An eight-storey building collapsed in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, killing at least 70 people and injuring other 200, government officials say.
Many more people are feared trapped after building collapse and frantic efforts are under way to rescue those beneath the debris.
The army is helping with the rescue operation on the outskirts of Dhaka.
Building collapses are common in Bangladesh where many multi-storey blocks are built in violation of rules.
The eight-storey building contained a clothing factory, a bank and several other shops. It collapsed during the morning rush hour.
Many people have gathered near the scene looking for friends and relatives.
It is not yet clear what caused the collapse but local media reports said a crack was detected in the block on Tuesday.
An eight-storey building collapsed in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, killing at least 70 people and injuring other 200
Rescue workers are using concrete cutters and cranes to dig through the rubble.
Local police chief Mohammad Asaduzzaman told the Reuters news agency that factory owners appeared to have ignored a warning not to allow their workers into the building after the crack was detected.
Police told local media that the rear of the building suddenly started to collapse on Wednesday morning and within a short time the whole structure – except the main pillar and parts of the front wall – had caved-in, triggering panic.
Only the ground floor of the Rana Plaza in Sava remained intact after the collapse, officials said, as army and fire service rescuers equipped with concrete cutters and cranes dug through rubble to pull out trapped people. Many onlookers also joined the effort using their bare hands.
Survivors have described their terror as the collapse began.
“I was in the cutting section of the garment factory and suddenly we heard a huge noise and the building collapsed within a few minutes,” a garment worker told private Somoy TV.
“I removed the rubble and came out with two other workers. But at least 30 other workers in my cutting section were still unaccounted for,” he said.
In November, a fire at a garment factory in a Dhaka suburb killed at least 110 people and triggered a public outcry about safety standards in the industry.
The last major building collapse was in 2010, when a four-storey building collapsed in Dhaka killing at least 25 people and injuring several others.
Bangladesh has one of the largest garment industries in the world, providing competitively priced clothes for major Western retailers which benefit from its widespread low-cost labor.
Following November’s fire, Western retail chains who buy from factories in Bangladesh urged factory owners to improve safety standards.
Reese Witherspoon has been pictured in handcuffs following her dramatic arrest in the early hours of Friday morning.
The footage shows Reese Witherspoon, 37, being led out of an Atlanta police station in cuffs before being unshackled and taken inside for booking.
Reese Witherspoon appears in a calm and co-operative demeanor, although the video – obtained by TMZ– serves as another nail in her well-carved squeaky clean image.
The actress was arrested for disorderly conduct last Friday after her husband Jim Toth was arrested on suspicion of DUI.
Talent agent Jim Toth, 42, apparently feels “awful” for getting Reese Witherspoon involved in his arrest and is overwhelmed with guilt.
A source told People magazine: “[Jim Toth] feels awful that he involved Reese in the situation. He made a bad decision and
it certainly made things worse that he dragged her into it.
“[He] has to pay the consequences, bottom line. He gets that.”
Jim Toth reached 1.39 on the sobriety test – over Georgia’s legal limit of 0.08 – when he and Reese Witherspoon were pulled over in the early hours of the morning and it is thought their “embarrassing” incident will cause him to look at alcohol in a different way.
Reese Witherspoon has been pictured in handcuffs following her dramatic arrest in the early hours of Friday morning
The source added: “Jim has always been a big social drinker. A lot of his job is being social. He’s out to lunch or dinner almost every day of the week, schmoozing clients and taking business meetings.
“[The arrest is] just going to make the two of them stop and pause, and think about maybe how much Jim’s drinking plays a role in their lives – if it does or not.”
Jim Toth and Reese Witherspoon, who have 7-month-old son Tennessee together, have been given bail until their court hearing on May 22.
Reese Witherspoon – who also has children Ava, 13, and son Deacon, 10, with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe – has since made a public apology for her behavior.
Referring to disrespectful comments to authorities, which allegedly included the statement “you’re about to find out who I am”, the actress said: “Out of respect for the
ongoing legal situation, I cannot comment on everything that is being reported right now.
“But I do want to say I clearly had one drink too many and I am deeply embarrassed about the things I said.
“It was definitely a scary situation and I was frightened for my husband, but that was no excuse. I was disrespectful to the officer who was just doing his job.
“I have nothing but respect for the police and I am very sorry for my behavior.”
Meanwhile, Reese Witherspoon’s friend Chelsea Handler told Entertainment Tonight that the actress was “doing fine”.
“She was just trying to protect her husband, so,” she said.
“I mean everybody makes mistakes, so it’s not a big deal.”
Chelsea Handler met up with Reese Witherspoon, her husband and a group of friends including Cameron Diaz, Michael Keaton, Judd Apatow, and Leslie Mann – two days after the couple’s arrest.
According to Us Weekly, Reese Witherspoon and Jim Toth joined their friends at the Greenwich Hotel in New York City.
Reese Witherspoon began dating Jim Toth in early February 2010, three years after her divorce from actor Ryan Phillippe with who she has two children.
Jim Toth and Reese Witherspoon married in Ojai, California in March 2011.
Sharon Osbourne revealed she remained devastated after learning her husband Ozzy was abusing pills, but pledged they weren’t getting a divorce.
Sharon Osbourne, 60, opened up on The Talk about Ozzy’s admission on Facebook last week that he had been drinking and taking drugs for the past 18 months.
“I never knew he was using prescription drugs,” Sharon Osbourne said while flanked by her four female The Talk co-hosts.
“I knew he was drinking occasionally, but didn’t realize to the extent.”
Sharon Osbourne said she and Ozzy were not getting a divorce and the statement was greeted by applause.
“I am devastated right now,” the former reality star said.
“It’s a disease that not only hurts the person who has the disease, but it hurts the family. It hurts people who love you.”
Sharon Osbourne, a cancer survivor, said her family has dealt with worse and were dealing with the revelation.
Sharon Osbourne revealed she remained devastated after learning her husband Ozzy was abusing pills, but pledged they weren’t getting a divorce
“This too shall pass,” she said.
“Otherwise my husband will be taken to hospital to get my foot removed from his ass,” Sharon Osbourne added.
Ozzy Osbourne came clean in his public apology posted on his Facebook page.
“For the last year and a half I have been drinking and taking drugs,” he wrote.
“I was in a very dark place and was an a*****e to the people I love most, my family. However, I am happy to say that I am now 44 days sober.
“Just to set the record straight, Sharon and I are not divorcing. I’m just trying to be a better person.
“I would like to apologize to Sharon, my family, my friends and my band mates for my insane behavior during this period… and my fans. God Bless, Ozzy.”
The Black Sabbath rocker reportedly started his drug binge after learning that bandmate Tony Iommi was diagnosed with lymphoma 18 months ago.
Ozzy Osbourne last week claimed that he was 44 days sober after his relapse.
The rocker has frequently spoken over the years about his battle with drugs and alcohol and has often been treated in rehabilitation clinics.
Ozzy spoke out in support of Tony Iommi, 65, last year and said: “When the bombshell hit about Tony’s cancer problem, I came to England. He needs more and more support, man.
“He doesn’t have a brother, he doesn’t have a sister, it’s just him and his wife and the members of Black Sabbath.
“He’s gonna beat it. What it’s down to is determination and believe me, this guy’s got more determination than anybody I’ve ever met.”
However, according to the Daily Mirror newspaper, while Ozzy Osbourne was putting on a public face of defiance he was cracking under the pressure and the thought of losing Tony Iommi pushed him to drink and drugs.
The substance abuse quickly spiraled out of control and began to strain his relations with Sharon.
Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne have become one of Hollywood’s best-known couples since starring in a reality television show, The Osbournes, alongside two of their children, Jack and Kelly, which gave an insight into their family life in Beverly Hills.
Sharon met Ozzy Osbourne when she was only 18. She became his manager soon afterwards and they married in 1982.
Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev apparently used an online magazine produced by al-Qaeda as their guide for how to make pressure cooker bombs that they set off at the finish line of last week’s Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring more than 180 others.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, reportedly confessed to the FBI that he and his brother Tamerlan were the ones behind the bombing and that they acted alone.
The Boston bomber also said that they were driven to commit the attack because of their feelings against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev used an al-Qaeda online magazine to make pressure cooker bombs they set off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remains in a Boston hospital but he is expected to be transported in the next few days as his condition was downgraded from “serious” to “fair”.
The suspect sustained unspecified damages during the course of the last week, most likely from the firefight with police on Friday morning that led to the death of his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is reportedly telling investigators that the deadly attacks were spearheaded by his brother, Tamerlan, who is thought to be the more radical of the two.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a 26-year-old father of one, allegedly went through fits of rage, both verbally and physically abusing his wife who he called a “slut” and a “prostitute”.
Federal investigators have already questioned Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s wife, 24-year-old Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and the brothers’ parents, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva and Anzor Tsarnaev, are thought to be on their way to America for questioning from their native Russia.
It was revealed earlier today that no relatives have claimed Tamerlan Tamerlan’s body.
David Henneberry, the man who discovered Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hiding out inside his boat, got choked up when talking about the victims of the deadly blasts.
David Henneberry, 66, dismisses claims that he is a national hero, saying that if anything, he is an “incidental hero”.
“It makes me feel wonderful that people that are thinking like that, but it is my boat. People lost lives and lost limbs,” David Henneberry told local station WCVB.
David Henneberry’s role in the saga came when he walked outside of his Watertown home early Friday evening after the shelter-in-place order was lifted in Boston, and the first place he went was to check his boat, that he calls “my baby”.
Earlier in the day, when he was still indoors, David Henneberry noticed that two of the pads that he puts in between the shrink wrap and his boat in order to prevent chaffing had fallen out of place.
“It was really windy, so I didn’t think twice about it,” he said.
David Henneberry dismisses claims that he is a national hero, saying that if anything, he is an incidental hero
As he tells it, David Henneberry was not expecting to find anything out of the ordinary when he went to adjust the pads.
“Go out and get some air. I am just going to put the pads back. They were bugging me all day. So I went out in the yard and felt the freedom that everyone is Watertown was feeling. When I pulled the strap, it was a lot looser than it usually is. But again, the wind could have loosened things up,” he told WCVB.
Even when he saw “a good amount” of blood on the inside of the cabin, he initially doubted himself, thinking back to whether he had accidentally been cut when he was inside the boat weeks earlier.
“And I looked back and forth a couple of times and my eyes went to the engine block and there was a body,” David Henneberry said.
He then ran back to his house and called the police, who immediately took over the scene. David Henneberry and his wife remain displaced from their home as investigators continue to comb over the boat and the property for clues.
“We had great sight and cover on what we had in the boat,” Boston Police Superintendant William Evans said in a Tuesday evening press conference.
“It was just a matter of holding until the tactical team came in to get him out.”
Police did in fact find the second bombing suspect inside the boat, ironically named the “Slip Away II”.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was taken into police custody and transported to Beth Israel Hospital for treatment from various wounds likely sustained from the early Friday morning altercation with police, where his older brother Tamerlan was killed.
“Slip Away is slipping away. But I say it did its job. It held a bad guy and is going away like a Viking ship,” David Henneberry said to WCVB.
He also said that he is aware of a social media campaign where supporters are raising money to buy him a new boat after his was damaged in the apprehension of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Instead, David Henneberry wants people to donate to a fund set up for those who were injured in last Monday’s bombing.
“I am lucky I am alive. These other people were killed. Sometimes, I just sit and say, <<Wow>>,” David Henneberry said.
“This hits you more afterwards when you think <<My God, we probably slept last night, this guy could be in the (boat)>>… It’s surreal.”
Apple has reported its first quarterly drop in profits in a decade, but said it will raise dividends for shareholders.
Apple made a net profit of $9.5 billion in the first quarter of 2013, down from $11.6 billion last year.
However, the results were better than many had expected, as strong iPhone and iPad sales boosted revenues to $43.6 billion.
Concerns over slowing demand for Apple products amid increased competition have hurt its share price recently.
“Though we’ve achieved a credible scale and financial success, we acknowledge that our growth rate has slowed and our margins have decreased from the exceptionally high level we experienced in 2012,” Tim Cook, Apple CEO, said.
Apple said it sold 37.4 million iPhones and 19.5 million iPads worldwide in Q1 2013.
Although Apple continues to remain a dominant player in the tablet computer and smartphone markets, investors have been worried that its market share was being eroded by increasingly popular offerings from rivals such as Samsung.
Apple has reported its first quarterly drop in profits in a decade, but said it will raise dividends for shareholders
There have also been concerns over the lack of new product launches.
Analysts have suggested the company needs to innovate and develop new products to stay ahead of the competition, rather than relying on updates to existing products.
“The market is tired of the same old thing at Apple,” said Lauren Balter, an analyst at Oracle Investment Research.
“Investors are looking for innovation. The reality is that people are looking at other products now and they are looking at other cool features from competitors.”
These concerns have seen investors ditch Apple shares over the past few months. It has lost around 40% of its stock market value since hitting an all-time high in September last year.
However, Tim Cook tried to assure investors and shareholders that the firm was continuing to take measures to ensure that it maintained its dominance in the market.
“The decline in Apple’s stock price over the last couple of quarters has been very frustrating for all of us… but we’ll continue to do what we do best,” he said.
“The most important objective for Apple will always be creating innovative products.
“Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software and services, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline,” he added.
Some analysts said that the lack of a new product did not mean that Apple was not developing one.
“What no investor can see is what is happening between closed doors in research and development,” said David Tan, assistant professor of strategy at Georgetown University.
“[Research and development] is always very secretive. It always takes a very long time between the inception of an idea and commercializing a product.”
Apple, which before the latest earnings had $137 billion in cash, has been under pressure to share some of it with shareholders.
On Tuesday Apple said it planned to buy back $60 billion in shares, and raise its dividend to shareholders by 15%.
The move encouraged investors and Apple’s shares rose 5.5% in after-hours trading on Wall Street.
New images of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with his arms full of Doritos and Red Bull as he and his brother Tamerlan attempt a getaway after becoming prime terror suspects.
Dressed in a grey hoodie, the surveillance footage is believed to show 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as he enters a gas station in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The man following him into the store in the beige cap appears to be 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
In another image, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is seen wearing a beige flat cap pulled low at an ATM machine, withdrawing $800.
Cambridge gas station surveillance images show Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with arms full of Red Bull and Doritos
The card was stolen from a man taken hostage by the alleged terrorists after he was car-jacked last Thursday during the bombers’ desperate but futile plan to escape.
The victim was able to jump out of the car and flee while the alleged terrorists went to buy snacks.
The terrifying sequence of events began when Tamerlan Tsarnaev carjacked a Mercedes SUV car at gun point barely 40 minutes after MIT campus police officer Sean Collier was killed as he sat in his patrol car.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev jumped into the passenger seat of the Mercedes and told the driver: “Did you hear about the Boston explosion… I did that.”
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was caught on a CCTV camera entering an all night garage with his face partially hidden by a grey hooded sweatshirt.
But he left empty handed after his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev hammered on the glass front door of the gas station kiosk saying: “We’ve got to go.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s intervention came after the victim of the carjacking managed to escape and run across to another all night gas station across the street where he pleaded for help.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, the mother of the Boston bombing suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, watches the video of her dead son’s mutilated body and cries, her lawyer revealed on Tuesday, after it emerged that she is to be questioned by US investigators.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva appeared publicly outside her home for the first time since her sons Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were named as suspects. She was ushered past journalists and into a taxi, which sped away.
US investigators traveled to southern Russia today to speak to Zubeidat Tsarnaeva and her husband Anzor Tsarnaev, an American Embassy official said.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva is in Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim province in Russia’s Caucasus, where Islamic militants have waged an insurgency against Russian security sources for years.
The family’s lawyer Heda Saratova, asked for the family to be left alone and said that the parents had just seen pictures of the mutilated body of their elder son Tamerlan Tsarnaev and were not up to speaking with anyone at the moment.
“The mother is in very bad shape,” Heda Saratova said.
“She watches the video [of Tamerlan Tsarnaev] and cries.”
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva appeared publicly outside her home in Dagestan for the first time since her sons Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were named as suspects
The trip by the US team was made possible because of Russian government cooperation with the FBI investigation into the bombing at the Boston Marathon.
Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev are accused of setting off the bombs that killed three people and wounded more than 180 others on April 15.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a police shootout, while his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar was captured alive but badly wounded.
The embassy official said he could not confirm whether the US investigators had already talked to the suspects’ parents.
“Naturally, the parents are not ready to meet with anyone because the grief is enormous,” Russian official Zaurbek Sadakhanov told a crowd of journalist in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan.
“They … are asking to be left alone, at least for a while, to be able to recover.
“As to the case, I think that detectives and policemen in the United States are knowledgeable and will find out what happened in an objective and unbiased way.”
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva is from Dagestan, while the suspects’ father, Anzor Tsarnaev is from neighboring Chechnya.
Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev had spent little time in either place before the family moved to the US a decade ago, but Tamerlan was in Russia for six months last year.
The father of the two Boston bombing suspects will apparently travel to the US later this week in order to seek “justice and the truth.
Anzor Tsarnaev says he has “lots of questions for the police” and is keen ‘to clear up many things’”when he arrives from his home in Makhachkala in Russia.
He had previously said that he would return to America this week in the wake of the death of his elder son Tamerlan and the arrest of 19-year-old Dzhokhar.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva added that the family hoped to bring Tamerlan’s body back to Russia.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told investigators that his brother Tamerlan orchestrated the Boston Marathon attacks because he “wanted to defend Islam from attack”, it emerged today.
In scrawled notes made from his hospital bed, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, told Guantanamo Bay interrogators that Tamerlan, 26, was motivated by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and his belief that they represented an assault on his faith, according to reports.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told investigators that he and his brother were not linked to any Islamic terrorist groups. Instead, authorities believe Tamerlan Tsarnaev “self-radicalized” by watching online videos of extremist Muslim preachers.
According to CNN, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said Tamerlan was the ringleader in the Boston attacks that shook the nation a week ago, but that the pair were working alone.
In preliminary interviews with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the terror suspect said his brother “wanted to defend Islam from attack”, a source told CNN.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told investigators that his brother Tamerlan orchestrated the Boston Marathon attacks because he wanted to defend Islam from attack
The Washington Post reports that Tamerlan Tsarnaev believed he had to defend his faith because the US had waged war against Islam in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Two US officials said last night the evidence from the bedside interrogation suggests the terror suspects did not have any accomplices, despite previous fears they were part of a 12-man terror “sleeper cell”.
TamerlanTsarnaev died in a police shootout on Friday.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was formally charged with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction after being questioned by federal officials in his hospital room where he is recovering from multiple injuries.
He could face a death sentence, despite the fact Massachusetts has no death penalty, as he is being prosecuted under the federal system.
A probably cause hearing has been scheduled for May 30.
Investigators have been quizzing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev about whether there were more bombs, explosives or weapons beyond the ones already uncovered by police as well as who came up with the plot.
Interrogators are questioning Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in his room every few hours as doctors sit by his bedside, CNN reported.
The suspect is reportedly unable to speak because of a gunshot wound to the throat.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is believed to be communicating in writing to a special team of FBI counter-terrorism agents trained in interrogating “high-value” detainees that were sent to his bedside at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Eight days after 8-year-old Martin Richard was killed in the Boston Marathon attack, his family still has an anxious wait for news on his little sister, Jane, who has lost a leg and remains in a critical condition, it has emerged today.
Jane Richard, 7, is believed to have been standing on the marathon fence next to the big brother she idolized when Monday’s blast took place.
Father Bill and mother Denise – who also suffered head injuries – are having to remain strong for Jane, who is fighting “multiple injuries” from the terror attack after losing a leg.
Bill and Denise Richard buried their second oldest son, Martin, in a private funeral today while Jane remains hospitalized.
“The outpouring of love and support over the last week has been tremendous. This has been the most difficult week of our lives and we appreciate that our friends and family have given us space to grieve and heal,” Bill and Denise Richard said in a statement.
“A private Funeral Mass was celebrated this morning with immediate family. We laid our son Martin to rest, and he is now at peace. We plan to have a public memorial service in the coming weeks to allow friends and loved ones from our community to join us for a celebration of Martin’s life.”
Jane Richard is an enthusiastic Irish dancer having attended classes at the Clifden Academy of Irish Dance in Milton since the age of three.
Several Irish dance groups are now raising money to support her.
Jane Richard, 7, an enthusiastic Irish dancer, is fighting “multiple injuries” from the Boston Marathon attack after losing a leg
“She is just a beautiful little girl. We taught her since she was a baby, pointing her little toe,” Eileen Dillon Dinn, owner of the Clifton Academy, told the Irish Voice.
“We are just in a state of shock and disbelief. The Richard family is lovely. They went to the marathon as a happy family, and then this happened. We don’t know what to say.”
Jane Richard loved to learn all the new moves at the academy, according to her teacher, and was on the sidelines at the recent Irish World Dance Championships in Boston dreaming that someday she would get the chance to compete.
“She’s a beauty, always smiling,” said Dillon Dinn.
“Jane really lives to dance.”
Jane Richard’s eldest brother Henry, 12, and father Bill managed to escape from the bomb attack uninjured.
Images from the scene appear to show Bill Richard, 42, a community organizer, holding his youngest children up on the railings as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev plants his backpack bomb just behind them.
It isn’t clear whether any of the women in the photograph is the children’s mother, school librarian Denise Richard, 43, who sustained head injuries and had to undergo brain surgery following the attack.
A spokesman for the family said he was unable to confirm the identities of those in the marathon image or provide an update for Jane Richard’s condition given she is under a privacy order.
The Children’s Hospital of Boston did not identify the 7 year-old girl they said was still in a critical condition.
However, previous reports of the injured suggest that Jane Richard is the only one of 11 or so youngsters injured in the terror attacks that fits the sparse description.
The family were watching elated runners cross the finish line on Monday.
Bill Richard is a former marathon runner himself so the young family liked to support other participants in the event, according to friends of the family.
Neighbors said Jane Richard looked up to her older brother, Martin, and they both attended the Neighborhood House Charter School in Dorchester, where their mother served as the school librarian.
Tracey Monroe, a bystander who came to Jane Richard’s aid in the moments after the blast, told WCVB.com: “I saw her laying in the street. I held her head in my hands and I tried to rub her and comfort her. I asked what her name was and she said Jane.
“She was just a baby and so badly injured and scared. But she was so incredibly brave. I saw him [Martin Richard] and at that point I knew he was gone. I’ll never forget them – that little girl, she was so brave.”
The bombs, described by experts as makeshift anti-personnel devices, were made from pressure cookers packed with shrapnel and ball bearings to cause the maximum injuries to those caught in the blast.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose older brother and suspected accomplice Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in the manhunt to track the bombers down, has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction against persons or property.
The Boston Marathon bombing killed three and injured more than 200, 48 of whom were still in hospital today, three in a critical condition, according to Reuters.
It appears Tamerlan Tsarnaev displayed a disturbing pattern of verbal abuse and violence toward women that included fits of rage against his wife Katherine Russell and an arrest in 2009 for slapping ex-girlfriend Nadine Ascencao, according to police records and accounts from those who knew him.
Close friends of his wife Katherine Russell, 24, claimed today that Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was combative, angry and controlling.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev hasn’t spoken publicly about her husband since he was killed in a shootout with police in Watertown early Friday morning. But it appears she spoke to federal authorities for the first time on Tuesday, after she was spotted leaving her Rhode Island family home with her lawyer and three federal investigators. She returned home nearly four hours later with her mother.
Afterwards, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev’s lawyers released a statement at her request that claimed she has been “doing everything she can to assist with the investigation”.
“The injuries and loss of life – to people who came to celebrate a race and a holiday – has caused profound distress and sorrow to Katie and her family,” the statement read.
“The reports of involvement by her husband and brother-in-law came as an absolute shock to them all.”
Three of Katherine Russell’s friends told National Public Radio’s Laura Sullivan that Tamerlan Tsarnaev would often insult Katherine and call her names, such as “slut” and “prostitute”.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was known to fly into fits of rage where he would throw objects, including furniture, friends said.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev’s lawyer, Amato DeLuca, said she was a student at Suffolk University when she was introduced to Tamerlan Tsarnaev at a nightclub. He didn’t specify the exact date that they met, though it’s believed to be sometime during 2009.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev often insulted wife Katherine Russell calling her a slut and a prostitute
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was seeing another woman at the time, he said.
“They went out for a while, and then they stopped and then they went out again,” Amato DeLuca said.
It’s possible the other woman that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was apparently dating was 25-year-old Nadine Ascencao of Brookline, Massachusetts.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was arrested in July 2009 for allegedly slapping Nadine Ascencao, according to court records.
Nadine Ascencao was “crying hysterically” and called 911 to report that she was “beat up by her boyfriend”, Cambridge Police Officer Angela Pereira wrote in the arrest report.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev told Angela Pereira and another officer that his girlfriend “was yelling at him because of another girl”.
Asked whether he had hit Nadine Ascencao, Tamerlan Tsarnaev stated: “Yes, I slapped her.”
He specifically stated that he struck the left side of her face.
Eleven months later, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was apparently no longer dating Nadine Ascencao. He had persuaded Katherine Russell to convert from Christianity to Islam and the couple married on June 21, 2010.
Around the same time, Katherine Russell became pregnant with Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s baby.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev dropped out of school in her senior year and reportedly began pulling away from her friends and family.
Mary Silberman, whose apartment backs up to Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s Cambridge home, said she often heard loud arguments late at night that mostly consisted of a woman’s voice yelling at a man.
“It wasn’t enough to call the police,” Mary Silberman told Reuters.
“It didn’t sound like anyone was in physical danger.”
But the shouting was often loud enough to keep her awake at night. Mary Silberman could also hear the couple’s daughter, Zahara, now 3-year-old, wailing at night and she often wondered why the mother wasn’t responding, she said.
As the girl grew into a toddler, Mary Silberman said she would see Zahara staring out the window.
Since Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s death, Katherine Russell has been staying with her family in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.
Her lawyer, Amato DeLuca, told CNN on Monday that the 24-year-old is “very distraught” and “cries a lot”.
Regarding the bomb plot, Amato DeLuca said: “She knew nothing about it at any time.”
“The whole family is a mess, to put it bluntly,” lawyer said.
“They’re very distraught. They’re upset. Their lives have been unalterably changed. They’re upset because of what happened, the people that were injured, that were killed. It’s an awful, terrible thing.”
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev works 70 to 80 hours a week as a home health aide, according to family members. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was unemployed.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev’s lawyers released this statement on Tuesday morning at Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s widow request:
“As you know from news reports, Katie married her husband in June of 2010. Since then, she has been living in Cambridge, raising her child and working long hours, caring for people in their homes who are unable to care for themselves.
“Katie grew up in Rhode Island and has always remained close to her parents and sisters here, as well as her extended family.
Katherine Russell married Tamerlan Tsarnaev in June 2010
“She is fortunate to have the support of her loving family now, as they, too, struggle to come to terms with these events and the deep sorrow we all feel following the events of last week.
“Meanwhile, she is doing everything she can to assist with the investigation.
“The injuries and loss of life – to people who came to celebrate a race and a holiday – has caused profound distress and sorrow to Katie and her family.
“The reports of involvement by her husband and brother-in-law came as an absolute shock to them all.
“As a mother, a sister, a daughter, a wife, Katie deeply mourns the pain and loss to innocent victims – students, law enforcement, families and our community. In the aftermath of this tragedy, she, her daughter and her family are trying to come to terms with these events.”
Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux have decided to delay their wedding for a few months – because they can’t agree on the size of the bash.
Jennifer Aniston, 44, wants a bigger do – while Justin Theroux, 41, wants a smaller, intimate affair and they are now set to tie the knot at the end of the summer, rather than at a spring-time ceremony.
The couple were reportedly getting ready to say “I do” next month, but Jennifer Aniston has been busy producing her upcoming movie Call Me Crazy: A Five Film and had been forced to put all planning for her nuptials on hold.
When asked if she had picked her gown at the premiere of her Lifetime movie at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood last week, Jennifer Aniston said: “No, no, no.”
Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux have decided to delay their wedding for a few months
“I don’t have a dress. I like to be very spontaneous.”
Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux were engaged last summer, and since then, fans have been waiting with bated breath to see her walk down the aisle.
Sources close to Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux said they are expecting the wedding to be at the end of the summer, just before Labor Day Weekend.
Although it has been taking up so much of her time, Jennifer Aniston is proud to have worked on Call Me Crazy – a compilation of five short films focusing on mental illness. The actress insists the project tackles a subject that suffers from a negative perception and stigma that needs to be addressed.
Jennifer Aniston said: “Mental illness seemed to be [a topic] that a lot of us felt was an important one and touched a lot of our lives, a lot of our families lives. That seemed like one that needed attention because all of the stigma around it and the sort of shame around it.”
Chaz Bono has lost 60 lbs after announcing his intention to drop 50 lbs in weight in November.
After his announcement, Chaz Bono showed off a slimmer physique in February on an episode of The Doctors with Dr. Travis Stork.
Chaz Bono started off weighing 250lbs.
He appeared to be keeping the weight off in a recent photo with his famous mother Cher.
Meanwhile new reports claim the two are barely speaking because Cher has had a hard time dealing with Chaz’s dramatic transformation from her shy, pigtailed girl to a muscular man.
Cher Chaz Bono, who was born daughter Chastity, have agreed to a take a “personal time-out”.
Chaz Bono has lost 60 lbs after announcing his intention to drop 50 lbs in weight in November
“Cher loves Chaz to death, but she stopped talking to him because they just don’t see eye to eye on the very public way he’s continued to deal with his transformation,” a source told RadarOnline.
“She’s really at peace with the transgendered aspect it’s just that she still sees Chaz as her little girl and the dramatic physical changes are really hard on her.”
Cher even joked that Chaz was reminding her too much of her late husband Sonny Bono and their stormy romance.
Chaz is said to have agreed to the break.
There were no signs of friction between Chaz Bono and Cher in a photo that Chaz tweeted on April 7 showing them smiling side-by-side.
The simple tweet read: “Here is a recent photo of my mom and I.”
Cher and Sonny Bono starred in the popular mid-1970s show The Sonny & Cher Show on CBS and young daughter Chastity, now Chaz, made frequent appearances.
Nadine Ascencao, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s ex-girlfriend, has revealed the Boston bomber once slapped her and he always acted like a “bully” and a “tough guy” at high school but appeared harmless.
Nadine Ascencao, 25, has spoken out about her relationship with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who allegedly planted two bombs at the Boston Marathon last week, killing three people and injuring more than 180.
Despite this heinous crime and a disturbing pattern of verbal and physical abuse towards women, Nadine Ascencao has claimed Tamerlan Tsarnaev she once lived with did not appear to be capable of “anything major”.
“He was a little tough guy, but I thought that was it,” Nadine Ascencao told the Wall Street Journal.
“In high school, everybody acts like that. Like a bully guy, you know?”
“He was just like a normal person that sometimes like wanted to scare kids in high school but that was it…. He was a little tough guy, but I thought that was it.”
Despite her claims, Nadine Ascencao was once allegedly the victim of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s temper; police records show she was the woman who accused him of slapping her on July 28, 2009, The Journal reported.
Nadine Ascencao refused to speak to The Journal about the incident, but records show she told police Tamerlan Tsarnaev had slapped her in the face during an argument over another woman at his home in Cambridge.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his ex-girlfriend Nadine Ascencao
She was “crying hysterically” and called 911 to report that she was “beat up by her boyfriend”, Cambridge Police Officer Angela Pereira wrote in the arrest report.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev admitted to slapping Nadine Ascencao and was arrested on charges of assault and battery, the complaint said. The charges were dismissed before trial.
While Nadine Ascencao would not say when she dated Tamerlan Tsarnaev or for how long, records also show they lived together for a short time at an apartment on Norfolk Street.
Nadine Ascencao added to The Journal that she was “disgusted” by his alleged part in the deadly bombings.
When she learned Tamerlan Tsarnaev had died: “I didn’t even cry or anything,” Nadine Ascencao said.
Nadine Ascencao’s neighbors said FBI agents visited her home early on Friday morning to clarify the relationship she had with him. The agents left three hours later and briefly returned in the afternoon.
Around 11 months after the alleged slapping incident, Tamerlan Tsarnaev married his wife, Katherine Russell.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev has not spoken publicly since Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s death early Friday in a shootout with police.
But three of Katherine Russell’s friends told National Public Radio’s Laura Sullivan that Tamerlan Tsarnaev would often insult Katherine and call her names, such as “slut” and “prostitute”.
He was known to fly into into fits of rage where he would throw objects at Russell, including furniture, friends said.
Sometime around 2008, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s erratic and violent behavior escalated as he stopped smoking and drinking and suddenly became heavily involved in Islam. Also around that time, he demanded that Katherine Russell, born a Christian, convert to Islam – and she complied.
Despite their tumultuous, on-again, off-again relationship, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Katherine Russell married on June 21, 2010.
The FBI is to face questions in the US Congress over whether they mishandled information about Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
The security officials will brief the Senate Intelligence Committee in a closed hearing, after some lawmakers accused the FBI of failing to act on Russian concerns.
Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was questioned in 2011 amid claims he had adopted radical Islam.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a manhunt after the attack but his wounded brother Dzhokhar has been charged over the bombings.
Federal prosecutors charged Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in hospital with using a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property resulting in death. He could be sentenced to death if convicted on either count.
Anonymous officials have told US media that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said he and his brother had planned the attack themselves without help from foreign militants.
The officials say his written answers from his hospital bed to investigators’ questions lead them to believe that the Tsarnaev brothers were motivated by jihadist ideology and that they devised the bombings using the internet.
However, the sources also said the interviews were preliminary and they must verify the defendant’s responses.
The FBI is to face questions in the US Congress over whether they mishandled information about Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev
Both Tsarnaev brothers had origins in the troubled, predominantly Muslim republic of Chechnya in southern Russia. They had been living in the US for about a decade at the time of the attack.
The twin bombs which exploded near the finishing line of the Boston Marathon killed three people and injured more than 200.
Of those injured, 13 lost limbs. More than 50 people remain in hospital, three of them in a critical condition.
Members of Congress want to know why no further action was taken after Tamerlan Tsarnaev was investigated in 2011 at the request of the Russian government.
Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the intelligence committee, said that she and her colleagues would have to “sort it out” when they met FBI officials later on Tuesday.
The full Senate is expected to receive a briefing later in the week.
The FBI has defended itself, saying in a statement on Friday that it had run checks on the suspect but found no evidence of terrorist activity.
A request to Russia for further information to justify more rigorous checks went unanswered, and an interview by agents with Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his family also revealed nothing suspicious.
However, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham questioned why the FBI was unable to identify him as a threat based on his alleged links to radical websites.
He called for better co-operation with Russia and the amendment of privacy laws to allow closer scrutiny of suspects’ internet activity.
Senator Lindsey Graham added that the US authorities did not know Tamerlan Tsarnaev had gone to Russia in 2012 because his name was misspelled in travel documents.
The suspect spent six months in Dagestan, another mainly Muslim Russian republic bordering Chechnya. During the visit, he also reportedly spent two days in Chechnya itself.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed during the police manhunt last Friday. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was captured later that day and remains in hospital with serious injuries.
A 10-page criminal complaint was filed against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Monday during a court hearing held around his hospital bed.
According to a transcript of the hearing, he managed to speak once despite a gunshot wound to his throat sustained during his capture.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said the word “no” when asked if he could afford a lawyer. Otherwise he nodded in response to Judge Marianne Bowler’s questions from his bed at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
The next hearing in his case has been scheduled for the end of May.
The complaint seeks to locate both suspects at the scene of the bombing and then pieces together the operation to intercept them three days later, as they allegedly drove a hijacked car near the city, hours after images of their faces were broadcast by the media.
No mention is made of their possible reasons for attacking the marathon.
US Congress questions for the FBI:
Why was no further action taken after the 2011 investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev?
Why Tamerlan Tsarnaev was not identified as a threat based on links to radical websites?
Why were the authorities unaware of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s visit to Russia in 2012?
New photographs taken by an eyewitness reveal the dramatic gun battle which broke out between police and the Tsarnaev brothers in a residential street of Watertown, leaving Tamerlan Tsarnaev dead.
The images, taken by Andrew Kitzenberg, a resident of the Watertown street, in the early hours of Friday, show the Tsarnaev brothers sheltering behind a vehicle and clearly taking aim at police officers.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, and his brother Tamerlan, 26, are seen running to a car for more supplies before hauling out a pressure cooker bomb they then detonated, filling the street with smoke.
The photographs, taken on the eyewitness’ phone from a third-floor bedroom overlooking the harrowing scene, are the first images giving insight into the fraught battle that left one brother dead.
They come as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is recovering from a gunshot wound to the neck in hospital, told investigators that his brother Tamerlan was the ringleader in the attacks.
Andrew Kitzenberg, who snapped the photographs as he sought refuge in his home, shared the dramatic images and details on his blog.
“I was in my living room working on my computer when I heard multiple <<pops>> coming from outside,” he recalled.
“At that point, I had no idea that I was about to become an eye witness to the biggest news story in the country.
The images, taken by Andrew Kitzenberg, a resident of the Watertown street, in the early hours of Friday, show the Tsarnaev brothers sheltering behind a vehicle and clearly taking aim at police officers
“When I looked outside my window, I could clearly see two people [the Tsarnaev brothers] taking cover behind an SUV and engaging in gunfire.”
Andrew Kitzenberg ran to the third floor of the home to seek shelter from the gunfire.
“As I ran into my room, overwhelmed by shock, adrenaline, and curiosity, I jumped onto my bed to stay below the windows but also have a clear view at the shooters and photograph the event,” he said.
He described seeing the men jump out of a green sedan, which they returned to for supplies – “assumingly, more ammunition and explosives”.
In another picture, he highlights a dark object that he identifies as a pressure cooker bomb.
“The use of this explosive created an enormous cloud of smoke that covered the entire street,” he wrote.
“While the street was still cloudy with smoke one of the brothers started running down the street towards the officers, while still engaging them in gunshots.
“As he got closer to the officers, within 10 -15 yards of them he was taken down.”
Andrew Kitzenberg added he had been unable to see whether police knocked him to the ground or shot him.
His brother then jumped in their car and barreled towards the police cars barricading the end of the street. Authorities said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ran over his brother, who was later pronounced dead.
The images reveal the moment Dzhokhar Tsarnaev headed for the police cars – dodging between two.
“The SUV side swiped both cars taking out doors and windows and ultimately broke through the vehicle barricade and continued driving west on Laurel St.,” Andrew Kitzenberg wrote on his blog.
“This was the last I saw of the black SUV.”
The battle took place after the FBI released the Tsarnaev brothers’ photographs on Thursday – four days after they allegedly detonated two bombs at the Boston marathon, killing three and injuring 180.
Reddit has issued a public apology for its coverage of the Boston bombings.
Reddit’s Find Boston Bombers thread – known as a subreddit – named specific people standing near the scene as suspects.
The social news site included innocent people such as 17-year-old Salah Barhoun and missing 22-year-old Sunil Tripathi.
Reddit has admitted that it helped to fuel “online witch hunts”. The debacle has fuelled debate about how far such speculation should go in future.
“We all need to look at what happened and make sure that in the future we do everything we can to help and not hinder crisis situations,” the apology read.
“Though started with noble intentions, some of the activity on Reddit fuelled online witch hunts and dangerous speculation which spiraled into very negative consequences for innocent parties.”
It went on to apologize to the family of Sunil Tripathi.
Reddit has issued a public apology for its coverage of the Boston bombings
The family had to suspend the Facebook page they had created to find him because of the amount of negative comments they received. Sunil Tripathi’s name trended on Twitter and numerous news sites.
“We were very worried about Sunil and about each other because of how fast completely unsubstantiated claims were spreading,” said Sunil’s sister Sangeeta Tripathi.
“Our entire neighborhood and our house were surrounded by media trucks. On my personal cellphone I got 72 phone calls between 3 a.m. and 4.30 in the morning.
“We just really hope that something like what happened to our family – and it’s happened to a few other people in the same media frenzy
around Boston – doesn’t keep happening and that we are conscious of how powerful some of our platforms are.”
The tragedy in Boston created a huge amount of traffic on Reddit, peaking at about 272,000 users according to Google Analytics.
As well as attempting to solve the mystery of who the suspects were, Redditors – as contributors to the site are known – also organized housing for people stranded in Boston, sent pizza deliveries to police and hospitals, and organized “dog therapy” in local parks for traumatized residents.
The apology concludes: “After this week, which showed the best and worst of Reddit’s potential, we hope that Boston will also be where Reddit learns to be sensitive of its own power.”
Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe has warned China that his country will respond with force if any attempt is made to land on disputed island.
The Japanese prime minister’s comments came as eight Chinese government ships sailed near East China Sea islands that both nations claim.
A flotilla of 10 fishing boats carrying Japanese activists was also reported to be in the area, as well as the Japanese coastguard.
Shinzo Abe was speaking in parliament hours after dozens of lawmakers visited a controversial war-linked shrine.
A total of 168 lawmakers paid their respects at the Yasukuni Shrine, which commemorates Japan’s war dead, including war criminals, in a move likely to anger regional neighbors who say the shrine is a reminder of Japan’s military past.
The warning from the Japanese prime minister was the most explicit to China since Shinzo Abe took power in December.
Asked in parliament what he would do if Chinese ships tried to land on the disputed islands, Shinzo Abe said they would be expelled by force.
Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe has warned China that his country will respond with force if any attempt is made to land on disputed island
“Since it has become the Abe government, we have made sure that if there is an instance where there is an intrusion into our territory or it seems that there could be landing on the islands then we will deal will it strongly,” he said.
The warning came as eight Chinese ships sailed around the islands – called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
The Japanese coast guard said it was the highest number of Chinese boats in the area since Tokyo nationalized part of the island chain in September 2012.
China said its ships had been monitoring Japanese vessels. The State Oceanic Administration issued a statement saying three of its ships had “found” several Japanese ships around the islands and “immediately ordered another five ships in the East China Sea to meet the three ships”.
Ten Japanese boats carrying around 80 activists arrived in the area early on Tuesday, Reuters news agency reported, monitored by Japanese Coast Guard vessels. Public broadcaster NHK said the boats were carrying “regional lawmakers and members of the foreign media”.
Japan’s top government spokesman said the “intrusion into territorial waters” was “extremely regrettable”. Japan also summoned the Chinese ambassador to protest, reports said.
The territorial row has been rumbling for years but was reignited last year when Japan bought three of the islands from their private Japanese owner.
China claims the island chain, which is controlled by Japan. Taiwan also claims the islands, which offer rich fishing grounds and lie in a strategically important area.
The dispute has led to serious diplomatic tension between China and Japan, most recently in January when Japan said a Chinese frigate locked weapons-controlling radar on one of its navy ships near the islands – something China disputes.
The visit to the Yasukuni Shrine on Tuesday by lawmakers marking the spring festival is also likely to hit ties between Beijing and Tokyo.
Two cabinet ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, visited the shrine on Sunday. PM Shinzo Abe did not visit but made a ritual offering.
South Korea subsequently cancelled a proposed visit by its foreign minister, while China lodged “solemn representations” in response to the ministers’ visit.
“Only when Japan faces up to its aggressive past can it embrace the future and develop friendly relations with its Asian neighbors,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday.
But Japanese lawmaker Hidehisa Otsujji said it was “natural” for “lawmakers to worship at a shrine for people who died for the nation”.
“Every nation does this. I don’t understand why we get a backlash,” he said.
It would appear Kristen Stewart has been spending time with her former lover Rupert Sanders once again, with new photographs showing her getting into a car with a man who bears an uncanny resemblance to the director.
Last year, Kristen Stewart’s secret affair with married director Rupert Sanders came to light in July causing one of the biggest celebrity shocks of 2012.
This time, Kristen Stewart, who first met Rupert Sanders when they worked on Snow White And The Huntsman together in 2011, was seen climbing into the passenger seat of a dark car after a night out with friends at Mexican restaurant Malo Taqueria in Silver Lake, California, on Sunday.
In addition to Kristen Stewart’s mystery male companion looking suspiciously like her former lover, the vehicle in question appeared to be a black Acura – the same model as the one owned by Rupert Sanders.
It would appear the incident took place on the same day Kristen Stewart’s Twilight co-star boyfriend, Robert Pattinson, jetted out of Los Angeles.
Kristen Stewart, 23, had been enjoying an evening out with a group at girlfriends at the Mexican eatery, the same location where Robert Pattinson – who she briefly split from when details of her affair with Rupert Sanders, 42, came to light last year – threw her a romantic birthday party last week.
Kristen Stewart has been seen getting into a car with man who appears to be her former lover Rupert Sanders
Details of Kristen Stewart and Rupert Sanders’s affair came to light when they were pictured cuddling and kissing in July 2012.
The actress immediately issued a groveling public apology to her long-time love, Robert Pattinson, with the pair briefly splitting, before briefly reconciling their romance.
Kristen Stewart said at the time: “This momentary indiscretion has jeopardized the most important thing in my life, the person I love and respect the most, Rob. I love him, I love him, I’m so sorry.”
Meanwhile, Rupert Sanders issued an equally gushing apology to his wife, Liberty Ross, 34, and their two children, Skyla, 8, and 6-year-old son Tennyson.
He said: “I am utterly distraught about the pain I have caused my family. My beautiful wife and heavenly children are all I have in this world. I love them with all my heart. I am praying that we can get through this together.”
While Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson managed to get their relationship back on track, British model Liberty Ross – who played Kristen’s mother in the Snow White film – filed for divorce from Rupert Sanders in January, citing “irreconcilable differences” as the reason behind the marital split.
Liberty Ross petitioned for joint physical and legal custody of the couple’s two children.
According to reports, Liberty Ross couldn’t move on from Rupert Sanders’s infidelity with Kristen Stewart, although the couple are understood to have attended counseling sessions late last year.
A friend said: “Liberty tried for a reconciliation but it was impossible. The mistrust went too deep. The decision to divorce was hers.”
In her only public comments about the affair – in an interview at the end of last year – Liberty Ross said: “I believe that we’re all on journeys and we are all given lessons at certain times in our lives.
“Sometimes, when things seem really bad, you have to be able to see the good and learn from it and move forward as graciously as possible.”
Kristen Stewart is set to reprise her leading role in the Snow White And The Huntsman sequel later this year, but Rupert Sanders has been dropped from the project.
Boston SWAT officers who handcuffed Dzhokhar Tsarnaev say that they didn’t “have time to be afraid” as they inched toward his hiding spot on Friday.
The SWAT officers from the MBTA held a press conference on Monday, as they were officially recognized for their efforts in taking down Boston Marathon suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev after an all-day manhunt in Watertown.
Watertown was gripped with fear as the sun went down on Friday, when pops of gunfire and the booms of flash grenades were heard – all focused on a boat parked in a Franklin Street driveway.
The well-trained SWAT team then approached David Henneberry’s boat, not knowing whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was armed or had rigged the vessel with the same bombs he allegedly used in the attack at the marathon days prior.
SWAT Officer Jeff Campbell – who pulled Dzhokhar Tsarnaev off the boat – noted how the officers had proceeded carefully, saying: “We had no idea if the boat was rigged with explosives. He could have done anything.”
The officers admitted that they were sitting ducks – out in the open in the backyard as they moved in.
Jeff Campbell told former FBI assistant director John Miller in a CBS interview airing on Tuesday: “As we’re approaching what we call the danger zone… That’s the danger zone because there’s no cover for us except that ballistic shield.”
But as they got closer, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev suddenly stood up in the boat, acknowledging that he was ready to surrender.
Officer Jeff Campbell noted that the suspect “looked weak” and was “shaky”.
Boston SWAT officers who handcuffed Dzhokhar Tsarnaev at his hiding spot on Friday
He told John Miller: “[Dzhokhar Tsarnaev] appeared to be losing consciousness and did have some wounds to his body. You could see the blood on his body.”
Once the suspect was off the boat, Officer Saro Thompson said: “Officer [Kenny] Tran helped me secure the suspect along with other people from different teams that we do not know the names of.”
Sgt. Sean Reynolds, who is also part of the team, told reporters: “You don’t really have time to be afraid.”
Officer Saro Thompson added: “At a time like that, training kicks in. We don’t have emotion going into something like that.
“We ended up putting him in cuffs and we turned him over to the medics after we moved him away from the boat.”
When asked if Dzhokhar Tsarnaev spoke as he was arrested, Saro Thompson said: “I don’t think he had the energy to say anything. Once we got him on the ground, he was compliant and was going in and out of consciousness.”
One of their colleagues, transit police officer Richard H. Donahue, 33, was seriously injured during the wild shootout with the Tsarnaev brothers early on Friday morning.
Officer Saro Thompson said that when he visited Richard H. Donahue in the hospital on Monday, he proudly informed him: “We got him.”
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s older brother Tamerlan died in a hospital after that confrontation, likely from injuries sustained when he was run over by a stolen vehicle driven by Dzhokhar.
The interview with the SWAT officers came after Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was read his Miranda Rights on Monday as he was charged with using weapons of mass destruction during an arraignment while he laid in his hospital bed.
During the proceedings in his Boston hospital bed, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev only uttered the word “no” when asked if he could afford a defense attorney.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was arraigned in his hospital bed at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center on Monday by a magistrate judge, court officials said.
A probable cause hearing in the case was then set for May 30.
The United States could force Internet retailers to collect sales taxes under a bill that overwhelmingly passed a test vote in the Senate Monday.
Under current law, states can only require stores to collect sales taxes if the store has a physical presence in the state. As a result, many online sales are essentially tax-free, giving Internet retailers a big advantage over brick-and-mortar stores.
The bill would allow states to require online retailers to collect state and local sales taxes for purchases made over the Internet. The sales taxes would be sent to the states where shoppers live.
The Senate voted 74 to 20 to begin debating the bill. If that level of support continues, the Senate could pass the bill as early as this week.
Supporters say the bill is about fairness for businesses and lost revenue for states.
Opponents say it would impose complicated regulations on retailers and doesn’t have enough protections for small businesses. Businesses with less than $1 million a year in online sales would be exempt.
“I believe it is important to level the playing field for all retailers,” said Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the bill’s main sponsor.
“We should not be subsidizing some taxpayers at the expense of others.”
The United States could force Internet retailers to collect sales taxes under a bill that overwhelmingly passed a test vote in the Senate
In many states, shoppers are required to pay unpaid sales tax when they file their state income tax returns. However, states complain that few people comply.
“I do know about three people that comply with that,” Mike Enzi said.
President Barack Obama supports the bill, but its fate is uncertain in the House, where some Republicans regard it as a tax increase.
Heritage Action for America, the activist arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, opposes the bill and will count the vote in its legislative scorecard.
Many of the nation’s governors – Republicans and Democrats – have been lobbying the federal government for years for the authority to collect sales taxes from online sales, said Dan Crippen, executive director of the National Governors Association.
Those efforts intensified when state tax revenues took hit from the recession and the slow economic recovery.
“It’s a matter of equity for businesses,” Dan Crippen said.
“It’s a matter of revenue for states.”
The bill pits brick-and-mortar stores like Wal-Mart against online services such as eBay.
The National Retail federation supports it. And Amazon.com, which initially fought efforts in some states to make it collect sales taxes, supports it, too.
“Amazon.com has long supported a simplified nationwide approach that is evenhandedly applied and applicable to all but the smallest volume sellers,” Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of global public policy said in a recent letter to senators.
On the other side, eBay has been rallying customers to oppose the bill.
“I hope you agree that imposing unnecessary tax burdens on small online businesses is a bad idea,” eBay president and CEO John Donahoe said in a letter to customers.
“Join us in letting your Members of Congress know they should protect small online businesses, not potentially put them out of business.”
The bill is also opposed by senators from states that have no sales tax, including Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.
“Supporters of this online sales tax bill are trying to muscle it through before senators find out how disastrous it would be for businesses in their states,” Kelly Ayotte said.
“I will fight this power grab every step of the way to protect small online businesses in New Hampshire and across the nation.”
Max Baucus said the bill would require relatively small Internet retailers to comply with sales tax laws in thousands of jurisdictions.
“This legislation doesn’t help businesses expand and grow and hire more employees,” he said.
“Instead, it forces small businesses to hire expensive lawyers and accountants to deal with the burdensome paperwork and added complexity of tax rules and filings across multiple states.”
But Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the bill requires participating states to make it relatively easy for Internet retailers to comply.
States must provide free computer software to help retailers calculate sales taxes, based on where shoppers live.
States must also establish a single entity to receive Internet sales tax revenue, so retailers don’t have to send them to individual counties or cities.
“We’re way beyond the quilt pen and ledger days,” Dick Durbin said.
“Thanks to computers and thanks to software it is not that complex.”
Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been read his Miranda Rights as he was charged with using weapons of mass destruction during an arraignment while he laid in his hospital bed.
During the proceedings at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, only uttered the word “no” when asked if he could afford a defense attorney.
The teenager was officially read his Miranda Rights at the time was he was arraigned on Monday by a magistrate judge, court officials said.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was also asked several questions in which he nodded his head to respond.
The hearing began with a doctor being asked whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is alert.
“You can rouse him,” the doctor said, according to a transcript of the hearing obtained byThe New York Times.
Dzhokar Tsarnaev then nods his head when asked how he’s feeling.
At the end of the hearing, Judge Marianne B. Bowler said: “At this time, at the conclusion of the initial appearance, I find that the defendant is alert, mentally competent and lucid.
“He is aware of the nature of the proceedings.”
A probable cause hearing in the case was then set for May 30.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is specifically charged with one count of using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction – namely, an improvised explosive device or IED – against persons and property within the US resulting in death, and one count of malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive device resulting in death, according to the criminal complaint.
If he is convicted, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev faces the death penalty or life imprisonment. He also faces a fine of up to $250,000.
Regardless of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s sentence if found guilty, rocker Ted Nugent has weighed in on the case, arguing that his punishment be much more severe, and as America’s “Founding Fathers” intended.
In a column forWorld Net Daily entitled, “Time to Stretch Neck of Jihadist Punk”, Ted Nugent wrote: “Imagine if this jihadist punk had basically committed the same crimes 150 years ago. He would have been swinging from an oak tree in Boston Common no longer than 60 days from the date of his arrest. That would be justice.”
The charging documents reveal dramatic new details of the investigation and events following the bombings, including a list of items obtained from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s college dorm room and claims that during a carjacking at least one suspect was advertising his role in the marathon bombings.
“Although our investigation is ongoing, today’s charges bring a successful end to a tragic week for the city of Boston, and for our country,” US Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will not be tried as an enemy combatant because he is a naturalized US citizen and under federal law, citizens cannot be tried in military commissions, the White House said Monday. Instead, he will be tried in the US justice system.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been read his Miranda Rights as he was charged with using weapons of mass destruction
CARJACKING
The charging papers allege that Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev carjacked a man around midnight on Thursday and that older brother, Tamerlan, told the car’s owner that he had carried out the Boston Marathon bombings.
“The victim stated that while he was sitting in his car on a road in Cambridge, a man approached and tapped on his passenger-side window,” according to the charges.
“When the victim rolled down the window, the man reached in, opened the door, and entered the victim’s vehicle. The man pointed a firearm at the victim and stated, <<Did you hear about the Boston explosion?>> and <<I did that>>.”
The gunman, identified by the FBI as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, removed the magazine from his firearm to show the victim that it was loaded, then re-inserted it and said: “I am serious.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev then allegedly forced the victim to drive to a location where they picked up Dzhokhar.
One of the suspects then got behind the wheel of the car and demanded money and an ATM card from the victim. The suspects drove to a gas station and got out of the car to withdraw money, at which point the victim managed to escape.
FIREFIGHT
The stolen vehicle with the two suspects inside was located by authorities a short time later in Watertown, Massachusetts. As police cruisers descended on the scene, the men threw at least two small IEDs from the car windows, sparking a firefight.
During the exchange of fire Tamerlan Tsarnaev got out of the car and was shot several times. Meanwhile, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev managed to escape in the car – but not without first running over Tamerlan’s body.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead, and authorities launched a manhunt for Dzhokhar, who apparently abandoned the carjacked vehicle shortly after making his getaway.
CACHE OF EXPLOSIVES
From the scene of the shootout, the FBI recovered two unexploded IEDs, as well as the remnants of numerous exploded devices. Another in-tact device was found inside the abandoned vehicle.
A preliminary examination of the explosive devices that were used at the Boston Marathon revealed that they were low-grade explosives housed inside pressure cookers with metallic BBs and nails. Many of the BBs were contained within an adhesive material, authorities said.
Investigators discovered the exact same type of explosives at the scene of the firefight and inside the abandoned getaway car.
MANHUNT
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was on the run for nearly a full day when authorities located him hiding in David Henneberry’s boat parked outside his home in Watertown.
The bomber engaged in a firefight with police from inside the boat before he was eventually coaxed out of the vessel, authorities said.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had visible injuries, including apparent gunshot wounds to the head, neck, legs, and hand. He was searched and authorities found several means of identification in his pockets, including credit cards and a Dartmouth student ID.
“At the end they were just making demands of him: Show your hands, lift your shirt. And eventually that’s what he did,” Watertown Police Chief Edward Deveau told ABC News.
“He was very slow and lethargic in every move that he made and they could see that there was no device on his chest. They kept creeping closer to him and then they felt it safe enough to pull him away from the boat.”
Authorities initially said they couldn’t question the terror suspect because of his severe throat wound.
Authorities conducted a search at Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Dartmouth dorm, where they found a pyrotechnic as well as a white hat and black jacket like the ones he is pictured wearing in surveillance footage from the scene of the marathon bombings.
MARATHON BOMBINGS
The charging documents also contain new details about the marathon bombings and allege that at least one of the suspects was using a cell phone shortly before the explosions.
The documents state that at approximately 2:41 p.m. – about 8 minutes before the explosions – both bombing suspects were standing together about a half-block from the Forum Restaurant on Boylston Street near the finish line, according to footage from surveillance cameras.
About one minute later, one suspect – believed to be Tamerlan Tsarnaev – appears to break away from the crowd and begin walking east on Boylston street toward the finish line.
At 2:45 p.m. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – referred to in the charging documents as “Bomber Two” – walks in the same direction but stops short of the finish line, directly in front of Forum Restaurant.
“He appears to have the thumb of his right hand hooked under the strap of his knapsack and a cell phone in his left hand,” FBI special agent Daniel R. Genck wrote in the documents.
About 15 seconds later, “Bomber Two” appears to drop his knapsack to the ground.
The suspect stays in that position for about four minutes, occasionally looking at his cell phone and once appearing to snap a picture with it.
“At some point he appears to look at his phone, which is held at approximately waist level, and may be manipulating the phone,” the charging papers state. “Approximately 30 seconds before the first explosion, he lifts his phone to his ear as if he is speaking on his cell phone, and keeps it there for approximately 18 seconds.
“A few seconds after he finishes the call, the large crowd of people around him can be seen reacting to the first explosion.”
As others are reacting to the explosion, “Bomber Two” “calmly but rapidly” begins moving away from the finish line – without his backpack, which he had left on the ground.
About 10 seconds later, an explosion occurs in the location of the discarded knapsack.
Two North African suspects thought to be linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) have been arrested in Spain, according to police.
An Algerian identified as Nou Mediouni was arrested in Zaragoza, northern Spain, the interior ministry said.
The other suspect, a Moroccan named Hassan El Jaaouani, was arrested in Murcia in the south.
Two North African suspects thought to be linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have been arrested in Spain
They have “a similar profile to the two suspects who carried out the Boston attacks”, the ministry said. French police had helped to track them down.
AQIM is among several Islamist groups fighting French and West African troops in Mali.
It has its roots in the bitter Algerian civil war of the early 1990s, but in 2007 it emerged as an international jihadist group linked to Osama Bin Laden’s network. AQIM says its aim is to spread Islamic law and it is known for kidnapping Westerners and extracting ransoms.
It is not clear whether the men arrested in Spain are suspected of planning any attacks. Their similarity to the Boston marathon bombers was not explained in the ministry statement.
Moroccan Islamists linked to al-Qaeda were found guilty of the 2004 Madrid train bombings which killed nearly 200 people and injured more than 1,800.
