Siraj Yassin Abdullah Ali, the fanatical terrorist has escaped being thrown out of the UK because it would breach his human rights.
Siraj Yassin Abdullah Ali, graded the highest possible risk to the public, was released after serving just half of his nine-year sentence for helping the July 21 bombers.
The terrorist now mingles freely among the Londoners his co-plotters tried to kill six years ago.
The UK Government officials are desperate to deport the Islamic fundamentalist back to his native Eritrea but have been told they cannot because he could face “inhumane treatment or punishment”.
Siraj Yassin Abdullah Ali was convicted of helping a gang of five Al Qaeda suicide bombers in their bid to repeat the carnage of the attacks of July 7, 2005, two weeks later.
Siraj Yassin Abdullah Ali walking free on London streets.
Graham Foulkes, whose 22-year-old son David was killed on July 7, said:
“These people were plotting to commit mass murder – what about the human rights of victims and families?
“These people had no consideration for the women and children they were trying to kill. How can they claim we should look after and support them?”
The case is the latest to highlight how human rights laws have left the authorities powerless to remove some terrorists and convicted criminals.
Imposed by unaccountable European judges, they place the rights of the most dangerous wrongdoers above the risks faced by ordinary people.
The five would-be suicide bombers were jailed for life after trying to detonate bombs at Shepherd’s Bush, Warren Street and Oval Tube stations and on a bus in Shoreditch.
Siraj Yassin Abdullah Ali, 35, knew about the potentially murderous July 21 conspiracy and helped the fanatics clear up their explosives factory.
The terrorist was jailed for 12 years in February 2008 for aiding and abetting the Al Qaeda cell. Judge Paul Worsley QC said he must have “harboured the hope” the bombers would “destroy society as we know it”.
The sentence was reduced to nine years on appeal and after time Siraj Yassin Abdullah Ali spent in jail while awaiting trial was taken into account, he was automatically released on licence several weeks ago. The terrorist is now living at a bail hostel on a leafy residential street in north-west London. He has been seen travelling on the Tube and catching buses.
With music headphones plugged into his ears and a bag slung casually across his shoulder, he appeared to be caught on camera chatting on a mobile phone.
It is understood that Siraj Yassin Abdullah Ali is being monitored around the clock and must obey a curfew and other conditions, including a ban on using the internet.
Ali is the second high-risk terrorist linked to the July 21 attacks to win the right to remain in the UK on human rights grounds in recent weeks.
Terrorist Siraj Yassin Abdullah Ali is using public transport in London
Ismail Abdurahman, 28, who hid would-be bomber Hussain Osman for three days, escaped being deported to his native Somalia after judges feared for his safety. Ismail Abdurahman is also living at a bail hostel in London despite the protests of police and Home Office officials.
The release of Ali and Abdurahman underlines the challenges faced by police, probation and MI5. There are fears that they will be stretched to the limit as they try to monitor dozens of freed fanatics in the run-up to the Olympics next year.
Research by one think-tank found that more than 230 people have been convicted of terrorist offences since 2001, but only around 100 remain in prison.
Under Article 3 of both the European Convention on Human Rights, and Labour’s Human Rights Act, individuals are protected against torture, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The clause allows foreign terror suspects to fight deportation on the grounds that they would be tortured in their home countries if returned.
Tory MP Priti Patel said: ‘This is yet another example of how we have got to abolish this appalling human rights legislation that allows terrorists and violent criminals to waltz out of prison and stay in our country.
“They should be deported instantly back to where they came from.”
Solicitor Cliff Tibber, who represents the families of several July 7 victims, said: “There is no doubt it is uncomfortable for the families to see someone like this back on the streets after what feels like an extremely short period of time.”
A UK Border Agency spokesman said: “We will do everything we can to remove this individual from the UK and are extremely disappointed by the court’s decision to grant bail, which we vigorously opposed.
“In the meantime, we are working closely with public protection agencies to ensure that appropriate monitoring is in place.”
An UK Ministry of Justice spokesman insisted that public protection remains “top priority” and that serious offenders face “strict” controls and conditions.
Connie Culp was the first person to receive a face transplant in the U.S in 2008, after her top lip, nose, roof of her mouth, one eye and both cheeks were destroyed by then husband Tom Culp, who brutally shot her in the face after flying into a rage.
Now, Connie Culp, 48, from Ohio, has bravely decided to talk about the domestic abuse and terrible shooting she endured at the hands of the man she says she still loves.
Her decision to speak out comes as her 52 year-old husband was last week released from prison after serving just seven years for the horrific crime.
Connie Culp was the first person to receive a face transplant in the U.S in 2008, after her top lip, nose, roof of her mouth, one eye and both cheeks were destroyed by then husband Tom Culp, who brutally shot her in the face after flying into a rage
Describing the moment her life changed forever, Connie Culp said:
“I remember everything. That’s what the doctors can’t believe.
“I remember him lifting the gun, and what he said to me, and then firing.
“It’s an image that will never leave me, for the rest of my life. It’s the moment everything changed forever.”
As well as suffering horrific facial disfigurement, Connie Culp was also left almost totally blind in the 2004 attack at the bar in Hopedale, Ohio, which the couple owned and ran together.
The signs, she says, were there before Tom Culp attempted to take her life.
“He only hit me a couple of times ever. It was the bullying that was worse. “Maybe it was a warning for things to come, but I never imagined what eventually happened was even possible.”
But, despite everything her ex-husband has done, Connie Culp says she still loves him.
“I’ll probably always love him because he’s the father of my kids,” admitted Connie Culp, who has two children with Tom.
“But I can’t handle being around him.”
She recently returned to the bar for the first time in eight years since that awful night when Tom Culp snapped.
“He was jealous because everyone seemed to like me so much,” Connie Culp revealed.
“It wasn’t really men. I was popular with the girls who worked with us and most of the customers.
“I think it just used to make him jealous. And money was tight with the bar. We owned it together and it used to put a strain on us.
“Sometimes he used to break things in the house when he’d get mad. Sometimes my things, like a trophy I’d won in a karate tournament.
“And then that night something just snapped. We were at the bar and he was mad. Then he just got his shotgun and shot me.”
It’s important to Connie Culp to appear like she’s coping.
“It’s the way I keep going,” she said.
“I don’t want people to feel sorry for me. I want to be treated the same as I was my whole life, before the shooting.
“If I dwell on the past I’ll have no life to live.”
After shooting his wife, Tom Culp put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger causing severe injuries to himself. But, like Connie, he survived.
“It was all just a waste,” Connie Culp said.
“He’s never acknowledged what he did. He just blames it on everyone else.”
After the shooting in September 2004, Connie Culp spent months in hospital as surgeons repeatedly tried to fix the damage caused by the gun blast.
Connie Culp before the horrific attack in 2004Connie Culp before face transplant in 2008
Connie Culp after face transplant in 2011
With her children Steven, 30, and Alicia, 28 at her side, Connie Culp battled on, always taking comfort in the miracle that she had survived.
Connie Culp even visited her husband in prison to comfort him. But despite her unshakable determination to forgive, the events had changed things forever.
“I knew then it was over,” she said.
“I haven’t shaken that badly since he shot me. I can drink four pots of coffee and not shake. But around him I couldn’t control it.”
Chillingly, Tom Culp even got angry with the mother of his children for telling the truth to the police about the shooting.
“Tom said: <<I wouldn’t have told on you>> and I said <<I wouldn’t have shot you>>,” Connie Culp said.
“He’s mad because I make jokes about it,” she added. “How do you think I’m going to get through this?”
Anxious about her husband potential release this month, Connie Culp finally made their divorce official in May and moved out of the home they shared in Bloomingdale, Ohio, in her bid to move on.
“He’ll probably move back into the old house,” Connie Culp said.
“His family still own it. He has a restraining order but nobody knows what he’ll do.
“We’ll just have to wait and see.”
As well as her husband, Connie Culp also had to endure children reacting to her damaged face with horror.
“Children would say I was a monster,” she said.
“They didn’t mean anything by it. They were just being kids, but it made me feel worried.
“I got through it by just trying to look at the brighter side of things. I was alive, and I had my children and grandchildren.”
After all she had been through, Connie Culp was eventually put on the face transplant waiting list in October 2008 at the highly prestigious Cleveland Clinic, Ohio.
Dr. Chad Gordon, one of eight surgeons involved in the procedure, said:
“The problems were that we needed a deceased woman from the local area, so that we could get the donor’s face to Connie.
“We needed someone from her age group and of the same blood type, and one who was registered as a donor.
‘In the U.S., not many people sign to be donors, so the odds of finding a match were always slim.”
But on December 10, 2008, just two months later, the team were shocked when they found a match.
A local woman – whose family Connie Culp has now met – had died from a heart attack. It was a chance of giving Connie what she had waited more than four years for.
Calling her to tell her to race to the clinic, Dr. Chad Gordon reminded Connie Culp the procedure could end her life.
“I already had one miracle by surviving the shooting,” Connie Culp said.
“So I thought someone up there might have another one for me.”
The medical team, led by top surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow at the Cleveland Clinicbattled for over 20 hours to attach her new face.
Doctors hollowed out the damaged section of her face before replacing it with the donor’s which they harvested using a hand-drawn template and plastic model of Connie Culp’s face to guide them.
This entire bone segment – with the donor’s face attached – was raised in one large piece and included both cheek bones, a new upper jaw, a new palate, portions of both orbits, and some donor teeth.
While the transplant has improved things, Connie Culp knows her serious medical battle will last the rest of her life.
“Everyone assumes you’re better and forgets about it after the transplant. I hope to show the world that this isn’t the case for people like me.
“You still have to fight and live with the memories of why you needed one every day.”
A nurse visits Connie Culp three times a week to check her health and make sure her body isn’t rejecting her new face.
Each day Connie Culp also takes a cocktail of prescription drugs to help her body cope.
With a tiny amount of sight left in her left eye, she struggles to see and finds it hard to do most daily tasks alone.
But Connie Culp has a number of techno gadgets to get by.
“A talking pill box in my bedroom tells me when it’s time to take my medicine and dispenses the right doses,” she said.
“My talking alarm clock lets me know what the time is every hour, and a clothes scanner tells me what colours my outfits are, so I don’t mismatch.
“Otherwise I’d be going out with odd socks on.”
Connie Culp also walks with a cane, while her local shopkeepers help her to choose the right brands of food.
A document magnifier helps Connie Culp to see her old family photographs of happier times, and read letters and bills.
And after taking her medicine each day, Connie Culp carefully applies her makeup, staring at her reflection in her bathroom mirror.
“Now I can go out and hold my head up high. It’s improved my looks so much. It’s hard for me to see exactly what I look like because I can see only shapes really, with no definition.
“I know it’s not my face, but I feel thankful that I have one now.”
Connie Culp enjoys a new love of life, playing with 4 year-old grandson Maddox, and spending time with her children Steven and Alicia, who helps with work around the house.
The attack and face transplant has given Connie Culp a new love of life and she enjoys playing with her grandson Maddox, with help from daughter Alicia
Connie Culp regularly tries one of the exercises she needs to perform to keep her face adapting.
“I hold a toothbrush between for my lips for as long as I can but I can only do a few seconds.”
“It’s the little things that are my goals. I want to be able to drink a milkshake through a straw again. But I haven’t got enough strength.
“Smiling is also tough. I can do angry when Maddox is being naughty, but I want him to see me smile too. That’s another goal.
“They say it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile, so I don’t know why so many people walk around frowning all the time. They should just smile because it’s less work.”
Connie Culp’s other goals have involved helping others. She attends conventions as an ambassador and promotes organ donation, which made her life bearable again.
“If my work can raise the number of donors and get transplant for others, then that would be a good thing.”
Connie Culp’s fighting spirit has earned her admiration from around the world.
“I was given a miracle when I survived the shooting,”she said. ” Then I got a second miracle when I survived the face transplant.”
“It’s still tough, but my life is so much better now.”
Arch West, the creator of US most popular snacks, the corn chips Doritos, has died on September 20 of natural causes at the age of 97.
Arch West’s family is to bury dozens of Doritos chips next to his ashes, relatives have revealed.
Relatives of Arch West said that they would scatter Doritos in the grave before placing the urn containing his remains inside and covering it over with dirt.
It is not clear if the family is following Arch West’s last requests or if they took it upon themselves to make the “tribute”.
But the intent appears to be to honor the man who created Doritos, which became almost overnight one of the most popular snacks in the U.S.
Arch West, creator of the Doritos corn chip, died on September 20 at 97
It was back in 1961 that Arch West was on a family holiday in San Diego when he was struck by the tasty fried tortilla chips he tried at a food truck.
Arch West came up with the idea for a new snack which he called “Dorito” as it sounded like “doradito”, or “little golden” in Spanish.
The marketing executive at Frito-Lay, the U.S. snack food giant where he worked, was initially unsure but the product was an immediate success following its launch in 1964.
Now Arch West’s family are turning to the thing that he created in an attempt to honor his life.
Arch West’s daughter Jana Hacker said:
“We are tossing Doritos chips in before they put the dirt over the urn.
“He’ll love it.”
Born in Indianapolis, Arch West was put in a Masonic home after his father died and his mother was unable to cope.
Arch West first career job was as a cheese salesman but he gave that up to join the Navy in 1943 and serve as a gunnery officer.
After World War II ended Arch West returned to marketing and while at Frito-Lay came up with the idea for Doritos.
The company’s first television commercial for Doritos showed teenagers playing guitars as the announcer said:
“What’s the biggest news since the Big Beat? Doritos are a swinging, Latin sort of snack.”
Doritos, the Arch West’s creation was the first national tortilla chip brand in the U.S. and is now amongst the most well-known brands in the world.
But the Doritos story has not always been a success – in 2003 the company was sued by American Charles Grady who said the shape of the chip cut his throat, although the lawsuit did not succeed.
The year before Frito-Lay had removed all the trans- fat from Doritos in an attempt to bat off criticism they are unhealthy.
Arch West’s funeral will take place on October 1 in Dallas, Texas.
Arch West’s wife died last year but he is survived by three sons, 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Doritos, the Arch West's creation was the first national tortilla chip brand in the U.S. and is now amongst the most well-known brands in the world
History of Doritos, the first tortilla chip:
• Arch West was on holiday in San Diego in 1961 when he was struck by the tasty fried tortilla chips he tried at a food truck
• He came up with the idea for a new snack which he called ‘Dorito’ as it sounded like ‘doradito’, or ‘little golden’ in Spanish
• The first national tortilla chip brand in the U.S. was an instant hit when it launched in 1964 by Frito-Lay
• The company’s first television commercial for Doritos showed teenagers playing guitars as the announcer said: ‘What’s the biggest news since the Big Beat? Doritos are a swinging, Latin sort of snack.’
• In 2002, Frito-Lay removed all the trans fat from Doritos in an attempt to bat off criticism they are unhealthy
• In 2003 the company was sued by American Charles Grady who said the shape of the chip cut his throat, although the lawsuit did not succeed
The new British Airways campaign cost £20 million ($30 million) and was supposed to usher in a new, mistake-free era.
But British Airways found a rival Virgin Atlantic plane in the company’s new TV advert, “Aviators”.
Luckily an eagle-eyed BA engineer spotted the error during a screening of the film to thousands of staff just a day before its official launch.
British Airways’ advertising agency, BBH, were then called upon to make an emergency edit to ensure the 90-second ad, which charts the history of the company, was corrected.
British Airways found a rival Virgin Atlantic plane in the company's new TV advert, “Aviators”
The offending clip showed a row of three British Airways Boeing 747s sitting on the tarmac. The closest displays the serial code G-VGAL, the marking for a Virgin Atlantic plane based in Manchester.
According to Sunday Mirror, the film’s CGI experts had put British Airways’ livery on the Virgin plane, but had forgotten to remove it.
By the time the ad was unveiled to the media and screened on television the Virgin code had been replaced with the correct British Airways markings.
A British Airways source told Sunday Mirror:
“The mistake was highly embarrassing – especially as Virgin Atlantic is BA’s prime competitor.
“Great pride had been taken in the detail of the advert, and the fact that so much money had been spent on it.
“Thanks to the quick thinking of one of the engineers they saved the blushes of all the senior management at BA, as well the advertising company.”
Before the blunder was spotted British Airways officials had lavished praise on the advert’s director Frederic Planchon on the company’s Facebook page.
Ironically the BA offcials wrote: “His (Planchon’s) attention to detail is second to none.”
A British Airways spokesman told the Sunday Mirror:
“The ad is complex and richly detailed, and its production involved an extensive editing process.
“This process had not been ¬completed by the time we needed to send preview DVDs to our workforce.”
A man has been arrested and charged with filling packs of Nurofen Plus with anti-psychotic and anti-epileptic drugs, London Police have revealed.
Unemployed Christopher McGuire, 30, of no fixed abode, was arrested in London on Friday and Saturday night he was charged with one count of contamination of goods, and two counts of administering a noxious substance.
Christopher McGuire will appear at City of Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday.
A 30 year-old man has been arrested and charged with filling packs of Nurofen Plus with anti-psychotic and anti-epileptic drugs
Scotland Yard’s specialist crime directorate, which tackles serious and organized crime, launched an investigation after four boxes were found to contain the anti-psychotic drug Seroquel XL 50mg and one packet contained Pfizer’s anti-epileptic medication, Neurontin, in 100mg capsules.
Those four tampered packets were found in Bromley, Victoria and Beckenham in south London while another one was discovered in Northern Ireland.
Reckitt Benckiser, manufacturer of the drug, recalled the product on August 26 and halted distribution after discovering the boxes.
It estimated that 250,000 packets had not been returned.
The Metropolitan Police’s Specialist Crime Directorate (SCD), which tackles serious and organized crime, is leading the probe and has been examining the entire production line of the drug to identify how some packs of Nurofen Plus came to contain strips of the potentially harmful drugs.
Seroquel XL is a prescription-only anti-psychotic drug used to treat several disorders including schizophrenia, mania and bipolar depression.
Seroquel XL is an anti-psychotic drug used to treat several disorders including schizophrenia, mania and bipolar depression
People who accidentally take the drug may experience sleepiness and are advised not to drive or operate any tools or machinery until they know how the tablets have affected them.
Neurontin, used to treat epilepsy and long-lasting pain caused by damage to the nerves, can also result in drowsiness and lack of coordination.
Common side-effects of the prescription-only drugs, which may be seen in more than one person in 100, include pneumonia, depression, loss of vision, breathing difficulties and nausea.
Nurofen Plus is for pain relief and contains codeine. The affected packs all contain 32 tablets.
The large capsules of Seroquel XL 50mg tablets have gold and black packaging while Neurontin, which comes in a two-piece, white capsule, is stored in white and silver blister packs.
Nurofen Plus capsules have silver and black packaging.
Facebook’s new Timeline feature looks set to really enrage users after it emerged the ability to anonymously “defriend” people will become a thing of the past.
Using the new Timeline feature, which is set to be rolled out in the near future, users will be able to see all their entire Facebook history, including their shifting friends lists.
Facebook Timeline will allow users to see which of your previous “friends” at some point decided to end the relationship along with every picture, message and app used.
Community manager at Mashable Meghan Peters told BuzzFeed:
“There is a way where you can go in to a certain point in time and basically, if you look at your friends tab, maybe from three years ago, and you see the <<Add Friend>> button from someone in that list, that will basically tell you that they have defriended you since you became their friend.
“I think that people will definitely be upset by it.
“I mean, it always hurts to know that someone isn’t your friend anymore.”
Facebook is trying to evolve from an Internet hangout where people swing by to share tidbits, links and photos to a homestead decorated with the memories, dreams and diversions of its 800 million users.
In what may be the boldest step yet in the company’s seven-year history, Facebook is redesigning its users’ profile pages to create what CEO Mark Zuckerberg says is a “new way to express who you are”.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the Facebook f8 Developer Conference at the San Francisco Design Center
Facebook is introducing new ways for people to connect with friends, brands and games while also sharing details about their lives from the mundane to the intimate.
“If you look at Facebook’s history, obviously they are not afraid of making change,” said Sean Corcoran, an analyst with Forrester Research.
“They have done a lot of big changes in the past and people have gotten upset. But most of the time Facebook has been right.”
Mark Zuckerberg introduced the Facebook Timeline along with new entertainment and media company partnerships on Thursday in San Francisco, at the annual “f8” conference attended by about 2,000 entrepreneurs, developers and journalists.
The event was also being broadcast to, at one point, more than 100,000 online viewers.
The changes seek to transform how and how much people share things online, just as Facebook has been doing since its scrappy start as a college-only network.
What is Facebook Timeline?
Facebook Timeline, which will eventually replace users’ current profile pages, is reminiscent of an online scrapbook filled with the most important photos, video, music and text that they have shared on Facebook over the years.
Facebook Timeline will allow users to see which of your previous “friends” at some point decided to end the relationship along with every picture, message and app used
Facebook Timeline can go back to include years before Facebook even existed, so users can add photos and events from, say 1995 when they got married or 1970 when they were born.
It is intended to replace the current layout, but critics have said it may alienate some of the “older” Facebook generation.
The redesigned Facebook pages have a more magazine-like photo-heavy feel, with a large “cover photo at the top of the page .
On the right of the page there will be a timeline that breaks down all posts from a person’s time on Facebook and allows viewers to jump back to people’s earliest posts with a break down month-by-month.
For the first time, the site will allow you to add photos and content from before Facebook existed in a new “Way Back” section.
Mark Zuckerberg said the new profile page had been designed so that, “you can tell the whole story of your life on a single page”.
Dubbed “the biggest live music event in radio history,” iHeartRadio Music Festival has taken over Las Vegas this weekend.
The inaugural iHeartRadio festival, hosted by Ryan Seacrest and Elvis Duran, was held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on September 23 and September 24.
Biggest pop radio stars took the stage at the iHeartRadio Music Festival.The festival started on Friday with the Black Eyed Peas.
The Black Eyed Peas at iHeartRadio Music Festival
The band opened with laser lights, a cadre of jailbird-themed backup dancers, and one of their biggest hits, Boom Boom Pow. The audience (12,000 people) danced listening to Just Can’t Get Enough, Don’t Stop the Party,The Time (Dirty Bit), I Gotta Feeling.
With huge screens flanking the stage, and numerous confetti blasts iHeartRadio Music Festival enchanted and energized the public. Ryan Seacrest first appeared after the Black Eyed Peas left the stage. “This weekend all roads lead to Vegas,” he said and later announced Lady GaGa would appear on Saturday night with Sting, something that made the fans to go wild.
Kelly Clarkson, World Idol runner-up, launched with Walk Away, followed by Because of You, then new radio offering: Mr. Know It All, and in the end, My Life Would Suck Without You.
Bruno Mars took the stage with The Lazy Song, Grenade, Just the Way You Are. He paid a tribute to Amy Winehouse (as he did on the VMA 2011), singing his cover of Valerie, Amy’s photos appeared on the screens behind him and a brass quartet waved their horns in unison.
Bruno Mars at iHeartRadio Music Festival
Carrie Underwood, American Idol winner, sang Cowboy Casanova, Last Name, Before He Cheats, which made the attendees to stand up.
Karmin, YouTube sensation, did an inducing performance of Nicki Minaj’s Super Bass, then Jane’s Addiction came with Mountain Song, Been Caught Stealing, Irresistible Force.
Coldplay electrified the party-goers with the symphonic, opening of Viva la Vida, made the fans to cry with Fix You, and brought excitement for their latest single, Paradise. Chris Martin wins the award for Best Stage Collapse, fireworks dusted the stage as Martin rolled over backward and a psychedelic piano joined him at the end of Vida. Chris Martin urged the public to join him in a mournful chorus of Amy Winehouse’s Rehab.
Coldplay at iHeartRadio Music Festival
Alicia Keys performed Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart, No One, and Jay-Z appeared on stage. Everyone sang along to: “bright lights, big city!” J-Z doled out a stream of his hits: Big Pimpin’, 99 Problems, Dirt Off Your Shoulder, Izzo (H.O.V.A.), Empire State of Mind with Alicia Key. The rapper bounced across a stage outfitted with two drum sets and two guitarists and swung two gold chains hanging from his neck.
Jay-Z and Alicia Keys at iHeartRadio Music Festival
On the second day of the iHeartRadio Music Festival Steven Tyler (with special guest Jeff Beck), Nicki Minaj, Rascal Flatts, Jennifer Lopez, Sublime with Rome, David Guetta (with special guest Usher), Kenny Chesney, Nicole Scherzinger (special appearance) and the most waiting Lady Gaga (with special guest Sting) made the concert-goers to dance and sing frenetically.
The American Idol judge, Jennifer Lopez, wore a candy apple red frock, and performed Papi, Get Right and Lets Get Loud.
Jennifer Lopez at iHeartRadio Music Festival
Usher took the stage to support David Guetta and performed Without You (their new international dance anthem), some said it was an unusually calm rendition, but others found it amazing.
Lady GaGa‘s grimace of a nervous artist with something to prove was replaced with a playful stage presence, the public enjoyed her hits from Bad Romance to You and I, Poker Face, Edge of Glory, Just Dance/Love Game,Born This Way, Sheiße/Judas, Alejandro/Telephone&Paparazzi.
Lady Gaga hid her tears and dedicated Hair to Jamey Rodemeyer, 14, who apparently committed suicide because was bullied at school. She sang while his image appeared on the screen behind her.
“I know it’s a bit of a downer, but sometimes the right thing is more important than the music,” she said. Lady Gaga stopped and said “Bullying is for losers,” before ending and said to Jamey in Heaven: “Jamey, you’re not a freak.”
Sting (The Police) and Lady Gaga began with Stand by Me before Sting took his guitar and sang along with the piano-playing Gaga to a funky King of Pain. She closed the show in a thong for Born This Way.
Lady Gaga and Sting at iHeartRadio Music Festival
iHeartRadio Music Festival was the grand opening of iHeartRadio, Clear Channel’s free digital radio product combining more than 800 broadcast radio and digital-only stations from 150 cities.
iHeartRadio, Clear Channel’s revamped free personalized music website allows users to create custom radio stations and is meant to compete with the web’s most popular online music service (Pandora). The beta site launched September 8. BlackBerry, iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, iPad 2, and iPod Touch, Android, webOS (Palm Pre/HP TouchPad), Windows Phone 7 are devices that support it.
At the iHeartRadio Music Festival more than 53% of ticket buyers live more than 1,000 miles away from the festival. Tickets sold out in 10 minutes.
iHeartRadio Music Festival was broadcasted to more than 10 million radio listeners across the country.
Lady GaGa plays Hair at iHeartRadio Music Festival (video)
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The Black Eyed Peas opens at iHeartRadio Music Festival (video)
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Bruno Mars plays Valerie at iHeartRadio Music Festival (video)
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Lady GaGa and Sting play Stand by Me at iHeartRadio Music Festival (video)
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Lady GaGa plays You and I at iHeartRadio Music Festival (video)
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Lady GaGa plays Sheiße/Judas at iHeartRadio Music Festival (video)
“Occupy Wall Street”, the anti-capitalist protest demonstrators clashed with police in New York yesterday after beginning an impromptu march up Wall Street.
New York police officers were accused of using overly-aggressive tactics as they battled to control the quick-moving protesters who left their camp near Wall Street to march up Broadway.
Scores of “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators were arrested, cuffed with plastic tags and dragged on to sidewalks. One video showing a protester thrown to the floor by an officer with little provocation.
Occupy Wall Street demonstrators were arrested, cuffed with plastic tags and dragged on to sidewalks
Some protesters were calling: “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out” and calling shoppers to join them. At least 80 people connected with the protest were held near Union Square in Manhattan.
Demonstrators have been camped in Wall Street since last Saturday – sleeping on cardboard boxes, eating pizza and takeaway dinners that were paid for by donations to their cause.
There are around 200 left in the makeshift camp, down from their peak of 1,500.
“They’re angry at what’s going on in the world,” said Rich Marini, a 37 year-old software writer from Great Kills who has been taking part in the protest.
“But it’s a good atmosphere. They have a sense of love with each other.”
Rich Marini said the protest is driven by the fact that college kids are graduating only to find there are no jobs. “They’re putting the pieces together,” he added. “And Wall Street is the main focus of that.”
The “Occupy Wall Street” protest is entering its second week. Demonstrators said they are protesting bank bailouts, the mortgage crisis and now the U.S. state of Georgia’s execution of Troy Davis.
At Union Square, police tried to corral the demonstrators using orange plastic netting. Some of the arrests were filmed and activists posted the videos online.
At least 80 people connected with the protest were held near Union Square in Manhattan
Police said the arrests were mostly for blocking traffic, charges including disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
One demonstrator was charged with assaulting a police officer, who suffered a shoulder injury.
Protest spokesman Patrick Bruner criticized the police response as “exceedingly violent’ and said the protesters sought to remain peaceful.
Occupy Wall Street march
West Brighton resident Richard Reichard, who works just above Wall Street, said it’s important to remind Americans that it was the financial services industry that plunged the U.S. into recession.
“And government was asleep at the switch,” Reichard said.
A barricade was set up to protect the NYSE building as protesters marched past it. Police watched proceedings carefully after a scuffle on Tuesday that led to seven arrests and an injured protester.
Other four protesters were arrested Wednesday for disorderly conduct and released.
Sarah Palin has been offered $1million if she passes a lie detector test over claims made a Joe McGinniss’s book about her.
In Joe McGinniss’s book Sarah Palin is accused of cheating on her husband Todd Palin, with his ex-business partner and using drugs.
The former Alaska Governor has vehemently denied everything.
The adult website AshleyMadison.com has offered Todd and Sarah Palin $1 million to prove their innocence.
Todd Palin, Sarah Palin’s husband has said of the book, “The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin”:
“His book is full of disgusting lies, innuendo and smears.”
Todd and Sarah Palin have been offered $1 million if they pass lie detector test over Joe McGinniss' book claims.
The letter to Todd and Sarah Palin from AshleyMadison.com said:
“We will hire a certified polygraph examiner to administer a lie detector test to both yourself and Todd.
“He will be restricted to asking you questions solely related to the allegations.”
“If both of you complete and pass the polygraph test, Ashleymadison.com will issue you a check in The amount of $1,000,000.”
The $1 million offer comes just days after the National Enquirer claimed that friends close to Sarah Palin and her husband Todd say he is “fed up” with the constant scandals that have plagued their marriage ever since she ran for vice president and is ready to file for a divorce.
It has also been alleged that Sarah Palin advisers have told her to kiss goodbye to the White House fearing a bid would be “political suicide”.
The explosive book is said to have put the final nail in the coffin of Sarah Palin marriage, after her brother Chuckie was quoted saying she and Todd's marriage was over
In Joe McGinniss’ book, Sarah Palin, 47, is accused of having a night of passion with basketball star Glen Rice and snorting cocaine.
Another source close to the former vice presidential candidate said:
“Sarah Palin has been destroyed by Joe McGinniss’ no-holds-barred biography. It exposed all her lies, cover-ups and secrets.
“As a result she has been told by her advisers that it would be political suicide to announce a White House candidacy.
“The press and her opponents would have a field day digging into the dirty details of her background.”
The explosive book is said to have put the final nail in the coffin of her marriage, after Sarah Palin’s brother Chuckie was quoted saying his sister and Todd’s marriage was over.
Sarah Palin is currently travelling the country and is still deciding whether or not she will run for presidential race in 2012.
The study shows that prostate cancer death rate was 30 per cent lower in the group taking radium-223 and patients survived for 14 months on average compared with the other group which survived 11 months on average
A new prostate cancer treatment (a powerful alpha radiation drug) trial has been so successful researchers have decided to stop it early.
Specialists at London’s Royal Marsden Hospital, UK, were testing a powerful alpha radiation drug on 461 patients while another group of the same number was being treated with placebo.
The group taking the new drug experienced less pain, side effects and lived longer.
British doctors were so astounded with the results they decided to stop the trial and started treating all 922 patients taking part in the study because they said it would be unethical not to.
Radiation has long been used to treat tumors and damages the genetic code inside cancer cells.
Alpha particles are the most powerful radiation and consist of helium nuclei, which are bigger and strong than beta radiation – a stream of electrons.
According to Dr. Chris Parker, who is the lead researcher on the study, it was a significant step forward for cancer research.
“It’s more damaging. It takes one, two three hits to kill a cancer cell compared with thousands of hits for beta particles,” Dr. Chris Parker told the BBC.
Dr. Chris Parker also said that less damage was done to surrounding cells and added the radiation only targeted only the cancer.
Many patients with advanced prostate cancer will have little chance of survival because the tumor usually spreads to the bone.
The study originally looked at patients with these secondary cancers and used the radium-223 chloride drug, which acts like calcium and sticks to the bone.
461 patients were given the new drug and the other 461 were treated with chemotherapy and placebo (a dummy pill which had no effect).
The death rate was 30% lower in the group taking radium-223 and patients survived for 14 months on average compared with the other group which survived 11 months on average.
Dr. Chris Parker said the decision was then made to abandon the trial and treat everyone taking part because “it would have been unethical not to offer the active treatment to those taking placebo”.
British researchers said the new treatment was safe and added that those taking it suffered less side-effects than those taking placebo.
According to Cancer Research UK, the research is promising and could be an important addition to treating prostate cancer patients with secondary tumors.
Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister has developed a close personal friendship with one of the richest and most controversial women in Israel, Ofra Strauss.
Ofra Strauss is a 51 year-old businesswoman, who divorced her second husband last year and she is the head of a $2 billion food company whose high prices triggered the biggest social protests in Israel’s history.
Ofra Strauss has been seen so often in Tony Blair’s company that the Israeli press has even speculated openly that they are having an affair.
It is an allegation Ofra Strauss’s spokesman yesterday angrily denied, while the former PM too is adamant there is “nothing improper” in the pair’s relationship.
Tony Blair is a frequent visitor to Israel through his role as the international Middle East peace envoy representing the so-called “Quartet” – the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia.
Ofra Strauss has been seen so often in Tony Blair’s company that the Israeli press has even speculated openly that they are having an affair
The apparent closeness between Tony Blair and Ofra Strauss is such that earlier this year a columnist for Maariv, a highly respected daily Hebrew newspaper, went so far as to write an ‘open letter’ to Cherie Blair, the former PM’s wife, suggesting she might like to clarify the nature of the relationship.
“For the information of Mrs Blair,” wrote the article.
“Very, very quietly this weekend, the official car allocated to Tony Blair by the Quartet glided through the gates of Ofra’s house, which is protected by tight security measures… all kinds of bad people have called me trying to suggest this visit had the character of a sexy conspiracy, so I’m handing the matter over to you to handle personally.”
The newspaper also reminded Cherie Blair that the house where her husband visited Ofra Strauss had been the subject of a furious row between the divorcee and the local council, because she had built an open-air Jacuzzi in the garden without planning permission.
Cherie Blair, Tony Blair’s wife has been warned by the Israeli press about husband's relationship with the controversial Ofra Strauss (left)
Ofra Strauss’s spokesman, Rani Rahav, said it was “ridiculous” for anyone to suggest there was any romantic element to her dealings with Tony Blair.
“There was never any skin between them, never. I have never been asked such an ugly question before.”
The spokesman also said Ofra Strauss was a close friend of both Tony and Cherie Blair.
Rani Rahav said Ofra Strauss had just returned from New York, where Tony Blair was also present in his official role, attending the debates on the future of Palestine at the UN General Assembly.
Tony Blair’s friends also say Ofra Strauss is a friend to both the former premier and his wife, with whom she has worked on women’s issues.
The open letter to Cherie Blair was not the only speculation to appear in Maariv.
Another article stated: “Ofra Strauss is grooming her friendship with Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister and Quartet representative. Ofra’s neighbours tell me that she wants to know whenever there’s some special event in Tony’s honour – and that happens a lot.”
In the wake of such pieces, others have written of Tony Blair’s sex appeal to Israelis.
Dining in Tel Aviv with Ofra Strauss, Tony Blair seemed to enjoy his food with gusto, making sure he always “cleaned his plate”.
It is certainly evident that Ofra Strauss and Tony Blair enjoy each other’s company.
They have dined together among a group of friends in one of Tel Aviv’s finest restaurants, Montefiore Yavne, which is owned by Ofra Strauss’s brother and sister. The meal lasted more than two hours.
Restaurant staff said the group sat in the balcony section, a secluded area with discreet lighting. Having checked the place before their arrival, Tony Blair’s security remained outside. Tony Blair and Ofra Strauss have also dined together at another high-end establishment across the street, the Montefiore Hotel. A senior staff member there declined to say whether there were others in their party but sources close to Tony Blair insisted that the pair have never dined alone as a couple.
Ofra Strauss’s first husband, Dan Lahat, to whom she was married for 18 years, was a son of a former mayor of Tel Aviv. Her second husband, Adi Keizman, is a property developer ten years her junior and known for his taste in expensive tailoring and sports cars. Before he married Ofra Strauss, Adi Keizman had dated an Israeli former Miss Universe. He is now engaged to model Esti Ginzburg.
In Israel, being friends with Ofra Strauss is seen as politically controversial.
Ofra Strauss is the chairman and former chief executive of the Strauss Group, a food conglomerate she inherited from her father, Michael, which makes dairy products, snacks and confectionery.
Because it has so little competition, Strauss Group is officially designated a monopoly under Israeli law, meaning its prices are supposed to be regulated by the government.
In July, however, the prices charged by Ofra Strauss firm for yoghurt and cottage cheese reached such a level that tens of thousands of protesters began living in a ‘tent city” in central Tel Aviv, and for three months mounted weekly demonstrations that attracted up to half a million people at a time.
Other monopoly firms were also the targets of the protest, dubbed the Israeli Arab Spring. One group of protesters set up an encampment on the grass verge opposite Ms Strauss’s house in the affluent suburb of Tzahala.
The camp’s leader, Itzhak Elrov, said they were there because “tycoons” like Ofra Strauss were “milking huge profits at the expense of the common people”.
Ofra Strauss is by no means the only multi-millionaire Tony Blair has cultivated since leaving Downing St in 2007. The former British PM has been widely criticized for blurring his official duties as a diplomat with lucrative business opportunities for his private consulting firm, Tony Blair Associates, whose clients include the rulers of Kuwait and Abu Dhabi.
Ofra Strauss is not the only wealthy Israeli woman Tony Blair has tried to cultivate. According to press reports in Israel, he also tried to persuade Shari Arison, a billionaire heiress who owns Israel’s Bank Hap-oalim, to invest in the Palestinian territories.
Shari Arison, who is also author of a book of “new age” philosophy, declined, saying she was not sure whether her money would be safe.
Arison spokesman declined to say whether she and Tony Blair had stayed in touch.
Google celebrates Jim Henson 75th birthday anniversary featuring a doodle with 5 Muppets.
Jim Henson Google Doodle
The logo is HTML5-powered and it is interactive, clicking on the circle below each character, it follows the cursor with its eyes, and double-clicking on one, it opens its mouth. One of them throw its glasses, and other eats its neighbor.
Brian Henson, Jim Henson‘s son, is now chairman of the Jim Henson Company.
“He loved gadgets and technology. Following his lead, The Jim Henson Company continues to develop cutting-edge technology for animatronics and digital animation, like this cool Google doodle celebrating Jim’s 75th birthday. But I think even he would have found it hilarious the way today some people feel that when they’ve got their smartphone, they no longer need their brain.” Brian wrote in Google’s blog.
"The Muppets were a family" for Jim Henson.
“He loved dogs, particularly goofy ones. And he lived for those moments when everyone laughed so hard they couldn’t talk,” Brian Henson said. He recalled his father’s passion for games, being allowed to stay up late to watch his father’s appearance on TV, and his father’s feeling that “the Muppets were a family.”
This is the second time when Google pays tribute to Jim Henson on its homepage. Google replaced its logo with a rotating cast of Sesame Street characters honoring the 40th anniversary of the television show Sesame Street, two years ago. Jim Henson was asked to help with this show in 1969.
Jim Henson helped with Sesame Street show
“Born in Greenville, Miss., in 1936, Henson created his fuzzy, goggle-eyed puppets in the ‘50s, and they soon began appearing on local television while he attended the University of Maryland (where he met his future wife and the show’s co-producer, Jane Nebel).
In 1969, Kermit the Frog, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch and the rest of the lovable furry troupe began to appear on PBS’s new ”Sesame Street.” By the ‘70s, the Muppets gained a hit prime-time show (and Miss Piggy) and, soon, hit the big screen. (Their newest feature film is November’s ”The Muppets,” starring Jason Segel and Amy Adams.)” The Washington Post about Jim Henson.
Jim Henson and Kermit
Jim Henson was born on September 24, 1936 and died on May 16, 1990. The Public Broadcasting Service, which hosted Sesame Street, said he was ”the spark that ignited our fledgling broadcast service.”(New York Times)
Jim Henson was “our era’s Charlie Chaplin, Mae West, W. C. Fields and Marx Brothers,” said the chairman and chief executive of the company that produced Sesame Street. (New York Times)
Jim Henson Google doodle inspired people to create interesting animation, the Muppets singing Rolling in the Deep (Adele), Boom Boom Pow (the Black Eyed Peas), or Earth Angel (The Penguins), or Chop Suey! (System of a Down).
Dinosaurs was the last show Jim Henson produced.
Jim Henson died of septic shock caused by lungs abscesses (Streptococcus pyogenes). On May 21, a public memorial service was held in New York City at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine and . another one was held on July 2 at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London.
No one wore black (it was Jim Henson wish). Dixieland jazz band sang When The Saints Go Marching In, Harry Belafonte sang Turn the World Around (the song he had debuted on The Muppet Show), Big Bird (Caroll Spinney) sang Kermit the Frog’s signature song, Bein’ Green. Six of the core Muppet performers sang Jim Henson’s favorite songs, then Just One Person began with Richard Hunt singing alone, as Scooter.
“As each verse progressed, each Muppeteer joined in with their own Muppets until the stage was filled with all the Muppet performers and their beloved characters,” Chris Barry recalled.
This image was recreated for the 1990 television special The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson and inspired Richard Curtis to write the growing-orchestra wedding scene of his 2003 film Love Actually.
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Jim Henson Google Doodle: Muppets sing Boom Boom Pow (video)
NASA’s decommissioned Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) hit the Earth last night.
NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite UPDATES: “The Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California said the satellite entered the atmosphere over the North Pacific Ocean, off the west coast of the United States. The precise re-entry time and location of any debris impacts are still being determined. NASA is not aware of any reports of injury or property damage.” NASA wrote at 2:37 p.m. EDT (6:37 p.m. UTC).
UPDATE: “Because of the satellite’s orbit, any surviving components of UARS should have landed within a zone between 57 degrees north latitude and 57 degrees south latitude. It is impossible to pinpoint just where in that zone the debris landed, but NASA estimates the debris footprint to be about 500 miles [804.7 kilometers] long.”
UPDATE: “We extend our appreciation to the Joint Space Operations Center for monitoring UARS not only this past week but also throughout its entire 20 years on orbit,” said Nick Johnson, NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “This was not an easy re-entry to predict because of the natural forces acting on the satellite as its orbit decayed. Space-faring nations around the world also were monitoring the satellite’s descent in the last two hours and all the predictions were well within the range estimated by JSpOC.”
UPDATE: “DoD’s Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg AFB, CA, has assessed that NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite reentered the atmosphere sometime between 0323 and 0509 GMT on 24 September. During this period the satellite passed over Canada, the African continent, and the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The mid-point of that ground-track and a possible reentry location is 31 N latitude and 219 E longitude.”
The $750 million satellite, weighing six tons, first penetrated Earth’s atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it all fell into the sea, said NASA and the U.S. Air Force’s Joint Space Operations Center.
“NASA’s decommissioned Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite fell back to Earth between 11:23 p.m. EDT Friday [3:23 a.m UTC Saturday], Sept. 23 and 1:09 a.m. EDT [05:09 a.m. UTC Saturday] Sept. 24. The Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California said the satellite penetrated the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. The precise re-entry time and location are not yet known with certainty,” NASA said.
NASA's satellite "penetrated the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean". Where the satellite landed is not known precisely yet.
NASA’s earlier calculations had predicted that the former climate research satellite, launched in 1991, would fall over a 500 miles (804.7 kilometers) swath and could include land.
The plummet began over the ocean and there was a lack of reports of people being hit, “gives us a good feeling that no one was hurt,” but officials didn’t know for certain, Steve Cole, NASA spokesman, told The Associated Press.
“In the entire 50-plus-year history of the space program, no person has ever been injured by a piece of re-entering space debris. Keep in mind we have bits of debris re-entering the atmosphere every single day.” said Mark Matney, orbital debris scientist at NASA.
There were hypotheses on the Internet and Twitter, much of them centered on unconfirmed reports and even video of debris over Alberta, Canada.
That was possible because the last track for the satellite included Canada, starting north of Seattle and then in a large arc north then south, Steve Cole said. The track continued through the Atlantic south toward Africa, but it is hard to belive that satellite got that far if it started falling over the Pacific.
The surviving chunks of the satellite include titanium fuel tanks, beryllium housing and stainless-steel batteries and wheel rims.
“No consideration ever was given to shooting it down,” NASA said.
The craft contains no fuel and so is not expected to explode on impact, and NASA also said on Twitter that talk of “flaming space debris” was a “myth“.
“Pieces of UARS landing on earth will not be very hot. Heating stops 36km up, cools after that,” NASA said. The satellite contains nothing radioactive but its metal fragments could be sharp.
The U.S. space agency has warned anyone who comes across what they believe may be the satellite’s debris not to touch it but to contact authorities for assistance.
“Any pieces of UARS found are still the property of the country that made it. You’ll have to give ’em back to U.S.” NASA wrote on Twitter.
“Should the public come across debris they believe to be from the downed satellite, they should alert the authorities, or the authorities may come after them.” said Robert Pearl, space artifacts expert .
Some lucky sky-watchers in Florida were able to catch a glimpse of the defunct satellite as it circled the Earth before its final descent.
NASA awaits more details from the Air Force, that was responsible for tracking debris, but where the satellite might have fallen, officials could never know precisely.
“Most space debris is in the ocean. It’ll be hard to confirm,” Steve Cole said.
The chart shows the predicted entry of the satellite point, based on data from U.S. Strategic Command.(William Harwood/MacDoppler Pro)
The satellite had 35 feet (10.7 meters) and some 26 fragments of the satellite representing 1,200 pounds (544.31 kilograms) of heavy metal had been expected to fall down. The biggest surviving chunk should be no more than 300 pounds (136 kilograms).
Space law professor Frans von der Dunk from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln told AFP that the US would likely have to pay damages to any country where the debris falls.
“Liability for damage caused by space debris is regulated by a 1972 international treaty that the U.S. has signed on to,”NASA wrote on Twitter.
The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite is the biggest NASA spacecraft to crash back to Earth, uncontrolled, since the Skylab space station and the Pegasus 2 satellite (1979).
Russia’s 135-ton Mir space station hit the Earth in 2001, but it was a controlled dive into the Pacific.
No one had ever been hit by falling space junk and NASA expected that not to change. NASA put the chances that somebody somewhere on Earth would get hurt at 1-in-3,200, a person’s odds of being struck were estimated at 1-in-22 trillion, since there are 7 billion people on the planet.
The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite ran out of fuel in 2005, it was built and launched before NASA and other nations started new programs that prevent this type of uncontrolled crashes of satellite.
“It was the first multi-instrumented satellite to observe numerous chemical components of the atmosphere for better understanding of photochemistry. UARS data marked the beginning of many long-term records for key chemicals in the atmosphere. The satellite also provided key data on the amount of light that comes from the sun at ultraviolet and visible wavelengths,” Beth Dickey and Steve Cole wrote.
On Saturday morning a man fired three air gun shots in Erfurt, Germany, around one mile (1,6 kilometers) from the city’s main cathedral (Saint Mary), where Pope Benedict XVI was to celebrate Mass.
The shooting incident has occurred on the edge of the security zone about an hour before the Pope started his celebration of the Mass for around 30,000 people. The gun fires aimed at a security guard.
Eckhard Deutschmann, a local police spokesman told AFP that no one was injured in the incident and a suspect was arrested in his apartment, from where the shots were fired.
Pope Benedict XVI celebrates a Mass Saturday morning at Saint Mary's Cathedral in Erfurt, Germany, about an hour after the shooting incident.(AP)
When the man was arrested, the Pope was already at the airport on his way to the staunchly Catholic city of Freiburg, the final stop on this visit, where he holds a prayer vigil for young people later on Saturday.
“According to the German police, it seems to be the action of an unbalanced person,” said Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokeman. It was “an incident that had nothing to do with the Pope” and “the Pope has not been informed,” he said.
There was “no worry” in the papal entourage over the incident, and the pontiff was not informed about it before the Mass. “It didn’t seem particularly urgent,” he told reporters on the pope’s plane after the Mass.
There has been very tight security for the Pope’s first state visit to his native Germany. Large parts of Berlin, Erfurt and Freiburg have been locked down for the trip and large police forces were deployed.
On the Mass celebrated early Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI paid tribute to those Catholics who had kept the faith burning during Nazi and Communist regimes in Erfurt, former East Germany. The most resilient Catholic community under the Communist regime was in Erfurt.
Pope Benedict XVI prays during the Mass held in Erfurt after the shooting incident.(AP)
“You have had to endure first a brown and then a red dictatorship, which acted on the Christian faith like acid rain,” Pope Benedict XVI said. “Are not the deep roots of faith and Christian life to be sought in something very different from social freedom? It was actually amid the hardships of pressure from without that many committed Catholics remained faithful to Christ and to the church,” Pope said.
Germany’s Church has been losing thousands of followers because of revelations that hundreds of children and young people were abused by clergy and church employees, the scandal has cost them badly needed trust among the roughly 24 million German Catholics.
The victims groups and their lawyers has been accused Pope Benedict XVI of being part of a systematic cover-up by the church hierarchy for pedophile priests in his earlier roles as an archbishop in Germany and later at the pontiff.
On Friday night, Pope Benedict XVI met for half an hour with two women and three men from parishes across Germany who were among the abused. He expressed “deep compassion and regret” at the suffering of those who were abused and assured them the Church is seeking “effective measures to protect children,” Vatican said.
Survivors groups denounced the pope’s meeting with German victims as an empty gesture. They maintain the church has not done enough to prosecute offending priests and prevent future cases of abuse.
Catholic leaders had warned ahead of Pope Benedict XVI visit that there was no quick solution, but they hoped the pontiff could help heal wounds left by the scandal.
Germany’s Bishops Conference has set up a telephone hotline to counsel victims and help them to take legal steps against offending priests when possible.
About 9,000 people turned out in Berlin to denounce the Vatican views on homosexuality, contraception and other issues.
On the first two days of his visit, the Pope met members of Germany’s Jewish and Muslim communities and then held prayers with Protestant leaders in a show of greater Christian unity.
Elizabeth Taylor Collection of gems, gowns and art is unveiled at Christie’s in London today.
Elizabeth Taylor was renowned for her impeccable taste in jewellery, and over her lifetime amassed a dazzling collection worth a staggering $30 million (£20million). Many of the pieces were designed by Elizabeth Taylor herself in partnership with her favoured jewellery house, Cartier, and many bestowed upon her by her generous husbands.
Elizabeth Taylor Collection of gems, gowns and art is unveiled at Christie's in London today
After Elizabeth Taylor death in March 2011, at aged 79, the entire collection of 300 glorious pieces is to go on display at London auction house Christie’s, ahead of a sale of the hoard in New York this December.
Marc Porter, the chairman and president of Christie’s America said the sale promised to “captivate the auction world”. Marc Porter added: “This is without a doubt the greatest private collection of jewellery assembled in one place.”
The emerald suite was one of Elizabeth Taylor's favourite set of gems, and she wore them often
Many of the Elizabeth Taylor’ stunning gems have great historic value.
One, La Pérégrina pearl, is widely considered to be one of the most important pearls in the world. The pear-shaped piece dates from the 16th century, and once belonged to King Phillip II of Spain, and later to his daughters Elizabeth and Margaret.
Elizabeth Taylor’s fifth husband Richard Burton won it in an auction and gave it to her as a gift, he worked with Cartier to have it hung on a diamond and ruby necklace.
La Peregrina pearl, won by Richard Burton at auction and made into necklace by Elizabeth Taylor with Cartier is set to fetch up to $3 million (£2 million)
The necklace will be unveiled today at Christie’s with dozens more of Elizabeth Taylor’s gems. Along with the impressive hoard of treasures amassed by the Hollywood legend will be lavish gowns and art by greats such as Van Gogh and Degas.
The Bulgari Emerald necklace is part of a suite that is expected to raise up to $1.5 million (£1 million)
The total Elizabeth Collection, which is given an estimated total value of close to £100 million ($150 million) is going on display in the UK for the first time tomorrow in a three-day exhibition opening at Christie’s London.
The Cartier ruby and diamond suite was given to Elizabeth Taylor by her third husband Mike Todd
The event, which is part of a three-month global tour, attracted 6,000 visitors when Elizabeth Taylor Collection was previewed in Moscow earlier this month. The collection is being unveiled in the run-up to a much-anticipated December auction held in New York, where all the pieces will be sold.
Fans of Elizabeth Taylor will have the opportunity to view the vast array of items taken from her Bel Air estate.
Top pieces of her collection include the Elizabeth Taylor diamond, La Peregrina pearl once owned by England’s Queen Mary I, dresses from leading designers including Versace and Chanel and rare works of art by the likes of Van Gogh and Renoir.
A total of 269 pieces from her jewellery collection will be auctioned while 400 fashion items spanning over 50 years of Elizabeth Taylor’s life will also be sold off.
Highlights from Elizabeth Taylor’s art collection, include the 1889 Vincent Van Gogh painting Vue De L’Asile Et De La Chapelle De Saint-Remy, which is expected to fetch up to $11 million (£7 million) and a rare self-portrait by Edgar Degas, with a pre-sale estimate of $700,000 ( £450,000).
Fashion collectors will have the opportunity to purchase unique designs such as a Versace beaded evening jacket adorned with portraits of Elizabeth Taylor in some of her famous movie roles, estimated to sell for up to £13,000 ($20,000) and the sunflower yellow dress by Hollywood designer Irene Sharaff that Taylor wore to her 1964 wedding to Burton, boasting a pre-sale estimate of £26,000 to £39,000 ($40,000-60,000).
For lower priced items there will be an online auction featuring moderately valued pieces with registration and bidding starting on December 3.
After London the Elizabeth Taylor Collection tour will move to Los Angeles, Dubai, Geneva, Paris, Hong Kong before finally closing at the Rockefeller Plaza in New York.
The UK exhibition, which runs until Monday at the auctioneers on King Street, opens today and in keeping with elizabeth Taylor’s humanitarian work, a portion of the £10 admission price will go to the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation, founded in 1991.
Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s Americas, said: “This is without a doubt the greatest private collection of jewellery ever assembled in one place, and Christie’s is honoured to have been entrusted with the global tour of the collection this fall, and the sale of the collection in its entirety this December.”
Elizabeth Taylor’s famous jewellery and fashion items will go under the hammer over a four-day sale in New York this December, while her art will be auctioned in London next February.
Physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the international nuclear research facility near Geneva, Switzerland, are saying that an experiment in which a beam of neutrinos were sent 500 miles from CERN to a laboratory in Italy has thrown up a quite staggering result.
Specifically, the specialists found that the particles got there 60 billionths of a second quicker than the light speed limit allowed.
This was not a one-off; 15,000 neutrinos were detected and the results collated over three years.
The scientists at CERN found that neutrinos are travelling 60 billionths of a second quicker than the light speed limit allowed
The physicists say the result is so extraordinary that it may well be a mistake but they also say they cannot see where they might have gone wrong and have thrown open the doors to the international scientific community to check, double-check and triple-check what is going on.
If these neutrinos really are travelling faster than light, this will overturn everything we think we know about the basic physics that underpins the way we think the Universe works.
In 1905, Albert Einstein, in his Special Theory of Relativity, demonstrated that the speed of light which is equal to 186,000 miles/second or around six hundred million mph, is a universal constant. Albert Einstein’s genius was to weave together space, time, velocity, energy and mass into a fundamental interconnected whole.
CERN research findings could break a fundamental pillar of science and Einstein's theory of relativity
Breaking the light speed limit is not just some piece of awkward physics bureaucracy. The limit is actually a fundamental reflection of the way space and time are put together.
One outcome of travelling faster than light is that the mass and energy of the object travelling this fast become infinite. This is clearly absurd.
Another consequence is that anything travelling faster than light also goes backwards in time. This would violate another basic tenet, not only of physics but of our basic philosophical comprehension of how the world works. If we go back in time, we violate the principle of causality which says cause must precede effect.
It is possible, as the scientists freely admit, that they’ve made a mistake. After all, these neutrinos only broke the light speed barrier by about 12,000 mph, a tiny fraction of light speed. But intriguingly, the result of the “opera” (oscillation project with emulsion tracking apparatus) seems to have been mirrored in a couple of other experiments in the US.
If the result is correct, we have to assume that specialists have discovered something truly extraordinary, perhaps as significant as Albert Einstein’s original findings.
If things can travel faster than light, the Universe cannot be as physics assumed it to be for 106 years. Rule books will be torn up, hair will be torn out and new careers will be forged, explaining what on earth is going on.
A new post on NASA’s official Twitter account said of the falling satellite: “Re-entry prediction now later than expected – tonight or late Saturday morning,” at just before noon Eastern Time.
It seemed that NASA’s earlier prediction of a landing late this afternoon was wrong. A second update from NASA said, “predicted re-entry moving later.”
Meanwhile, NASA official website reveals that the satellite‘s orientation has changed during its plunge – and that its rate of descent was “changing”, making it difficult for NASA computers to predict the time or place of landing.
“There is now a low probability debris that survives re-entry will land in the United States.”
The falling satellite is one of the thousands of objects in Earth orbit being tracked by NASA
The space agency says there is a one in 3,200 chance the falling satellite will hit someone.
The satellite, which has six tons, is being tracked by all available equipment including a giant radar at RAF Fylingdales on the North York Moors on its path towards Earth.
NASA admits that it cannot predict the time or place of re-entry with any certainty – “but predictions will become more refined in the next 12 to 18 hours.”
A period of “12 to 18 hours” seems unnervingly close to when the huge Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) will break up on entering the Earth’s atmosphere, throwing chunks of metal weighing up to 350 lb across hundreds of miles.
The space agency said it will only know 2 hours before impact where it will land and even that prediction will only be accurate to the nearest 6,000 miles.
The satellite landing could be anywhere between the 57th parallel north, which crosses Britain at around Inverness, and the 57th parallel south, which passes just below South America.
Worldwide interest in the satellite is growing: a website set up to “track” the falling satellite is constantly crashing under incredible demand, and an app for Android smartphones, Satellite AR, allows people to “see” where it is at any moment.
An amazing video captured the satellite earlier this week as NASA experts slowly narrowed down the area where it could strike.
Astrophotographer Thierry Legault’s clip, shot in northern France, shows the 20-year-old UARS satellite, appearing as a beaming mass of light as it careers to Earth.
The station at RAF Fylingdalers was originally built at the height of the Cold War to track any incoming ballistic missile attack – a role it still performs.
A RAF spokeswoman said:
“The Space Operations Room at Royal Air Force Fylingdales is manned 24 hours a day by specialist Royal Air Force and civilian personnel, and its operators will be working to track the UARS object as it returns to the atmosphere.
“The Solid State Phased Array Radar is being tasked by the United States Air Force and the Royal Air Force to concentrate its radar energy towards the object in order to track its final orbit.”
“This information will then be used by various different agencies to predict the path of re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Initially, the satellite was expected to come crashing down through the atmosphere on Friday evening, GMT. On Thursday, the Aerospace Corporation in California predicted that re-entry will occur over the Pacific Ocean.
The satellite, which is 20-year-old, is the biggest NASA spacecraft to fall uncontrolled from the sky in 32 years.
The satellite is expected to break into more than 100 pieces as it enters the atmosphere, most of it burning up.
The heaviest metal parts are expected to reach Earth, the biggest chunk weighing about 300 lb (135 kg). The debris could be scattered over an area about 500 miles long.
The largest single day electronic dance music event, LovEvolution: A Dance Music Parade and Festival is hosted at the historical stadium O.co Coliseum and Oracle Arena in Oakland, California on Saturday, September 24, 2011.
LovEvolution 2011 has a main stage, a grassy area at the Supperclub, 17 community produced, unique floats, with great names in dance music (Moby and Markus Schulz), top musicians, performers and DJs from around the world.
The Glitch Mob, Pendulum, Plump DJ’s, Isaiah Martin featuring Mark D’Antonio and Dustin Hengle perform at the Main Stage.
Pendulum performs at LovEvolution 2011
In the Chill Area: Rob Garza (Theivery Corporation), King Britt, Marquez Wyatt, Jason Bentley, Rafael de la Cruz (Deep LA), Jimmy Bell (supperclub SF), Michael Anthony (supperclub SF / LA), Late Night Sneaky ft B-Smiley plus Dj Rob Rayle (Outersect)
Other floats and artists are: Electro Pop Rockin Skills (Gareth Emery, Dyloot (deepVoices), K Theory), Opel & Opulent Temple ( ELiKi, Mike Butler, DJ Wolfie), Tantric Temple, Love and Rockets, Go Ventures – The Love Festival, Temple SF, rEvolution, Temple of Boom, Sacramento Dance Music, The Strip Ship, pixel porn, one, the sixth element, basssheadz, B.A.E. Krew’s chocolate factory, Nebula m 78.
The Glitch Mob takes the Main Stage at LovEvolution 2011
LovEvolution (formerly San Francisco LovEvolution and San Francisco LoveFest) is a technoparade and festival which takes its roots from German annual Love Parade.
Plump DJs come to LovEvolution 2011
From 2004 to 2009, the parade included 25 floats and started at San Francisco’s 2nd and Market Streets to San Francisco Civic Center Plaza. The event moved to Oakland in 2011.
Technoparade is a parade of vehicles equipped with strong loudspeakers and amplifiers playing techno music. It resembles a carnival parade, but the vehicles (lovemobiles) are less elaborately decorated. Important techoparades are: Street Parade (Zürich), Techno Parade (Paris, Love Parade and Fuckparade (Berlin), Lake Parade (Geneva).
Loveparade started in Berlin in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but in 2003, the city denied the parade a permit and the event moved to San Francisco. In 2004, when German organizers were able to secure permits back in Berlin.
The Love Week began on Wednesday and LovEvolution is followed by an official after-party known as LovEvolution After Party.
The mission of LovEvolution is to promote peace, understanding, tolerance, diversity, love, unity, peace, respect through the vehicle of dance music and the culture that surrounds it.
Over 120,000 people attended LovEvolution in 2008 in San Francisco.
The San Francisco LovEvolution is a volunteer non-profit organization. All profits made from the event are either applied towards next year’s event or given to participating non-profit organizations. In 2008 over 120,000 people attended this event.
There were studies suggesting that diabetes increases a person’s lifetime risk of developing thyroid cancer, and a new report published shows this linkage for retirement-age Americans.
The medical scientists found that if a person between 50 and 71 years old has diabetes the 10-year risk of thyroid cancer is increased by one-quarter.
The researchers founded their conclusions on data collected from the around 500,000 men and women who participated in the NIH-American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Diet and Health Study, that was performed in 1995 and 1996.
In the first survey, the statisticians gathered health information using questionnaires. Volunteers were asked about their pancreatic health, body mass index, diabetic status and other physical health related issues.
Ten years later, scientists conducted follow-up diagnostic tests on lots of participants.The new study used the values found during these visits.
On the first questionnaire, about one in 10 subjects reported having diabetes. Years later, these persons developed thyroid cancer with higher average frequency than those without the diabetes.
Thyroid cancer's risk is higher in women with diabetes
Overall, the participants with diabetes were 25 percent more likely than their peers to be diagnosed with thyroid cancer and the risk was found higher in women.
The men with diabetes had only 4 percent increment in the likelihood of developing thyroid tumors, but in diabetic women their risk climb by 46 percent.
The study appeared in the journal Thyroid, and was conducted by epidemiologists associated with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
These data confirm the results that were published over 10 years ago in the journal Clinical Diabetes. In an article appeared in 2000, Patricia Wu, an endocrinologist from the University of California, San Diego, gave an estimated 6.6 percent of the U.S. population with various type of thyroid disease and she said 10.8 percent of diabetics suffer from thyroid illnesses.
There are no doubtless information regarding the association between diabetes and the development of thyroid cancer.
However, researchers advanced the theory that the linkage is given by the conditions’ similarities as endocrine disorders. Thyroid Today emphasizes thyroid cancer and diabetes are in connection to autoimmune disturbances, body mass index variation and age-related risk.
Lots of adults have small nodules in their thyroids, but under 5% of these nodules are malignant. Yet the most frequent first sign of thyroid cancer is a nodule, or sometimes an enlarged lymph node. An ultrasound confirms the presence of the nodules. Thyroid nodules found under age of 20 are alarming because the potential for malignancy is far greater. Later symptoms are pain in the anterior region of the neck and changes in voice.
Thyroid ultrasound confirms the presence of the nodules. Less than 5 percent of thyroid nodules are malignant.
National Cancer Institute estimates 48,020 new cases and 1,740 deaths from thyroid cancer in the U. S. in 2011.
Anaplastic thyroid cancer is a very aggressive primary thyroid malignancy, represents less than 2% of all thyroid cancers, but causes up to 40% of deaths. Median life expectancy is about three months for newly diagnosed patients. The overall 5-year survival rate of anaplastic thyroid cancer has been given as 7% or 14%.
Hoping to slow or stop the thyroid cancer progression Fosbretabulin (Zybrestat), bortezomib (Velcade) and TNF-Related Apoptosis Induced Ligand (TRAIL), are being trialed.
Lawrence Brewer’s over-the-top meal, who was executed on Wednesday night for the dragging death of James Byrd, meant the end of the death row intimates last meal requests.
Houston State Senator John Whitmire wrote to the executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Division saying that he had long opposed the practice, and that “enough is enough.”
Senator Whitmire said the last meal request is an “extremely inappropriate privilege”, one which “the perpetrator did not provide to their victim.”
Before he was executed, the white supremacist Lawrence Brewer ordered an enormous meal containing 3,500 calories.
His last meal consisted of two chicken fried steaks, a triple bacon cheeseburger, a bowl of fried okra, a cheese omelette, barbeque, fajitas, pizza and peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts.
Lawrence Russell Brewer arriving at court in a bulletproof vest in 1999
According to Houstonpress.com, executive director Brad Livingston agreed with Senator Whitmire.
“I believe Senator Whitmire’s concerns regarding the practice of allowing death row offenders to choose their last meal are valid.
“Effective immediately, no such accommodations will be made. They will receive the same meal served to other offenders on the unit.”
The 44 year-old Lawrence Brewer, was put to death by lethal injection for his part in the 1998 killing of James Byrd in Jasper, East Texas.
Lawrence Brewer was one of three men convicted of killing James Byrd after they offered him a lift along a remote country road.
James Byrd, 49, was beaten unconscious and urinated upon before being bound to the vehicle by his ankles with a heavy logging chain and driven for three miles.
James Byrd Jr died after being chained to the bumper of a pick-up truck by Lawrence Brewer and two other white supremacists
According to forensic evidence, James Byrd was alive for much of the ordeal but was killed when the vehicle hit a concrete drainage channel causing his head and arm to be ripped from his body.
John William King, 36, was also convicted of capital murder and sent to death row. His case remains under appeal. The third man, Shawn Berry, 36, received a life prison term.
After dumping his remains in an African-American cemetery his killers drove off to a barbeque.
Lawrence Brewer told KFDM in an interview that he participated in the assault on James Byrd but had “nothing to do with the killing as far as dragging him or driving the truck or anything”.
Brewer told also his execution would be a “good out” and he’s “glad it’s about to come to an end”.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice said Lawrence Brewer‘s family was allowed to see him one last time yesterday morning.
Lawrence Brewer was then taken from the Polunsky Unit in Livingston to an isolation cell in Huntsville where the sentence was carried out.
James Byrd’s death led to the “Federal October 22, 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr Hate Crimes Prevention Act”, commonly known as the “Matthew Shepard Act”.
US President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on October 28, 2009.
The brutal death put Jasper, a typical East Texas town with a Dairy Queen, Walmart and a handful of fast-food places some 60 miles from the nearest interstate highway, under a national spotlight.
“Everywhere you went, anywhere in the country, once people found out you were from Jasper, Texas, they wanted to ask you about it,” said Mike Lout, mayor and the Jasper radio station owner.
“Everybody first was shocked and appalled and not proud of it. They talked about it so much in the days past it, I think most people wanted to put it out of their minds.”
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Billy Rowles, who was sheriff at the time of James Byrd’s murder.
“A lot of effort and hard work and soul-searching went into trying to live down the stereotype. It’s so easy to get back into that mode.”
Lawrence Brewer’s huge last meal had echoes of that enjoyed by Robert Harris in 1992, who killed two teenage boys. Harris had a chicken bucket, two large pizzas, a Pepsi six-pack, jelly beans and Camel cigarettes.
The subject of last meals before execution has thrown up some interesting results over the last few decades, with James Smith being refused a request of dirt in 1990 and instead eating yoghurt.
Texas governor Rick Perry engaged in persuasive dispute with his rivals at Thursday night’s GOP presidential debate in Orlando. Social Security, immigration, border security and Perry’s 2007 executive order mandating that middle-school girls be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted HPV virus that can cause cervical cancer were the main topics. Texas governor Rick Perry struggled to reply to his critics in the latest debate between Republican contenders.
Gop Presidential debate
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann said Perry supported the vaccine as a political favor to a pharmaceutical company, Merck, which donated to his campaigns.
For Rick Perry, the uninspired performance raises fears among Republicans that he would fail to dent Barack Obama in the high-profile presidential debates during the 2012 general election.
Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and Rick Perry’s main rival, was polite and more fluent, especially as the debate wore on, although he avoided making detailed responses.
The Texas governor also saw his once immaculate conservative credentials come under fire when Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum pointed out a 2001 law signed by Perry that gave higher education tuition breaks to the children of illegal immigrants.
Perry hit back hard and questioned whether Santorum had even been to the border before. He hotly defended the policy, accusing critics of seeking to punish children for the sins of their parents.
“If you say that we should not educate children that have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought here by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart”
During the GOP presidential debate, he specifically mentioned his support for Arizona’s controversial immigration law:
“The fact of the matter is this: There is nobody on this stage who has spent more time working on border security than I have. For a decade, I’ve been the governor of a state with a 1,200-mile border with Mexico. We put $400 million of our taxpayer money into securing that border. We’ve got our Texas Ranger recon teams there now. I supported Arizona’s immigration law by joining in that lawsuit to defend it.”
Romney questioned Perry’s commitment to protecting Social Security in a state with nearly 4 million citizens who depend on the entitlement program.
Rick Perry rebuffed Romney’s accusation that he wants to eliminate Social Security at the federal level and let the entitlement program be managed by the states.
“It’s not the first time that Mitt has been wrong on some issues so far,” Perry said. “The bottom line is, we never said we would move that back to the states.”
Perry swore a “solemn oath” to protect the program and said states, as a cost-saving measure, should allow Social Security recipients to opt out of the program if they choose.
The GOP presidential debate also revealed an ugly side of the Republican party when a member of the US armed forces appeared on video to tell the candidates that he was gay and that he had been forced to lie about his identity when he was deployed to Iraq in 2010 because he didn’t want to lose his job. Then he asked if the candidates would “do anything to circumvent the progress that’s been made for gay and lesbian soldiers” now that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy has been officially repealed.
[youtube h8pcJ6Hh4Y0]
When the video ended a handful of very loud boos erupted in the debate hall. Otherwise there was silence – not one cheer for an active duty soldier asking the candidates if they’d let him continue serving his country without lying. No other voter-submitted question all night elicited such a harsh response.
The question was addressed to Rick Santorum, who made things worse by not offering any words of appreciation for Hill’s service. Instead, he declared that “any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military,” that gays and lesbians have been given “a special privilege” by the repeal of DADT, and that the basic function of the military has been undermined because of it. This response produced loud applause and cheers.
Medusa, the world’s largest snake weighs more than 300 lbs (135 kg), is 25ft (7.5 meters) long and it takes 15 people to hold her.
Medusa, a massive python is set to slither into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest snake living in captivity.
The giant snake, which will be on display at the Edge of Hell haunted house attraction in Kansas City, eats a 40lb animal about once a week but could easily eat something weighing more than 100lbs.
Medusa, the world’s largest snake weighs more than 300 lbs (135 kg), is 25ft (7.5 meters) long and it takes 15 people to hold her
Medusa will soon be visited by representatives from the Guinness Book of World Records, who are coming to verify her new title.
Larry Elgar, Medusa‘s trainer told NBC Action News he isn’t intimidated by the massive python.
“They’ve actually cut people out of them, they are man eaters.
“Fear is just a lack of understanding. I have no fear. I understand that she can kill me. I’ve been wrapped up and put unconscious by a reticulated python that was only 18 feet long.
“I understand the repercussions, but that’s no reason to fear. That car you drove in has killed more people than anything else in the world. But you’re not scared when you put your keys in it, are you?”
Medusa, the giant python is set to slither into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest snake living in captivity
Larry Edgar said he bought Medusa, who is now seven-year-old, as a baby and she is still growing.
“Seven years ago, this snake was 24 inches long, as big as my finger,” Larry Edgar said.
Medusa is set to bump Fluffy, a reticulated python, off the top spot.
At 24 feet long, Fluffy held the record for longest snake living in captivity until she died at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Powell, Ohio, last October.
Sleepbox is the first temporary bedroom which can be rented out for half-hour periods and was just introduced into Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow.
Sleepbox will allow travellers to get a light kip if their planes are delayed.
The specially equipped boxes, which work as mobile bedrooms have been created by Russian architecture company the Arch Group.
Sleepbox is the first temporary bedroom which can be rented out for half-hour periods and was just introduced into Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow
The first Sleepbox, which can be rented out for half-hour periods, have been installed at the Aeroexpress terminal of Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow.
Sleepbox represents the basic version made of MDF with a natural ash-wood veneer.
The mobile bedroom measures 2.5m by 1.6m with a height of between 2.5m and 3m.
In addition to general lighting, Sleepbox has built-in LED reading lamps while windows are equipped with electric-drive blinds for privacy
Sleepbox standard features include ventilation and sockets for notebook and mobile phone chargers.
The special container has also space for luggage under the beds which each come with a nightstand.
In addition to general lighting, Sleepbox has built-in LED reading lamps while windows are equipped with electric-drive blinds for privacy.
Sleepbox options include matted film on windows; mood lighting LED lamps with changing light colours; built-in TV and touch-screen monitor; wi-fi router; alarm; intercom and safe deposit box.
One of Sleepbox main advantages is its ability to be installed in the airport passenger areas where travellers have to spend hours waiting for their delayed flights or a transfer.
Sleepbox standard features include ventilation and sockets for notebook and mobile phone chargers
A spokesman for the architecture company Arch Group said:
“Imagine the situation where you are in a modern city, you are not a local resident, and you have not booked a hotel.
“It is not a comfortable situation because modern aggressive cities give you no opportunity to rest and relax. If you want to sleep while waiting for your plane or train, you face many security and hygiene problems.
“We believe that urban infrastructure should be more comfortable. For this purpose we have developed Sleepbox.
“It provides moments of quiet sleep and rest without wasting time in search for a hotel.”
Referring to the first Sleepbox installed in Moscow, the spokesman added:
“This Sleepbox has attracted such a great deal of interest from passengers and big companies that the chances are first commercially-operated boxes will be installed at airports and in the city by the end of this year.”
Other possible locations for Sleepbox would include railway stations, exhibition centres and shopping centres.
In countries with a warm climate, Sleepbox can be used outdoors.
Arch Group spokesman continued:
“It allows everybody in unforeseen circumstances to spend a night safely and inexpensively or simply to kill a few hours without leaving the luggage.
“Currently we offer one, two, or three-bed Sleepboxes, which can be made of MDF, metal, and glass-reinforced plastic.
“The price varies depending on the number of hours in use: the more the user pays for, the less it costs per hour.”
A satellite, weighing six tons and currently out-of-control, will strike Earth at 18,000 mph and could land almost anywhere this evening – NASA warned last night.
The satellite has the size of a bus and will break up on entering Earth’s atmosphere, flinging huge chunks of metal weighing up to 350 lb (150 kg) across hundreds of miles.
The six-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite will crash to Earth this evening
NASA said its specialists will only know two hours before impact where it will land – and even that prediction will only be accurate to the nearest 6,000 miles. The satellite could land anywhere between the 57th parallel north, which crosses Britain at around Inverness, and the 57th parallel south, which passes just below South America.
The satellite could land anywhere between the 57th parallel north, which crosses Britain at around Inverness, and the 57th parallel south, which passes just below South America
The plummeting six-ton satellite has been caught on film.
Astrophotographer Thierry Legault’s clip, shot in northern France, shows the 20-year-old Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), appearing as a beaming mass of light as it careers to Earth.
[youtube TPP766kxU1U]
NASA orbital debris scientist Mark Matney admitted:
“We know it is going to hit somewhere between 57 north and 57 south, which covers most of the inhabited world, unfortunately.”
However, scientists have ruled out the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite striking North America.
The satellite orbit has been altered by NASA deliberately to make it crash – but it is now coming down sooner than expected due to changed atmospheric conditions.
The satellite is falling to Earth at 5 miles per second, faster than previously thought and experts say there is a one in 3,200 chance of someone being hit by debris – more likely than getting a hole in one during a round of golf.
The NASA satellite, which measures 35ft (12 meters) and weighs 6.5tonnes, was put into space in 1991 to monitor climate change, and ceased its operations in 2005.
The falling satellite will look like a fiery meteor shower as it begins to burn up in the atmosphere.
It is expected that satellite will break into more than 100 pieces with most of it being destroyed before it hits the ground. But around 26 pieces are expected to make it through and the heaviest metal parts are expected to reach Earth, including titanium fuel tanks.
NASA spokesman Steve Cole said:
“Anybody who finds a piece of the satellite should stay away from it and call the police and let them deal with it.
“It could be very hot or it could be dangerous. It depends on what speed the debris is going, but it could go be going fast enough to go through a house.
“We will have to wait and see if the debris creates a crater. If it is spherical that is possible but if it has a less regular shape it may not be going so fast.”
The satellite has the size of a bus and will break up on entering Earth’s atmosphere, flinging huge chunks of metal weighing up to 350 lb (150 kg) across hundreds of miles
Steve Cole added that more accurate predictions are expected throughout today and will be posted on NASA’s website.
Debris routinely falls to Earth from space but the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite will be the biggest NASA craft to fall uncontrolled from space in 32 years.
In 1979, Skylab, which was 15 times bigger, rained charred chunks on the Indian Ocean and Western Australia after NASA said it would land in South Africa.
In 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia exploded upon re-entry killing its entire crew, large chunks of its shell landed across Texas.
Carla Bruni says she is desperate to give birth, but the French First Lady has confessed that her urgency is not driven simply by the desire to see her baby, she is also desperate to start drinking and smoking again.
The 43 year-old former model, admitted that, after nearly eight months of carrying her first child with President Nicolas Sarkozy, she is “totally fed up”.
“Quite frankly, I can’t stand it anymore. I spend most of my time either sitting down or lying down. I can’t drink or smoke any more. I’m in a hurry to get it over with.”
Carla Bruni is due to give birth in 6 weeks, but she is desperate to smoke
The baby, who is due in six weeks, will be Carla Bruni’s second child. Shealready has a son, Aurelien, born in 2001, with ex-boyfriend Raphael Enthoven.
“The baby will be viable at any time from October 1,”Carla Bruni told French newspaper Le Parisien.
“Aurelien arrived on time, which means this could be a long wait, but I really do want this child so much.”
Friends of Carla Bruni told the newspaper that because she was having a baby after the age of 40, her doctors had urged lots of “rest and clean-living”.
Carla Bruni has also insisted she will not release photos of the new baby, saying it’s “a totally private event”.
However, another news magazine, Marianne, suggested the birth was ideally timed for President Nicolas Sarkozy’s re-election campaign next year, describing the baby as the “perfect marketing tool” for him.
“Politically speaking, the timing of this pregnancy is perfect. It is a <<marketing-baby>> that will be born just before the last months of presidential campaigning really get going.”
Carla Bruni smoking during her activity as model
Carla Bruni and the 55 year-old France president, Nicolas Sarkozy, met on a blind date at a Paris dinner party in November 2007.
Bruni and Sarkozy married just three months later at a private ceremony in the Elysee Palace on February 2, 2008.
Nicolas Sarkozy already has three children of his own – two sons, Pierre, 25, and Jean, 23, from his first marriage to Marie-Dominique Culioli, and a 13-year-old son Louis from his second marriage to Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz, who he divorced in 2007 before he met Carla Bruni.
