (€180). Mandarin Oriental, Boston . A decadent breakfast with a sense of place often means one thing in New England: lobster. Breakfast at the Mandarin Oriental in Boston features a lobster omelet with big chunks of lobster, boursin cheese, asparagus, caramelized onions and breakfast potatoes on the side. Guests looking for an upgrade on a classic should check out the hotel's gourmand version of bacon and eggs with poached eggs, grilled glazed thick cut bacon piled on top of grilled sourdough bread with roasted tomato, arugula and smoked pimenton hollandaise. Starting nightly bed and breakfast rate: $539. Number 31, Dublin, Ireland . The best breakfasts showcase an authentic taste of your destination. At a boutique guesthouse in central Dublin, traditional Irish brown bread is pulled from the oven each morning, forming the foundation of a distinctly Irish breakfast. This crumbly bread is a fragrant and hearty accompaniment to smoked salmon and scrambled eggs or a modern execution of a full Irish breakfast, among other cooked-to-order choices. While awaiting your order, nibble on cranberry and nut cake, vanilla poached pears or mixed berries. Each component of this breakfast is exquisite and served by warm Irish hosts. Starting nightly rate: About $200 (€150). The Resort at Paws Up, Montana . Fresh Montana air brightens each bite of breakfast at the Resort at Paws Up. Choose accommodations in the luxurious Cliffside Camp overlooking the Blackfoot River and watch a private camp chef pick huckleberries from the surrounding slopes to create fluffy huckleberry pancakes and other memorable dishes. Linger over freshly brewed coffee and maple glazed bacon for an impressive breakfast in the Montana wilderness. Starting nightly Cliffside Camp rate: $1475, including all meals. The Torridon, Scotland . Indulgence varies according to destination, and in Scotland, it translates to a full Scottish breakfast with maybe a wee dram of whiskey on the side. This loch-side luxury property sets the table for a leisurely breakfast of free-range highland eggs, potato scones, Cumberland sausages, highland back bacon, grilled tomatoes and more. Wood-smoked salmon with scrambled eggs and homemade toasted brioche is also a highlight. Travelers looking for the pleasures of natural Scotland will find them at this inn. Bed and breakfast starting nightly rate: About $360 (£230). Saxon Boutique Hotel, Villas and Spa, Johannesburg, South Africa . What could be a more decadent start to the day than oysters and champagne? That is how executive chef David Higg likes to start his favorite meal of the day. The continental breakfast also includes smoked Scottish salmon, mini quiches, fresh fruit and scones. For those that might prefer a cooked-to-order breakfast with their complimentary champagne, eggs benedict with Parma ham or French toast with camembert cheese and crispy bacon are also available. Starting nightly rate: About $828 (ZAR8170) Twin Farms, Barnard, Vermont . Surrounded by 300 acres of meadows in Vermont, Twin Farms makes an impression with its breakfast as well as its location. Many guests return raving about the lemon soufflé pancakes, served with Vermont strawberries. These light-as-air pancakes are a perfect accompaniment to fragrant Kona coffee, a nod to the owners' Hawaiian roots. This all-inclusive Relais & Chateaux property also offers fresh pastries served with jam made from berries picked on site. All-inclusive starting nightly rate: $1450, including all meals, alcoholic beverages, use of facilities and gratuities. | Enjoy flaky croissants with your fabulous buffet at the New Hotel in Athens .
At the Mandarin Oriental in Boston, have some lobster as part of breakfast .
In Montana, fresh huckleberries come with your luxury campsite (you just need $1475)
Start off the day with oysters and champagne in South Africa . |
156,797 | 56bdfad0d25ad54c18eb1c535a42bc491cc9036c | By . Bianca London . PUBLISHED: . 10:20 EST, 23 July 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 10:20 EST, 23 July 2013 . She walks the catwalk in revealing . lingerie and models swimwear for a living, so it is certainly in Doutzen . Kroes' interest to maintain an incredible figure. And now the Victoria's Secret model has revealed the secret to her enviable physique. The 28-year-old swears by ballet to give her a catwalk-ready body, and has regular sessions with the instructor who helped whip Natalie Portman into shape for ballet-themed blockbuster Black Swan. So THAT's her secret! Doutzen Kroes has revealed that she gets catwalk-ready by having ballet classes . Doutzen said: 'I work out three or four times a week. I do a mix of boxing at a gym in New York and ballet with Mary Helen Bowers, who runs Ballet Beautiful and helped get Natalie Portman in shape for Black Swan. 'It's tough because it focuses on specific areas including the inner and outer thighs, butt and abdominal area and arms. Every morning after a workout with her, I feel so sore in places I didn't know I had, so it really works and I enjoy it. 'I also think that working out with a woman makes a difference as she understands what I want to look like. Men see things differently.' The Dutch beauty - who has two-year-old son Phyllon - says her role as a mother has encouraged her to take more care of her body by watching what she eats and exercising more. Doutzen has been working with ballet instructor Mary Helen Bowers, who runs Ballet Beautiful and helped get Natalie Portman in shape for Black Swan . Speaking to HELLO! magazine, she said: 'When you're younger you think you know everything, but I know my body better now than 10 years ago. 'I run around like crazy since I had my son, but I'm lucky and have good genes so my stomach has never been a problem area. 'However, I know I have to work out and eat healthily now.' Miss Kroes is the fourteenth . highest-earning model in the world, thanks to her lucrative contracts . with Victoria's Secret, L'Oreal, Calvin Klein and more. Doutzen says she runs around like crazy since she had her son, but is lucky and have good genes . | Victoria's Secret angel Doutzen, 28, gets in shape with ballet classes .
Called on Mary Helen Bowers Natalie Portman's teacher for Black Swan .
Dutch model has two-year-old son . |
68,584 | c274e151dcc5025854539614b2c6e331a29d3d0b | Her epic performance at last night's Super Bowl made global headlines, and now Katy Perry has landed herself another starring role, as the face of Covergirl's latest advert. In the video for the cosmetics giant, the 30-year-old shows off her fun side with a series of bold looks. In one shot she she sports pink hair, yellow nails and purple eye make-up, in another she rocks bright blue locks. Scroll down for video . Katy Perry has unveiled her latest Covergirl advert and sports pink, purple and blue hair in the campaign . Each of Katy's looks were created by industry heavyweight, Pat McGrath, who was hailed by Vogue as the most influential make-up artist in the world. Pop star Katy, who has previously designed her own range of make-up for the brand, even speaks in a variety of accents in the fun 44-second advert. Writing about Katy on their website, the brand said: 'Singer, songwriter and actress Katy has blown up the pop scene and shows no signs of stopping. The pop star shows off her fun side and even speaks in a variety of accents in the fun 44-second advert . Katy has never been afraid to experiment with her look and her latest advert is no different . 'From her chart-topping album One of the Boys to her hot new release Prism, this fresh-faced star embodies all of the elements that make up a stunning Covergirl. 'In addition to being the first-ever female artist in history to produce five number-one Billboard hits, she’s also the newest member of the Covergirl family because she truly defines inner and outer beauty.' Katy, who is known for experimenting with her look, adds: 'In addition to music, I've always considered makeup to be a powerful creative avenue for self-expression for me.' The star's look was created by legendary make-up artist and Vogue favourite, Pat McGrath . The brand say the 'fresh-faced star embodies all of the elements that make up a stunning Covergirl' The star also has her own range of accessories with Claire's and has designed several collections containing limited edition items, seasonal novelty pieces and collectables. It's been a busy few days for Katy, who performed at the Super Bowl wearing a dress with a flaming design as she rode a massive metallic tiger into the field. She then took to the stage with backup dancers dressed as chess pieces before Lenny Kravitz arrived with his electric guitar to accompany the superstar as she performed a mash-up of her greatest hits. She was also joined by special guest Missy Elliot. The icon belted out Get Ur Freak On as Perry danced next to her. Katy says as well as her music, she's always considered make-up to be a powerful creative avenue . The creative star also unveiled her own range of cosmetics for the brand . Katy Perry performed onstage during the Pepsi Super Bowl XLIX Halftime Show at University of Phoenix Stadium last night and flew across the crowds . She arrived on stage wearing a dress with a flaming design as she rode a massive metallic tiger into the field . | Katy, 30, unveils latest advert for beauty giant .
Looks created by Vogue favourite, Pat McGrath .
Katy performed at Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday night . |
238,930 | c1517e3d4b9bdbf65ff68fc0be30d69dacafae9e | By . Michael Zennie . PUBLISHED: . 21:35 EST, 18 October 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 01:06 EST, 19 October 2013 . Escape route: Adam Lanza set up an ambush for police with his car in a way that allowed him to flee through the woods . Newtown school shooter Adam Lanza laid out five identical sets of military fatigues in his darkened bedroom and set up an ambush for cops arriving at the school that could have afforded him a chance to flee into the nearby woods, it was revealed today. The new details - gleaned from an in-depth Connecticut State Police investigation - suggest Lanza could have been planning to escape Sandy Hook Elementary School after shooting dead 20 first grade children and six women. Detectives still have not determined what drove Lanza to plan and execute the horrific December 14 attack on the innocent teachers and students. The new information comes from the Hartford Courant, which published a report Friday with exclusive details from the investigation. When Lanza arrived at the school, he parked his mother's Honda sedan in a way that would have allowed him to ambush unsuspecting police officers who were arriving at the scene of the shooting. The passenger side door was facing toward a wall of the school. He leaned a semi-automatic Soviet-style 12-gauge shotgun against the car - presumably to use once police showed up. He took an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle and two handguns inside with him. All four of the weapons belonged to his mother. Detectives told the Courant that the car was positioned to give Lanza a straight line of fire toward cars headed toward the school up the property's long driveway. The school and the nearby woods would have been behind him - allowing him cover and, possibly, an escape route. The report also details an eery scene that Lanza left back at the million-dollar mansion where he lived with his mother. Lanza killed 20 children and six women at Sandy Hook Elementary School before taking his own life . In his bedroom, he taped black plastic garbage bags across the windows to block out all sunlight. His bed was crisply made. And he laid out five identical sets of combat fatigues - tan-colored shirts with five pairs of khaki pants. In the nearby computer room, detectives found an empty cereal bowl next to the computer hard drives that Lanza had taken out of his computers and tried to smash with a barbell. Those he didn't smash, he carved a 'W' into. Lanza's mother, who pulled her son out of public school and home-schooled him, was found in her bed. She was shot four times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle. The shots were fired at point-blank, with the muzzle of the gun pressed against her forehead. Detectives say Lanza's online habits - which include numerous postings about guns and other mass shootings - could provide the greatest clues about his motives. | Gunman Adam Lanza parked his car at Sandy Hook Elementary in a way to give him a clear line of fire for arriving police cars .
He left a semi-automatic shotgun leaning against the car, then went into the school .
20-year-old carved a 'W' into his computer hard drives and smashed them with a barbell .
Lanza shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, four times in the head with the muzzle of the gun pressed against her forehead . |
107,805 | 16f9ce9783c35a4b029ee7f852050f0b2a3efc0f | Mario Balotelli will not be leaving Liverpool for Juventus this January, the Italian club's manager Massimiliano Allegri has confirmed. Reports suggested the Premier League side were willing to offload the out-of-sorts striker, just six months after they paid Milan £16million for him. But Allegri, who managed Balotelli when at Milan, has poured cold water on the suggestions of a transfer. Liverpool forward Mario Balotelli has been linked with a move to Juventus during the January window . Juventus manager Massimiliano Allegri has confirmed the club will not be signing Balotelli this month . He told Italian TV station RAI: 'I think this is a made-up story. 'Balotelli has done very well with me but he belongs to Liverpool and he is not a player that can arrive at Juventus.' The 24-year-old has struggled for form since returning to the Premier League, scoring just twice in 18 appearances and failing to emulate the Luis Suarez, who moved from Anfield to Barcelona last summer. Plagued by a groin injury, Balotelli has also not started a match since Liverpool's 2-1 defeat by Chelsea at Anfield on November 8. Balotelli worked under Allegri when he was the manager of Milan but a reunion at Juventus is unlikely . Balotelli in action for Liverpool in their 1-0 win over Sunderland last weekend . Balotelli's agent, Mino Raiola, believes the striker will rediscover his best form once his injury niggles clear up. He told RAI: 'I'm not worried. Mario has been out for almost 10 weeks with an injury and you cannot judge him until he is 100 per cent fit. 'It's not easy to go abroad and adapt quickly to a new team. Balotelli has scored just twice in 18 appearances since arriving at Liverpool from Milan last summer . Balotelli has not started a match for Liverpool since their defeat by Chelsea at the start of November . 'In the summer, it was right to leave Milan and I would do it again. Mario has gone to the best league in the world. 'Now he is not doing well at Liverpool for different reasons but Mario is calm and he is working to return to be in top conditions. 'I do not regret this transfer and Mario's departure from Milan.' | Mario Balotelli will not move from Liverpool to Juventus this month .
The Italian champions' coach Massimiliano Allegri said move was unlikely .
Italy international has scored just twice in 18 appearances for the Reds .
He has struggled with a groin injury in recent weeks .
Balotelli has not started a game since their defeat by Chelsea in November .
Click here for Liverpool transfer news . |
96,710 | 08749a4fe26a050a39ed49d9e81885d81023b346 | By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 12:25 EST, 30 September 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 14:04 EST, 30 September 2013 . Members of a high school marching band in Texas experienced a rather unfortunate, but extremely funny, pile-up during a recent performance. The six sousaphone players from Lake Travis High School in Austin were walking backwards while playing at the same time when one of them tripped over his own feet and fell. Before: The band is playing to their heart's content, until... One man down!: The second-to-last sousaphone player trips over his own feet as they are walking backwards . Whoops: The next player goes down . Third domino: And then another trips over the first two who are on the ground . All six: One by one they trip over each other . And they all fall down: Six players and their brass instruments on the ground . Scramble: They quickly grab their instruments and compose themselves before running back into the line . Wait for me!: One player is seen running off quickly to join the others . Because they couldn’t see where they were going, five other sousaphone players tripped over him and each other like domino pieces. And down they went, ending up in one giant heap of brass instruments and band uniforms. No one was hurt in the incident, and they are seen jumping up and running back into formation within seconds. The six were part of the Lake Travis Cavalier Band, which performs at all the school’s football games and other events. The sousaphone is a brass instrument related to the tuba and helicon. Home of the Cavaliers: The band is part of the Lake Travis High School in Austin, Texas . The band: 'We represent Lake Travis High School with pride, dignity, and professionalism,' according to their homepage . The band prides itself with being ‘a group of student musicians with the highest standards of performance and behaviour’, according to its website. ‘We represent Lake Travis High School with pride, dignity, and professionalism.’ In 2012, the Lake Travis Cavalier Band competed for the first time as a 5A school in the UIL State Marching Band Competition and placed 15th out of more than 200 5A bands in Texas. | The marching band is part of Lake Travis High School in Austin, Texas .
The pile-up happened while they were walking backwards and playing at the same time .
They were playing their sousaphones, a brass instrument similar to the tuba .
No one was hurt in the funny incident which was caught on camera . |
128,255 | 31bff4f3792c8d4e820cdf4d27abd786da5bd0be | By . Victoria Allen . PUBLISHED: . 06:14 EST, 22 April 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 06:51 EST, 22 April 2013 . The zookeepers tried everything, from romantic music to a ‘love tunnel’ to get them together and in the mood for passion. But when the pandas once again failed to mate at Edinburgh Zoo, it was decided they needed even more of a helping hand. Now Tian Tian, the female panda, has been artificially inseminated in the hope there will be at last the patter of tiny paws. A zoo spokesman said last night she could give birth to cubs by the end of August. Britain's only giant pandas, Sunshine and Sweetie, had problems during their short mating season and needed help . The male panda, Yang Guang, nicknamed Sunshine in Scotland, was expected to mate with Tian Tian, known as Sweetie, during her 36 hour fertility window . Edinburgh zoo management said a successful mating season was critical. They need cubs for financial reasons. The annual bill for bamboo is £70,000 . The UK's only female giant panda (pictured) was inseminated after just two attempts to get her and Sunshine to mate naturally . The decision to inseminate Tian Tian – or Sweetie as she is called in Scotland – comes after just two attempts to get her and Yang Guang – or Sunshine - to mate naturally. The pandas come into season only once a year and then only for a window of 36 hours between mid April and May. It shows the desperation of the zoo management for panda cubs to fulfill their prediction that a million visitors will come to see their most high-profile animals. They need the numbers because it is costing the zoo £7 million to rent Sunshine and Sweetie for ten years, while the annual bill for bamboo is another £70,000 a year. In a statement yesterday, the zoo’s spokesman said: ‘Our specialist team and experts from around the world performed artificial insemination on female giant panda Tian Tian in the early hours of this morning. Natural mating was not attempted. Yang Guang had been interested and . shown consistently encouraging behaviour, however based on his many . years’ experience, our Chinese colleague Professor Wang felt that . although Tian Tian had displayed all of the correct behaviours, she had . also displayed signs that told him she would not be conducive to . mating.’ Hopes . had been high the two pandas would mate this year. The signs were good, . with Sweetie showing clear signals she was nearing mating season, . including grumpy behaviour and loss of appetite. Sunshine explores Sweetie's enclosure and stretches out on the grass. The pandas were swapped to explore each other's environments . Sunshine (pictured left) and Sweetie (right) were played love songs by Marvin Gaye to create an amorous mating environment . Surprisingly, Sweetie is the mother of two cubs back in China and Sunshine's father holds the world record for fathering 107 panda pups . Throughout the last week, keepers swapped the bears between enclosures to prepare them. They tuned in radio station Smooth FM, which frequently plays songs by Barry White and Marvin Gaye, to get them in the mood for love. The pandas were seen making eyes at each other through the grate separating them in the ‘love tunnel’ between their two enclosures. Sweetie was even heard crying out to Sunshine, who she arrived at the zoo with in December 2011. But ultimately, it seems, she just wasn’t in the mood. The zoo did not put the pandas together to even try and mate, because the animals can turn aggressive. Sweetie is the mother of two cubs back in China and Sunshine’s father holds the world record for fathering 107 panda pups so both are likely to conceive naturally. The two pandas were transported from China to Edinburgh in 2011 and are on loan for ten years . The zoo opted not to wait another year for the lucrative panda cubs. If Sweetie does become pregnant from the artificial insemination, it will take some time to find out. Giant pandas experience delayed implantation, which means the fertilised egg fails to embed for many days. Confirmation of whether she is expecting will come in mid-July when she will have an ultrasound scan. It is likely that her cub, or cubs, would be born at the end of August or the beginning of September. But for now the pandas are taking a break from the weight of public expectation and have been taken off display. The zoo’s spokesman said yesterday: ‘Both pandas and humans are sleeping today.‘The procedures went very much to plan and they are both well, but will be off show until Tuesday.’ | Female panda, known as Sweetie, has been artificially inseminated at Edinburgh zoo and could give birth in August .
Mating season is a 36-hour window once a year .
Zoo in desperate need of cubs after spending £7 million to rent pandas for ten years . |
119,582 | 267cfd19748a99828c7701063d6f2f28843c202c | ‘X-wing’ spaceships instantly evoke scenes from Star Wars, but Elon Musk has just shown off real, functioning rocket fins in the iconic configuration. The billionaire entrepreneur is testing 'hypersonic grid fins' that are designed to help control SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket as it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere. He has also showcased ‘drone ships’ that could one day be used as offshore landing pads for the reusable spacecraft. The CEO of SpaceX revealed the features on Twitter, adding that testing for both futuristic technologies is currently underway. The latest version of SpaceX’s reusable rocket sports a set of four fins that can be independently adjusted. ‘Grid fins are stowed on ascent and then deploy on re-entry for "X-wing" style control. Each fin moves independently for pitch/yaw/roll,’ Mr Musk tweeted. The X-shaped spacecraft in the Star Wars films were incredible maneuverable, allowing pilots such as Luke Skywalker to outclass the most skillful Imperial pilot. Mr Musk tweeted: ‘Grid fins are stowed on ascent and then deploy on re-entry for "x-wing" style control. Each fin moves independently for pitch/yaw/roll'. The X-shaped spacecraft in the Star Wars films, called x-wings (pictured) were incredible maneuverable and allowed pilots of navigate the tightest of spaces . Elon Musk wants to use satellites to provide internet access to remote parts of the planet. He said to be involved in developing cheap and small satellites with expert Greg Wyler, of WorldVu Satellites. The duo plan on launching 700 satellites which would be 10 times the size of the largest commercial fleet. They would each weigh just 250lbs (113kg) - half the weight of the current lightest commercial offering. The duo is considering opening a factory in Florida or Colorado to build their creations for a cost of at least $1 billion (£600 million). Any satellites produced would likely be launched by Mr Musk’s firm SpaceX but there are many obstacles in the way. The fins on the Falcon rocket deploy after take-off to prevent unnecessary drag and work alongside thrusters to enable the rocket to position itself correctly to land vertically, Space Daily reported. The entrepreneur likely made the X-wing reference because of the shape the fins make when spread out in four separate directions, plus because of their manoeuvrability. They are similar to a set used on a test earlier this year, according to Mr Musk, who shared a video of that flight on the social network. He also revealed details about the platform the rocket could land on. Mr Musk is testing an ‘autonomous drone ship,’ that’s designed to be a safe platform for rockets to land on and refuel, away from densely populated cities. He claims that the ship can maintain its position within 10ft (three metres) in the stormiest of conditions. He tweeted: ‘Autonomous spaceport drone ship. Thrusters repurposed from deep sea oil rigs hold position within 3m even in a storm.’ As well as testing rocket fins and autonomous landing pads, Elon Musk (pictured) is said to be working on using an array of 1700 satellites to provide internet access to remote parts of the planet . | Elon Musk has shown off real rocket fins with ‘x-wing’ configuration .
Hypersonic grid fins in 'X' layout - inspired by Star Wars - will help control SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket as it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere .
Entrepreneur also showcased ‘drone ships’ that could one day be used as landing pads away from busy cities, for the reusable spacecraft .
He said they are stable even in the most dramatic of storms . |
176,944 | 710ae2bf85dfada3e25e96b3cdd5399fe0f7d978 | By . David Mccormack . Scroll down for video . A retired LAPD detective, who has claimed for years that his father was responsible for the infamous Black Dahlia murder, has unveiled fresh new evidence which he says links his dad to as many as ten other unsolved Hollywood murders from the 1940s. Since retiring as a cop, Steve Hodel has written about unsolved crimes and it was in his 2003 book Black Dahlia Avenger, that he first made the claims that his father George Hodel, a doctor, was the killer. In November 2012, Hodel was able to visit his childhood home in L.A. with a cadaver dog who picked up faint traces of human remains in four locations in the basement. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT . Retired LAPD detective Steve Hodel, who has claimed for years that his father was responsible for the infamous Black Dahlia murder, has unveiled fresh evidence which he says links his dad to as many as ten other unsolved Hollywood murders from the 1940s . Now chemical analysis of soil taken from the home has added further support to Hodel’s suspicions about his late father. ‘I see him as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,’ Hodel told NBCLA. ‘Unfortunately, the monster, Mr. Hyde, was stronger and over-ruled the good.’ He believes his father may well have been a serial killer responsible for as many as 10 long-unsolved slayings of young women in Los Angeles in the 1940s. Since retiring, Hodel has devoted his time to researching unsolved crimes in which he believes his father may have been involved. Sowden House, the potential murder scene and Dr George Hodel, who was a suspect in the original investigation and who Steve Hodel believes is responsible for the murder of the Black Dahlia and others . After his father’s death in 1991, Hodel came across evidence that he believe implicated his dad in the . infamous 1947 dismemberment murder of Elizabeth . Short - aka the Black Dahlia. George . Hodel was one of countless suspects in the high profile . murder case. The police even planted a listening bug at the distinctive Sowden House in the . Hollywood foothills, where the family lived. Transcripts reveal that . detectives heard Hodel discussing the Dahlia case at one point, while another . time they picked up noises from the basement which sounded like a woman being . attacked. Hodel’s father fled to Asia in the late 1940s, leaving his family behind. Steve . Hodel had long believed that his father committed murders in or . near the house, and in some cases buried the remains nearby. While Elizabeth . Short’s remains were all accounted for, Hodel has a list of unsolved murder victims that he believes his father could have killed. Black Dahlia: The body of Elizabeth Short had been severed at the waist and completely drained of blood, her face had also been slashed from the corners of her mouth toward her ears . Steve Hodel believes actress Jean Spangler, left, may have been a victim of his 'serial killer' father, while forensic anthropologist Arpad Vass, says the samples taken from the Hodel residence could be from the same time period . Top of his list is the actress Jean Spangler, then 26, who vanished in 1949. Her body was never found, although her purse was discovered not far from the Hodel home. A note inside hinted that she . was considering having an abortion, then illegal. Dr. Hodel was one of the . few physicians who then performed abortions in Los Angeles. In his research, Steve Hodel discovered that Spangler and his father had a . mutual friend. In November 2012, Hodel, together with retired police Sgt. Paul Dostie and Buster, a Labrador retriever trained to detect the . unique smell of human composition, visited his childhood home. Once . let loose, Buster quickly established four locations in the basement . where he could pick up a faint trace of human remains. Steve Hodel, right, with cadaver dog handler Paul Dostie, and Buster, searched the Sowden/Franklin House at 5121 Franklin Ave., Hollywood for evidence in November 2012 . The basement had never been finished and since the floor was still dirt, soil samples were taken. According . to forensic anthropologist Arpad Vass, PhD, a pioneer in chemical . analysis of human decomposition, those samples are 'consistent' with . Steve Hodel's theory of homicide victims buried in shallow graves 70-80 . years ago. 'The soil . came up positive for human remains because there are a number of human . specific markers,' said Vass from his laboratory in Oak Ridge, . Tennessee. Hodel would like . to search further for the human remains, but has been unable to get . permission to go onto the privately owned hillside. The shocking murder of Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, is one of the oldest unsolved murder cases in Los Angeles history. On Jan. 15, 1947, Short's severely mutilated body was discovered in a vacant lot near the intersection of 39th Street and Norton Avenue in South Los Angeles. The body had been severed at the waist and completely drained of blood. Her face had been slashed from the corners of her mouth toward her ears, creating an effect known as a ‘Glasgow smile’. Not long before her death, Short was arrested in Santa Barbara for underage drinking and this police mugshot was taken . Short, 22, also had multiple cuts on her thigh and breasts, where entire portions of flesh had been removed. The body had been washed and cleaned and had been ‘posed’ with her hands over her head, her elbows bent at right angles, and her legs spread. The gruesome murder generated masses of media interest at the time. The newspapers of the day, which had a habit of nicknaming colorful crimes, started referring to Short as the Black Dahlia after the then popular film The Blue Dahlia. To add to the case’s sense of mystery and intrigue, both LAPD officials and newspaper editors received taunting notes believed to be from Short's killer. The Los Angeles District Attorney office drew up a list of 25 people it considered viable suspects, although as many as 60 people have confessed to the murder at one time or another. Elizabeth Short's mutilated body was found in a vacant lot near a busy intersection on the southwest section of L.A. in 1947 . In his 2003 book ‘Black Dahlia Avenger,’ Steve Hodel first made the claim that his father, a doctor, was responsible for the murder. George Hodel had been a suspect in the original case and investigators had even planted a bug in the house to listen for incriminating admissions. But before authorities brought charges, Dr. Hodel abruptly abandoned his family and relocated to Asia. He died in 1991. Steve Hodel believes his father killed the Black Dahlia at the family’s then home, the distinctive Sowden House in Hollywood, which is largely unchanged and looks the same as it did at the time of the murder. Hodel was also able to establish that he and his siblings had been away with their mother at that time. | Steve Hodel believes his father was responsible for as many as ten unsolved Hollywood murders from the 1940s .
In the past he has put forward the compelling case that George Hodel was the man responsible for the infamous Black Dahlia murder .
The severely mutilated body of Elizabeth Short was discovered in 1947 .
The case remains one of the oldest unsolved murder cases in L.A. history .
A cadaver dog discovered the faint trace of human remains in the basement of the Hodel's Hollywood home .
Those soil samples contain human remains which could well date from the 1940s .
Hodel believe the samples could include the remains of actress Jean Spangler, whose purse was discovered not far from the Hodel home . |
124,992 | 2d904e641c6c432d1eab5f82e1d021ae4672a3fa | More detached homes are being built now than at the height of the property boom in 2007, an industry body has reported. The National House Building Council (NHBC), which released the figures, said detached homes are making a 'comeback', with 38,113 new build properties of this type registered with it in 2014, which is the highest number recorded for any year since 2004. Across all types of property, 145,174 new homes across the UK were registered with the NHBC last year, marking a 9 per cent increase on 2013 and the highest annual total since 2007 as the economic recovery continues. New home owners are snapping up detached houses according to new figures released today, file picture . Almost 40,000 new detached homes were registered with the National House Building Council last year . Yorkshire and the Humber, Wales, Northern Ireland, the West Midlands and the South East are all now outpacing London in terms of the year-on-year percentage growth in the number of new builds being registered. Wales recorded the strongest percentage jump, with registrations up by one third (33 per cent) on 2013. The NHBC said London saw 'exceptional' growth in the number of new builds being registered in 2013, and in 2014 growth in the capital was more in line with that seen in the UK generally. With 28,733 new homes registered in London last year, the number of new builds recorded in the capital was still up by 10 per cent on 2013. Eastern England was the only UK region that recorded a year-on-year fall in new build registrations in 2014, with a 6 per cent fall. The NHBC's registration figures are taken from builders who are responsible for around 80 per cent of homes constructed in the UK. Builders are required to register a house with the NHBC before starting work, which means its figures represent homes that are to be built in the months ahead. The number of detached homes being registered represents a 24 per cent increase on 2013. Detached homes now make up more than one quarter (26 per cent) of all homes being built, with flats and maisonettes still accounting for the biggest chunk of new builds, at one third (33 per cent). In 2008, almost half (49 per cent) of new build homes being registered were flats, while just 15 per cent were detached homes. NHBC chief executive Mike Quinton said: 'It looks like the detached home is making a comeback ... Following an oversupply of flats outside London over the last decade, the growth in detached homes is restoring balance to the country's housing stock.' Some 48,685 flats were registered with the NHBC last year - representing a 5 per cent increase on 2013 but just over half of the 90,221 flats that were recorded during the boom in 2007. The number of new build semi-detached homes also increased on 2013, rising by 12 per cent to 31,650. Meanwhile, the number of bungalows and terraced homes being registered fell year-on-year. Some 26,600 terraced homes were registered in 2014, representing a 2 per cent annual fall, while 2,059 bungalows were registered, showing a 16 per cent decrease. Despite the boost in new build numbers, the NHBC said that 2014's total remains below the average of 153,000 registrations seen per year over the last four decades. Mr Quinton continued: 'We are still building below the levels seen before the economic downturn and below what this country needs. 'With the general election just three months away, it is therefore very encouraging that housing remains a top priority for all the main parties.' Housing Minister Brandon Lewis said: 'Today's figures clearly show how our efforts have got the country building again ... 'We have turned around a broken housing market, including introducing schemes like Help to Buy to help home owners get on the housing ladder and investing billions in affordable housebuilding.' The National House Building Council said the increase in demand for detached housing was addressing a problem with the oversupply of new apartments especially outside the London area . | More than 145,000 new homes were registered by builders last year .
The National House Building Council said this was a 9 per cent increase .
More than half of homes are either detached or semi-detached . |
37,028 | 68f9ca95085757206cec9afebd3865896ec30169 | LONDON, England (CNN) -- British broadcaster Channel 4 has been criticized for creating a new television show which looks at how children as young as eight would cope without their parents for two weeks. Channel 4 said the program was made with the parents' full consent. Boys And Girls Alone -- which will be aired in the UK on Tuesday evening -- has been compared to adult reality show Big Brother. The show allows 10 boys and 10 girls between the age of eight and 11 to create their own mini-societies, organizing everything from what they eat to how they should entertain themselves. Ultimately the children are shown on camera squabbling over sleeping and cooking arrangements and, as they split into factions, some of them feel "picked on," the show's publicity says. This has led to a stream of criticism from British lawmakers and children's charities, who have labeled Channel 4's "experiment" a disgrace that "served no purpose other than to cynically boost ratings," according to Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper. Camila Batmanghelidjh, of the charity Kids Company, was quoted by The Daily Mirror as saying: "Any situation that leaves a group of young people without the mediating presence of a responsible adult is cruel and abusive." Do you agree? Share your views . Labour MP Denis MacShane told the newspaper that "children should be protected and not exploited for commercial gain." However, Channel 4 defended the show and said it features "the kind of tussling you'd get in any playground -- but no physical violence." It added that one boy pointed a knife and fork during the series but emphasized that no one was in any danger, Britain's Press Association reported. "This is not a project for commercial gain. It is done with the parents' full consent," a Channel 4 spokesperson was quoted by PA as saying. "They were watching and there were mentors and a clinical psychologist who made sure there were no problems." | Boys And Girls Alone has been compared to adult reality show Big Brother .
Children between 8 and 11 live without their parents for two weeks .
Program shows children squabbling and arguing with each other .
British lawmaker says children must not be exploited for commercial gain . |
194,747 | 8816f776beaa93fc1e141ba878823602df7eb2a8 | (CNN) -- Barely 120 years old, Johannesburg is suffering from growing pains as it goes through an awkward adolescence. Johannesburg is a city built on gold. It's a city still trying to recover from the injustices of apartheid and if progress can sometimes seem slow, it's worth remembering that it's only been 15 years since apartheid was finally laid to rest. Rebuilding will take time, but Johannesburg is a pragmatic city. Its endless urban sprawl won't win any beauty contests but this place has always been more about economics than aesthetics. That's because Jo' burg is a city built on gold. The metropolis was nothing but grassy farmland until prospectors struck gold a few kilometers away in 1886. Its once-abundant gold reserves helped Jo' burg grow into the largest city in South Africa and become the capital of the province of Gauteng -- a Sotho word meaning "place of gold." Watch Hugh Masekela take CNN on a tour of Johannesburg » . While modern day Jo' burgers prefer to look to the future, it will be a long time before the city shakes off the memories of its troubled past. Places like Soweto -- the township that was the site of the 1976 uprisings that marked the beginning of the end of white rule -- will always be associated with apartheid. Conditions in Soweto are still tough and townships like Alexandra remain desperately poor. It's true that Jo' burg has a growing black middle class, but it also has a growing divide between its haves and have-nots. After South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994 Johannesburg experienced a new, unofficial apartheid as businesses moved away from downtown to the city's wealthier, whiter, northern suburbs, leaving the city center a shadow of its once dynamic self. But things are changing. Numerous urban development projects, many intended to ready the city for the 2010 World Cup, are reinvigorating the heart of Jo' burg. The city is getting an extensive new bus system, and the much-touted Gautrain is a high-speed train line that will link Jo' burg and Pretoria. The Newtown area is growing as a cultural center, with art galleries, theaters and dance venues, and Constitution Hill, once the site of a prison that held Mahatma Gandhi and later Nelson Mandela, has been converted into the country's highest law court and a tourist attraction, with exhibitions dedicated to its unsavory past. The most cosmopolitan city in Africa, Jo' burg has always been thoroughly multicultural, but a wave of xenophobic attacks in May 2008 highlighted the tension between locals and the huge number of African immigrants who have moved to the city, attracted by its relative economic vigor. The violence did nothing to help the city's international reputation. Where Jo' burg was once associated with apartheid, it has now become associated with crime. Lurid tales of carjacking and daylight mugging have created an image of a lawless sin city, but although places like Hillbrow remain no-go areas at night, progress is being made in the war on crime. Nonetheless, the fear of crime remains potent and Jo' burg's future as a tourist destination depends on addressing the problem. If Jo' burg is a work in progress there's no doubt that much remains to be done, but it's a young city with a young population eager to take the opportunities past generations were denied. The eyes of the world will be on South Africa in summer 2010 and Jo' burgers are keen to use the World Cup to demonstrate how far their city has come and to show the world that the future is bright for the city of gold at the heart of the rainbow nation. | Johannesburg is a young city, still recovering from the injustices of apartheid .
The city was just grassy farmland until prospectors struck gold in 1886 .
Many urban development projects are reinvigorating the heart of Jo'burg .
The 2010 World Cup is a chance to show how far Johannesburg has come . |
10,526 | 1dec4b3c5b0e5340cc4ffe887377f3c8503e0813 | By . Martha Kelner . Follow @@marthakelner . British interest at Queen’s Club rests with Andy Murray — and the Wimbledon champion has an extra incentive to deliver after two sharp volleys in his direction. The Scot’s decision to appoint a female coach in Amelie Mauresmo drew a sly dig from Australian Marinko Matosevic, while Murray’s practice colleague on Tuesday, Aljaz Bedene, came under fire over his attempt to play Davis Cup for Britain. On Murray’s new coaching set-up with Mauresmo, Bosnia-born Matosevic, who beat Marin Cilic 6-4, 6-4, said: ‘For me, I couldn’t (have a female coach) since I don’t think that highly of the women’s game. Unconventional: Andy Murray has taken the bold step of naming Amelie Mauresmo as his new coach . Questioned: The choice of Mauresmo, a female, has been criticised by Australian Marinko Matosevic . Controversial: Matosevic also said he doesn't think much of women's tennis . 'His mum (Judy Murray) coached him, and she did a great job. But it’s all equal rights these days. Got to be politically correct. So, yeah, someone’s got to give it a go, but it won’t be me.’ As for Bedene, British No 2 Dan Evans said the player should have his Davis Cup ambitions blocked as he is already ‘capped’ by Slovenia, although that didn’t seem to bother Murray on Tuesday. Bedene, ranked 132 in the world, has lived in Britain since 2008 but represented Slovenia in three ties. Evans, ranked 139, said: ‘He’s played Davis Cup for a different country so I don’t think it would be right if he played Davis Cup for our country. It’s like in football, he’s been capped for another country. But I’d say I’m a better player anyway so it shouldn’t be a selection issue.’ Evans crashed out of Queen’s 6-2, 6-3 to Kevin Anderson. The South African was too strong and brutally accurate, breaking Evans in his first service game and then dominating him, serving 10 aces, compared to just two from the Briton. ‘I just didn’t get a chance to play,’ said Evans, who lasted 65 minutes. Fellow Briton James Ward lasted only two minutes longer as he fell to Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, who was cheered to a 7-5, 6-3 victory by his girlfriend Maria Sharapova. Ineligible: Dan Evans doesn't believe Aljaz Bedene should be allowed to play for Great Britain at the Davis Cup . Talented: The Slovenian has lived in Britain since 2008 and is in contention for a call-up to the team . | Andy Murray replaced coach Ivan Lendl with Amelie Mauresmo .
Decision to name female coach has been questioned by Marinko Matosevic .
Dan Evans upset by Aljaz Bedene's chance to play for Great Britain in Davis Cup .
British No 2 believes he will be selected over Bedene on talent . |
176,039 | 6fe589b3496858f9de8da96d301f2c6a78559806 | One million worshippers from all over the world have gathered in Rome ahead of the ‘unprecedented’ double canonisation of two former popes. Over the last 24 hours, crowds have arrived and camped out in Vatican City ahead of the canonisation of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII at St Peter’s Square. The ceremony, to be held later today, will be an unprecedented event in Catholic history, as two living Popes will be in attendance – the current Pope Francis I and Benedict XVI, who stood down last year and now holds the title Pope Emeritus. Crowds have camped out in Vatican City ahead of the canonisation of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII at St Peter¿s Square . The ceremony, to be held later today, will be an unprecedented event in Catholic history, as two living Popes will be in attendance - the current Pope Francis I and Benedict XVI, who stood down last year and now holds the title Pope Emeritus . Around one million people have set up camp in Vatican City as they prepare to watch the double canonisation of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII at St Peter¿s Square later today . The ceremony, to be held later today, will be an unprecedented event in Catholic history, as two living Popes will be in attendance - the current Pope Francis I and Benedict XVI, who stood down last year and now holds the title Pope Emeritus . Worshippers attended a prayer vigil at the Chiesa Degli Artisti last night where Pope John XXIII celebrated his first mass in Vatican City . Former pontiff John Paul II is due to be canonised alongside John XXIII, who was Pope from 1958-1963, in a ceremony which is expected to be watched by millions of people around the world. For the past year Benedict has largely dedicated himself to prayer in a monastery in the Vatican grounds. It means today’s ceremony will be his highest-profile appearance since he retired. Francis, who lives in a guesthouse elsewhere in Vatican City, has been quite welcoming to his predecessor, occasionally paying a call on Benedict. It was Francis who sought to include Benedict in the ceremony, which is expected to draw crowds of more than one million tourists and pilgrims. Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi explained Benedict's involvement, saying he will be in St. Peter's Square for the canonisation of John and John Paul, where he will 'concelebrate' the Mass with Francis and other cardinals. 'Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the invitation, and has let Pope Francis know that he will be present tomorrow morning at the canonization ceremony and will concelebrate' along with other prelates, Lombardi said. 'That doesn't mean that he will go up on the altar' on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica, Lombardi said of the outdoor Mass. Italian worshippers attend a prayer vigil at the Chiesa Degli Artisti ahead of the canonisation of the late Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII later today, which is expected to be watched by millions of people . Former pontiff John Paul II is due to be canonised alongside John XXIII, who was Pope from 1958-1963 in a ceremony which is expected to be watched by millions of people around the world . Over the last 24 hours, crowds have arrived and camped out in Vatican City ahead of the canonisation of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII at St Peter¿s Square . Pilgrims preparing to spend the night waiting to enter St Peter's Square in the morning ahead of the double canonisation which will be watched by millions of people around the world . Preparations were well underway on Saturday for the canonisation of John Paul II and John XXIII in what will be an unprecedented event in Catholic history . Hundreds of thousands of people descended on Vatican City on Saturday to ensure they had a prime position for the canonisation which will take place in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican later today . Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said Benedict - Pope Francis's predecessor - will be in St. Peter's Square for the canonisation of John and John Paul . Priests sing and dance in St Peter's Square as they gear up for the historical ceremony, which will see Pope Francis elevate John XXIII and John Paul II to sainthood . He noted that during the ceremony, cardinals and bishops will be seated on one side of the esplanade, with, presumably, Benedict, among them. 'We will all be happy to have his presence' at the ceremony, the Vatican spokesman said. Benedict also attended Francis' ceremony to elevate churchmen to cardinal's rank in February. But that ceremony wasn't a Mass, meaning Sunday's appearance by two popes would be the first Mass concelebrated by two pontiffs, one reigning and the other retired. As German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict presided over John Paul II's funeral in the square in 2005. He was soon elected pontiff himself, going on to lead the ceremony to beatify his Polish-born predecessor in 2011, also in the square. It was John Paul who, early in his papacy, appointed the German prelate to a key Vatican post in charge of safeguarding church teaching, and eventually, also dealing with the mounting cases of sexual abuse of minors by priests in the United States and elsewhere. Benedict has a connection to John XXII's papacy as well. As a young theologian, he attended the Second Vatican Council, the gathering of prelates from around the globe that the Italian pope set up as a way to bring modernizing reforms to the Catholic church. People queue to visit St Peter's Basilica in St Peter's Square . Worshippers gather inside the Polish Church, Santo Spirito in Sassia, Sanctuary of Divine Mercy in the Vatican City . Dignitaries, heads of state and Royals, from Europe and across the World, are gathering in the Vatican ahead of the 'unprecedented' double canonisation . The late Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII will be canonised on Sunday 27 April, inside the Vatican . On Saturday, pilgrims were pouring into Rome in big groups or as individual families or travellers, eager to be among those taking their place in the square before dawn on the day of the ceremony. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said an estimated one million people were expected to flood into Rome for the event. Working to ensure the crowds are safe, authorities were deploying about 3,500 extra police officers in Rome, beefing up the total to around 10,000 officers. Police were also trying to keep faithful from being ripped off. Italy's customs and tax police cracked down on vendors selling counterfeit merchandise, confiscating 1,500 boxes of rosaries resembling the ones that Pope Francis had distributed free to faithful in St. Peter's Square in November. The boxes resemble packets of pills, in line with Francis' description of the rosary prayer as 'spiritual medicine'. The tax police also handed out fines to 23 establishments that were billing themselves as bed-and-breakfast lodgings for pilgrims, even though they lacked the proper authorization to rent out rooms. On Saturday, pilgrims were pouring into Rome in big groups or as individual families or travellers, eager to be among those taking their place in the square before dawn on the day of the ceremony . Working to ensure the crowds are safe, authorities were deploying about 3,500 extra police officers in Rome, beefing up the total to around 10,000 officers . During the ceremony, cardinals and bishops will be seated on one side of the esplanade, with, presumably, Benedict, among them . Abuse victims of Catholic priests have said that former Pope John Paul II does not deserve to be made a saint because of his failure to bring perpetrators to justice during his reign. John Paul, who was head of the Catholic church from 1978 until his death in 2005, 'enabled wrongdoing' and was more interested in protecting the Church's reputation than helping victims, according to campaigners. Barbara Blaine, the president of the Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), spoke out against John Paul today. Mrs Blaine told the Daily Telegraph: 'It’s time for the Vatican to stop honouring those who enabled wrongdoing. Thousands of victims were abused because John Paul refused to read the reports he was receiving.' The canonisation of Popes John Paul II, left, and John XXIII, right, at . St Peter’s Square in Vatican City later today is set to draw a crowd of . more than one million people . The ceremony will be an unprecedented event in Catholic history, as two living Popes will be in attendance – the current Pope Francis I, right, and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, left, who stood down last year . A group of scouts pose for a picture at Piazza del Popolo in Vatican City, Vatican ahead of the canonisation later today when more than one million pilgrims from around the world are expected to turn out . It was John Paul who, early in his papacy, appointed the German prelate to a key Vatican post in charge of safeguarding church teaching, and eventually, also dealing with the mounting cases of sexual abuse of minors by priests in the United States and elsewhere . Nicky Davis, a 50-year-old from Australia who was abused, said: 'We don’t believe it’s saintly behaviour to allow sex abuse to continue for a 27-year reign. He could have used his enormous power to save children but instead he decided to save the reputation of the Church.' The organisation also published an open letter on their website to other abuse victims. It said: 'At best, [John Paul] turned a blind eye to clergy sexual crimes and cover-ups. At worst, he perpetuated and approved them. 'For him to now be given the highest honor in the church rubs even more salt into the already deep and still fresh wounds of thousands of struggling victims and millions of betrayed Catholics and victims. 'For all of you who are upset because of this callous sainthood decision and celebration, we want you to know that you are not alone.' | Canonisation of former Popes John Paul II and John XXIII will take place in St Peter's Square, Vatican City .
One million people have gathered in Rome ahead of the ceremony, which will be attended by current Pope Francis I .
Event will make history and former Pope Benedict XVI - who now holds title of Pope Emeritus - will also attend .
However, abuse victims of Catholic priests have called on the Catholic Church not to elevate John Paul II .
They say he does not deserve to be a saint and said Vatican should ‘stop honouring those who enabled wrongdoing' |
281,196 | f8463d63e90c343352e27e7ec295ea660b8a3828 | By . Stewart Maclean . Updated: . 02:49 EST, 17 January 2012 . WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT . A surfer has been killed by a shark at a South African beach dubbed the world's deadliest following a string of attacks. Ngidi Msungubana, 25, died yesterday after being repeatedly bitten as he rode the waves off Second Beach in Port St Johns. Witnesses said he had wrestled with the shark for five minutes as the water turned red around him. Rescuers try to save shark attack victim Ngidi Msungubana following an attack at Second Beach in Port St Johns in South Africa . The beach is branded the world's most deadliest following six fatal shark attacks since 2007 . The incident was the sixth fatal shark . attack in just five years at the beach, which lies beside the Indian . Ocean in South Africa's rural Eastern Cape province. Officials described how Mr Msungubana fought with the shark before being dragged bleeding out of the water by a lifeguard. Provincial health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said: 'The man was surfing and was in water which was only around a metre and a half deep when the shark struck. 'Witnesses who were near him at the time said he wrestled with the shark for around five minutes as the water turned red. 'A fellow surfer then helped a lifeguard to get the man out of the sea and onto the beach. 'There happened to be a doctor on the beach who helped to treat the man at the scene, and an ambulance then arrived to take him to hospital. 'However the surfer had been bitten on both of his arms and his stomach and he sadly died on the way to the medical facility.' Experts said it was believed Mr Msungubana was attacked by a bull shark, which hunt alone and are famously aggressive. Attacked: Swimmers watch in horror as the man hangs on to his surfboard in shallow water . Beach-goers and lifeguards attend to the victim, who later died . Paramedics on the scene at Port St Johns on South Africa's east coast . Officials said it was the sixth fatal shark attack at Port St Johns' Second Beach since 2007. Local guesthouse owner and surfing expert Michael Gatcke said a team of specialists had been brought in to study the issue amid the spate of attacks. He said: 'This is now the sixth attack here in the last five years and people are getting worried about their safety in the sea. 'I can remember the previous attacks clearly - a lifeguard died in 2007 and there were three attacks in 2009. 'There was a fatal attack on a surfer on January 15, 2011, and then this one, exactly a year later.' He added: 'Experts are now saying this is the world's most dangerous beach for shark attacks and I can believe it. 'The frightening thing is that when you look at the statistics for attacks worldwide, usually only around one in six shark attacks in fatal. 'But here all of the attacks in the last five years have resulted in death. 'It makes you wonder whether the sharks are particularly aggressive, or whether there is some other factor that is causing this problem. 'Whatever the reason, I no longer surf or go into the water. 'I think the local authorities need to do more to tackle the problem and warn people about the dangers.' Officials today issued a fresh safety warning for bathers at the popular beach, which lies along a stretch of largely undeveloped coastline known as the Wild Coast. Meanwhile public safety chiefs have launched a probe into what caused the spate of attacks. Mr Kupelo said one theory was that the sharks were attracted to the area to feed on the remains of animals slaughtered during traditional sacrifices. He said: 'The local community continues in its tradition of slaughtering animals to mark auspicious occasions and for cultural events. 'Sometimes this is done by members of the church or community leaders on the beach or in the river which leads to the sea. 'It is now being thought that perhaps the offal and remains of the animals are attracting the sharks, which are coming in from the deep to feed. 'The latest attack is definitely not the first and we need to examine why this area is becoming so dangerous. 'Perhaps if the link to the traditional ceremonies is proven then the local municipality will need to take steps to prevent this practice.' Yesterday's death is the latest shark attack in South Africa. Last September Briton Michael Cohen, 47, lost his right leg and part of his left foot after being savaged by one of the beasts in the sea near Cape Town. | Sixth fatal attack at Eastern Cape beach in five years . |
207,786 | 9906a7898e38da71703c92f9c6d8ed44d204b0da | (CNN) -- Television pioneer and longtime CBS executive Don Hewitt, the creator of "60 Minutes," has died, the network said Wednesday. He was 86. Don Hewitt joined CBS News in 1948. Hewitt, who had been battling pancreatic cancer, died at his home in Bridgehampton, New York, surrounded by his family, CBS said. The winner of eight Emmy and two Peabody awards, Hewitt began working for CBS News as an associate director in 1948. He was executive producer of "60 Minutes" when it premiered on CBS on September 24, 1968. Hewitt stepped down in June 2004, but the program remains on the air and is the number-one news program, according to CBS News' Web site. "In the history of journalism, there have been few who were as creative, dynamic and versatile as Don Hewitt," said CBS Corp. President Leslie Moonves. "The depth and breadth of his accomplishments are impossible to measure, because since the very beginnings of our business, he quite literally invented so many of the vehicles by which we now communicate the news." Watch how Hewitt innovated television news » . "He was bursting with passion for what we do: telling stories," said Jon Klein, president of CNN, who previously worked at CBS and oversaw "60 Minutes." Klein recalled his first day on the job as a 37-year-old, when Hewitt took him to lunch and told him, "Listen, kid. It's very simple. I have 10 ideas a day. Nine of them are terrible. Your job is to tell me which one is great." "Don Hewitt didn't need a boss," Klein said. "What he needed was somebody to bounce ideas off of." "It is a sad and difficult time for all of us who work at '60 Minutes,' " Jeff Fager, the program's current executive producer, said in a CBS statement. "Don was a giant figure in our lives and will always have an impact on this broadcast -- there's a part of him in every one of us, and it affects every decision we make. He will be remembered as a brilliant editor and storyteller, an irrepressible force who changed journalism forever." Born in 1922 in New York, Hewitt started his career in newspapers. "His picture experience prompted a friend in 1948 to tell him about television, where CBS News had a job opening," according to a CBS statement. He told reporters years later his response was: "Whatavision?" He directed the first television network newscast on May 3, 1948, featuring Douglas Edwards, the network said. In 1960, he was named executive producer of "The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite," a position he held for five years. In 1963, the Cronkite broadcast became the first to go to a half-hour format. Hewitt's innovations included the use of cue cards for news readers -- an early version of the electronic teleprompter that is used today, CBS said. In addition, he was the first to use "supers" -- captions and other written information superimposed on the lower third of the television screen, Klein said. And he was the first to use the film "double" -- cutting back and forth between projectors, CBS said. Hewitt also produced and directed coverage for the three main television networks for the first-ever televised presidential debate in 1960 between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. "Critics have long maintained that Kennedy won the debate because he looked better," CBS said. Hewitt recalled that he offered makeup to Kennedy first, but he refused, and Nixon followed suit. "But the suntanned Kennedy was a vigorous contrast to Nixon, whose pasty complexion put his five o'clock shadow in high relief," CBS said. In hindsight, Hewitt recalled the incident as "the first step in the dangerous dance between politicians and the special interests that provide the big money to buy the now-crucial political television advertising," CBS said. Hewitt was removed from his post at "The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite" after what CBS refers to as "the NBC playbook incident," according to CBS. Hewitt found a lost copy of NBC's coverage playbook at the 1964 Republican Convention and pocketed it, intending to use it to scoop his competitors. He gave it back "after an NBC producer, it is said, threatened to throw him out a hotel window," CBS said. Following his removal from the news program, Hewitt "knew he was off the frontlines," according to CBS News. "Exiled with time on his hands, Hewitt then slowly emerged with the idea for what would become the most successful television program in history." Hewitt has publicly said that the lowest point for "60 Minutes" was the Jeffrey Wigand story -- an interview with the highest-ranking tobacco executive to become a whistleblower. The interview was held back by CBS management out of fear of a $10 billion lawsuit that could bankrupt the company, according to the network statement. "The initial spiking of the interview, in which Wigand revealed tobacco executives knew and covered up the fact that tobacco caused disease, led to an unusual '60 Minutes' segment," CBS' statement said. "A portion of it, with Wigand disguised, was broadcast, followed by an unprecedented rebuke of management read on the air by Mike Wallace." The interview was aired in its entirety a few months later, in February 1997. A movie about the incident, "The Insider" was made the following year. Hewitt said he felt he had no choice but to comply with management, opting to "fight another day" instead of quit, CBS said. But he later acknowledged in a documentary he was not proud of his actions at the time. He often told reporters inquiring about the secret of "60 Minutes" that it was four words every child knows: "Tell me a story." Hewitt authored two books -- "Tell Me a Story: Fifty Years," and "Minute by Minute." Hewitt won every major award in television journalism and was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1990. After leaving "60 Minutes" in 2004, Hewitt was named executive producer of CBS News, where his duties included brainstorming ideas for television news and working on specials, the network said. As recently as 2007, Hewitt was executive producer of the first-ever network television special coverage of the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Show on NBC. Hewitt is survived by his wife of 30 years, Marilyn Berger, along with his children and grandchildren, CBS said. His funeral will be private. | Television news pioneer, 86, was battling pancreatic cancer .
Hewitt innovated cue cards and captions, created "60 Minutes" in 1968 .
"60 Minutes" executive producer: He was a "force who changed journalism forever"
Award-winning journalist inducted into Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1990 . |
165,382 | 61dd0c2e0a9628025ea78af858e1acea47eb24c0 | Roberto Martinez has hailed Samuel Eto'o's impact on Everton's squad and described his signing as a 'gift from the footballing Gods'. Eto'o's influences on Everton's team has been growing with each week and he was outstanding in last Sunday's 3-1 win at Burnley, scoring twice and coming within the width of a post of collecting the match ball. Martinez moved late to sign the Cameroonian in the final days of the transfer window, taking the chance to recruit him as a free agent after Liverpool opted to pursue a £16million deal for Mario Balotelli instead. VIDEO Scroll down to watch Roberto Martinez call Samuel Eto'o a gift from the gods . Everton manager Roberto Martinez has said the signing of Samuel Eto'o is a 'gift from the footballing Gods' Samuel Eto'o's stunning curled effort ensured Everton's three points late on as the Toffees beat Burnley . The deal already looks smart business as Eto'o has scored four times but, more than anything, it is the impact he has had on Everton's dressing room that has so impressed Everton's manager. 'Nothing changes from our point of view in terms of how we will use him,' said Martinez. 'Having Samuel Eto'o here is like a gift from the footballing Gods for us. He is the perfect ingredient for our young players, a phenomenal example. 'The way he has been working to get his fitness is pristine. He is a player of the highest, highest calibre. To see his performance on Sunday – and every role he has played so far – has been so exciting and his knowhow has been very important, particularly in European games. 'But the way he took his finishes at Burnley was like the old days. I hope he can enjoy his football here and we are working hard to make that happen. I think he is enjoying it and that is very important. Eto'o is a phenomenal example for Everton's youngsters, including Ross Barkley (left), according to Martinez . Samuel Eto'o worked his socks off in Everton’s win at Turf Moor. Far from his more familiar role as a target man, he played as an attacking midfielder in support of Romelu Lukaku. Though playing down the left, he moved across the width of the pitch, as the heat map of his main areas of activity shows (below). And he put in a shift in his own box for corners too. Not too shabby for a 33-year-old. 'He has that stimulation to win things. He comes in every day with the highest standards and he wants more work. I think Everton can give him an important chapter in his career.' Eto'o could retain his place on Saturday when Everton seek their third consecutive win in the Barclays Premier League against Swansea, the club with whom Martinez started his managerial career. He expects Romelu Lukaku, who suffered what Martinez called 'a couple of heavy knocks' at Turf Moor last Sunday, to be in contention and Martinez is thrilled with the attacking options Everton have. Martinez is thrilled with his attacking options and Eto'o could retain his place for the visit of Swansea . 'We started the season well in terms of our attacking play,' said Martinez. 'We have been able to score in every game and there have been eight different scores so far. The goals we scored against Chelsea showed we have the potential to hurt anyone. 'We were a bit soft at the back early on and conceded some goals that affected results. Rom is getting stronger game by game and we are very happy with the squad. I just want them to be in the best physical shape for the second half of the season. 'But we are a lot tighter now, we have had back-to-back wins and it has been good to enjoy good performances in Europe. We have now got a massive game against Swansea and we will have to play as we did against Aston Villa to get anything.' | Samuel Eto'o scored twice in Everton's victory over Burnley on Sunday .
Toffees manager Roberto Martinez has claimed capture of former Barcelona and Chelsea frontman is a 'gift from the football Gods'
Cameroonian could keep place in team for visit of Swansea on Saturday . |
171,558 | 6a0ebeb14b12073c64dd0a36e84a489650354d8e | (CNN) -- Brian Steel was taught from birth that he was "handicapped." Singled out in school by policies and his peers, he grew up feeling unfairly judged because of the way his body worked. Steel was diagnosed with congenital fiber-type disproportion when he was 4 months old. People with this rare condition, also called short fiber syndrome, typically experience muscle weakness, particularly in the shoulders, upper arms, hips and thighs, and may have breathing problems, according to the National Institutes of Health. The NIH estimates that about 25% of people born with the disorder die during early childhood. Tired of the way people made up their minds before getting to know him, Steel decided to photograph other people with disabilities and tell their stories. The result was a photo exhibit called "Impaired Perceptions" that premiered in Atlanta late last year. "We filter everything that we see through the lens of our perceptions, so it is not until we are able to step outside of our perceptions that we are able to determine what is real and what is not," the 33-year-old wrote. "The portraits are traditional, empowering and show each person's humanity." CNN asked Steel about his exhibit, the misperceptions he faces and how we can do more to accept others. The following is an edited version of that interview. CNN: How does this condition affect your daily life? Steel: It has made me physically weak, so it makes a lot of tasks more difficult. I can't lift or carry anything much over 5 pounds. I have a hard time getting out of low chairs because of my weak leg muscles. My weakened chest muscles have caused me to have sleep apnea and make me susceptible to pneumonia. Physically, it may have made me weak, but in other ways, it has made me stronger. It has made me more creative because I have had to find alternative ways to accomplish the same tasks that would otherwise come (easily) to my able-bodied counterparts. I have had short fiber from birth, so I haven't known any other reality. To me, it is just life, and I am very grateful for my life. Opinion: I'm a person, not a condition . CNN: What "impaired perceptions" did you face as a child? As an adult? Steel: As a child, I mainly remember being seen as different. People would often stare. I remember in my elementary music class, the teacher made us sit on the end separate from the able-bodied children, and we were not allowed to touch any of the instruments. Once I became fully integrated into the regular classroom, things were a lot better. The great thing about being a kid is that you are mostly around other kids, and children are generally very open about what they think and ask questions when they don't understand. I would have classmates ask me why I appeared different to them, and I would tell them about my condition. After I explained my condition, it was settled. As an adult, things are much more under the surface. Where children are young and trying to get a sense of their world, adults tend to think that they already have things figured out. Most grown people will not come out and ask me about my condition, so in order to make sense of me they have to either watch and gather information through observation or use their own preconceived notions. What I usually encounter from adults (is) people asking me who takes care of me or talking to me as though I were mentally challenged. It isn't too unusual for someone to be surprised that I can drive a car. I live a completely independent life. To be fair, people also tell me that I inspire them simply by living my everyday life, and that is a good feeling. Schools must provide sports for students with disabilities . CNN: What gave you the inspiration for this photo project? Steel: "Impaired Perceptions" started from something that had been welling up inside of me. Throughout my life, I have experienced many encounters where people doubted my intelligence and abilities because of my appearance. I was approaching the completion of my graduate education and preparing to enter the professional world. My concerns and frustrations regarding how I often felt perceived by strangers suddenly became more important to me. I began by writing phrases on my body that represented the misperceptions that I felt from others and photographing myself. (But) I didn't want the project to just be about my story, because I wanted the message to have a bigger impact. As I began interviewing different people with various physical impairments and hearing their stories, I realized that some individuals seemed to have more confidence and hope than others. I then became just as concerned with empowering others as I am with trying to change people's perceptions. People form a lot of their identity from how they feel perceived by others, and others often form their opinions ... from what that person thinks of him or herself. Therefore, the most effective way to eliminate negative perceptions of people with impairments is to empower them. Amazing success fueled by act of discrimination . CNN: What do you hope people take away from it? Steel: The overall message is that you cannot tell what a person is capable of or what their life is like simply by looking at them. That is true regardless of ability, race, religion or orientation. Some of the people I photographed and interviewed for this project appeared to be perfectly able-bodied but actually have impairments that limited them physically. They are misperceived in a manner that is almost opposite to my experience. They talked about how judged they often felt because people could not understand why they weren't doing certain things that required more physical effort. On the other hand, I met people who had experiences where people felt compelled to help them because they were in a wheelchair, but those individuals are fully capable and have accomplished more than a lot of their able-bodied peers. My point is not to say that one group is better than the other but rather that you simply can't know what someone is capable of without getting to know them. The other part of the message that I hope makes a big impact is that you shouldn't let anyone tell you what you are capable of. There are many different kinds of ability and strength. My prayer is that some people who may have given up and accepted a role that they did not choose will find hope and work towards a life that they want. CNN: What do you think we need to do as a society to better accept differences in others? Steel: The best way is simply to teach and encourage people to individualize. Simply learning about different conditions or religions is not enough to know all of the people that have those conditions and/or practice those religions. In my project, I included interviews along with the portraits so that the viewer could get a real sense of who they were. I recently curated "Inside the Outsider," a photography exhibition for Mason Murer Fine Art. The theme was about how we have all felt like an outsider in some way, and in that way, we are all the same. I think if we took that to heart, we would realize that there isn't anything that we are going through that no one else is and that no one is as different from us as we may think that they are. We have to teach ourselves to suspend our initial judgments and get to know a person before we form our opinion of them. What makes it difficult is that out of self-defense, we instinctively attempt to categorize people and things to avoid possible dangers. I am not suggesting that we ignore our gut feelings entirely but rather that we suspend our final judgments until we have more information.Deaf woman's eBay complaint highlights dispute over Web access for disabled . CNN's Elizabeth Johnson contributed to this report. | Brian Steel's "Impaired Perceptions" photography exhibit showed in 2012 .
Steel has severe muscle weakness from congenital fiber-type disproportion .
You shouldn't let anyone tell you what you're capable of, Steel says . |
164,449 | 60a5fcf2ca550d4a2824c202ee2710ac8a660c2f | Ronald Koeman and Manuel Pellegrini have dismissed suggestions by Jose Mourinho that Premier League referees have an anti-Chelsea agenda. Mourinho claimed there is a ‘conspiracy’ against his League leaders after Cesc Fabregas was booked for diving when his manager thought he should have been awarded a penalty in the 1-1 draw at Southampton on Sunday. Saints boss Koeman now accepts that referee Anthony Taylor should have awarded a spot-kick for Matt Targett’s challenge on Fabregas, but claimed it was the sort of mistake all clubs have to cope with over the course of a season. VIDEO Scroll down to watch Manuel Pellegrini saying he learnt from Barca referee rant . Manuel Pellegrini and Ronald Koeman have rejected Jose Mourinho's claims . The Chelsea boss claimed there was a 'conspiracy' against his side . Mourinho believes there is a deliberate attempt to undermine Chelsea when penalties are not given . And Manchester City manager Pellegrini said he trusted all referees to officiate fairly. Asked for his thoughts on Mourinho’s controversial claims, Koeman said: ‘It’s his feeling, I can’t say anything about that, but I don’t think so. I think referees are human people, everybody makes mistakes. ‘And I think at the end of the season it’s a little bit in balance. I don’t think teams are more punished by the referee than the rest of the teams. It was a bad mistake from the referee, because when I watched the game afterwards it was a 100 per cent penalty. But sometimes you get a penalty and sometimes you don’t, that’s part of the job.’ As Manchester City boss Pellegrini prepared for his side's game against Sunderland, he said: ‘I don’t want to talk about what other managers say because I don’t know what happens in every game. Maybe as a manager we only know what happens against our team. All teams have difficult moments with referees. Mourinho shows his frustration as Cesc Fabregas is fouled against Southampton . 'All teams drop points because of referees making mistakes. The first goal by Burnley against us on Sunday was offside. 'It’s normal and I don’t have any doubt about the way the referees whistle every game. I trust absolutely in the way they do it.’ Pellegrini and Mourinho have never got on since becoming rivals in Spain. The ill-feeling has only intensified since they came to England. The City manager served a Champions League touchline ban for criticising an official last year, but he added: ‘After the game is not the best moment to talk about decisions, particularly if you have not won. It’s a difficult profession, refereeing.’ | Jose Mourinho said there was a conspiracy against Chelsea .
Southampton boss Ronald Koeman has publicly backed referees .
Manuel Pellegrini refused to respond to Mourinho's claims . |
104,175 | 126782288f55ae281f9206d35db707e6d70f5906 | By . Daily Mail Reporter . UPDATED: . 00:08 EST, 13 May 2012 . A man accused of beating his girlfriend's 2-year-old boy to death because he wouldn't eat his dinner has turned himself in, police announced Friday. Juan Garcia, 18, led Arizona police on a near three-month manhunt after fleeing his girlfriend's Phoenix home where the boy, Jorge Zamora-Rogel, was pronounced dead after found thoroughly beaten. Garcia is being held at the Pima County Detention Center after turning himself near Lukeville border in southern Arizona. Captured: Juan Garcia, 18, has turned himself in after allegedly beating his girlfriend's two-year-old son to death in February . He will be charged with first-degree . murder, child abuse, aggravated assault and misdemeanor assault once . expedited to Phoenix, Phoenix police spokesman Sgt Trent Crump told AZ Central. Garcia had moved in to the home of the child's mother, Wendy Rogel-Pagasa, 18, only days before he killing her son, Jorge, in a fit of rage on February 24, police said. According to court documents, Garcia became increasingly angry when the toddler would not eat the food he had brought home. Garcia gripped the boy by the ear and pulled him out of his bedroom. Beaten: Jorge Zamora-Rogel, 2, was allegedly killed by Garcia during multiple attacks in the boy's mother's home Garcia had moved into just days before . Failed: Wendy Rogel-Pagasa, 18, was arrested on suspicion of failing to protect her son . When the child started to cry, Garcia . became more infuriated and grabbed him by the throat, repeatedly . slamming his head against the wall and knocking him unconscious. When Rogel-Pagasa begged Garcia to stop, he whipped her with an electrical cord and attempted to choke her. After the attack, Garcia left the home for about one-and-a-half hours and Rogel-Pagasa watched as her bleeding, unconscious son convulsed on the floor. She tried unsuccessfully to revive him, but did not call for help, according to police. When Garcia returned, he tried to rouse the child by hitting him more, lifting him up by his ankle, bending his fingers back, and slapping him in the face. It wasn't until Jorge stopped breathing that Rogel-Pagasa called 911 - more than three hours after the initial beating, police said. By then, Garcia had fled. Phoenix fire paramedics pronounced the child dead at the scene. Police said Rogel-Pagas initially told them her boy got hurt by falling over before admitting what had really happened. She was later arrested and held on one count of child abuse on suspicion of failing to protect her son. Sgt. Trent Crump, who is dealing with the case, urged anyone with information about the whereabouts of Garcia to come forward. ‘He killed a child with his bare hands,’ Sgt. Crump told Azcentral.com. ‘We're going to find him. And anybody who gets in the way of that is going to go to jail as well.’ | Juan Garcia, 18, led police on a near three-month manhunt after allegedly killing girlfriend's son .
Teenage mother charged with failing to protect . |
135,293 | 3b031da3a4ff5c3b7d1e95fcb3de36f2fb5875cf | KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to pass a resolution extending the mandate of NATO-led military forces in Afghanistan for a year, hours after a deadly bombing near the Indian Embassy in Kabul. The bomb exploded in the center of Kabul on the corner of Passport Lane and the Indian Embassy. The suicide car bomb attack on Thursday left at least 17 people dead, most of them civilians, and 63 wounded. "I think this is another reminder of the dangers that the Taliban pose to the Afghan population and to the international community in Afghanistan, and the importance of the continued international efforts there," said John Sawers, Britain's ambassador to the world body, after the resolution was passed. The council provides international legal approval for the deployment of NATO troops to assist in the protection of civilians in armed conflict. The resolution, however, did not address troop numbers, an issue that has generated controversy since the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, requested an additional 40,000 troops. The Security Council also condemned the attack, calling for the "perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism" to be brought to justice. In addition to extending the mandate, the resolution stressed the need to bolster Afghan security forces to help them become self-sufficient in protecting their country. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO's new leader, recently announced that NATO forces would begin training Afghan police and increase training of the Afghan National Army. Some 90,000 international forces are deployed in Afghanistan, with 35,000 serving with NATO and 65,000 with the United States. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Thursday bombing, saying an Afghan national in a sport utility vehicle carried out the attack. The bomber had intended to strike the embassy, Indian officials said. Watch what a local shopkeeper says about the area » . "The suicide attack(er) ... attempted (to go) through one of the embassy gates," Vishnu Prakash, spokesman for India's external affairs ministry, told CNN on Thursday. "The embassy was the target." The bomb went off about 8:30 a.m., just as offices and shops were opening for the day. The force of the blast shattered some of the embassy's windows, according to Prakash. The bombing came a year after a similar deadly attack outside the Indian Embassy. The Thursday attack killed 17 -- most of them civilians -- and 63 were wounded, Interior Ministry spokesman Ezmary Bashary said. The Taliban said the attack killed 35 people, including high-ranking Indian Embassy officials, as well as international and Afghan police officers. The blast damaged a security checkpoint outside the the embassy, said staffer J.P. Singh, but "there were no casualties on the Indian side." The embassy is in the center of Kabul, in a shop-lined street across from the Interior Ministry and several other government buildings. The explosion shattered car windows and toppled restaurant walls. Paramedics dug through twisted metal and debris, looking for survivors. A statement from President Hamid Karzai's office called the blast an obvious assault on civilians and said "the perpetrators of this attack and those who planned it were vicious terrorists who killed innocent people for their malicious goals." About a year ago, another suicide car bomb detonated outside the embassy. Among the 58 people killed in the July 7, 2008, attack were two Indian diplomats and 14 students at a nearby school. More than 100 were wounded in that blast. Afghan and Indian officials accused Pakistan's spy agency of involvement in that attack. Pakistan denied the accusation. India is the sixth largest donor to Afghanistan, providing millions of dollars to help with reconstruction efforts there. CNN's Atia Abawi and Harmeet Shah Singh contributed to this report. | NEW: U.N. Security Council condemns Kabul attack, calls for justice .
NEW: Resolution does not address troop numbers; comes hours after Kabul attack .
Bombing near Indian Embassy in Kabul killed at least 17 people .
NATO's new leader Rasmussen recently announced training of Afghan police . |
9,639 | 1b4b5a3b5f2817e80bb8ae2de54134c41e6016b6 | London (CNN) -- Six months to the day before Opening Ceremonies, builders have handed the Olympic Village over to the London 2012 organizers. The first of 16,000 beds have been delivered as organizers start to fit out the rooms. "We are starting the huge process to install essential facilities and services ready to welcome competitors from around the world in six months' time," Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London 2012 Organizing Committee said in a press release issued early Friday. The beds will soon be joined by 11,000 sofas and even 5,000 toilet brushes, say organizers. The Summer Games run from July 27 through August 12. Olympic Village, a huge housing complex of some 2,800 apartments within walking distance of the stadium in East London, has already been sold as part of the post-games legacy plans. Nearly 1,400 of the apartments were sold in 2009 for $400 million and will be rented by local governments for subsidized housing. The remainder was sold to a consortium, including the Qatari government, as part of a $800 million deal to own and manage the entire village. Local campaigners have pushed for more of the apartments to be social housing as part of the organizer's pledge to regenerate the area post-games. The original plan was for the developer Lend Lease to raise the funding privately to build the village, but the work started in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. The government decided instead to the foot the reported $1.6 billion bill and is unlikely to recoup the entire cost of the housing. The complex will be known as East Village once it is turned over to renters and homeowners. | Olympic Village in London ready for next phase .
Games organizers will install facilities and services .
The Summer Games are scheduled to begin July 27 . |
158,292 | 58a5e0ebff51c8492d3e61efc3245987c478f1d0 | (CNN) -- Adam Greenberg struck out on three pitches Tuesday night, but you couldn't tell that from his smile in the Miami Marlins' dugout. He had waited seven years for this chance. Greenberg, 31, was hit in the head by a pitch in his first and only Major League Baseball plate appearance, with the Chicago Cubs, in 2005 and had not played in the majors since. Greenberg signed a one-day contract with the Marlins on Tuesday afternoon in anticipation of taking a single at-bat in the night's game against the New York Mets. Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey fanned Greenberg to lead off the bottom of the sixth inning. Greenberg was pinch-hitting for Marlins left fielder Bryan Petersen at the top of the order. The Marlins Stadium public address system played Aerosmith's "Dream On" as Greenberg, wearing No. 10, walked up to the plate and took his place in the left-hand batter's box. He took a strike from Dickey, swung at and missed the second pitch and then waved at a pitch around his chin for the third strike. The crowd cheered loudly for him as he returned to the dugout, where his one-day-only teammates congratulated him and slapped the beaming ballplayer on the back. Greenberg had petitioned the Cubs to let him come back for one official at-bat with them, but team officials turned him down. The Marlins agreed last week to help Greenberg make his dream come true. Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen said he planned to use him as a pinch-hitter in the middle of Tuesday night's game, perhaps in the pitcher's spot in the lineup, according to MLB.com. But pitcher Jacob Turner was pitching so well that Guillen wouldn't take him out for Greenberg. Follow late-breaking updates on This Just In . "I'm ready to help the team," Greenberg said in a tweet on the Marlins' account. "The Marlins are an amazing organization. ... I couldn't be more thankful." The pitch that knocked him out may have derailed a longer MLB career. On July 9, 2005, Greenberg stepped up to the plate to pinch-hit for the Cubs, who had just called him up from the minors, at Miami's Dolphins Stadium. Valerio de los Santos' pitch hit Greenberg in the head and sent him to the ground. Greenberg, in severe pain, had to leave the game without playing defense and no official at-bat -- it counts only as a plate appearance. As Chicago Magazine and ESPN's "Outside the Lines" have documented, Greenberg was dizzy for months, had blurred vision, and had trouble playing when he returned to the minors weeks after the incident. He eventually was diagnosed with positional vertigo. Symptoms eventually improved, but he struggled in the minors. He last played professionally in 2011 for the Atlantic League's Bridgeport Bluefish in his home state, Connecticut, where he runs his LuRong Living business. ESPN kept Greenberg's story alive with a couple "OTL" segments. And this year, filmmaker Matt Liston made it his mission to get him a real MLB at-bat. Liston, a Cubs fan and Chicago native living in California, took up Greenberg's cause this year after he and his wife saw "Field of Dreams" -- a baseball movie that mentions Moonlight Graham, who never came to bat in his only big-league game in 1905. "My wife said she felt sorry for him. I said, 'Moonlight Graham has (nothing) on Adam Greenberg,'" Liston said. "Graham played a couple innings. Adam only got a couple seconds." Liston, who didn't know Greenberg but recalled seeing the plate appearance on TV, decided he wanted to help him get a proper MLB at-bat. So, armed with credentials, he made the 2007 film "Chasing October" about the 2003 Cubs, he visited baseball training camps, trying to persuade players and general managers that Greenberg deserved a shot. He and a dozen or so friends organized the "One At Bat" campaign, taking to Twitter and Facebook to rally public support. They also started a Change.org petition, it had more than 25,000 supporters as of Thursday, that Liston hoped would persuade the Cubs' management to bring him back for a game this month. Liston, who met with the Cubs in May, also contacted Greenberg and ended up befriending him as he kept him updated. But the Cubs announced this month that they weren't on board. "Adam made the big leagues based on merit in 2005," Cubs General Manager Jed Hoyer told the Chicago Tribune in an e-mail. "While it is unfortunate he got hit in his first at-bat, he is in the Baseball Encyclopedia as a major leaguer and should be incredibly proud of that. We wish him the best, but there are no plans to add him to the roster now or in the future." So Liston pressed other teams, eventually meeting in New York with the Miami Marlins General Manager David Sampson. There, Sampson told Liston that the Marlins would do it. | NEW: Greenberg makes first MLB plate appearence since 2005 injury .
Greenberg on Tuesday signed a one-day contract with the Miami Marlins .
The batter was hit in the head in his only MLB plate appearance in 2005 .
Since getting hit, Greenberg had not returned to MLB . |
88,381 | fad9524bec6b0022bb4128cf65850cfa2422e7ab | (CNN) -- Having worked on seminal teen shows "Dawson's Creek" and "One Tree Hill," costume designer Leigh Leverett is no stranger to dressing high-school-age characters. But there's something about the teens from Mystic Falls that makes outfitting "The Vampire Diaries" -- which enters its fourth season with an October 11 premiere -- a unique experience. For one, Leverett has to make sure everyone on the show about witches, vampires, werewolves -- oh, and "hybrid" vampire-werewolves -- looks fabulous covered in blood, as characters are routinely stabbed, bitten and shot. Leverett is regularly tasked with finding six to eight of the same top or jacket to be worn during multiple scenes and takes. With all the gore, borrowing clothes from designers is often out of the question. "We do a lot of mall shopping because that's the best way for us to get a lot of multiples," she said. "Sometimes we need more than we can get in Atlanta," where the show is filmed. Fall TV fashion: Outfitting 'Revenge' But when episodes call for flashbacks, which might take place in the 15th century, a trip to the mall simply won't do. "Even though they are more challenging than the contemporary clothes, I enjoy doing the flashbacks most of all," Leverett said, noting the period pieces that aren't made in-house are often rented from costume companies. Period pieces also come into play when Mystic Falls High School throws its annual Decade Dances. The trick to costuming such events, Leverett said, is dressing the human high school students like "a teenager would interpret the period -- or at least what a teenager would pick out when they go to the fantastic Mystic Falls Costume shop." The centuries-old vampire characters, on the other hand, are meant to look "like they would have gotten things straight out of their vintage clothing storage closet," Leverett said. Fall TV fashion: Outfitting 'Pretty Little Liars' That's not the only way viewers can differentiate between the living and the undead. Leverett has created a dress code of sorts for each of the supernatural groups. While the regular humans on the show dress more or less like typical high school kids, the vampires have their own set of fashion rules. "We try and keep them timeless and not super trendy," said Leverett, who started working on the series at the end of its second season. "They have their comfort and what they like to wear within the realm of the decade." Besides, with many of the vampire characters, trying to blend in as mortal teenagers, Leverett added, "we can't get too crazy in the clothing department." With one notable exception: . For characters Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce, both played by actress Nina Dobrev, fashion is especially important as it helps viewers tell the lookalikes apart. Fall TV fashion: Outfitting 'Scandal' When Dobrev is playing human teen Elena, she dons a lot of simple long-sleeve shirts and jeans; whereas Katherine, Elena's vampire doppelganger, is a bit more fashion-forward. "Katherine has been around for hundreds of years," Leverett said. "She follows fashion trends a little more. (Her clothes are) edgier and sexier than what we put on Elena." And because the vampires that live within the CW series have the power to control people simply by staring at them, they get to don more expensive threads. "Maybe they can compel the salespeople into giving them what they want," Leverett said. "I like to think that Katherine saw (the) tan Michael Kors heels (she wore during season 3) on some unsuspecting Chicago socialite, and probably just compelled her to hand them over." Fall TV fashion: Outfitting 'Gossip Girl' Then there are the witches, like Bonnie Bennett (Kat Graham), which Leverett said dress "a little bit earthier" with a "bohemian flair." For the men, whether normal or paranormal, they've got to look tough. "These days you can't go wrong with a great leather jacket," Leverett said. "Plus, they hold up really well in a supernatural fight." | "The Vampire Diaries" is heading into its fourth season, which premieres on October 11 .
Costume designer Leigh Leverett outfits the supernatural characters on the series .
Leverett: It's a challenge, but "I enjoy (costuming) flashbacks most of all"
Period pieces that aren't made in-house are often rented from costume companies . |
76,311 | d86bde76ff9b20a37f53432dc3403d4b02ee551c | By . Eleanor Crooks . Borna Coric announced himself as a coming force in men's tennis by knocking out Lukas Rosol in the opening round of the US Open. The 17-year-old Croatian was marked out as one to watch a number of years ago and all indications are that he is the real deal. Coric came through qualifying to reach the main draw at a grand slam for the first time only a year after winning the junior title at Flushing Meadows. Huge win: 17-year-old Borna Coric can't hide his delight at thrashing Lukas Rosol in straight sets in New York . Rosol, the 29th seed, won an ATP Tour title in Winston-Salem on Saturday but Coric dominated the clash, winning 6-4 6-1 6-2. The teenager, who is ranked 204th in the world, said: 'It's an amazing feeling. I came here and I was only thinking about getting in the main draw. That was my first goal. 'I said to myself, "if I achieve that, that's going to be perfect". Now actually winning against a guy who is top 30, it's just unbelievable. Fallen seed: Rosol was the 29th seed at Flushing Meadow but lost in straight sets to Coric 6-4 6-1 6-2 . Future star: The Croatian junior is currently at 204 in the world rankings but will surely rise up quickly . Expectation: The teenager has been working with Croatian greats such as Goran Ivanisevic and Ivan Ljubicic . 'I don't have any pressure. If everyone is looking at me, I'm even more excited about everything because I'm going to prove to everyone that I'm a good player.' After Nick Kyrgios' run at Wimbledon, where the 19-year-old beat Rafael Nadal to reach the quarter-finals, this is another sign that the next generation may break through significantly faster than their predecessors. 'It's unbelievable from him,' said Coric of Kyrgios' exploits. 'It doesn't mean anything to me but it showed that younger players can play with the top 10 or top 20.' Coric has a British coach, Ryan Jones, and splits his time between Croatia and London. He has also been getting tips from some of the greats of Croatian tennis, including Goran Ivanisevic, Ivan Ljubicic and Marin Cilic. Coric is not the only teenage talent making waves from the country, with Donna Vekic and Ana Konjuh ones to watch on the women's side. 'I think it's because in Croatia it's not so easy,' he said. 'We don't have the best conditions to train. We don't have a lot of money. So you need to be tough if you want to make it. We are not spoiled. We are working hard.' Example: Coric believes the success of fellow teenager Nick Kyrgios proves the younger generation are ready . Coric next meets Victor Estrella Burgos from the Dominican Republic, who also posted his first ever grand slam win, but at the age of 34. Fourth seed David Ferrer dropped a set to Bosnia's Damir Dzumhur but recovered to win 6-1 6-2 2-6 6-2. John Isner once again leads American hopes in the men's tournament and he began his campaign with a 7-6 (7/5) 6-2 7-6 (7/2) win over American college champion Marcos Giron. It has been a tough few years for US men's tennis and last year no home player reached the fourth round for the first time in the tournament's long history. Junior Champion: Coric won the boys title at Flushing Meadows last year but is now on the main tour . Isner, the only American seed, said: 'I try not to focus on some of the negative things that people say about American tennis. 'I know I get the brunt of it a lot, because if I win and play well it's because I have a big serve and I can hit my forehand pretty well and that's it. But if I lose, it's because that's all I can do. Sometimes I feel like I can't win no matter what. 'I know what I'm capable of, but it's up to me to play well and advance in this tournament.' Tenth seed Kei Nishikori has been sidelined by a toe injury but shook off any rust quickly in a 6-2 6-4 6-2 win over Wayne Odesnik, while there were also straight-sets wins for Richard Gasquet and Fabio Fognini. VIDEO US Open: Day two review . | Coric won three qualifying matches to reach the main draw at the US Open .
Reached the main draw of a Grand Slam for the first time .
The Croatian 17-year-old thrashed 29th seed Lukas Rosol 6-4 6-1 6-2 .
Coric won the junior title at Flushing Meadows last year and is ranked at 204 . |
218,378 | a6b38e39c20268c49446b42b59b2add601eba7bb | By . Daily Mail Reporter . President Barack Obama has nominated the U.S. Navy's top cyber warrior to head the National Security Agency. Navy Vice Admiral Michael Rogers, a cryptologist and head of U.S. Fleet Cyber Command, is not expected to immediately make major changes to the NSA, shaken by revelations by former contractor Edward Snowden. It is a move seen as a vote of confidence in a unit that is under fire for spying on Americans and their allies. 'This is a critical time for the NSA, and Vice Admiral Rogers would bring extraordinary and unique qualifications to this position as the agency continues its vital mission and implements President Obama's reforms,' Chuck Hagel, the defense secretary, said in a statement. In the hot seat: Navy Vice Admiral Michael Rogers, a cryptologist and head of U.S. Fleet Cyber Command, is not expected to immediately make major changes to the NSA . 'I am also confident that Admiral Rogers has the wisdom to help balance the demands of security, privacy and liberty in our digital age,' Hagel said. The NSA is under fire for monitoring the communications of Americans and allies abroad as well as those of potential U.S. enemies through a sweeping eavesdropping program, the scope of which was disclosed to the media by Snowden. The documents that Snowden stole and leaked to the news media exposed the reach of U.S. surveillance activities, including the bulk collection of telephone records of millions of Americans, as part of counterterrorism efforts. Under fire: The NSA is under fire for monitoring the communications of Americans and allies abroad as well as those of potential U.S. enemies through a sweeping eavesdropping program, the scope of which was disclosed to the media by Edward Snowden (pictured) If confirmed by the Senate, Rogers would take over as head of both the NSA and the military's Cyber Command from Army General Keith Alexander, who is likely to retire in March or April. Rogers is a 30-year Navy veteran well versed in electronic surveillance. 'Obama is reaffirming his fundamental support for NSA and its surveillance projects despite the Snowden affair,' said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who has sometimes advised the Obama administration. In response to criticism over the NSA's surveillance practices, Mr Obama vowed earlier this month as part of a series of reforms to ban eavesdropping on the leaders of allied countries and to begin reining in the collection of vast amounts of Americans' phone data. No more eavesdropping: In response to criticism over the NSA's surveillance practices, Obama vowed earlier this month to ban eavesdropping on the leaders of allied countries and to begin reining in the collection of vast amounts of Americans' phone data . Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of both the NSA and the Central Intelligence Agency, said the nomination of Rogers was a vote of confidence in the signals intelligence community. 'This is a very solid team and one whose selection will calm anxieties at NSA over fears of new, misguided policies in the wake of the Snowden revelations,' he said. Mr Hagel also said Rick Ledgett had been appointed as deputy director and senior civilian leader of the NSA. He replaces Chris Inglis, who retired this month. Rogers will also lead Cyber Command, the military force responsible for defending the United States against cyber attacks. Mr Obama had initially considered splitting the leadership of the two organizations, but decided against it. | V. Adm Michael Rogers is a cryptologist and heads Fleet Cyber Command .
Move seen as vote of confidence in a unit under fire for spying scandal .
But his appointment still needs to be approved by the Senate .
He'll take over from Army General Keith Alexander, expected to retire soon . |
212,389 | 9f0a3f38a829ad711239a3fe380f4b8db07aa2a4 | (CNN) -- A day after fall shrimping season began in the Gulf of Mexico and the state of Alabama reopened coastal waters to fishing, a major environmental watchdog group called for more stringent testing of seafood. The National Resources Defense Council released a statement Tuesday saying it sent letters to the Food and Drug Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, co-signed by almost two dozen Gulf coast groups, asking the government agencies to: . -- ensure that there is comprehensive monitoring of seafood contamination. -- ensure public disclosure of all seafood monitoring data and methods. -- ensure that fishery re-opening criteria protect the most vulnerable populations, including children, pregnant women and subsistence fishing communities. "With the opening of shrimping season and near-daily reopening of fishing areas, seafood safety is a major issue right now," Dr. Gina Solomon, a senior scientist with the National Resources Defense Council, said in the statement. "The government needs to show it is putting strong safety criteria and testing standards in place to ensure that the seafood from the Gulf will be safe to eat in the months and years to come." Government officials including Vice President Joe Biden and Steve Murawski, NOAA's chief scientist for fisheries, have said in recent weeks that waters closed to fishermen after the worst oil spill in U.S. history would be reopened when officials could guarantee that seafood would pass tests for safety and edibility. The Deepwater Horizon disaster has hampered the seafood business across the Gulf as federal and state authorities put much of its waters off-limits amid safety concerns. With the once-gushing well capped on a temporary basis for more than a month now, NOAA and the Gulf states have begun lifting those restrictions -- but Louisiana shrimpers such as Anthony Bourgeoif say more needs to be done, and soon. "It's open down over here with small shrimp, where it should be open over there where the big shrimp are," Bourgeoif said. "Can't make no money with no little shrimp, man." Bourgeoif said he planned to go out, because "I ain't made nothing since the BP spill." But he was concerned that inspectors might find signs of oil in his catch and make him dump it. "So why go out there and catch it if they're just going to be dumped, and I ain't going to make no money off it?" he asked. "I've got to make money. I've got four grandkids I'm raising." Deborah Long, a spokeswoman for the Southern Shrimp Alliance, said it will probably take days to assess what impact the spill has had on the Gulf catch. And while some shrimpers are eager to get back out, many are still working for the well's owner, BP, which has hired many boats to skim oil off the surface and lay protective booms along the shorelines. Two reports published Tuesday express concern about the lingering effects of oil spilled from the ruptured BP well into the Gulf of Mexico. A team from Georgia Sea Grant and the University of Georgia released a report that estimates that 70 to 79 percent of the oil that gushed from the well "has not been recovered and remains a threat to the ecosystem," the university said in a release. Meanwhile, researchers at the University of South Florida have concluded that oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill may have settled to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico farther east than previously suspected -- and at levels toxic to marine life. Their study is to be released Tuesday, as well, but CNN obtained a summary of the initial conclusions Monday night. Initial findings from a new survey of the Gulf conclude that dispersants may have sent droplets of crude to the ocean floor, where it has turned up at the bottom of an undersea canyon within 40 miles of the Florida Panhandle, the University of South Florida team said. Plankton and other organisms at the base of the food chain showed a "strong toxic response" to the crude, and the oil could resurface later, according to researchers. "The dispersant is moving the oil down out of the surface and into the deeper waters, where it can affect phytoplankton and other marine life," said John Paul, a marine microbiologist at the University of South Florida. The University of Georgia study "strongly contradicts" a 2-week-old government report saying that only 26 percent of the oil spilled from the well remains in the Gulf. "That is just absolutely incorrect in the opinion of the scientists," Charles Hopkinson, the director of Georgia Sea Grant and a professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia, said Tuesday. The government said 4.9 million barrels -- 205.8 million gallons -- of oil leaked into the Gulf, and 74 percent of that oil had been collected or dispersed or had evaporated. Of the remaining 26 percent, "much of that is in the process of being degraded and cleaned up on the shore," NOAA head Jane Lubchenco said August 4. But the Georgia study said the government's numbers were skewed for several reasons. First, because 800,000 barrels of oil were collected from the well before it could spill into the Gulf, the Georgia researchers said a total of 4.1 million barrels spilled into the water. But other factors mean more of that oil remains in the water, they said. In addition, the Georgia researchers used a fundamentally different definition of when oil is "gone" from the water. "One major misconception is that oil that has dissolved into water is gone and, therefore, harmless," Hopkinson said. "The oil is still out there, and it will likely take years to completely degrade." And that oil is a lot harder to see than the huge clumps that dotted the Gulf's face like black and brown acne weeks ago. Samantha Joye, another professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia, said that naturally dispersed oil was forming plumes in the water -- but "not black, not brown, turbid sea water. You don't need a river of oil. It's oil that's dissolved in water." Joye stressed that the government also had completely omitted a crucial component of the environmental pollution from its statistics. She said NOAA did not measure a third of the hydrocarbons because it did not measure gas emission, which she says are "mostly still in water floating somewhere out there. ... Methane and other gases aren't being documented." The spill began after an April 20 explosion on the offshore drilling platform Deepwater Horizon that killed 11 men. Two days later, the platform sank and started gushing oil into the Gulf before it was temporarily capped July 15. Thad Allen, the federal government's point man for the disaster, said Monday that attempts to permanently seal the well won't start until the latest potential problem is evaluated. Allen said engineers are now concerned about how to manage the risk of pressure in the annulus, a ring that surrounds the casing pipe at the center of the well shaft. The "timelines won't be known until we get a recommendation on the course of action," Allen said. Scientists began new pressure tests last week to gauge the effects of the mud and cement poured into the well from above during the "static kill" procedure that started August 3. From those pressure readings, they believe that either some of the cement breached the casing pipe and leaked into the annulus, or cement came up into the annulus from the bottom. The scientists believe that process may have trapped some oil between the cement and the top of the well, inside the annulus. Now, given that new variable, they're trying to figure out how to safely maintain the pressure within the well before launching the "bottom kill," a procedure aimed at sealing the well from below. Allen said that when it comes to giving a green light to the bottom kill of the well through the nearby relief well, "nobody wants to make that declaration any more than I do." But the process "will not start until we figure out how to manage the risk of pressure in the annulus." "We're using an overabundance of caution," he said. Allen said crews could remove the capping stack that sealed the oil in the well July 15and then replace the well's blowout preventer with one stored on the nearby Development Driller II in the Gulf. He said a new blowout preventer would be "rated at much higher pressure levels than the annulus." The other option would require BP to devise a pressure-relief device for the current capping stack. Once crews get their marching orders, it will take them about 96 hours to prepare, drill the final 50 feet of a relief well and intercept the main well. Then, the bottom kill process of plugging the well from below would begin. CNN's Vivian Kuo, Reynolds Wolf, Ed Lavandera, Rich Phillips, Matt Smith, Mark Morgenstein and Chris Turner contributed to this report. | NEW: The National Resources Defense Council calls for improved seafood testing .
Reports cast doubt on the government's estimate of oil remaining in the water .
Georgia report says more oil remains in the Gulf than the government has said .
A University of South Florida report says the oil may be farther east than first thought . |
271,171 | eb42343518bc70ab57f5549418ac0dae698a9076 | By . Matt Chorley, Mailonline Political Editor . PUBLISHED: . 11:40 EST, 22 October 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 01:42 EST, 23 October 2012 . Major General Jonathan Shaw said a rush for economic growth was putting Britain's cyber security at risk . Britain’s national security is being put at risk because a Chinese telecoms giant is being given too much access, the former head of the Minister of Defence’s cyber security unit warned. Major General Jonathan Shaw claimed ministers were ‘compromising’ on security and ‘dealing with the devil’ in opening up to the firm Huawei. A former assistant chief of defence staff, he had specific responsibility for cyber security at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for more than three years until April. This month a US congressional report published earlier this month that raised security concerns about Huawei and another Chinese telecoms company, ZTE. Major General Shaw told investigative website Exaro: ‘The economy is in such a mess that the government feels that it has to compromise on security in favour of continued economic freedom. ‘So, it is dealing with the devil and I think that the government is very conscious of that now. ‘Certainly there are enough people in the [intelligence] agencies who are saying that, but they are also aware of the economic cost of not dealing with Huawei. ‘The concern over corporate espionage is a bit like global warming. It is not today’s issue. But, by God, it is there.' Major General Shaw said working with Huawei was like 'dealing with the devil' Earlier this month it emerged Huawei, which has been accused of posing . a threat to America's national security, was being investigated over a . controversial £2.5 billion deal with British Telecom. ‘There is the very real fear that the extent of Huawei’s current telecoms penetration could mean that in the long term we shall have lost so much intellectual property by the time we put our house in order that there will be no economy left to recover.’ Australia blocked Huawei bidding for a government contract this year, citing national security, and Canada is said to be considering following suit.Huawei first entered the UK in 2001, and has invested especially heavily in the country since 2005. Last September Prime Minister David Cameron hosted Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, a former People’s Army officer, to Downing Street. Later Huawei announced plans to invest a further £1.3billion in the UK. David Cameron met Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei last month . Larry Wortzel, a member of the US-China economic and security review commission, a US congressional body, said: ‘Any government should have substantial concerns about the activities of Huawei.’ Two years ago Huawei built an ‘evaluation centre’ in Banbury, Oxfordshire which is run with UK intelligence agency GCHQ. A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ‘The evaluation centre obviously works very closely with UK government security specialists, and that allows us to satisfy ourselves that the equipment coming into the UK meets our standards.’ A Huawei spokesman told Exaro: ‘We have been subject to UK government scrutiny and procedure since we opened our first office here in 2001. 'We have regular contact with the UK government and welcome all discussions and questions.’ | Major General Jonathan Shaw accuses ministers of 'dealing with the devil'
Former head of the Ministry of Defence's cyber security unit says Whitehall is making compromises . |
146,080 | 48e42a8cf723752de6518421b7dcc754b4c293c2 | ST. POELTEN, Austria (CNN) -- A verdict in the case of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man accused of keeping his daughter in a cellar for decades and fathering her seven children, could come as early as Thursday, a court official told reporters Monday. Josef Fritzl expects to spend the rest of his life in prison, his attorney has said. As his trial began behind closed doors Monday Fritzl pleaded guilty to incest and other charges, but denied charges of murder and enslavement -- the most serious charges against him. He pleaded "Partly guilty" to multiple charges of rape, but did not elaborate. "Partly guilty" is a plea option in Austrian courts. Franz Cutka, a spokesman for the Landesgericht St. Poelten court, said the "partly guilty" plea might mean that Fritzl contends he is not guilty of all the individual rape charges or that the violence used was not as severe as rape. Cutka was not in court for the plea and does not speak for the defendant. Fritzl's attorney was not immediately available to explain what he meant. Fritzl arrived at the courthouse in St. Poelten covering his face with a blue binder to shield himself from reporters, television cameras and photographers and escorted by a phalanx of police officers. Watch Fritzl arrive in court » . Fritzl faces six charges at a closed-door trial in St. Poelten, 45 miles (70 km) east of Amstetten, where Fritzl lived. Cameras were removed from the court . The trial is scheduled to last five days, but his attorney Rudolph Mayer said it could be shorter. Fritzl was charged in November with incest and the repeated rape of his daughter, Elisabeth, over a 24-year period. But he was also charged with the murder of one of the children he fathered with her, an infant who died soon after birth. State Prosecutor Gerhard Sedlacek said Michael Fritzl died from lack of medical care. In an opening statement, prosecuting attorney Christiane Burkheiser handed damp-smelling items from the cellar where Elisabeth and her children had lived to jurors to give them an idea of the conditions in which they were allegedly locked up. In all, Fritzl is charged with: murder, involvement in slave trade (slavery), rape, incest, assault and deprivation of liberty, Sedlacek's office said. He could face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of murder. Mayer said Sunday that Fritzl expected to spend the rest of his life in prison. "This man obviously led a double life for 24 years. He had a wife and had seven kids with her. And then he had another family with his daughter, fathered another seven children with her," said Franz Polzer, a police officer in Amstetten, the town where Fritzl lived, at the time of his arrest. The case first came to light in April 2008 when Elisabeth's daughter, Kerstin, became seriously ill with convulsions. Elisabeth persuaded her father to allow Kerstin, then 19, to be taken to a hospital for treatment. Hospital staff became suspicious of the case and alerted police, who discovered the family members in the cellar. Fritzl confessed to police that he raped his daughter, kept her and their children in captivity and burned the body of the dead infant in an oven in the house. Elisabeth told police the infant was one of twins who died a few days after birth. When Elisabeth gained her freedom, she told police her father began sexually abusing her at age 11. On August 8, 1984, she told police, her father enticed her into the basement, where he drugged her, put her in handcuffs and locked her in a room. Fritzl explained Elisabeth's disappearance in 1984 by saying the girl, who was then 18, had run away from home. He backed up the story with letters he forced Elisabeth to write. Elisabeth Fritzl and all but three of her children lived in the specially designed cellar beneath her father's home in Amstetten, Austria, west of Vienna. The other three children lived upstairs with Fritzl and his wife; Fritzl had left them on his own doorstep, pretending the missing Elisabeth had dropped them off. Under Austrian law, if Fritzl is convicted on several offenses, he will be given the sentence linked to the worst crime. The charges he faces are: . • Murder: The infant who died in 1996 died from a lack of medical care, the state prosecutor said. The charge carries a sentence of life in prison. • Involvement in slave trade: From 1984 until 2008, prosecutors allege, Fritzl held his daughter, Elisabeth, captive in a dungeon, abused her sexually and treated her as if she were his personal property -- in a situation similar to slavery. If he is convicted, the sentence could range from 10 to 20 years in prison. • Rape: Between August 30, 1984, and June 30, 1989, Fritzl "regularly sexually abused Elisabeth," according to the prosecutor. The sentence could be from five to 15 years in prison. • Incest: Parallel to the rape charge. It carries a sentence of up to one year. • Withdrawal of liberty: Three of the children Fritzl had with Elisabeth were illegally held captive in a dungeon with no daylight or fresh air, according to prosecutors. That charge carries a sentence of one to 10 years. • Assault: Between August 28, 1984, and April 26, 2006, Fritzl repeatedly threatened Elisabeth and their three children with gas and booby traps as warnings in case they tried to escape, authorities allege. The sentence would range from six months to five years. CNN's Frederik Pleitgen and Melissa Gray contributed to this report. | Friztl pleads guilty to imprisonment, incest denies murder, enslavement .
Fritzl answers "partly guilty" when asked his response to rape charge .
Austrian accused of keeping daughter in cellar for decades, fathering her 7 children .
Verdict could come as early as Thursday, court official says . |
270,020 | e9b32848018a219369225d70d3996852dfae97ef | By . Hugo Gye . PUBLISHED: . 07:49 EST, 22 January 2014 . | . UPDATED: . 08:53 EST, 22 January 2014 . Former England footballer Stan Collymore has hit out at Twitter for failing to act against internet trolls tweeting racist and sexist abuse - and even death threats. The star, now a pundit on Talksport radio, claims the web giant has not done enough to crack down on the vile messages he has received from trolls as young as 10 years old. Staffordshire Police are now investigating the threats after Mr Collymore passed on the tweets to officers - but Twitter has refused to comment on the case, saying that users can report abuse whenever it occurs. Outspoken: Stan Collymore has accused Twitter of not doing enough to tackle racist and abusive messages . The ex-Liverpool striker, who also played for Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa, claims he has repeatedly been subjected to online racism since joining Twitter. Yesterday he tweeted: 'I accuse Twitter directly of not doing enough to combat racist/homophobic/sexist hate messages, all of which are illegal in the UK. 'In the last 24 hours I've been threatened with murder several times, demeaned on my race, and many of these accounts are still active. Why?' The 43-year-old then shared a number of appalling messages he was sent after criticising Liverpool striker Luis Suarez, with some web users calling him the N-word and using offensive racial stereotypes. Anger: The former footballer blames the U.S.-based web giant for failing to stop the flood of vile messages . Claims: Mr Collymore has repeatedly been targeted by racist trolls and has even received death threats . Appearing on BBC1's Breakfast programme this morning, Mr Collymore said: 'The age user range of Twitter has gone down dramatically. 'I am seeing gangs of kids from 10 to 18 goaded by adults to make racist and homophobic and sexist insults on Twitter, so Twitter need to deal with it. It's quite horrific. 'Today's my birthday and I would rather not be here but I am going to try to talk about this issue. Nothing seems to be done. Twitter are now hiding behind, "We don't discuss individual cases." 'If it's illegal I reserve the right as a United Kingdom citizen to live within the laws of the United Kingdom, and so should Twitter.' Asked how he responded to the abusive messages, the ex-footballer said: 'I retweet, I report, I block and if it is sufficiently threatening, I will go to the police. Abuse: Police have launched an investigation over this message, which Mr Collymore retweeted to his followers . Call to action: Mr Collymore has received dozens of messages of support from his followers . 'I have been on it for six years now and it's a fantastic tool to engage in my sport, football, with fans. 'If you disagree with a point that I make it's absolutely fine. But I shouldn't be racially abused for it, I shouldn't have somebody that tweets me two days ago saying I am going to turn up at your house and murder you.' When Mr Collymore appeared on BBC News today, a presenter suggested that trolls had targeted him because he had 'been on the wrong side of the law' in the past. The star hit back against that claim, saying: 'I've never been convicted of anything other than speeding, so maybe you'd like to retract that.' The ex-footballer's personal life frequently made headlines during his career - he broke up with TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson after punching her in a bar, and was once caught dogging - but he has never been implicated in a crime. He added: 'Regardless of what the perception of me as a character is, I have the right to be able to walk down the road, and if someone calls me the N-word to be able to report it and get it to dealt with. I would expect that I should be accorded the same courtesy on Twitter.' Star: The former footballer found fame as a striker for Nottingham Forest, Liverpool and Aston Villa . Broadcaster Piers Morgan also . received a stream of abuse after he stood up for Mr Collymore and called . for Twitter and the police to take action. Both . Staffordshire Police and the Police Service of Northern Ireland are now . investigating the allegedly racist tweets, one of which was sent by a . user in Dungannon, Co Tyrone. 'We've . been in contact with Mr Collymore to get more information and to . reassure him that we will carry out a thorough and detailed . investigation,' a spokesman for Staffordshire Police said. 'Such behaviour is completely unacceptable and we all have a shared responsibility to treat each other with dignity and respect. 'Our investigation into previous alleged offences is continuing and we are currently liaising with Twitter to obtain subscriber details.' A spokesman for Twitter said that the company had a policy of refusing to comment on any individual cases. But she pointed out that abusive messages are against the rules of the site, and claimed that it had recently made it easier for users to report concerns. There are 'established processes' in place for working with law enforcement, the spokesman added. | Ex-footballer, 43, has repeatedly been targeted by racist threats on Twitter .
He has called for the web giant to crack down on abusive messages .
But the company insists it has robust measures already in place .
Police are now investigating racist tweets after Collymore reported them . |
126,659 | 2fba0472b1c726257c2b9e4aacfbbd1b2e854f0b | (CNN) -- It's no Super Bowl. Heck, it's no Monday Night Football, but for an American audience, Monday's Manchester derby -- that is, the English club soccer game between Manchester's two Premier League teams -- is about as big as it gets stateside. Sure, many American sports fans call the sport boring and complain there's not enough scoring. It moves too slowly, they say, and is marred by prima donnas who flop to the ground if you breathe on them. Haters aside, the United States is taking notice. ESPN moved the game from ESPN 2 to its flagship station, a first for a weekday Premiership game. Pubs across the nation are anticipating big crowds, and some Americans are doing something very British for match day: skipping out of work early. "You'll definitely want to see this. It's as high a stakes game as you'll see in any soccer league in the world," said Sports Illustrated senior writer and soccer guru, Grant Wahl. Wahl likened the match between No. 1 Manchester United and No. 2 Manchester City to the New York Jets and New York Giants playing in the Super Bowl, or perhaps the Iron Bowl, which pits cross-state rivals Auburn and Alabama against each other at the end of the college football season. Ferguson experience key to Manchester derby . He's never seen a Manchester derby this important in the 15 years he's been covering soccer, said Wahl, who authored the book, "The Beckham Experiment: How the World's Most Famous Athlete Tried to Conquer America." ESPN announced this week it moved the game to take advantage of the live edition of "SportsCenter" that will lead into the game, which begins at 3 p.m. ET. In an e-mail, spokesman Mac Nwulu said the paid programming on ESPN2 prior to the game typically draws about 221,000 viewers, where "SportsCenter" will have an expected audience of 482,000. The live lead-in is key to sports programming, he said. The network's English Premier League offerings on ESPN2 this year are 50% percent higher than last year's games, so English soccer's popularity is increasing in the U.S., Nwulu said. "Best matchup of the season," Nwulu said of Monday's game. "So far, 20 teams have each played an average of 36 matches. And with two match-days to go, EPL has one game that is akin to a title game in a league series not decided by knockouts." We've come a long way . British sports commentator Ian Darke, who will be calling the game for ESPN, predicts a "turbo-charged occasion" and said he has noticed America's growing interest in soccer since ABC hired him to call games for the U.S.-hosted World Cup in 1994. "Producers (back then) said to explain what offsides was and explain the laws of the game as we went along," he recalled. "Now, there's been a complete change of emphasis." Today, more Americans -- many of whom played the sport in school and youth leagues -- have a better grasp on the basics, and commentators cover games in a more "authentic way, as if it were being broadcast for a European audience." ESPN isn't the only one sensing the game taking off in the states. Hugh Folkerth, a bartender at Horse Brass Pub in Portland, Oregon, said that not so long ago Horse Brass was the premier place to watch English soccer in the city. As the game has become more popular, more bars carry the matches and more people get the games at home, so the number of patrons coming to watch soccer at Horse Brass has taken a hit. Of the derby Monday, Folkerth said he's received calls from people asking if he's showing it, and he expects a few more patrons than usual during the lunchtime rush. A CNN Facebook page asking if fans were planning to skip work or school Monday drew plenty of the aforementioned haters, but a handful of fans said they'd be playing hooky. "Will be skipping class at University and have already re-scheduled couple meetings already," wrote Tejash Patel, a United fan. "Work? School? Bills? Life? All of it stops when the Derby is in play!" wrote fellow Red Devil Parker Smith. Added Oladeji Thompson, "I'm coming home very early from work." Continue the conversation on Facebook here . Fado Irish pubs in Austin, Texas, and Atlanta say they're expecting plenty of people to forsake their professors and employers. Both are tripling their staff. Austin general manager John O'Brien is expecting about 200 people for the game, which airs there at 2 p.m. In Atlanta, general manager Brian Russell said he is expecting a similar crowd. Though he's bringing in the doorman who generally works only on weekends, he's not anticipating any problems with the crowd, he said. "We'll just make sure the volume is loud, the TVs are on and we have enough staff to get everyone food and drinks," Russell said. What's the big deal anyway? So, the uninitiated may be asking, why all the fuss over this particular game? Well, there are many storylines. The first is that it's a derby, so there's the longstanding city rivalry in addition to the championship implications. United's Old Trafford and City's Etihad Stadium are separated by about five miles, so you can imagine how the game divides friends, family, coworkers and neighbors. Sara Tomkins, assistant chief executive for the Manchester City Council, called it "one of the most anticipated derbies this city has seen for a decade" and said those not lucky enough to get tickets, which are commanding £1,300 ($2,115) online, will be filling up the city's pubs or gathering around the TV at home. Police aren't expecting problems, according to a statement from Superintendent John O'Hare, but they've asked local businesses to "take extra safety measures such as using plastic glasses, employing more door staff and keeping an eye on the front of house. ... People will see extra patrols. This is not because we are expecting trouble; it is to make sure people feel safe to come and watch the match." ESPN's Darke, who has been covering English derbies for almost 40 years, said he is expecting a rowdy and raucous atmosphere. "Manchester's going to be quite a lively place, no matter the outcome. I might bring a tin helmet like the soldiers wear," he said with a chuckle. Another reason for the hullabaloo is that both teams are insanely wealthy. For United, the reigning English champs, this is nothing new. Founded in 1878, the team boasts 19 English championships and three European crowns. City, on the other hand, hasn't won the English title since 1968 and played unremarkably for the better part of four decades until Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan of the Abu Dhabi royal family bought the team in 2008. United has always been the "glamour team" with the big players, where City have been the forgettable step-relatives, and "City fans are wearily philosophical about it," Darke said. "City fans are sick to death of United ruling their roost, and here's their chance," he said. "They will celebrate like there's no tomorrow if they pull it off." Both teams are now among the most loaded clubs in the world. The professional services firm, Deloitte, reported that with €367 million ($487 million), United was No. 3 in revenues last year, behind Spanish powerhouses Real Madrid and Barcelona. City came in at 11th with €170 million ($225 million). To give you an idea what these figures mean, Forbes reported that average revenue among NFL teams in 2010 was $261 million. City and United have used their fortunes to acquire some of the biggest soccer names in the world: Wayne Rooney, Sergio Aguero, David Silva and Rio Ferdinand among them. The five dozen players on the two teams represent stars from 23 countries. "(City) bought a lot of talent," said Sports Illustrated's Wahl. "The question is whether they bought a great team. The questions are going to remain until they win a title." Topsy-turvy . Also stoking interest in the match is soap-opera-like drama surrounding it. Not only has the injection of Middle Eastern cash made City more competitive, but the Blues thrashed the American-owned United 6-1 during their first meeting, a result Wahl called "the most shocking result we've seen all year." City stood atop the Premier League for months until March, when United seemed to find its form and took the lead. From there, it seemed a United repeat was inevitable, but in recent weeks, the tables have turned again. United has a win, loss and tie in its last three matches, while City has three wins. Each team's coach has engaged in a bit of psychological banter ahead of the fixture. United's Alex Ferguson has prohibited his team from making statements about the game, calling it the most important derby since he took over the club in 1986. City's Roberto Mancini cheekily fired back that the 6-1 drubbing earlier this year was more important. In a strange twist, he also said his team has no chance of winning the title and went so far as to congratulate United on its championship with three games remaining. Mancini simply knows his team performed better as underdogs this season than they did when they sat atop the table, Darke said. "He knows how big this game is. Everything he's been saying in the last few days, he's trying to take pressure off his players," he said. "It's the lousiest piece of psychological warfare ever." United will have to go into Etihad, where City hasn't lost all season, and snatch three points to ensure their second championship in as many years. City is three points behind United, but with a win, can take the Premiership lead. They'll be tied with United in the points column but will take first place because they have scored one more goal than United and given up five fewer than the Reds this season. Though City is the favorite in the betting houses, no one seemed comfortable offering a prediction. Darke said his thoughts on the outcome were meaningless. "Anything could happen. I'd just urge people to watch it," he said. | ESPN moves English club soccer game to flagship station for first time in history .
Manchester derby pits city rivals against each other for national championship .
Pubs bolster staffs, as Americans plan to skip school, work for Monday match .
ESPN announcer expecting lively crowd, "might bring a tin helmet," he jokes . |
7,361 | 14dacd040de3153396b6d4b98451b71de9f2feca | London (CNN) -- India has launched a rocket it hopes will allow it to join an elite group of space explorers to Mars. The country's space research organization (ISRO) launched its orbiter to the Red Planet on Tuesday -- only NASA, the former Soviet Union and the Europeans have previously been successful in operating probes from Mars. Japan made an attempt with the Nozomi orbiter in 1998 but it failed to reach the planet and a Chinese probe was lost along with the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission in January 2012. The UK's Beagle 2 probe separated from the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter in 2003 but nothing was ever heard from the lander. It will take 10 months for India's Mars Orbiter Mission to reach the Red Planet after lifting off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre near Chennai. The probe will explore the planet's surface features, minerals and atmosphere. ISRO is hoping to discover more about the loss of water from Mars, map the sources of methane gas, as well as collecting data about the two moons Phobos and Deimos. But ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan told CNN that one of the biggest technological challenges was just getting there. Many missions have failed to reach the planet while others have crashed on the surface or contact has been lost before the probes could send back data. India's space program launched its first Earth satellite in 1975 and put an unmanned probe into orbit around the Moon in 2008. It plans to launch its own manned spaceflight in 2016, though an Indian cosmonaut, Rakesh Sharma, flew aboard a Soviet space mission in 1984. The U.S. is aiming to build on the success of a series of robots that have roamed the surface of the Red Planet when it launches its own orbiter mission called Maven -- Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft -- scheduled to launch on November 18. The European Space Agency is working with the Russians on an ExoMars rover that is due to start its mission in 2018. But private companies are also proposing trips to the Red Planet -- and some of them are only one-way. The Mars One project wants to colonize Earth's neighbor, beginning in 2022 and the Inspire Mars Foundation wants to launch a man and a woman on a 501-day round-trip in 2018 without ever touching down. Is India's Mars mission fueling Asian space race? Explore Mars discoveries with CNN's interactive map . More on future Mars missions . CNN Mars full coverage . | Only NASA, the former Soviet Union and Europeans have succeeded with Mars probes .
India's spacecraft will explore the planet's surface features, minerals and atmosphere .
ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan says one of the biggest technological challenges is just getting there .
NASA is due to launch its MAVEN probe to Mars later in November . |
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