Tim's Tavern

Clinton 'Heartsick' Over Officer's Death

2008-02-22T16:15:00.003-05:00

DALLAS -- A Dallas motorcycle police officer died Friday morning after crashing his motorcycle while escorting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's motorcade to a campaign rally.

Officials said Sr. Cpl. Victor Lozada-Tirado died shortly after arriving at Methodist Medical Center in Dallas, KXAS-TV in Dallas reported.

Lozada worked out of central patrol and had been with the motorcycle unit for just over a month, said Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle.

Lozada and his wife lived in Plano with their four children, Kunkle said.

Clinton told reporters after the rally, "We are just heartsick at this loss of life in the line of duty."

The New York senator and Democratic presidential candidate canceled her next appearance in Fort Worth, Texas, telling about 2,000 people who had gathered outside the Tarrant County courthouse that it would be inappropriate to campaign in the wake of the officer's death.

Instead, she went to Methodist Medical Center, where she planned to visit with the officer's family.

"It is important that we respect and appreciate their service," she said. "I certainly am grateful for all they do for me."

The 20-year Dallas police veteran died after apparently crashing into a concrete barrier along a viaduct near downtown Dallas, said Lt. Vernon Hale, a police spokesman.

Aerial video showed wreckage scattered for several yards.

The officer was in the rear of the motorcade, following it as it took a turn not far from Dealey Plaza, where John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

Asked if police had enough lead time to plan a safe route, Hale said, "It doesn't matter with our guys. They've been doing this so long. Of course, we already had one tragedy in Dallas."

In August 2006, an Albuquerque, N.M., police officer in President George W. Bush's motorcade died in a motorcycle crash.

Germaine Casey, 40, died on Aug. 27 when he crashed as Bush returned to the airport after a fundraiser for Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.

In November 2006, Honolulu Police Officer Steve Favela died when he and two other motorcycle officers crashed while part of a presidential motorcade.

The Motivator

2008-02-19T11:09:00.000-05:00

"Anybody can do just about anything with himself that he really wants to and makes up his mind to do. We are capable of greater things than we realize."

-- Norman Vincent Peale

Pettitte apologizes

2008-02-19T11:06:00.000-05:00

Has not spoken with Clemens since Mitchell Report

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Andy Pettitte had finished 55½ minutes of apologies, explaining why he used human growth hormone and why he said what he did about Roger Clemens.

Derek Jeter walked over, and the captain wrapped his arms around the visibly relieved Pettitte.

Following an offseason of turmoil, Pettitte was welcomed back to the New York Yankees with open arms.

"My boys are hanging out over there," Pettitte said Monday after arriving at his news conference Monday and unexpectedly seeing Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera off to his right, sitting in a row.

Whether Pettitte can repair his relationship with Clemens remains to be seen. They haven't spoken in more than a month, since Pettitte corroborated allegations of drug use against the seven-time Cy Young Award winner.

"Obviously it's put a strain, I think, on our friendship," Pettitte said. "I love him like a brother."

On the day he reported to spring training, Pettitte faced reporters for the first time since the Mitchell Report was released in December and revealed accusations he had used HGH.

"I felt like I need to come out, be forward with this," Pettitte said. "Whatever circumstances or repercussions come with it, I'll take and I'll take like a man and I'll try to do my job."

Other athletes have ducked tough questions about allegations of drug use, using evasions and nonspecific replies. Pettitte admitted his mistakes and several times patiently asked reporters, "Did I answer your question?"

Flanked by manager Joe Girardi and general manager Brian Cashman, Pettitte had a hint of the shadow on his face that he's shown on the mound during so many postseason games. He seemed skittish at the start as he read from notes.

"I want to apologize to the New York Yankees' and to the Houston Astros' organizations and to their fans and to all my teammates and to all of baseball fans for the embarrassment I have caused them," he said. "I also want to tell anyone that is an Andy Pettitte fan I am sorry, especially any kids that might look up to me."

He said he was a "nervous wreck" and "scared to death" before the news conference, held under a tent behind the third-base side of Legends Field. He relaxed after a few minutes and went into far greater detail than most accused athletes have about their transgressions.

"We've been through a lot of tough times in baseball. Why not support him?" Rivera said. "I consider Andy my friend. I'm glad I was there."

Brian McNamee, the former personal trainer to Pettitte and Clemens, said in the Mitchell Report that Pettitte used HGH in 2002 while with the Yankees. Two days after the report was released Dec. 13, Pettitte issued a statement through his agent confirming McNamee's account and saying that was the only time he used HGH.

In a deposition and an affidavit to a congressional committee two weeks ago, Pettitte said he injected himself with HGH for one day in 2004 while with the Astros after obtaining two syringes from his father.

"I am sorry for not telling the whole truth in my original statement," Pettitte said. "I never wanted to bring my dad into a situation like this. This was between me and him, and no one else. I testified about my dad in part because I felt in my heart I had to, but mainly because he urged me to tell the truth, even if it hurt him."

Pettitte said there were no other times he used performance-enhancing drugs.

"That's it. There are no other surprises out there," he said. "That's all there is and anything that would come up would be definitely false allegations."

McNamee said he injected Clemens with steroids and HGH at least 16 times from 1998-01, and all three were among those called before a congressional committee. Pettitte told Congress that Clemens had discussed nearly a decade ago using HGH.

In addition, Pettitte testified McNamee, the former personal trainer for Clemens and Pettitte, had spoken in 2003 or 2004 about steroids use by Clemens.

Clemens claims Pettitte "misremembers."

"I'm just not going to go there," Pettitte said. "I've had to testify under oath. So has Roger. And, you know, I don't think that's anything I need to sit here and try to elaborate on with anyone else."

He "prayed awfully hard" to be dropped from testifying at last Wednesday's hearing. Pettitte was excused from testifying in public alongside Clemens and McNamee, and said he didn't watch the hearing.

Pettitte realizes he may have to testify again, either in Clemens' defamation suit against McNamee or if the Justice Department launches a criminal case against Clemens or McNamee.

"He can't put this behind him because of Roger's selfishness and inability to admit the facts," Richard Emery, one of McNamee's lawyers, said in a telephone interview. "Clemens is putting Andy in the middle of a meatgrinder again. He's going to have to testify again in a deposition, probably this summer, and it's going to be far more extensive than anything Congress did. He is the key witness."

Joe Householder, Clemens' spokesman, declined comment.

Given permission to report four days after other Yankees pitchers, Pettitte threw 35 pitches during a bullpen session at the minor league complex before the news conference. He acknowledged he had considered not playing because of the ongoing situation.

Pettitte plans to apologize to his teammates. He met with George Steinbrenner and the owner's sons, Hank and Hal, before facing reporters.

"I just wanted to tell them face to face that I'm sorry and apologize to him, you know, for the embarrassment that this has brought," Pettitte said. "He was a little stubborn in accepting my apology and said that he's behind me 100 percent, tried to tell me that I haven't brought any embarrassment to the organization. But I disagree with him a little on that."

The 35-year-old lefty with 201 regular-season wins and four World Series championship rings said he did not feel as if his accomplishments were tainted. He said he used HGH only because he felt pressure to pitch while injured because of his multimillion salary and doesn't consider himself a cheater because HGH wasn't banned until 2005.

"I didn't do it to try to get an edge on anyone. I didn't do it to try to get stronger or faster or throw harder," he said. "I did it because I was told that it might be able to help me."

Castro resigns as president, state-run paper reports

2008-02-19T10:46:00.002-05:00

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- Fidel Castro announced his resignation as president of Cuba and commander in chief of Cuba's military Tuesday, according to a letter published in the state-run newspaper, Granma.

The resignation ends nearly a half-century of iron-fisted rule that inspired revolutionaries but frustrated 10 U.S. presidents.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said the U.S. embargo on Cuba will not be lifted in the near term.

Castro revealed his plans without notice by publishing a letter in the middle of the night in state-run newspaper Granma.

"I will not aspire to, nor will I accept the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief," Castro wrote. "I wish only to fight as a soldier of ideas. ... Perhaps my voice will be heard."

President Bush said Castro's decision ought to spark "a democratic transition" for Cuba.

"The international community should work with the Cuban people to begin to build institutions that are necessary for democracy and eventually this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections," Bush said Tuesday in Rwanda. "The United States will help the people of Cuba realize the blessings of liberty."

Castro received treatment for intestinal problems two years ago and cited his "critical health condition" in the letter published Tuesday. He said "it would be a betrayal to my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer."

He also said he realized that he had a duty to prepare Cubans for his absence.

"My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath," he said. "That's all I can offer."

Cuba's leaders plan to elect a president within days. Castro's brother, Raúl, the country's defense minister, has been named publicly as his successor.

Castro, 81, captured the world's attention at the age of 32, when he led a band of guerrillas who overthrew a corrupt dictatorship in 1959. He went on to become a thorn in Washington's side by embracing communism and cozying up to the Soviet Union.

Castro reigned in Havana with an iron hand, defying a punishing U.S. economic embargo intended to dislodge him.

Castro received treatment for intestinal problems in 2006 and transferred many powers to Raúl, who is generally seen as more pragmatic.

Ordinary Cubans have wondered whether a change in power in Cuba will lead to lower food prices, higher salaries and more freedom to travel.

In Miami, Florida, the news came as no surprise to Janisset Rivero, the executive director of Cuban Democratic Directorate, a group that works with dissidents in Cuba.

"I think there have been preparations taking place for quite a while to assure the crowning of Raúl Castro," she said Tuesday morning. "It doesn't mean any change to the system. It doesn't mean there will be freedom for the Cubans. One big dictator is replacing the other.

"It will be a big deal when political prisoners are released, when political parties are allowed to organize, when the country stops being ruled by a single party."

Polarizing figure

To leftist revolutionaries around the world, Castro, with his ubiquitous military fatigues and fiery oratory, became a hero and patron. But for hundreds of thousands of his countrymen who fled into exile rather than live under his thumb, he became an object of intense hatred.

Castro clung to a socialist economic model and one-party Communist rule, even after the Soviet Union disintegrated and most of the rest of the world concluded that state socialism was a bankrupt idea whose time had come and gone.

"The most vulnerable part of his persona as a politician is precisely his continued defense of a totalitarian model that is the main cause of the hardships, the misery and the unhappiness of the Cuban people," said Elizardo Sanchez, a human rights advocate and critic of the Castro regime.

And yet, his defenders in Cuba point to what they see as social progress made under Castro's revolution, including racial integration and universal education and health care. Instead of communism, they blame the U.S. embargo for the country's economic woes.

"What Fidel achieved in the social order of this country has not been achieved by any poor nation, and even by many rich countries, despite being submitted to enormous pressures," said Jose Ramon Fernandez, a Cuban vice president.

Castro's staying power was a source of irritation to Cuban exiles, who never imagined he would last so long.

"We came here with a round-trip ticket ... because we thought the revolution was going to last days," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban-American elected to Congress, who came to Florida as a child. "And the days turned into weeks, and the weeks to months, and the months to years."

The center of the exile community is Miami, where the Cuban American National Foundation became a powerful lobbying group courted by U.S. politicians. For more than four decades, efforts to lift the embargo against Cuba went nowhere, thanks to political pressure from the exile community.

Although Raúl Castro has been named as his brother's successor, the departure of the charismatic leader whose identity became inseparable from his revolution raises questions of how long his system can survive without him.

"What I think will happen is that we'll see, hopefully in the future, a new set of leaders come with new ideas. And that will be a hopeful day for the Cuban people," Sen. Mel Martinez, a Florida Republican and Cuban émigré, said on CNN's "American Morning."

Road to revolution

Castro was born August 13, 1926, in Oriente Province in eastern Cuba. His father, Angel, was a wealthy landowner originally from Spain; his mother, Lina, had been a maid to Angel's first wife.

Though he grew up in wealthy circumstances, Oriente was a poor area wracked by a peasant rebellion in Fidel Castro's formative years, which is thought to have influenced his political leanings.

Educated in Jesuit schools, Castro earned a law degree from the University of Havana and offered free legal services to the poor. In 1952, at the age of 25, he ran for the Cuban parliament. But just before the election, the government was overthrown by Fulgencio Batista, who established a dictatorship that put Castro on the road to revolution.

In 1953, Castro was one of about 150 fighters who attacked a military barracks in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Batista. The attack made him famous throughout Cuba, but it also earned him a prison sentence.

He was released in 1955 and lived in exile in the United States and Mexico, where he organized a guerrilla group with Raúl Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an Argentine doctor-turned-revolutionary.

The next year, 81 fighters landed in Cuba. Most were killed; the Castros, Guevara and other survivors fled into the Sierra Maestra Mountains along the southeastern coast, where they waged a guerrilla campaign against the Batista government that finally brought it down in 1959.

Although the United States quickly recognized the new Cuban government, tensions arose after Castro began nationalizing factories and plantations owned by American companies. In January 1961, Washington broke off diplomatic ties.

Less than four months later, a group of CIA-trained Cuban exiles, armed with U.S. weapons, landed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in a disastrous attempt to overthrow Castro.

Two weeks after the Bay of Pigs, Castro formally declared Cuba a socialist state.

In October 1962, Cuba became the focus of a tense world crisis after the Soviet Union installed nuclear weapons in the country. President Kennedy demanded that the Soviets remove them and quarantined the island, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war.

The Soviet Union backed down and removed the weapons.

Through the years, Castro was the target of scores of CIA assassination attempts. He took delight in the fact none of them ever succeeded.
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"I have never been afraid of death. I have never been concerned about death," he once said.

As for Castro's private life, he is believed to have fathered eight children with four women. His longtime companion, Dalia Soto del Valle, is the mother of five of his sons.

The Motivator

2008-02-18T20:58:00.000-05:00

"The tragedy of man is not that man dies, buy what dies within man while he is alive."

-- Albert Schweitzer

Phillies clubhouse,media pull prank on Kendrick

2008-02-18T20:38:00.002-05:00

Did Kyle Kendrick get sent packing to Japan? Nah, he just got punked.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - The Phillies traded Kyle Kendrick yesterday.

To the Yomiuri Giants. In Japan. For Kobayashi Iwamura.

"Do they have good food in Japan?" a stunned Kendrick asked reporters, who circled his locker inside the clubhouse at Bright House Networks Field. "I don't know what to think right now."

Unbelievable, huh?

Indeed. The Phillies executed an elaborate prank on Kendrick, one so believable that it had their 23-year-old starting pitcher convinced that he needed to be on a 7:05 a.m. Delta Airlines flight today, connecting in Atlanta for the 14-hour, 30-minute trip to Tokyo. The accomplices in the ruse included assistant general manager Ruben Amaro Jr.; manager Charlie Manuel; Frank Coppenbarger, director of team travel and clubhouse service; Kendrick's agent, Joe Urbon; pitcher Brett Myers; and pretty much everybody else in the clubhouse.

"They got me," Kendrick said later. "I thought it was a done deal. I thought it really happened. Gosh, good thing it didn't."

Think these Phillies are a loose bunch?

The idea developed early last week, but those involved were borrowing an old idea. Phillies broadcaster Larry Andersen once pulled the same prank on former pitcher Wayne Gomes.

Amaro created an official-looking document on Phillies letterhead, spelling out the trade details, which Kendrick had to sign in triplicate. Coppenbarger also created a detailed itinerary for Kendrick's trip overseas.

After yesterday's workout, Kendrick went into the weight room, as usual, when Amaro pulled him out. He and Kendrick walked through the clubhouse together.

(Keep in mind, any time the assistant GM or GM pulls a player out of the weight room or clubhouse and walks him into the manager's office, something almost always is up.)

"Contract signed," J.D. Durbin said from across the room.

"What'd you do, Kendrick?" Myers asked.

Comcast, which had been in on the scheme from the start, had Manuel and Myers miked for the prank.

Kendrick took a seat in Manuel's office. The manager and Amaro explained that he had just been traded to Japan. (Major leaguers can't be traded to Japan, by the way.) Kendrick didn't seem to notice or care that a TV camera was filming the event because he had been told earlier that Comcast was following Manuel around for the day.

Then Coppenbarger handed Kendrick his flight schedule.

He explained to Kendrick that he tried to get him a layover for a night in Seattle (Kendrick is from Washington), but couldn't because his Japanese team needed him to arrive immediately.

Stunned, Kendrick left Manuel's office and staggered to his locker. He grabbed his cell phone and walked outside to call his agent.

"It happens," Urbon told Kendrick. "It's a chance for you to make some more money. This is going to be a big deal. This really never happens. The media over there is going to be big."

"All right," Kendrick said.

He hung up.

Kendrick returned to his locker, where Amaro brought over reporters, who didn't expect to be part of the gag. Amaro announced the trade.

"It was a deal we felt was important for us to make," he told reporters. "The fact of the matter is we're trying to get to the next level."

Then the questions started.

Did Manuel, who played in Japan, give you some tips?

"No, not at all," Kendrick said. "Um, I don't know what to think right now."

Have you had all your shots? Seriously, you need shots to go over there.

"Uh, no," Kendrick said. "I haven't. Um, I don't know. This is going to be a new little chapter I guess, huh?"

Are you upset?

Is your passport in order?

Have you talked to your agent?

Are you shocked?

"You know what I say?" Myers said, stepping in next to Kendrick. "You just got punked!"

The clubhouse erupted in laughter. Everybody could see the relief wash over Kendrick.

"I've never been so happy. Seriously," he said. "I was not getting on that flight in the morning. They got me."

And Kobayashi Iwamura? He's relieved, too.

If he only existed.

LSU suspends Perrilloux indefinitely for team rules violation

2008-02-18T20:32:00.001-05:00

Ryan Perrilloux, the heir apparent at quarterback for defending national champion LSU, has been suspended indefinitely.

LSU coach Les Miles made the announcement Monday, saying Perrilloux violated team rules. Miles said Perrilloux's status for spring practice was unclear. The Tigers open spring workouts on Feb. 29.

This was supposed to be Perrilloux's shot to take over the quarterback duties full time at LSU. A rising junior, he stepped in for an injured Matt Flynn to lead the Tigers to a 21-14 victory over Tennessee in the SEC championship game last season. Perrilloux also played in the Tigers' 38-24 win over Ohio State in the BCS national championship game.

Perrilloux, a highly touted high school prospect from LaPlace, La., has already been suspended two other times during his LSU career. He didn't make the trip to the Alabama game last season after allegations surfaced that he was involved in a fight at a Baton Rouge nightclub. Perrilloux was not charged following the police's investigation.

Last May, he was suspended by Miles after being cited for allegedly trying to use his brother's drivers license to get onto a casino gambling boat. Perrilloux was reinstated to the team in time for the start of preseason practice.

With Perrilloux's status in limbo, that means junior Andrew Hatch, who began his career at Harvard, and redshirt freshman Jarrett Lee will move to the top of the Tigers' quarterback chart.

5 shot dead, including gunman, at Northern Illinois University

2008-02-14T21:14:00.002-05:00

DEKALB, Illinois (CNN) -- A gunman dressed in black walked from behind a curtain at the front of a large lecture hall Thursday at Northern Illinois University and shot 22 people, four fatally, then killed himself, authorities said.

Seventeen victims were taken to Kishwaukee Community Hospital, its Web site said.

Of those, six were in critical condition and were flown to other hospitals. One fatality, a male, was confirmed -- but was not the gunman, the hospital said. Two were admitted, and three others were discharged. The other five were not addressed on the Web site.

Most of the injuries are head and chest gunshot wounds, a spokeswoman tells CNN.

The shooting occurred shortly after 3 p.m. (4 p.m. ET) in Cole Hall. The class runs from 2 p.m. until 3:15 p.m., university President John Peters said.

"It started and it stopped very quickly," said Police Chief Donald Grady. The gunman, whose identity has not been revealed publicly, was not a student at the NIU campus in DeKalb, west of Chicago, but "may have been a student somewhere else."

Police do not have an apparent motive now, Grady said.

Kevin McEnery said he was in the classroom when a man dressed in a black shirt, dark pants and black hat burst in carrying a shotgun.

"He just kicked the door open, just started shooting," said McEnery, who was in the class at the time. "All I really heard was just people screaming, yelling 'get out.' ... Close to 30 shots were fired."

There are about 162 registered students in the class that met in the large lecture hall.

"Witnesses say someone dressed in black came out from behind a screen in the front of the classroom and opened fire with a shotgun," Peters said.

The gunman fired from a stage at the front of the classroom, Grady said.

At 3:03 p.m., NIU police responded, and four minutes later, the campus was ordered into "a lockdown situation," he said.

At 3:20, an all-campus alert went out via the campus Web site, e-mail, voice mail, the campus crisis hotline, the news media and various alarm systems, he said.

"The message basically was: There's a gunman on campus, stay where you are, make yourself as safe as possible," he said.

Rosie Moroni, a student at the school, told CNN she was outside Cole Hall near the King Commons at 2:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. ET) when she heard shots coming from the classroom she had intended to enter.

The shot was followed by "a lot of people screaming," then people ran out the doors yelling, "He's got a gun, call 9-1-1," she said.

"It was complete chaos ... it's very scary here right now."

By 4 p.m., police had swept the area "and determined there was only one gunman" and that he was dead.

Grady said the man used three guns during his rampage -- a shotgun, a Glock pistol and a small-caliber handgun -- and was still on the stage when he turned one of the guns on himself. The small-caliber handgun has not been recovered, he said. He said the shooter started with a shotgun, then switched to a pistol.

It appears that he acted alone, Grady said.

"As much as we do, it's unlikely that anyone would ever have the ability to stop an incident like this from beginning," he said.

Classes were canceled for the rest of the day and Friday.

Seven counseling areas were set up throughout the campus, and hotlines were established.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich declared a state of emergency, which will open the governor's disaster fund to reimburse local government entities for "extraordinary expenses related to the response in NIU DeKalb" and will allow the state Emergency Management Agency to provide assistance, the governor's office said in a statement.

The 113-year-old school is 65 miles west of downtown Chicago and has an enrollment of more than 25,000. The campus covers 755 acres.

A spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives told CNN that some of its agents were already on the scene to assist.
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He said ATF agents could help trace the weapon or weapons used.

An FBI spokesman said several of that agency's agents were en route to the scene to assist.

The Motivator

2008-02-14T12:53:00.000-05:00

"Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men -- the other 999 follow women."

-Groucho Marx

So, who do we believe???

2008-02-14T12:51:00.002-05:00

Clemens more nervous than trainer; Facial expressions expert analyzes both witnesses

Roger Clemens' lips were pressed together tight, the corners turned slightly upward, his mouth pulled wide.

"There's only one interpretation," said Dan Hill, an expert in analyzing facial expressions, "and that's fear."

Hill doesn't profess to be able to declare with certainty whether the star pitcher or his former trainer, Brian McNamee, was telling the truth during their testimony before Congress on Wednesday. But after viewing video clips of portions of the hearings, Hill concluded Clemens seemed more nervous than McNamee.

"To be fair, it could be fear of being unfairly stripped of the Hall of Fame," Hill said in a phone interview. "He also could be lying."

Hill is the president of Sensory Logic, a Minnesota-based marketing research company that analyzes consumers' facial expressions. He said Clemens showed signs of anger and disgust, pushing his lower lip and chin upward and pressing his lips together.

"It's the same body language as when he prepares to overwhelm a batter," Hill said. "He's a bulldog trying to will himself through the testimony."

But Clemens also repeatedly licked his lips and looked down.

"That's all signs of avoidance, possibly shame, absolutely nervousness," Hill said.

He thought Clemens seemed particularly anxious, gulping and licking his lips, when questioned about the testimony of former teammate Andy Pettitte's wife. In her affidavit, she said her husband told her about a conversation he had with Clemens in 1999 or 2000 during which the seven-time Cy Young winner admitted using human growth hormone.

McNamee may have looked "beaten down" as he was drilled by members of Congress, Hill said, but he appeared more confident than Clemens.

"He does not look like he's broken or wavering or nervous," Hill said.

Update on New York's therapist slaying

2008-02-14T12:37:00.001-05:00

NEW YORK (AP) -- Police combed through surveillance video, tested blood for DNA, took fingerprints and went door-to-door Thursday as they tried to find the man who hacked a psychologist to death in her office with a meat cleaver.

Among the unanswered questions: Did the balding, middle-age suspect know his way around the building? Was he a patient? And where did he go after the killing?

CNN affiliate WABC in New York is reporting that a suspect is being questioned in Pennsylvania.

Police released a detailed sketch and grainy surveillance footage of him entering and leaving the Upper East Side building where Kathryn Faughey was killed Tuesday evening.

Faughey's office was in shambles, with furniture overturned, shades torn and blood sprayed on the walls and pooled on the floor.

The suspect left behind a roller suitcase filled with adult diapers and women's clothing -- including blouses and slippers -- and a smaller second bag containing knives, rope and duct tape that were not apparently used in the attack, police said.

The killing shocked the mental health care community and raised questions about safety protections at therapists' offices. It also rattled residents of the affluent Manhattan neighborhood around Faughey's office.

"Everyone in the building is very nervous, because we know that this person is loose. It's very frightening," said Linda Elliott, who lives in the East 79th Street building where the attack occurred. It is in a bustling neighborhood just blocks from a major hospital complex.

Carrying the two bags and dressed in a three-quarter-length green coat, knit cap and gloves, the attacker breezed past the building's doorman, saying he had an appointment with Dr. Kent Shinbach, a 70-year-old geriatric psychiatrist who worked in the same office suite as Faughey, according to police.

Shinbach had office hours into the evening, police said, but it wasn't clear whether Shinbach or Faughey was the intended target.

The man walked into the suite's waiting room, where a female patient was waiting to see Shinbach, and at some point went into Faughey's office and attacked her, police said. Shinbach heard Faughey's screams and ran to help.

The attacker apparently didn't recognize Shinbach when he opened the door and said "she's dead," referring to Faughey, police said. He then attacked the psychiatrist, stabbing at Shinbach and pinning him to the wall with a chair before stealing $90 and escaping through a basement door, according to police.

Shinbach screamed out to the street from Faughey's office for help, and the building doorman called 911 around 9 p.m. By then, the attacker had escaped.

Shinbach had slash wounds on his head, face and hands. Police, believing the killer may have been injured in the attack, issued alerts to area hospitals.

Police have said the suspect may have been familiar with the building because his exit route through the basement wasn't very obvious. Surveillance tapes show him deliberately leaving the luggage by the basement door before walking out.

The check's in the mail...

2008-02-13T17:12:00.002-05:00

This was released 2 hours ago EST.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush has signed a multibillion-dollar economic rescue package that means $300 to $1,200 rebates for many American households.

Bush called the measure "a booster shot for our economy" to stave off a recession.

Several dozen members of Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, stood on the stage behind Bush as he signed the bill.

The Motivator

2008-02-13T16:31:00.001-05:00

"Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning."

-- Eugene S. Wilson

Officer Suspended After Skateboarder Rant in Baltimore

2008-02-13T16:26:00.002-05:00

Weigh In With Your Thoughts. Was Officer Rivieri Out of Line?

A veteran Baltimore police officer was suspended after a video appeared on YouTube showing him manhandling a 14-year-old skateboarder.

The video, which was reportedly shot during the summer and just recently appeared on YouTube, begins with Officer Salvatore Rivieri approaching a group of teens on skateboards.

"You're not allowed to ride your skateboards here," Rivieri tells two teenage skateboarders.

"We were just rolling by. … I didn't hear him because I had my iPod on," said Eric Bush, the teen who bore the brunt of Rivieri's wrath.

Don't Say 'Dude'

On the video, Bush is seen referring to Rivieri as "dude," and the officer responds with force, shoving Bush to the ground.

"I was scared. I didn't know if he was going to punch me," said Bush.

He wasn't scared speechless though, as Bush continued to refer to Rivieri as "dude."

"I didn't do anything dude," Bush says again on the video, this time inciting a rant from Rivieri.

"Obviously your parents don't put your foot in your butt quite enough, because you don't understand the meaning of the word respect. You better learn how to speak. I'm not 'man,' I'm not 'dude.' I am Officer Rivieri!" he shouts.

Reactions

"I was very upset," Bush's mother, Peggy Miller, said of watching the video.

Although skateboarding in the area wasn't allowed, she says the officer was out of line. "If I were to go to my job and I were to get upset with someone who called me dude three times and tackled [them], I'd be terminated immediately."

The Baltimore Police Department partially agreed. Rivieri, who has no complaints on his record, was suspended with pay.

"We don't know what happened before the video clip. We don't know what happened after. But there are obviously some things to be concerned about there," said Sterling Clifford, a spokesman for the Baltimore police.

<span style="font-weight:bold;">Was Rivieri's Complaint Fair?

ABC News showed the video to Harris Stratyner, a psychologist who deals with confrontation.

"You watch the video and you say, 'Gee that kid was disrespectful.' And then you see the police officer and you forget all about the kid calling him dude, because his actions were so outrageous," Stratyner said.

s for his actions, Bush says this could have all been avoided. "I would have left if he had been nice to me, but he just kept on going and yelling at me."

It is not clear why the video has surfaced now, but it raises some important questions. Was Rivieri's response out of line? Was Bush wrong to speak that way to a police officer?

What do you think? Weigh in with your comments on our message board.

Man Sought in Psychologist’s Stabbing

2008-02-13T16:21:00.002-05:00

Armed with a suitcase full of knives, an unidentified middle-aged man unleashed a rampage of violence inside the offices of an Upper East Side psychiatry practice on Tuesday night, fatally stabbing and slashing a well-known psychologist before wounding her colleague when he tried to come to her aid, officials said on Wednesday.

The assailant had not been identified as of Wednesday afternoon, the police said, though investigators were pursuing a theory that he was either a patient at the suite of offices, at 440 East 79th Street, or that he had some kind of ties to the establishment or the services it provided.

Originally, the assailant had arrived at the offices, about five seconds after 8 p.m. on Tuesday, asking to visit Dr. Kent T. Shinbach, 70, a psychiatrist there, the police said.

But at some point he disappeared inside the office of another counselor there, Kathryn Faughey, 56, the police said.

There, he unleashed a barrage of violence, fatally stabbing Dr. Faughey. At some point, when Dr. Shinbach heard the attack and went to the office of his colleague, the assailant turned on him and Dr. Shinbach was seriously injured, officials said.

The scene was marked by blood and upended furniture, the police and neighbors said.

“We could see in the office where the blinds had been ripped off and were hanging at a strange angle and the entire office was in disarray,” said Alexandra Pike, 20, a student who could see into the office where the attack occurred from the window of her apartment across the street. “Papers were strewn around and there was overturned furniture. And it was clear there was some kind of scuffle.”

It is unclear what the man’s motive was, and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly released a sketch of the suspect after a news conference at 1 Police Plaza on Wednesday, saying detectives were seeking him. The sketch was based on descriptions provided to detectives of those who saw the man in the moments before the attack — including the surviving victim — but who could not identify him by name.

“Obviously there is a forensic evidence aspect to this case,” Mr. Kelly said. “We’re getting information from the doctor and other medical professionals in the suite to determine if they have any information to add as the investigation goes forward.”

He added: “We’re fully engaged on several fronts.”

Mr. Kelly described the assailant as a man in his 40’s, about 5 feet 9 inches, with brownish or blond hair. He was wearing a three-quarter length green coat, with sneakers and a baseball cap, said Mr. Kelly, as he held up the sketch before a bank of television cameras.

The first sign of the man’s entrance at the building was captured on videotape —as he walked in the front door about five seconds after 8 p.m., passed by a doorman and went into the counselors’ suite of offices, the police said. He was inside for about an hour: A videotape showed him leaving through a basement door about 8:54 p.m., the police said, and it showed a view of him from his back.

Blood was found on the door — a panic door that locks on its own when it shuts — indicating the assailant might have been wounded.

Before he fled, the assailant left two suitcases in the basement. Inside one was assorted women’s clothing — some shoes, a top, as well as diapers for adults. He other had about eight knives, the police said. Upstairs in the room of Ms. Faughey, investigators found three other weapons, including two knives and a cleaver with a broken handle, the police said.

A female patient was in the lobby of the counselors’ suite when the assailant showed up, the police said. She apparently left before the attack on Dr. Faughey became known, but detectives tracked her down and interviewed her, the police said. Dr. Shinbach was also interviewed after undergoing surgery at New York Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Clemens says Pettitte 'misremembered' him; McNamee grilled

2008-02-13T16:12:00.003-05:00

WASHINGTON -- Under oath and sometimes blistering questioning, Roger Clemens stuck to his story Wednesday. So did his chief accuser and former personal trainer, Brian McNamee.

And after a 4½-hour hearing, Congress settled for a draw in the he-said, he-said between the two men over whether the seven-time Cy Young Award winner used performance-enhancing drugs. Ultimately, the matter may be referred to the Justice Department for a resolution -- and, possibly, criminal charges.

"I haven't reached any conclusions at this point," said California Democrat Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

But, as ranking Republican Tom Davis of Virginia, put it: "Both can't be telling the truth."

Clemens' reputation and legacy were on the line, and there was the possibility that criminal charges could follow after the seven-time Cy Young Award winner testified.

"I have never taken steroids or HGH," Clemens said under oath, his voice rising. "No matter what we discuss here today, I am never going to have my name restored."

For many, his denials rang hollow.

"It's hard to believe you, sir. I hate to say that," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat. "You're one of my heroes, but it's hard to believe."

McNamee's answers were generally quick and concise. His credibility also came under scrutiny.

"You're here under oath, and yet we have lie after lie after lie after lie," said Rep. Dan Burton, an Indiana Republican.

When it was over, Clemens left the hearing room through a back door. Just before exiting, he paused to shake hands with Davis. Clemens later spoke briefly to reporters, saying: "I'm very thankful and very grateful for this day to come. I'm glad for the opportunity finally. And, you know, I hope I get -- and I know I will have -- the opportunity to come here to Washington again under different terms."

Early in the session, Clemens struggled to find the right words as he denied new accounts new accounts of drug use made against him by former teammate and close friend Andy Pettitte.

Using words like "misremembered" and mispronouncing McNamee's last name, Clemens rambled and stumbled at times.

Roger Clemens was grilled over inconstistencies between his testimony and statements made under oath by his teammate and friend Andy Pettitte.

It seemed clear nearly from the start of the session that the committee would not treat Clemens with kid gloves, despite all the face-to-face sit-downs he did with representatives in recent days -- sometimes posing for photos or signing autographs for staff members.

In fact, after Clemens interrupted Waxman at the end, the chairman pounded the gavel and said: "Excuse me, but this is not your time to argue with me."

When it was over, Clemens avoided reporters by leaving the hearing room through a back door. Just before exiting, he paused to shake hands with Davis.

Exactly two months after the Mitchell report was released, Clemens and McNamee were separated by one seat in the same wood-paneled room where Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro saw their careers tarnished during a hearing in March 2005. In a reference to McGwire's evasions that day, Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., admonished Wednesday's witnesses by saying: "It's better not to talk about the past than to lie about the past."

Clemens briefly stared at McNamee, his former employee, during his accuser's opening statement and later pointed several times at his former personal trainer. For the most part, they did not look at each other.

Members of Congress questioned the credibility of both.

Waxman pointed out inconsistencies in Clemens' comments and accused him of possibly attempting to influence statements to the committee by the pitcher's former nanny.

Burton repeatedly read remarks McNamee had made, and each time the former trainer was forced to admit they were untrue.

"This is really disgusting. You're here as a sworn witness. You're here to tell the truth," he said. "I don't know what to believe. I know one thing I don't believe and that's you."

The hearing seemed to split the committee along party lines, with the Democrats reserving their most pointed queries for Clemens, and the Republicans giving McNamee a rougher time. Chris Shays, a Connecticut Republican, likened the hearing to a "Roman Circus" featuring gladiators.

Cummings set the tone within minutes, repeatedly reminding Clemens he was under oath and admonishing the pitcher to "keep your voice up." McNamee also was asked to pull his microphone closer.

Brian McNamee came under intense scrutiny for not being fully forthright with federal agents about the number of injections he gave and the physical evidence in his possession.

The hearing started about an hour after several teams opened spring training. This was far from the sunny settings of Florida and Arizona.

Debbie Clemens, the pitcher's wife, sat behind her husband and listened as Waxman implicated her in HGH use, citing statements by Pettitte. Later, Clemens read a statement from his wife and said she "has been broken up over this."

IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitzky, a key member of the federal prosecution team against Barry Bonds, watched from a second-row seat. Asked why by a reporter, he declined comment.

In addition, ABC News reported that at least six FBI agents were in attendance at the hearing. While the Department of Justice will wait to see if the committee refers the matter for investigation, the agency can also open a probe on its own without a referral.

Bonds, baseball's home run king, was indicted in November on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice stemming from his 2003 testimony to a grand jury in which he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs. Because of his denials under oath, Clemens could be subjected to a similar criminal probe.

Pettitte, who was excused from testifying, said in a statement to the committee that Clemens admitted to him as long as 10 years ago that he used HGH. Waxman read from affidavits by Pettitte and Pettitte's wife, Laura, supporting the accusations.

"Andy Pettitte is my friend. He was my friend before this. He will be my friend after this and again. I think Andy has misheard," Clemens said. "I think he misremembers."

McNamee told former Senate majority leader George Mitchell that he injected Clemens 16 to 21 times with steroids and human growth hormone from 1998-01, and that Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch used HGH. In his opening statement, McNamee said he might have injected Clemens and Knoblauch more than that.

"I have helped taint our national pastime," McNamee said. "Make no mistake: When I told Sen. Mitchell that I injected Roger Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs, I told the truth."

McNamee was also asked about why he saved what he claims to be physical evidence connecting Clements to steroid use, including bloodied gauze and used medical needles.

In 2005, a source associated with McNamee told ESPN The Magazine's Shaun Assael that McNamee saved a blood sample from Clemens that would show steroid use. The sample was never shown to Assael.

Waxman said McNamee, a former New York City police officer, lied to police seven years ago during an investigation of a possible rape. He also was tough on Clemens.

"We have found conflicts and inconsistencies in Mr. Clemens' account. During his deposition, he made statements that we know are untrue," Waxman said.

In the affidavit, Pettitte said Clemens backtracked when the subject of HGH came up again in conversation in 2005, before the same House committee held the first hearing on steroids in baseball.

Pettitte said in the affidavit that he asked Clemens in 2005 what he would do if asked about performance-enhancing substances. Pettitte said Clemens responded by saying Pettitte misunderstood the previous exchange in 1999 or 2000 and that, in fact, Clemens had been talking about HGH use by his wife in the original conversation.

Clemens read a statement from his wife in which she acknowledged using HGH once, without his knowledge.

"She has been broken up over this for a long time," Clemens said. "She feels like a pawn."

The Motivator

2008-02-11T20:32:00.000-05:00

"They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel"

-Carl W. Buechner

Ex cop: 'I didn't mean to hurt her'

2008-02-11T20:27:00.000-05:00

CANTON, Ohio (AP) -- A former police officer accused of killing his pregnant lover sobbed on the witness stand Monday that he accidentally struck her when she wouldn't let him out of her house.

"I didn't mean to hurt her," Bobby Cutts Jr. testified, clutching a handful of white tissues.

Cutts, 30, said he was at Jessie Davis' home to pick up his 2½-year-old son, Blake and was telling her to hurry.

He said that when she didn't move quicker to get her son ready, he started to go but Davis grabbed him and told him he couldn't leave.

He said he pulled his arm away and threw his elbow back, striking her in the throat and causing her to fall.

Cutts could receive the death penalty if convicted of killing Davis, who was nearly full term with a female fetus when she died last June.

Cutts said he performed CPR, then tried to use bleach to revive her -- a large bleach stain was found in her room.

"She wasn't responding and I knew she was dead," Cutts testified.

He said he recalled thinking: "No way this is happening, this is not happening."

He said he went home, took a shower and "washed and washed and washed." Then, he said, he called Davis, hoping she'd pick up the phone. "This is not real," he said repeatedly.

Under questioning from his own attorney, Fernando Mack, Cutts said he didn't know why he failed to call police.

"How do you explain that?" he said raising his voice. "I just wanted to go get my son. I didn't want anybody to get hurt."

Cutts testified that he didn't want Blake to see his mother, so he put Davis' body in the bed of her truck and went to a friend's house while the boy slept.

Later, he said he drove around in a panic, not knowing what to do.

"I can't keep driving around with her body in the back of this truck," he said -- so when he saw a dirt road leading to a park, he pulled in.

"Did you leave Jessie at that location?" Mack said.

"Yeah," Cutts said between sobs.

After more than two hours of testimony, Cutts sat sniffling on the stand as assistant prosecutor Dennis Barr began his cross-examination.

"Mr. Cutts, do you have a cold? Because I don't see any tears," Barr said.

Defense attorneys objected.

"Did you cry this much when you dumped Jessie's body in the park?" Barr asked.

"After I dumped her body, yes I did cry," Cutts said.

Thousands searched for the 26-year-old Davis for more than a week, until Cutts led authorities to the body wrapped in a comforter in the park.

Prosecutors said Cutts was feeling the pressure of his crumbling marriage, financial debt and supporting several children. The state rested its case Friday, with closing arguments scheduled for Tuesday.

The former police officer in Canton is on trial on aggravated murder and other charges.

John Rocker points finger at Selig,Major League Baseball

2008-02-11T20:21:00.001-05:00

BRISTOL, Conn. - With Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee set to plead their cases before Congress on Wednesday, Major League Baseball has a new problem to deal with - John Rocker.

Rocker appeared on two separate Atlanta radio shows Monday and suggested that the league and the players association not only knew that he was on steroids, but that doctors for both parties advised him and several teammates how to effectively use the performance-enhancing drugs, according to a report on ESPN.com.

Rocker said Monday that commissioner Bud Selig knew that he failed a drug test in 2000. No stranger to controversy, Rocker made those comments on Atlanta radio station Rock 100.5, according to the report.

Later Monday, Rocker appeared on Atlanta sports talk radio station 680 The Fan and said that "between 40 to 50 percent of baseball players are on steroids" and "in 2000, Bud Selig knew John Rocker was taking the juice."

The comments are a departure from Rocker's position last March, when he told ESPN radio that, by his own guess, "less than 10 percent" of players were using illegal performance enhancing substances while he was in the majors.

"Basically it's a lot of media propaganda," Rocker told ESPN radio in March 2007. "It's a great scandal to drive ratings and sell newspapers."

Rocker was a member of the Atlanta Braves in 2000. He appeared in 59 games, compiling a 1-2 record with a 2.89 ERA and 24 saves. A year earlier, he had a career-high 38 saves for the Braves.

Rocker played in 30 games for the Texas Rangers in 2002, throwing 24 1/3 innings.

Rangers executive vice president of communications Jim Sundberg said the Rangers will have no comment. The Rangers will leave it to MLB and the players' association to respond, according to ESPN.com.

Florida Panther's Zednick has throat slashed by skate

2008-02-11T20:13:00.000-05:00

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - Florida Panthers forward Richard Zednik required lifesaving surgery after severing his carotid artery, his agent told The Associated Press on Monday.

Zednik had surgery Sunday night and was in stable condition at a Buffalo hospital after losing a significant amount of blood during the game at Buffalo earlier in the day, agent David Schatia said. Schatia didn't have further details because he had just arrived in Montreal following a trip oversees.

Zednik was sliced across the right side of the throat by teammate Olli Jokinen's skate in a frightening accident midway through the third period of Buffalo's 5-3 victory.

Canada's Sportsnet cable-TV network reported on its Web site that the skate blade just missed cutting the jugular vein.

The Panthers returned home to South Florida following the game. They did not have an immediate update on the player's condition or details of the severity of the injury.

Zednik was circling the net behind the play and skating into the corner just when Jokinen was upended by Sabres forward Clarke MacArthur. Jokinen fell headfirst to the ice, and his right leg and skate flew up and struck Zednik directly on the side of the neck.

Clutching his neck, Zednik left a trail of blood as he somehow had the capacity to race three-quarters the length of the ice to the Panthers bench. He nearly fell into the arms of trainer Dave Zenobi, who immediately placed a towel on the player's throat. With the help of defenseman Jassen Cullimore, Zednik was escorted up the tunnel behind the bench and loaded into an ambulance.

Zednik, a 12-year veteran, is in his first season with the Panthers. The team made arrangements to have his wife, Jessica, fly from South Florida to Buffalo by a charter flight Sunday night. Zenobi and assistant general manager Randy Sexton also stayed behind to be with Zednik, the Panthers said.

When Zednik was with Montreal he sustained a severe concussion, broken nose, bruised throat and cut eyelid following a vicious blow to the face by Boston's Kyle McLaren during the 2002 playoffs.

Zednik was knocked cold, had to be taken off the ice on a stretcher and spent the night in intensive care.

McLaren was suspended by the NHL for the rest of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, missing the final two games of the series, which Montreal won in six games.

Zednik returned the following season to score a career-high 31 goals and match a career high with 50 points.

"I saw him when they carted him to the hospital and said, 'Oh, my god. I'd be surprised if this guy ever walks again,"' Schatia said. "He's a tough guy."

Zednik signed with the Panthers as a free agent last summer. After a two-month slump, he has been playing well. He entered the game on a four-game point streak, in which he had six goals and three assists, giving him 26 points (15 goals, 11 assists) in 54 games this season.

The Motivator

2008-02-10T01:06:00.000-05:00

We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction.

-Bill Gates

Earnhardt wins Budweiser Shootout

2008-02-10T01:00:00.000-05:00

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. aced his first test with his new team.

Earnhardt had a smashing debut in his Hendrick Motorsports ride, getting a boost from his new teammates to power past Tony Stewart to win the Budweiser Shootout on Saturday night.

It was Earnhardt's first victory in any series since summer 2006, and could be a sign of things to come now that NASCAR's most popular driver is partnered with its most powerful team.

Seconds after taking the checkered flag, Earnhardt declared himself a favorite for next week's season-opening Daytona 500.

"What a race car!" Earnhardt yelled over his radio. "This might be a [Daytona] 500 winner here and you don't know it."

The winner of the 70-lap exhibition has gone on to win the Daytona 500 five times, with Dale Jarrett the last in 2000.

Earnhardt spun his new white No. 88 Chevrolet in a flurry of victory doughnuts before excitedly heading to Victory Lane.

No one had to show him the way.

It was his 11th victory at NASCAR's most famous track, but first since a second-tier Nationwide Series win in June 2006. His last official Cup win came at Richmond the month before.

"It felt pretty good to be back like we're supposed to be," said Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt's cousin and crew chief.

The two burst into the winner's news conference, Earnhardt sprinting to the stage with an ear-to-ear grin. He said his 2004 Daytona 500 victory was his greatest, but said Saturday night's show ranked right up there.

"I don't know what took him so long to win a race for us," car owner Rick Hendrick quipped. "It sure takes a lot of pressure off."

Stewart capped a tumultuous 24 hours by finishing second.

The two-time series champion and Kurt Busch were told to steer clear of each other in a Saturday morning meeting because of an altercation on the track that carried over into the NASCAR hauler. Stewart allegedly punched Busch during the confrontation, but all participants in that meeting refused to confirm or deny the altercation.

The attention surrounding Stewart dimmed the focus that's been on Earnhardt since he signed with Hendrick last June. All eyes were on his debut, and Stewart was a nice distraction for him. As he headed to his car before the race, Earnhardt pushed through a throng of photographers to joke with the temperamental two-time champion.

"Tony and Kurt getting into it the other day, that sort of took us off the front page," Earnhardt said. "I felt such a relief after that. I wasn't happy for those guys being in that situation, but I felt like a load had lifted off my shoulders when I saw them walking to the NASCAR hauler."

He equaled the distraction to the push he got from new teammate Jimmie Johnson that won him the race.

Stewart was closing in on the win until a late caution -- ironically caused when Busch spun -- set up a final restart with three laps to go. Stewart was out front, but was surrounded by a fleet of Hendrick cars who seemed hellbent on getting their new teammate to checkered flag.

The push from Johnson helped Earnhardt slide past Stewart on the outside and into the front. Jeff Gordon was behind Stewart, and with no chance to win the race himself, he certainly wasn't going to push Stewart past his teammate.

"I'm real happy for Junior," Gordon said. "It's awesome to have him at Hendrick Motorsports and real proud of those guys to do that in their first race out."

Stewart was content with second place.

"I'm pretty happy. I mean, it's hard to beat Dale Jr.," he said. "I mean, he's one of the best restrictor-plate drivers there's ever been. He learned a lot from his dad, and I'm not sure he's not better than his dad in all honesty."

Johnson finished third, and was followed by Gordon, Reed Sorenson and Casey Mears. Mears' car was too low and failed post-race inspection. NASCAR planned to look more closely at the car Sunday.

All four Hendrick cars finished in the top six.

But the celebration was strictly for Earnhardt, who was met in Victory Lane by Hendrick. The two are under tremendous pressure to produce winning results for NASCAR's most popular driver, who hasn't been a consistent contender for nearly two years.

He failed to make the Chase for the championship last season, his final year with Dale Earnhardt Inc. Unable to get along with stepmother Teresa, Earnhardt fled his late father's race team for a fresh start with powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports. The team won 18 of 36 races last season and its second straight championship.

Now Earnhardt is expected to be in the mix, contending for his first Cup title.

Does this first win ease the burden?

"I don't know," he said. "I never felt like I had a monkey on my back. I've always raced with pressure. I've always raced and worked and lived in tumultuous situations and I just got used to it, I guess. And Tony Jr. working with me and side by side, we grew up through it.

"Even before we got to this level, life wasn't easy. And there wasn't ever a golden road, easy to travel. But it is what it is. There's a lot of pressure, I think, for us, but we've always delivered and I hope we will continue."

Who Killed The Beauty Queen?

2008-02-10T00:36:00.000-05:00

An Arkansas Beauty Queen Falls Victim To An Ugly Crime

On Dec. 15, 2005, the small town of Russellville, Ark., was rocked by the news that 19-year-old college student and aspiring beauty queen Nona Dirksmeyer had been found murdered inside her apartment.

Nona's boyfriend Kevin Jones says he had been trying to reach her numerous times by phone but that his calls and messages had gone unanswered. Eventually, he and his mother decided to stop by Nona's apartment, where they discovered Nona's body.

As correspondent Richard Schlesinger reports, Nona had been murdered, beaten to death and left in her blood-spattered living room.

As paramedics responded to the 911 call, Kevin called Nona's stepfather, Duane Dipert, who in turn called his wife - and Nona's mother - Carol. "He met me close to the elevators. And I was just tinglin' all over. And I said, 'She's dead, isn't she?' And he said, 'Yeah,'" Carol remembers.

It was a grisly end to a life Nona struggled to fill with beauty. "I think she was just a really caring person that didn't wanna see anything go hungry or be abused," Nona's mother recalled.

Beautiful as she was, Nona was a most unlikely beauty queen. "She was really shy. Like almost painfully shy," remembers Nona's friend Adrielle Churchill, who had already won a beauty pageant.

Asked what attracted him to Nona, Kevin says, "If I didn't say her looks, I would probably by lying. I mean 'cause that's a big part of it, you know, when you're young. And her personality, too."

When Nona started competing in pageants, Kevin started to notice changes in his girlfriend. "It did help her self esteem a lot," he says.

By the time they were at Dover High School, Nona and Kevin were inseparable.

Kevin's mother Janice Jones, a school librarian, says Nona and Kevin were good for each other. "She just made him a kinder, sweeter person. He gave her confidence, and supported and cheered her on in her struggles," Janice says.

And Nona had a great deal to struggle with. She said years earlier, when she was just a child, she was sexually abused by her biological father. He died when she was just ten. And for years, she told almost no one about the abuse. But she did tell Kevin just after they started dating.

Carol says her daughter never told her, and that she didn't find out about the abuse until Nona's father was dead. Nona made preventing child abuse her cause when she appeared in pageants.

By the summer of 2005, Nona and Kevin had finished their first year of college together at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville. But Kevin was transferring, some 90 minutes away, to the University of Arkansas.

"I didn't like the fact that I had to be away from her," Kevin says. "I really looked forward to going back home on the weekends."

And Kevin was "back home" on Dec. 15, 2005. The couple had already spent time together, and Kevin says he expected to hear from Nona after she took a final exam, but didn’t.

Kevin says he always managed to get a hold of Nona. He continued to call and message her until about 6 p.m., when he had promised to escort his mother to a school holiday dinner.

When the time came to drive to the party, Kevin says he was concerned that Nona hadn't called back. "And he said, 'Mom, I can't go to this party and wonder if she's okay,'" Janice remembers.

Kevin contacted his friend Ryan, who was delivering pizza in the area. He asked Ryan to check if Nona’s car was parked outside her apartment. It was.

Ryan knocked on the door and told Kevin there was no answer. That’s when Kevin and his mom raced to Nona's apartment.

Kevin and Ryan tried but failed to open the front door, so they ran around to the sliding door in the back. Kevin says he forced open the sliding glass door, ran inside, and turned Nona over.

When police arrived, they had to make sense of the gruesome scene. Was Kevin really a grieving boyfriend? And why was he covered in so much blood?

It's detective work 101: when one part of a couple is murdered, the survivor is usually a suspect. So when Nona was found dead on the floor of her living room, police wanted to talk to her longtime boyfriend.

Police believe Nona was beaten to death with the heavy metal base of a floor lamp.

"I walked in and saw a large pool of blood around the head, several abrasions to the neck and the shoulder," remembers James Bacon, who was the Russellville police chief and one of the first at the crime scene.

The murder weapon was a few feet from Nona's body, and there were blood stains on the light bulb. There was no sign of sexual assault and no sign of a break-in.

But Kevin was covered in Nona's blood. Kevin says he had just finished trying to revive her, while his mother and his friend looked on.

It wasn't just Kevin's appearance that Chief Bacon thought was strange: it was also his behavior. "When I got to the apartment, he was standing just inside the door. And he stuck his hand out like he wanted to shake hands. And then said, 'Oh, I can't.' Then did his hands like this to show me they were covered in blood," Bacon recalls.

That night, Kevin spent hours at the police station. He never asked for a lawyer.

Police paid attention to everything he said during the questioning, but they paid even more attention to what he did while he was alone in the interrogation room. Kevin was videotaped slamming the back of a chair in frustration, then was calm.

Asked what that tells him about Kevin, Bacon says, "Well, it tells me that he does have the capability of striking somebody or striking something, which he did at that point."

Police believe it all began as a fight and that the killer, says Bacon, struck Nona first. "In the face. The medical examiner reports indicate there are blows to the face, to them I believe above the eye and in the cheek … that are consistent with like a palm-heel slap."

As the fight escalated, Bacon believes Nona tried to defend herself, and the killer pulled out a knife.

But Bacon says the killer couldn't bring himself to cut Nona. "And again, that's consistent with a crime of passion. Because that's a difficult thing for some people to do," the police chief says.

Soon after that, Bacon believes the fight turned deadly. "The floor lamp is slammed into the back of the head. And is now the fatal blow," he says.

But people who know Kevin, like Adrielle, say he would never hurt Nona. "If someone says, 'Well, the boyfriend did it,' there might be different situations where with different guys you would say, 'Well, yeah he always had a temper. I could just see how he snapped.' But, that was just never the case with Kevin," she says.

"When Nona and Kevin were together I always just saw him as a different person. Just a little bit kinder, and sweeter, and gentle. Because that's the way he always was with her," says Kevin's mother Janice.

But police were starting to suspect there might be another side to Kevin, and they wanted to know everything he did on the day of the murder.

Kevin said he could account for his whereabouts at the time of the murder.

Police say they were being careful and detailed in their investigation, and Bacon says that in a period of about a week, investigators interviewed about 50 different people.

On the eve of Nona's funeral, Kevin voluntarily returned to the Russellville Police Department. "I'll do anything that you guys want me to do. I'll do a DNA test, I'll do anything," he told investigators.

He did everything police wanted, and even agreed to take that lie detector test. But that might have been a big mistake: investigators say Kevin failed the polygraph miserably.

Kevin maintained his innocence, while Bacon told him there was no doubt in his mind that he had killed Nona.

Kevin says he was "real scared."

Kevin had more reason to be afraid than he knew, because by now, six days after the murder, police had the closest thing yet to a smoking gun. Remember the blood found on the light bulb? It turns out there was a palm print on that bulb, and it was Kevin's.

"The only way that print could've gotten there…the only way the print could have got there is in the process of the crime. That's the only way and it’s yours!" an investigator told Kevin.

To the naked eye it looked just like a small bloodstain, but to crime scene investigators, it matched perfectly with Kevin's print in Nona's blood on the murder weapon.

And police had developed a theory about why Kevin was covered in so much blood when they arrived: they believe he was trying to contaminate the crime scene. "He meticulously articulated everything to the Nth degree so that he could come back and say anything that you find is accountable because I went in and grabbed the body and now look me, cross-contamination," Bacon says.

But why would Kevin want Nona dead?

To hear Kevin tell it, Nona wasn't just his girlfriend for now, she was his partner forever. "I knew I was going to marry her. There wasn’t a question about it to me," he says.

"How'd you know?" Schlesinger asks.

"I don't know. I didn't see it any other way," Kevin says.

That was why, police now believe, Kevin flew into a murderous rage when he found something unexpected while visiting Nona the morning of Dec. 15.

Bacon believes Kevin found an empty condom wrapper, which police say was sitting on Nona's kitchen counter. They say it was part of Kevin's motive.

"Did you see the condom wrapper in the kitchen?" an investigator asked Kevin.

"No… So there was one? Then she was raped!" Kevin said.

"We don’t know that. So did you see it, or touch it?" the investigator asked.

"I didn’t even know it was there. She and I never used condoms," Kevin replied.

It didn’t take long for police to find out that, while Kevin might have thought he was Nona’s only boyfriend, there were other men.

Police interviewed her other lovers, but cleared all of them.

The investigation kept leading back to Kevin, and just six days after Nona’s murder, lead Detective Mark Frost told him he was no longer just the prime suspect - he was now the only suspect.

"You cannot deny this any more. Okay? Here’s the deal. An altercation went down between you and Nona," Frost said.

"No it didn’t," Kevin replied.

"It went down because she’s seeing other guys," Frost said.

"No, I didn’t," Kevin said.

"You do know you found out, and there was an altercation," Frost said.

"I never found out. I had no idea," Kevin insisted.

"At first, I was scared and nervous. Because it's the police. They have a lot of power. And they have the power to put someone in jail for the rest of their life if they want to," Kevin recalls.

"Did that register on you that you could go to the penitentiary for the rest of your life?" Schlesinger asks.

"At that point, yeah, it did. And then I thought, 'No, I didn't do this. They're not gonna put me in jail for something that I didn't do,'" Kevin says.

Police built their case against Kevin methodically; the bloody floor lamp with his palm print on it, and the empty condom wrapper, would become two central pieces of evidence against him.

But Kevin kept giving police information, willingly. On the night police called him a murderer, Kevin had come in on his own.

At that point, Kevin says he didn't even have a lawyer. "I was under the impression I had nothing to hide. So why would I need a lawyer?" he explains.

Kevin's interrogation dragged on behind closed doors for nearly seven hours.

After that session, Bacon says he was "very" convinced Kevin was the killer, and says he wanted to arrest him for murder. But the Pope County prosecutor wasn't convinced he had a case yet, and Bacon had to let Kevin go.

Kevin, by now accused but not yet charged with Nona's murder, went to her funeral the following morning.

Nona's mother Carol and stepfather Duane knew Kevin was a suspect. "Kevin was like crying and I said, 'Don’t let him sit with me,'" Carol remembers.

"He was just blubbering away for an uncomfortably long time," says Duane, who thinks the tears were all an act.

But according to Kevin, the pain couldn't have been more real. "Nothing at that point mattered to me," he says. "Because I was hollow; all I could think about were the times that she and I spent together, and that I'd never get to spend another time with her like that again."

But Nona's stepfather doesn't believe any of it, and calls Kevin a "con artist" and a "manipulator."

More than three months after the murder, on March 31, 2006, Kevin was arrested. "That's when it really hit me that I could possibly go to jail. There were no guarantees that I had a life. My life would be in the hands of 12 people," he says.

And 18 months after Nona's death, Kevin would go to trial for murder.

Deputy Prosecutor Jeff Phillips had built his case on blood: Nona's blood was on the lamp used to kill her, and embedded in her blood was Kevin's palm print.

The palm print was on the light bulb, and the entire case came down to that bulb. It was the best evidence discovered by Chief Bacon, who believes Kevin bludgeoned Nona to death with the lamp.

And Bacon says that's when the lamp snapped apart. "And it breaks, the natural instinct is to try to grab it. In that scramble to grab it is when the blood print is deposited on the bulb," Bacon says.

Kevin and his family steeled themselves for the trial and its outcome.

"Did you acknowledge the possibility that your son could go to the penitentiary?" Schlesinger asks Janice.

"No, No," she says.

But Kevin says, "I did."

But Nona's mother Carol thought a prison term for Kevin would not be enough. "Kevin is a murderer. And he deserves to forfeit his life. He took someone’s life. And he deserves to forfeit his," she said.

The courtroom was closed to cameras. Kevin never took the stand, and jurors were soon influenced by the state's most compelling evidence.

Juror Jennifer Finley says the palm print on the light bulb was a "big factor."

But Kevin says he doesn't even remember touching the bulb.

"Was he guilty in your mind when you first sat down," Schlesinger asks juror Kim Willhite.

"You bet," Willhite says. "And statistically it’s usually someone close to the person. And here they had the boyfriend. And they had him with the bloody palm print."

It wasn’t just that there was blood on the bulb; it was the texture of the blood that was critical. Was it wet or dry when it was discovered?

If the blood was dry, that proved it had time to harden, and that meant Kevin left it while murdering Nona hours before police were called. But if the blood was still wet when police arrived, it meant that Kevin was telling the truth, and it must have been left when he was trying to revive Nona, just before the 911 call.

Words are important here. This is how police and prosecutors described the texture of the blood: "tacky."

"It could have been tacky," Bacon said.

"The appearance of tacky," the prosecutor said.

"Tacky" would be a word that would course through the courtroom.

In fact, it created a huge problem for Tom Bevel, the prosecution's blood expert, because it contradicted his own theory that blood was put on the bulb at the time of the murder. "Blood on the bulb, on both sides, was placed there at the time of the killing, as opposed to some later time frame," he explains.

"If this blood is tacky, could it have been deposited on this light bulb at the time of death?" Schlesinger asks.

"If the blood is tacky, it certainly could not have been deposited there at the time of death," Bevel says. "No way."

But Bacon stands by his initial observation, and his word, tacky. "It was the best way that I knew how to explain it. Five days later when I looked at it, it had the same appearance," he says.

"When it would certainly have been dry," Schlesinger remarks.

"Correct," Bacon agrees.

Jurors says that word - "tacky" - was very important in this case.

And it's a potent weapon seized by Kevin’s lawyers, Michael Robbins, Kenny Johnson, and Bill Bristow. "If any portion of it had the consistency of being tacky, then that’s indicative of it being put there at the time the body was discovered," Robbins explains.

But prosecutors also have that condom wrapper, which police say Kevin found at Nona's and it sent him into a rage. Police considered checking it for DNA, but chose instead to check for fingerprints that might identify who touched it more accurately.

"The crime lab told us you had a choice, because if we do fingerprints, we are going to potentially destroy DNA. If we do DNA we're gonna potentially destroy fingerprints," Bacon explains.

No fingerprints were found. But it turned out there was some DNA left on the wrapper. And Kevin's legal team found it: the DNA was male, but not belonging to Kevin.

Police believe that supports their theory that Kevin’s motive was jealousy. But the defense charged the police work was sloppy. They also zeroed in on Nona's cell phone. Who had she been in touch with the day she died? Kevin's lawyers asked to examine that phone, to the great embarrassment of the lead detective.

"And he finally said, 'Look, I'm embarrassed to tell you this. But the investigator gave the cell phone to the stepfather,'" Johnson says.

It seemed strange but Mark Frost, the lead investigator, gave Nona’s phone to Duane Dipert, Nona’s stepfather, in the middle of the investigation.

"Tell me why you wanted her cell phone back?" Schlesinger asks Duane Dipert.

"First of all I'm a cheapskate. You talk to anybody…," he explains. "And I could use it at that time, 'cause everything was activated. So I start puttin' my numbers in, and takin' her numbers off."

"Do you know how strange that sounds that you would take this cell phone because by your own admission you’re a cheapskate?" Schlesinger asks.

"Well, yeah," Dipert admits.

"It’s a perception and reality thing again," prosecutor Phillips says. "The reality is that everything the state could've obtained from the phone was obtained. And that you should never give evidence back on a pending case, period. And that was done."

Those closest to Nona were convinced: even if the police made some mistakes, they did get the right man. "They had overwhelming evidence against him which you can’t refute," Carol says.

For months, Kevin's life had hung in the balance. Now he waited for the jury's verdict.

When jurors began deliberating the case, the opinions in the jury room were split down the middle. Once they calmed down, they started combing through the evidence, piece by piece.

"We laid out a timeline. We looked at the cell phone. We looked at evidence from the testimony. We looked at the tape of him being interrogated. Everything. We looked, we pored over," juror Kim Willhite recalls.

They went home the first day without reaching a verdict. But then, midway through the second day, they reached a decision: not guilty.

"I felt like 10,000 pounds had been lifted off my shoulders," Kevin remembers.

"I was sittin' there with my mouth hangin' open, not guilty. And so I stood up and says, 'You got away with it, Kevin. You got away with it,'" Nona's stepfather Duane recalls.

"I was in a state of shock for a few seconds. I couldn't do anything. And it's just like everything was in slow motion," Nona's mother Carol adds.

"I'm not a criminologist. I'm not a blood expert. But I looked at everything they gave us in the jury room. There just wasn't enough to convict. There wasn't anything that pointed to Kevin as the killer," explains juror Kim Willhite.

For 18 months, Kevin had lived as an accused murderer, and now, it was over.

"It was a horrible thing that happened and a horrible situation. But at that point, I was just happy that I was a free man and that people would stop saying the things about me they'd said. And people would stop judging my family and me," Kevin says.

It was a tough loss for prosecutor Jeff Phillips. "There was still just a sick feeling of letting Nona's mom down a little bit. Still have that today," he says.

"Is Kevin innocent or is he not guilty, if you know what I mean?" Schlesinger asks.

"Kevin was not proven guilty. There was not evidence to prove him guilty," Finley says.

But former police chief James Bacon insists Kevin’s still the killer. "And when you have to watch somebody walk out the door, and you're convicted that, in your own heart you’ve got the man responsible, it hurts," he says.

Janice knows her son is not guilty in the eyes of the law, but she also knows that some people still believe Kevin is guilty. "It is very hurtful. It is very frustrating," she says.

And Janice is still fighting to clear Kevin’s name. "I made a promise to Kevin when he was in jail and sitting at the cemetery with my hand on Nona's gravestone, I have promised both of those kids that I would keep looking and searching until we found the person who did this," she says.

And Janice Jones may get her wish. Remember that DNA they found on the condom wrapper? After the trial, Kevin's defense team continued looking for a match, and just three days ago, attorney Michael Robbins announced that they had found one.

"I think this person is a viable suspect and the investigation into this individual needs to go forward,” Robbins tells 48 Hours.

The person matched to the DNA has not been publicly named. But now, a special prosecutor has been appointed to look into the case.

"Hopefully it will eliminate all doubt that I was the person that did this," Kevin says.

But Nona's mother Carol remains convinced that police had the right man all along. "Doesn't change my opinion any of him being the murderer because we always thought all along that the condom wrapper was the trigger and that just reinforces it my mind," she says.

Whatever the outcome of the new investigation, for her family and friends, Nona's death is a painful end to a life filled with beauty, but haunted by cruelty.

"She should just be remembered as this remarkable person who came through so much," Adrielle says. "If you're going to remember her as a beauty queen, you should remember her as a girl who didn’t win right away and kept doing it because she enjoyed it."

Nona’s family is considering filing a civil suit against Kevin Jones.

After his acquittal, Kevin went back to college. He says he wants to become a lawyer.

Arkansas Tech University established a music scholarship in Nona Dirksmeyer’s memory

Should we change the playoff structure?

2008-02-08T18:49:00.000-05:00

A small bit of news about the possibility of shaking up the NFL playoffs was buried, somewhat ironically, by the awesomeness of the playoffs themselves. To me, that suggests that the playoffs don't need changed, but what the hell, I'm open to new ideas.

Roger Goodell wants to make it so that in the first round of the playoffs, division winners wouldn't automatically have a home game. If they played a wildcard team that had a better record, the wild card team would get the game in their own crib.

The idea is that it gives teams more incentive to play hard throughout the end of the regular season, so we don't end up seeing something like a Charlie Batch vs. Jim Sorgi matchup in Week 17.

For example, this year, the Bucs couldn't have sat on their hands in weeks 16 and 17, knowing they had their division sewn up. If they wanted to play a home game in the first round, they'd have had to take the field in Week 17 with a line-up a with a little more firepower than was brought to the table by Luke McCown, Michael Bennett, and Chad Lucas.

I'm not opposed to this idea, necessarily. It makes perfect sense, and a team with a better record probably deserves a home game.

However, if it was put to a vote, I'd vote no, and here's why: If there's a coach out there who saw the Colts and Bucs tank the end of this season, and saw the Giants put forth a gargantuan effort with nothing to play for in Week 17, and then saw what happened in the playoffs, and that coach is still dumb enough to be letting his players collect rust over the last two weeks of the season, then I'm opposed to the league stepping in and saving this coach from his own idiocy.

If this year's postseason didn't hammer home the "tanking is bad" message for a coach, then he deserves a savage beatdown in the playoffs next year.

The Motivator

2008-02-08T11:58:00.000-05:00

"If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk."

- Raymond Inmon

Treasury chief: Tax rebate checks to go out in May

2008-02-08T11:56:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Tax rebate checks will begin going out in May, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said after the House's passage of a Senate-approved $167 billion economic stimulus package Thursday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: "This legislation is not everything that I wanted. But I am very happy."

The House of Representatives voted 380-34 to send the measure to the president a few hours after Democratic and Republican senators reached accord and ended a dayslong stalemate over the legislation.

Earlier, two White House officials said President Bush would support the package. The bill will be delivered Friday to the White House, with Bush's signing likely sometime next week, Democratic aides said.

The package, which passed the Senate 81-16, will send rebate checks to 130 million Americans in amounts of $300 to $600 for people who have an income between $3,000 and $75,000, plus $300 per child. Couples earning up to $150,000 would get $1,200.

The checks are an advance on next year's refunds, and most, if not all of the money, will be deducted from taxpayers' refunds in 12 months' time.

"My team will be sitting down with the IRS tomorrow, and the IRS, right in the middle of tax filing season ... will be working to get checks out," said Paulson, who helped broker the deal.

Paulson said the process of sending the checks would be completed by the end of summer.

The leadership of both parties hailed the efforts that moved the package through Congress.

"You don't see anybody up here gloating about being a winner," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said after the House vote.

"There were no winners or losers in this except the American people, who saw us rise above any differences we might have had and work to agreement on what is the No. 1 issue, and that is our slowing economy."

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said, "The House gave a little, the Senate gave a little. I think that's what the American people expect of us -- to find some way to come together and deal with the problems the American people are facing."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, called the approval an "example of how government is supposed to work." Reid said, "Legislation is the art of compromise, and that compromise comes very hard sometimes. It came very hard this time."

After the House passed a stimulus package last week, Senate Democrats made a number of changes that Republicans would not accept, saying that they were too big and loaded with special-interest provisions.

After Democrats were unable to break a Republican filibuster threat, the leadership headed back to the negotiating table, finally agreeing to leave rebate check amounts at the House level. (Senate Democrats had lowered them and raised the income caps.) The Senate measure also added checks to more than 20 million Social Security beneficiaries and 250,000 handicapped veterans and their widows who were left out of the original House bill.

The Democrats dropped demands for an extension of unemployment benefits, energy assistance for low-income households and tax breaks for energy providers.

"This legislation is not everything that I wanted," Reid said. "But I am very happy."

While the members of Congress and Paulson applauded the bill's quick passage, a survey found that about one in four Americans (26 percent) said they would spend their tax rebates.

Nearly half (46 percent) said they plan to use the rebate to pay off debt and a quarter (28 percent) would save the money, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers and UBS Securities, which jointly commissioned the study of 1,005 households between January 31 and Sunday.

"The money will go into the hands of lenders rather than retailers," said Mike Niemira, chief economist of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

The crushing weight of Americans' debt load was underscored Thursday when the Federal Reserve reported Americans owed a record $943.5 billion in credit card debt at the end of December.

Including loans other than mortgages and home equity lines of credit, Americans are shouldering a record $2.5 trillion in debt.

That amount increased during the month by a relatively modest 2.1 percent, an indication that Americans have been restraining their spending

Super Bowl evades mass shooting

2008-02-08T11:42:00.000-05:00

Feds: Distraught man had rifle, ammo set for gunfire

PHOENIX (AP) -- A would-be bar owner angry at being denied a liquor license threatened to shoot people at the Super Bowl and drove to within sight of the stadium with a rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition before changing his mind, federal authorities said.

Kurt William Havelock, who ultimately turned himself in, had vowed to "shed the blood of the innocent" in a manifesto mailed Sunday to media outlets, according to court documents. "No one destroys my dream," he wrote.

The documents say he was armed with an AR-15 assault-style rifle Sunday when he reached a parking lot near University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, where pre-game activities were happening.

"He waited about a minute and decided he couldn't do this," FBI agent Philip Thorlin testified at a detention hearing for Havelock on Tuesday.

Havelock's father testified that his son then called his fiancee and met his parents at his condominium in Tempe, like Glendale a Phoenix suburb.

"He was very upset; he was sobbing hysterically," Frank Havelock said. "He said, 'I've done something terribly, terribly wrong.' "

Kurt Havelock, 35, was charged Monday with mailing threatening communications. He is being held without bail, and additional hearings have yet to be scheduled.

Havelock's lawyer, Jeffrey Allen Williams, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Federal authorities say Havelock was upset over being denied a liquor license.

A few months ago, Tempe officials denied Havelock's application for a liquor license for a Halloween-themed bar called The Haunted Castle, city spokeswoman Shelley Hearn said.

Tempe officials never recommended the license to the state liquor board, Hearn said.

"There were some neighbors who came forward and said it wasn't the right business for their part of Tempe," she said. "They'd heard he wanted to call his place 'Drunkenstein's.' "

The FBI said in the complaint that Havelock had planned to attack Super Bowl fans at the stadium in what he called an "econopolitical confrontation."

"I will not be bullied by the financial institutions and their puppet politicians," Havelock wrote in the eight-page manifesto, according to the complaint.

"I will test the theory that bullets speak louder than words. Perhaps the blood of the inculpable will cause a paradigm shift. ... Someone has to start the revolution but no one wants to be first."

Authorities said in the complaint that Havelock first thought of targeting a shopping center in north Phoenix before planning to attack the Super Bowl.

"How many dollars will you lose? And all because you took my right to own a business from me," the manifesto said.

Six dead as gunman 'goes to war' with Missouri city

2008-02-08T11:35:00.000-05:00

KIRKWOOD, Missouri (CNN) -- A gunman killed five people and wounded two Thursday night at a police station and City Council meeting in suburban St. Louis before officers shot and killed him, police said.

Two police officers were among the dead, said Tracy Panus, spokeswoman for the St. Louis County police.

Witnesses identified the gunman as Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton, a man who they said regularly disrupted meetings to make complaints, though he didn't make it clear what his concerns were.

Police have not identified the suspect. No one has made an official statement on Thornton's behalf, but his brother said Thornton "went to war tonight with the people that were of the government."

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, citing police, said the dead included police officers Tom Ballman and William Biggs, Councilwoman Connie Karr and Public Works Director Kenneth Yost.

"I heard [Thornton] yell something about a gun, and I looked up, and I saw officer Ballman had been shot in the head," said Janet McNichols, a correspondent with the Post-Dispatch, in a video posted on the newspaper's Web site.

"Then I looked right in front of me, and Mr. Yost had been shot in the head too."

Mayor Mike Swoboda was wounded and in critical condition, and Suburban Journals newspaper reporter Todd Smith was in satisfactory condition, St. John's Mercy Hospital spokesman Bill McShane told The Associated Press.

The shootings began shortly after 7 p.m. just outside the Kirkwood City Hall when a man approached a police officer in the parking lot of the Kirkwood police station and fatally shot him, Panus said. The officer died at the scene.

The suspect then went into the City Council chambers and killed a second police officer before fatally shooting three city officials who were attending the meeting, Panus said.

Kirkwood police officers returned fire, Panus said, killing the suspect.

Thornton sued the city of Kirkwood after he was arrested twice for disorderly conduct at two council meetings in 2006. He later was convicted, according to the First Amendment Center, a group that says it works to preserve First Amendment freedoms.

An eyewitness to the shootings told CNN that Thornton had disrupted City Council meetings frequently in the past.

"He would make inappropriate noises, heehawing like a donkey. He would make derogatory comments towards the director of public works, the city attorney and the mayor," Alan Hopefl said Friday. "None of it seemed to make any sense as far as him trying to make a point, as far as why he was really there and what his major complaints were."

Thornton's brother, Gerald, told CNN affiliate KMOV-TV in St. Louis that his brother had serious grievances with the city government.

"The only way that I can put it in a context that you might understand is that my brother went to war tonight with the people that were of the government that was putting torment and strife into his life," Thornton told KMOV.

"And he had spoke on it as best he could in the courts, and they denied him all access to the rights of protection, and therefore he took it upon himself to go to war and end the issue." Video Watch gunman's brother talk about motive for shooting »

According to a Thursday article written by the First Amendment Center -- before the shooting -- Thornton asked to speak during public-comment portions of 2006 meetings on specific topics but instead discussed his alleged harassment by city officials.

In his lawsuit, Thornton said his First Amendment rights had been violated. But in a January 28 ruling, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry said that the public-comment portion of a meeting could be reserved for certain groups and topics of discussion.

Rather than discussing the subject at hand, Perry wrote, "Thornton engaged in personal attacks against the mayor, Kirkwood and the city council. ... Because Thornton does not have a First Amendment right to engage in irrelevant debate and to voice repetitive, personal, virulent attacks against Kirkwood and its city officials during the comment portion of a city council public hearing, his claim fails as a matter of law," according to the First Amendment Center.

Bill Reineke, a builder and acquaintance of Thornton's for 15 years, said he sensed a change in him starting three months ago.

"He seemed to feel lately that things were going wrong," Reineke said. "He would run into City Hall once in a while during meetings, and he would talk about the plantation mentality of the mayor and board."

Reineke said Thornton had begun to hold grudges.

"I don't know what made him go off -- what made him twist -- but it's just a darn shame for everyone concerned," he said.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt responded to news of the shooting, saying, "Tonight our fellow Missourians in the city of Kirkwood were terrorized by a senseless and horrific crime at an open government meeting."

Blunt said, "I join Missourians tonight in praying for the victims, their families and friends, and everyone in the community of Kirkwood."

Kirkwood, a town of about 27,000 people, is about 10 miles west-southwest of St. Louis. Kirkwood's Web site bills the city as "Queen of the St. Louis Suburbs" with high property values and quality public schools.

It was also the scene of another high-profile recent criminal case. Pizzeria employee Michael Devlin pleaded guilty to charges, including kidnapping and sexual assault, after police found two missing boys in his Kirkwood apartment in January 2007. One of the boys was held for four years.

Gambino family takedown; 50 Members arrested

2008-02-07T11:58:00.000-05:00

Feb. 7 -- U.S. and Italian authorities arrested about 80 people in the biggest mafia crackdown in 20 years, part of an effort to cut renewed ties between New York's Gambino crime ``family'' and the organization run by Sicilian mobsters.

The FBI and other U.S. law enforcement agencies made 59 arrests, the agency said, while Italian police arrested about 20 people in an operation called ``Old Bridge,'' Italy's top mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso said today. The last joint mob roundup of a similar scale was in 1988, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Palermo authorities broke up a heroin trafficking ring known as ``Iron Tower.''

``Whenever the relationship between the American and Sicilian mafias is interrupted, it's always resuscitated,'' said Palermo prosecutor Domenico Gozzo, who was part of the probe. ``Many of these mobsters have family on both sides of the Atlantic.''

U.S. prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, announced charges today against 62 individuals, many of them sworn members of the Gambino group, which federal officials say is one of the largest and most powerful mafia organizations in the U.S. Only three of those charged haven't been arrested, FBI spokesman Jim Margolin said in a phone interview.

Racketeering, Murder

Those charged in New York were accused of crimes including racketeering, murder, extortion, gambling and labor violations. In Italy, defendants were accused of murder, money laundering and participating in organized crime. Italian authorities issued 30 warrants.

The founder of the Gambinos, Carlo Gambino, was born in Sicily. The family, one of five crime organizations that have existed for decades in the New York metropolitan area, was formerly headed by John Gotti, nicknamed the ``Teflon Don'' for his initial acquittals on mob-related charges.

He was convicted of federal racketeering charges in 1990 and died in prison.

Those charged today by U.S. authorities included the three highest-ranking Gambino crime family members not already in prison, said Benton Campbell, the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn. All were charged with racketeering, conspiracy and multiple violent offenses, crimes which carry terms of as long as 20 years in prison on each count, Campbell said.

The Defendants

The defendants include John D'Amico, 73, an alleged Gambino acting boss, Joseph Corozzo, 66, allegedly the family's consigliere, or adviser, and his brother, Nicholas Corozzo, 67, who officials claimed served on a committee that ran the family after Gotti was imprisoned. Of the three, only the elder Corozzo remains at large and is a fugitive, Margolin said.

Domenico Cefalu, 61, the alleged Gambino underboss, surrendered today, he said.

``The indictment reflects the Gambino crime family's corrosive influence,'' Campbell said today at a news conference. ``We have eliminated all of their administration that's currently at liberty,'' he said, adding ``This case creates a significant vacuum.''

Campbell's office was responsible for obtaining a federal racketeering conviction of Gotti in 1990, after he was acquitted of similar charges in 1986.

The Gambino family ``is generally recognized as one of the two most powerful crime families in the United States,'' said David Shafer, an assistant special agent of the FBI.

Federal Prosecutors

Two of John Gotti's relatives were named as defendants today, both charged with racketeering.

His younger brother, Vincent Gotti, 55, allegedly a so- called soldier in the group, was charged with murder conspiracy, loan sharking and cocaine-trafficking conspiracy. His nephew, Richard Gotti, 40, also allegedly a soldier, was charged with murder-conspiracy and conspiracy to distribute marijuana.

Gotti's son, John A. Gotti, known as ``Junior,'' was accused by federal prosecutors in Manhattan of helping run the Gambino family after his father's imprisonment. The son pleaded guilty in 1999 to federal racketeering charges and served a 6 1/2 year prison term.

He was indicted later in 2004 on charges he ordered the 1992 kidnapping of New York City talk-radio host Curtis Sliwa. After three mistrials, prosecutors decided in October 2006 not to pursue a fourth.

Gotti isn't named in today's 80-count federal indictment.

Old Murders

The FBI in New York said that, during a lengthy investigation, they were able to obtain thousands of hours of wiretaps and secretly recorded conversations. They were aided by an unidentified informant who infiltrated the crime family and obtained information that helped solve cases involving killings that occurred more than 30 years ago, the agency said.

They include the March 1976 murder of Albert Gelb, a Brooklyn court officer, Campbell said. The indictment charges that alleged Gambino soldier Charles Carneglia, 61, murdered Gelb four days before he was expected to testify at his trial.

Carneglia was also charged with the December 1990 murder of Jose Delgado Rivera, an armored truck guard, who was killed during a robbery at the American Airlines Inc. building at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Alleged Gambino members were also accused of extorting payments from construction projects in the New York City area, including construction of a NASCAR racetrack on Staten Island and the Liberty View Harbor site in Jersey City, New Jersey, said Mark Mershon, head of the FBI's New York office.

The Relationship

The relationship between organized crime members of the Gambino family in the U.S. and Italy was evidenced by the arrest here of Francesco Cali, 42, owner of the Circus Fruits Supermarket in Brooklyn, according to an Italian arrest warrant. He was allegedly a street boss for the Gambinos and was photographed at a 2003 meeting with two Sicilian mobsters in New York.

``It's not a coincidence,'' Raffael Grazi, chief of the organized crime division of the Italian National Police, said in interview. ``If today they arrested Cali, it's because of the links to our cases in Italy. There are a lot of important links between members in both countries.''

The relationship between the U.S. and Sicilian mafias had broken down in the early 1980s because of a mob war in Sicily. Now the two factions are focused on laundering money and cocaine trafficking, according to Italian investigators and court papers.

Bernardo Provenzano, the alleged head of the Sicilian mafia, or the ``boss of bosses,'' was captured in 2006 after 43 years on the run. He had authorized the new contacts, according to letters that police seized, Grasso said.

Banished Mobsters

In 1983, Sicilian boss Salvatore ``Toto'' Riina banished to the U.S. mobsters tied to murdered bosses Salvatore Inzerillo and Stefano Bontate after a two-year mob war left about 1,000 people dead. He spared some tied to Inzerillo and Bontate provided they never returned to Sicily to seek revenge, according to today's Italian arrest warrants.

Riina's accord held until about 2000, when Sicilian and U.S. organized crime figures sought to resume business contacts. In 2003 and 2004, Palermo police tapped phones used by suspected mobsters visiting from New York, and followed them in their meetings in Palermo. They also tracked Sicilian mobsters to New York, where the FBI conducted surveillance, court documents show.

The defendants were scheduled to be arraigned today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Kiyo Matsumoto. The names of lawyers for the men weren't immediately available.

`Very Anti-Drug'

Joseph Corozzo's lawyer, Joseph Corozzo Jr., entered a not guilty plea for his father late today. ``We're asking for a speedy trial'' he said after court. ``I can try this case in 70 days.'' Citing the drug charges against his father, Corozzo said ``My father is very anti-drug.''

D'Amico pleaded not guilty through his lawyer, Robert Blossner, who couldn't immediately be reached for comment after court. A bail hearing is scheduled tomorrow for D'Amico.

Prosecutors asked that 18 of the defendants remain in custody because of the violent nature of their alleged crimes. Late today, Matsumoto ordered 17 of those defendants to remain held without bail. She agreed to release alleged Gambino soldier William Scotto, 40, to go free on bond.

The Motivator

2008-02-07T11:13:00.000-05:00

“Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes the furthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The "sure thing" boat never gets far from shore.”

-Dale Carnegie

House burns after SWAT officer killed during standoff

2008-02-07T11:08:00.000-05:00

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A man barricaded himself in a house after telling police he had killed three relatives, then opened fire on a SWAT team Thursday, killing one officer and wounding another, police said. Ten hours after he initially called police, the house was on fire.

After the man and police exchanged gunfire just after midnight, he apparently remained in the house, which was on fire around 7:30 a.m Thursday.

Flames shot out of the windows and smoke was coming out on several sides of the house.

Firefighters sprayed the house with water, but did not go into the home. It was unclear how the fire started, although tear gas had been used.

The standoff began at 9 p.m. Wednesday and continued into Thursday morning as the home was surrounded by more than 200 officers.

The officers were shot inside the home shortly after they arrived, Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell said at a news conference.

Authorities had not been able to determine whether the man had killed his family members.

Shortly before 6 a.m., police lobbed tear gas into the home. Wind blew the gas back toward some officers, who retreated from the cloud.

Police could be seen in footage from a television helicopter using a battering ram to break into the home.

Both officers were taken to Northridge Medical Center, where one of them, 51-year-old Randal Simmons, died just after 1 a.m., McDonnell said.

The other, 51-year-old James Veenstra, was undergoing surgery, and was expected to survive, McDonnell said.

Several blocks of the San Fernando Valley neighborhood were sealed off with yellow crime tape. A police helicopter circled overhead, its searchlight on.
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Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he had visited with the family of the officer who was killed. Simmons leaves a wife and two children. Veenstra's wife is a captain on the force.

"This is a very horrible tragedy and our hearts go out to all the members of the LAPD who also are grieving at this time," Villaraigosa said.

Eagle Scout, 15, allegedly killed family without warning

2008-02-07T11:02:00.000-05:00

COCKEYSVILLE, Maryland (AP) -- Authorities offered no further insight into the motive of a teenager accused in the shooting deaths of his father, mother and two brothers, but experts say such crimes are not unprecedented -- and they often come without any obvious warning signs.

Nicholas W. Browning remained jailed without bond after confessing early Sunday that he killed his father, John Browning, his mother, Tamara, and his younger brothers, Gregory, 14, and Benjamin, 11, according to Baltimore County police.

Browning, who turns 16 on Saturday, had no history of violence, mental health problems or drug problems, according to court documents.

His father was a highly regarded business attorney, and the family lived in an affluent suburb. Browning played golf and lacrosse, was active in his church and was close to becoming an Eagle Scout.

Those details were not surprising to Paul A. Mones, a defense attorney for children accused of killing their parents, who wrote a book about his work called "When a Child Kills."

"This happens to kids in middle- and upper-middle-class, even upper-class homes," said Mones, who practices in Portland, Oregon. "It happens in families that, from the outside, look like normal, typical, great families."

In the United States, about 300 children a year are charged with killing one or both parents, Mones said. Cases where a child kills the entire family, known as "familicide," are less frequent.

Louis B. Schlesinger, a professor of a forensic psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said familicide is more commonly committed by a depressed or jealous father.

Slayings of relatives by teenagers "are usually spontaneous sorts of things," Schlesinger said. "With the brooding, depressive male adult, it's not spontaneous, it's much more thought through, with obsessive rumination prior to it. With a teenager, it's almost always impulsive, spontaneous, and there happens to be a loaded gun around."

Mones said slayings are typically motivated by one of two factors: "extreme family dysfunction in terms of physical and emotional abuse, or severe mental health issues that pervade the family, whether it's the perpetrator or the parents or themselves.

"There are cases where kids just snap out of the blue and go on a rampage, but it's really, really rare."

Bill Toohey, a police spokesman, said Browning told officers where they could find the gun used in the slayings, which he tossed into some bushes near the home. The gun belonged to John Browning and was kept inside the home.

Experts said easy access to guns was a common thread in cases where children kill their parents.

"The biggest risk factor that was not prevented was his access to firearms, and I think that's the biggest tragedy," said Dr. Anandhi Narasimhan, a Los Angeles-based child psychiatrist.

Narasimhan noted that because mental health records are confidential, it's impossible to know for sure whether Browning was suffering from mental illness or had shown other warning signs, such as bullying at school or cruelty to animals.

Mones hypothesizes that such slayings are more frequent in affluent families because wealth makes abuse easier to conceal.

"If you look at reports of abuse and family problems in upper-middle class families, it's really low, because the walls between the families and the world are very, very high," he said. "In lower-income communities, the police and social service agencies have a major presence, so it's nothing to call 911 when a kid's being mistreated or a neighbor hears screams."

The Motivator

2008-02-05T13:55:00.000-05:00

"Failure is not about insecurity. It's about lack of execution."

--Jeffrey Gitomer

Van der Sloot on video: No sleep lost over Holloway's dumped body

2008-02-05T13:48:00.000-05:00

(CNN) -- On video, Joran van der Sloot says he "didn't lose a minute of sleep" over knowing Natalee Holloway's motionless body had been taken out to sea and dumped.

In the video that aired Sunday on Dutch television, van der Sloot, a suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Holloway, told a man he was with the Alabama teen on an Aruban beach when she apparently died and that a friend of his with a boat disposed of Holloway's body.

"He went out to sea and then he threw her out, like an old rag," van der Sloot told Aruban businessman Patrick van der Eem January 16.

Van der Eem recorded their conversations on hidden cameras installed in the Range Rover he was driving, according to the Dutch TV report.

On the tapes, van der Sloot also says that he wasn't certain Holloway was dead before his friend dumped her body in the ocean.

"No, but it didn't look good," he said, when van der Eem asked him if he checked her pulse or other vital signs. "I wasn't [expletive] sure, but from the time it happened to the time he came, she wasn't doing anything any more."

Aruba's chief prosecutor, Hans Mos, called the account that aired "very impressive" and announced he was reopening the investigation.

Van der Sloot later said the statements were lies, and on Monday his attorney said the video contains "no admission of a crime."

In the video, van der Sloot says Holloway and her friends begged him to go out with them the night of May 29, 2005.

The Dutch student said he and two friends -- brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe -- met the women at a bar in Oranjestad.

When they arrived, he said, the women appeared to have been drinking heavily and some were using cocaine.

Holloway was in Aruba with about 100 classmates celebrating their graduation from Mountain Brook High School in suburban Birmingham, Alabama.

After declining an invitation from Holloway to dance on stage with her, he agreed to drink a shot of liquor from her navel as she lay on the bar, he said.
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* Aruba reopens Natalee Holloway case
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* Prosecutor: Reporter's info may help Holloway case

About 1 a.m. May 30, he said, she left the bar with him and the Kalpoes, telling her friends she would meet them at their hotel before their planned return flight the next day to the United States, he said.

The three men previously told authorities they then drove to the beach with Holloway, leaving her there when she told them she wanted to stay.

But van der Sloot gave a different account in the hidden-camera footage. He said he wanted to have sex with Holloway, but she told him she did not want to go to her hotel. Instead, she said, she wanted to see sharks, he told the informant.

The two brothers then used their car to drive van der Sloot and Holloway to the beach by the hotel and left them, van der Sloot said.

He and Holloway then had sex, he said. But as they were caressing each other, she started shaking, then said nothing, he said.

"All of a sudden, what she did was like in a movie," he said. "She was shaking, it was awful. ... I prodded her, there was nothing."

He said he panicked and, when she did not appear to be alive, shook her but was unable to resuscitate her. He said he carried her body to a stand of trees, walked to a pay phone near the pool of the hotel and, instead of using his cell phone, called a friend who owned a boat that was tied up at a nearby dock.

Upon the friend's arrival, the two men carried Holloway's body to the boat, and the friend told van der Sloot to go home, he said. The student then walked back to his house, where his father was asleep when he arrived about 15 minutes later, he recounted. He estimated the time at 2:30 or 3 a.m.

Van der Sloot said the boat owner showed up at his house later in the morning and told him he had taken the body out less than a mile from land and dumped it overboard.

He added that the incident with the woman has not bothered him.

"I didn't lose a minute of sleep over it," he said.

The video footage shows van der Sloot is "not innocent," Holloway's mother said Monday.

"Once people see the video, there are no more questions; there is no one that could walk away from this believing that he is innocent," Beth Twitty told ABC.

Twitty described the video as a source of "comfort," saying "it means everything."

"I felt that it put an end to my nightmare," she said. "The nightmare is not knowing, and I feel as if now, I can begin the mourning and the healing process for losing a child."

She added, "Not knowing is the absolute cruelest thing that a person can endure."

Van der Sloot's attorney, Joe Tacopina, told ABC Monday that "there's no confession, there's no admission of a crime by Joran on any of these tapes."

He said much of what was in the video is "easily disprovable based on corroborative evidence. ... The fact of the matter is he still is not responsible. The evidence, not Joran, the evidence, says he's not responsible for Natalee's death."

Tacopina added, "I'm certainly not asking at this point for anyone to believe Joran. ... Clearly his credibility is zero."

Last week, van der Sloot called the Dutch television program "Pauw & Witteman" and acknowledged having made the comments but said they were lies.

"That is what he wanted to hear, so I told him what he wanted to hear," van der Sloot said.

A judge denied a prosecution request that van der Sloot, the son of a lawyer, be detained in the Netherlands, where he is a student. The judge did determine that sufficient reason exists to reopen the inquiry against van der Sloot.

Mos said that on Tuesday he will appeal the judge's decision barring Van der Sloot's arrest and said that a three-judge panel will have eight days to rule on it.

In a statement, the Office of the Public Prosecutor on Sunday cautioned the report does not necessarily solve the case.

"There is a big difference between the reality of a courtroom and the reality of a television screen," it said.

On Monday, Tacopina said at least two points of his client's story could be disproved. He said the Aruban coast guard had checked the pay phone where van der Sloot said he had called his friend, and the records show that "there's no such call."

Also, Tacopina said, the friend whom his client names in the video met van der Sloot two months ago, and the friend wasn't in Aruba in May 2005. He also has never owned a boat, the attorney said.

Van der Eem told ABC he befriended van der Sloot by pretending to be a gangster after meeting him in a casino.

"Why did I want this? It's obvious. Everybody was looking for the truth. For her mother," he said.

In the interview with ABC, van der Eem became emotional himself while saying that van der Sloot talked about Holloway's death "without any emotions."

Van der Eem, who ABC reported once spent a year in prison on drug charges, said he and van der Sloot smoked marijuana on long car rides over the course of several months. Van der Eem told the network he pretended to invite van der Sloot into a drug operation to gain his trust.
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He approached reporter Peter R. de Vries' television show, telling them he had gained van der Sloot's trust, and the program outfitted an SUV with hidden video cameras.

Van der Eem has been paid about $35,000 by the show -- which has a format similar to the U.S. show "America's Most Wanted."

Woman buckles in beer, not baby

2008-02-05T13:40:00.000-05:00

ST. AUGUSTINE -- Investigators say a woman accused of drunk driving had a case of beer buckled up safely, and a 1-year-old girl sitting in the back seat without a seatbelt or car seat, according to FLORIDA TODAY news partner First Coast News of Jacksonville.

On Super Bowl Sunday, a deputy saw a car drive through a red light and swerve back and forth over the center lane on U.S. 1 South.

The deputy stopped the car.

Investigators say the woman, who identified herself as Tina Williams, smelled of alcohol.

According to the report, Williams told the deputy she never had a license and was running out of gas.

The deputy saw a case of Busch beer in the front seat with a seat belt around it, and a baby girl in the backseat.

When asked why the girl wasn't restrained, Williams reportedly told the officer, "I don't know."

Williams told the deputy she had a few drinks. Authorities say she staggered when she got out of her car.

The deputy arrested her for DUI after she failed a field sobriety test.

Authorities also found two silver metal pipes in her purse.

Williams faces charges of driving under the influence, child endangerment, driving without a valid license running a red light and not having a seatbelt or child restraint.

The Motivator

2008-02-03T23:24:00.000-05:00

“You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.”

-Abraham Lincoln

Shooter still at-largein Chicago suburb; quiet town shaken by slayings

2008-02-03T23:21:00.000-05:00

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- Police continue to search for a gunman who shot and killed five women Saturday morning at a suburban Chicago strip mall, a Tinley Park police spokesman said.

Greg Zanis puts up five crosses and leaves flowers as police search for the alleged killer of five women.

Police are saying the man's motive was robbery.

About 50 area police officers are involved in the search for the man and the weapon, Sgt. T.J. Grady said Sunday.

The town that had only one reported murder between 1999 and 2006 is taking the horrific incident particularly hard, The Associated Press reported.

Calling the killings a "sad commentary on our society," Tinley Park Mayor Ed Zabrocki announced that flags at the city's east property would remain lowered for the next five days -- one for each victim.

The women were found shot in a back room of a Lane Bryant store. Police identified them Sunday as: Connie R. Woolfolk, 37, of Flossmoor, Illinois; Sarah T. Szafranski, 22, of Oak Forest, Illinois; Carrie H. Chiuso, 33, of Frankfort, Illinois; Rhoda McFarland, 42, of Joliet, Illinois; and Jennifer L. Bishop, 34, of South Bend, Indiana.

The Will County coroner determined each died from gunshot wounds, Tinley Park Police Chief Mike O'Connell said.

"Our emotions are raw. And we are still in shock," Szafranski's family said in a statement, according to AP. "Sarah was loved by all who knew her and we are counting on that love to sustain us while we mourn."

Chiuso was a social worker at Homewood-Flossmoor High School, where she graduated in 1993, the AP reported.

"Carrie was deeply loved by faculty and staff," school spokesman Dave Thieman said in a statement. "She had a real touch with students. The entire H-F family is deeply saddened."

Cindy Sorenson brought red roses to Lane Bryant on Sunday. She didn't know the victims but is a store manager at a nearby mall in Tinley Park. She said she couldn't stop thinking about the women who lost their lives, the AP reported.

"Your job is your home," 34-year-old Sorenson said, a tear rolling down her cheek. "You spend so much time in a store and you never think anything like this will happen."

The parent company of Lane Bryant, Charming Shoppes, Inc., said in a statement that the five women were the store manager and four customers.

The company said its Chicago-area Lane Bryant stores would remain closed Sunday, "in mourning of lives lost."

O'Connell said the company was offering a $50,000 reward for information "leading to the arrest and conviction of person or persons responsible."

Cook County Crimestoppers is also offering a $1,000 reward, he said.

Grady said Saturday it was unclear whether the gunman took any money. He also said the 911 call reporting the shooting came in at 10:44 a.m.

Police have not said what type of gun was used, and Grady said Sunday he did not know how many shots were fired.

A witness who saw the gunman leave the front of the store described him as an African-American man, about 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighing between 230 and 260 pounds, Grady said. He was wearing a waist-length black winter coat, a black cap and dark jeans. Video Watch a description of the alleged shooter »

Authorities believe there was only one offender, Grady said.

Police appealed to the public for help, saying anyone with information could contact police at (708) 444-5394.
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Authorities were downloading surveillance video from businesses within a mile and a half of the Lane Bryant store, Grady said. O'Connell said the Lane Bryant store did not have surveillance cameras.

Tinley Park is about 28 miles southwest of Chicago and has about 57,000 residents, according to the city's Web site

Plaxico backs the talk up with win over Patriots

2008-02-03T22:55:00.000-05:00

What a game! I didnt really expect that from the Giants

GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) -The Giants had the perfect answer for the suddenly imperfect Patriots: a big, bad defense and an improbable comeback led by their own Mr. Cool quarterback, Eli Manning .

In one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history, New York shattered New England's unbeaten season 17-14 Sunday night as Manning hit Plaxico Burress on a 13-yard fade with 35 seconds left. It was the Giants' 11th straight victory on the road and the first time the Patriots tasted defeat in more than a year.

It was the most bitter of losses, too, because 12-point favorite New England (18-1) was one play from winning and getting the ultimate revenge for being penalized for illegally taping opponents' defensive signals in the season-opener against the New York Jets .

But its defense couldn't stop a final, frantic 12-play, 83-yard drive that featured a spectacular leaping catch by David Tyree , who had scored New York's first touchdown on the opening drive of the fourth quarter.

''It's the greatest feeling in professional sports,'' Burress said before bursting into tears.

''That's a position you want to be in,'' said Manning, who followed older brother Peyton's MVP performance last year with one of his own. ''You can't write a better script. There were so many big plays on that drive.''

And now the 1972 Miami Dolphins can pop another bottle of champagne in celebration of a record still intact, the only perfect season in the Super Bowl era.

The Patriots were done in not so much by the pressure of the first unbeaten season in 35 years as by the pressure of a smothering Giants pass rush. Tom Brady , the league's Most Valuable Player and winner of his first three Super Bowl, was sacked five times, hurried a dozen more and at one point wound up on his knees, his hands on his hips following one of many poor throws in New England's lowest scoring game of the season.

''They played well,'' Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. ''They made some plays. We made some plays. They just made a few more. We played as hard as we could. We just couldn't make enough plays.''

Hardly a familiar position for the record-setting Patriots and their megastar quarterback. And a totally strange outcome for a team that seemed destined for historic glory.

Oddly, it was a loss to the Patriots that sparked New York's stunning run to its third Super Bowl and sixth NFL title. New England won 38-35 in Week 17 as the Patriots became the first team in 35 years to go spotless through the regular season. But by playing hard in a meaningless game for them, the Giants (14-6) gained something of a swagger and Manning cast found his footing.

Their growing confidence carried them through playoff victories at Tampa, Dallas and Green Bay, and then past the mightiest opponent of all.

Not that the Patriots were very mighty this day. They even conceded with 1 second on the clock as coach Bill Belichick ran across the field to shake the hand of jubilant Giants coach Tom Coughlin, then headed to the locker room, ignoring the final kneeldown.

That it was Manning taking that knee was stunning. He not only matched his brother's achievement of last year with the Indianapolis Colts , but he showed the brilliant precision late in the game usually associated with, well, Brady.

Peyton Manning was seen in a luxury box jumping up and pumping both fists when Burress, who didn't practice all week because of injuries, caught the winning score.

''We just hung in there on offense, kept executing,'' said Burress, who wasn't far off on the 23-17 prediction he made a few days ago. ''It came down to one play and we made it.''

The Giants became the first NFC wild card team to win a Super Bowl; four AFC teams have done it. They also are the second wild-card champions in three years, following the Pittsburgh Steelers after the 2005 season.

The upset also could be viewed as a source of revenge not only for the Giants, but for the other NFL teams over Spygate back in September. That cheating scandal made headlines again late in Super Bowl week, and could have placed an infinite cloud over New England's perfection.

Until the frantic fourth quarter, the only scoring came on the game's first two drives.

The Giants did almost exactly what they sought with the opening kickoff, using up nearly 10 minutes to go 63 yards. Almost exactly, but not quite, because they settled for a 32-yard field goal after converting four third downs on the 16-play series. The 9:59 drive was the longest in Super Bowl history.

That 3-0 lead lasted for the rest of the quarter, but only because the Patriots were stopped at New York's 1 as the period expired. On the next play, Laurence Maroney scored.

New England's 12-play drive was aided by a 16-yard pass interference penalty on linebacker Antonio Pierce in the end zone. It began with Maroney's 43-yard kickoff runback.

It was the fewest possessions in the first quarter of a Super Bowl.

New York's first series of the second quarter looked dangerous after Amani Toomer 's lunging sideline catch for 38 yards. But rookie Steve Smith mishandled Manning's throw at the New England 10, Ellis Hobbs intercepted and returned it 23 yards.

Those are opportunities teams can't waste against a strong opponent, let alone the Patriots. It was Manning's first interception of the postseason, albeit entirely not his fault; the last was by Hobbs in the season finale.

The Giants survived rookie Ahmad Bradshaw 's fumble, which he recovered, on their next series, because their league-leading pass rush came alive when the Patriots got the ball back. New York sacked Brady on successive plays, forcing a punt, but the Giants' were hurt by an illegal batting of the ball penalty on Bradshaw after reaching the New England 25.

Justin Tuck 's second sack, in the final seconds of the half, forced a fumble recovered by New York teammate Osi Umenyiora . The Giants' celebrated defensive line controlled much of the half, holding the most prolific offense in NFL history to a measly 81 yards and seven points. New England had the ball only 10:33.

But New York's mistakes left it with just three - and there are no moral victories in Super Bowls.

So the Giants got a real one as the maturing Manning hung in to find Tyree for a 5-yard touchdown to cap an 80-yard drive for a 10-7 lead.

Pressed unlike they are accustomed to, the Patriots responded with their own 80-yard march as Brady finally got some time. Randy Moss , who caught a record 23 of Brady's record 50 TD throws this year, took a 6-yard pass when cornerback Corey Webster fell, and with a mere 2:42 remaining, the first 19-0 season was right there.

Eli and the Giants snatched it away.

Bucks Co. Teacher Busted For Alleged Bomb Threats

2008-01-31T18:03:00.000-05:00

DOYLESTOWN, Pa.― A Bucks County elementary school teacher has been charged with terrorizing her own school with bomb threats.

Investigators said the apparently disgruntled educator made phone calls, left notes, and wrote threats on school walls.

Susan Romanyszyn, a former teacher at Longstreth Elementary School, turned herself into authorities on Thursday. Romanyszyn has been charged with 17 counts of terroristic threats.

Police said Romanyszyn left over a dozen threatening notes at the Warminster school. Police said she wrote on schools walls and wrote "die kill them all" on one occasion.

Police allege Romanyszyn left a water bottle in the school on another occasion that contained a white substance and screws.

The investigation began in October 2007 and Romanyszyn was placed on administrative leave after becoming a suspect in the threats.

Police believe Romanyszyn, who reportedly taught at the school for three years, was making the threats in retaliation for being passed over for a job.

Investigators received a break in the case when a fingerprint on one of the threatening notes matched Romanyszyn's.

"She actually put a great deal of fear in the community, in the school and for students at the school," Bucks County District Attorney Michele Henry said.

Parents were shocked and outraged by the charges against Romanyszyn.

"I am absolutely disgusted that a teacher can do these things," one parent said.

Romanyszyn's bail has been set at $1 million, Romanyszyn said in court she plans to post the 10-percent required to be released from jail.

Aruba Probing New Holloway Case Evidence

2008-01-31T17:31:00.000-05:00

ORANJESTAD, Aruba (AP) — Aruban authorities are investigating new evidence in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway provided by a Dutch crime reporter, prosecutors said Thursday.

Information from reporter Peter R. de Vries may help resolve what happened to the American teenager, who vanished during a May 2005 school vacation to the Dutch Caribbean island, the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

The statement did not say specifically what the new evidence was.

"This information may help considerably in the solution of the mystery of Natalee's disappearance," the prosecutor's office said. It "may shed a new light on the mode" in which she died and the "method by which her body disappeared."

De Vries's Web site said the evidence was gathered through "an ingenious hidden camera tactic" and would be revealed in a Dutch television program Sunday. It said the reporter traveled to Aruba last week to inform authorities of his findings.

De Vries had a testy exchange earlier this month during a televised interview in the Netherlands with Joran van der Sloot, a Dutch man who was a suspect in the case.

Van der Sloot, who was among the last people seen with Holloway, threw wine at De Vries after the reporter challenged his credibility.

Joseph Tacopina, a U.S. attorney for Van der Sloot, said it was irresponsible for prosecutors to make the announcement without describing their evidence.

"They act quite frankly like clowns," he said. "If they have a resolution, they should bring a case and stop talking about cryptic information."

Prosecutors dismissed their case against Van der Sloot and two other suspects last month, saying they lacked evidence to charge them or even prove a crime was committed. Authorities have said the case could be reopened if new evidence surfaces.

Holloway, of Alabama, disappeared the final night of her high school graduation trip. She was 18 at the time.

She was last seen leaving a bar with Van der Sloot and two Surinamese brothers, Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, hours before she was due to board a flight home. The three men have been repeatedly detained as suspects but have denied any wrongdoing.

The Motivator

2008-01-31T11:31:00.001-05:00

“In imagination, there's no limitation.”

-Mark Victor Hansen

Internet failure hits two continents

2008-01-31T11:26:00.000-05:00

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) -- Large swathes of Asia, the Middle East and north Africa had their high-technology services crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope.

One major telecommunications provider blamed the outage, which started Wednesday, on a major undersea cable failure in the Mediterranean.

India's Internet bandwidth has been sliced in half, The Associated Press reported, leaving its lucrative outsourcing industry trying to reroute traffic to satellites and other cables through Asia.

Reports say that Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain are also experiencing severe problems.

Nations that have been spared the chaos include Israel -- whose traffic uses a different route -- and Lebanon and Iraq. Many Middle East governments have backup satellite systems in case of cable failure.

There were contradictory reports on the real cause behind the disruption, but Du, a state-owned Dubai telecom provider, attributed it to an undersea cable cut between Alexandria, Egypt and Palermo, Italy.

An official at Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was believed that a boat's anchor may have caused the problems, although this was unconfirmed, AP reported. He added that it might take up to a week to repair the fault.

Kuwait's Ministry of Communications said the problem could take two weeks to solve, according to a statement carried by the state news agency, KUNA.

There were concerns in India that an Internet slowdown could affect trading patterns at the country's two major exchanges, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in Delhi and the SENSEX exchange in Bombay.

Rajesh Chharia, president of India's Internet Service Providers' Association, explained that some firms were trying to reroute via Pacific cables and that companies serving the eastern US and the UK were worst affected, AP added.

Besides the Internet, the outage caused major disruption to television and phone services, creating chaos for the UAE's public and private sectors.

The Du internal memo, obtained by CNN, called the situation in Dubai "critical" and stated that the cable's operators did not know when services would be restored.

"This will have a major impact on our voice and Internet service for all the customers," the memo stated. "The network operation team are working with our suppliers overseas to resolve this as soon as possible."

The outage led to a rapid collapse of a wide range of public services in a country which proudly promotes itself as technological pioneer.

Sources from Emirates Airlines confirmed to CNN Arabic that the outage did not affect its flight schedules -- a statement which assured hundreds of travelers worried after rumors about the possibility of rescheduled flights due to the faults.

However, Dnata, a government group in charge of providing air travel services in the Middle East and ground handling services at Dubai International Airport, acknowledged facing problems because of the outage, sources from its technical department confirmed to CNN Arabic.

The outage heavily crippled Dubai's business section, which is heavily reliant on electronic means for billions of dollars' worth of transactions daily.
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Wadah Tahah, the business strategies and development manager for state-owned construction company EMAAR, told CNN Arabic that it was fortunate the outage started Wednesday, when there had been only moderate activity in the UAE markets. He said that softened the blow to business interests.

But Tahah warned that if the outage continued, "such a situation could create problems between brokers, companies, and investors due to loss of control."

Police examining items for signs tiger was taunted

2008-01-31T11:24:00.000-05:00

SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) -- Police are investigating whether several items found in the enclosure of a tiger who fatally mauled a 17-year-old man show that the animal was attacked or taunted, San Francisco Zoo spokesman Sam Singer said Wednesday.

Police are examining a large rock, a tree branch and other items, Singer said.

"They [police] are trying to make a determination that those items or any other things that happened on Christmas Day were part of some attack on the tiger or something that angered Tatiana, causing her to come out of her cage," the spokesman said.

San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong has said that a shoe print found on the railing at the tiger enclosure is being examined to determine if one of the victims climbed over the rail or threw their leg over the side.

"Something prompted our tiger to leap over the exhibit and all I can do is ensure that's never going to happen again at the San Francisco Zoo," said the facility's director Manuel Mollinedo Wednesday.

"Corrections" are under way at the habitat as the zoo prepares to reopen Thursday, he said. A series of temporary security measures will be in place, with more permanent improvements to follow. Those will include raising the wall around the tiger habitat to 19 feet, adding security staff and installing a speaker system to alert visitors in the event of another emergency, Mollinedo said.

The zoo's large cats will be kept indoors until workers complete the improvements to their enclosure.

A memorial area will be on display Thursday near the entrance to the zoo and visitors are encouraged to bring mementoes and tributes -- both to the mauling victim and Tatiana.

Signs are also going up at the zoo advising people to be respectful of the animals.

Meanwhile, the two brothers who survived the attack said they were denied help for at least 30 minutes by zoo security who did not take their pleas seriously, an attorney representing Paul Dhaliwal and Kulbir Dhaliwal said Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.

The 300-pound Siberian tiger apparently jumped a 12½-foot wall December 25 and killed Carlos Sousa and injured his friends.

The wall was determined to be nearly 4 feet shorter than industry standards. The dry moat between the wall and the exhibit, built in 1940, measures 33 feet.

A source close to the investigation said the rock found in the habitat measured 9 inches, and a tree branch and pine cones were found that came from trees that were not near the tiger's enclosure.

Zoo employees did not see the items in the enclosure before the tiger escaped, the source said.

Singer said zoo employees also alerted police to an empty vodka bottle in the car in which the young men came to the zoo.

He called the brothers' statement that they were ignored "unreliable."

The brothers tried to get help for Sousa after attempts to stop the tiger failed, attorney Mark Geragos said. Video Watch what Geragos might do »

The animal first mauled Sousa and Paul Dhaliwal about 4:30 p.m., the attorney said, according to AP. While Sousa was seriously hurt, Paul Dhaliwal escaped, and he and his brother ran 300 yards to a zoo cafe where they had earlier eaten.

But the siblings were denied entry to the cafe because the zoo was closing, the AP reported. At that point the brothers lost sight of the tiger. The brothers then saw a female security guard who appeared "diffident" when she was informed of the escaped tiger, Geragos said, according to AP.

"Who knows what would have happened if the guard had acted earlier?" Geragos said. "But Carlos would have stood a better chance of not dying. And maybe the police would not have shot the tiger as well."

Investigators from the U.S. Department of Agriculture are at the zoo, the AP reported.

The USDA issued several letters of warning to the zoo in the 1990s, but the findings were described as minor. A 1999 letter talked about sanitation and food storage issues, AP said.
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The zoo paid a $500 penalty for problems inspectors discovered with veterinary care in 1992 and a $1,425 penalty in 2000 for sanitation problems at one animal facility.

That was the most recent action taken against the zoo, according to USDA spokeswoman Jessica Milteer, AP said.

Body parts found in 8 bags along Pennsylvania Interstate

2008-01-31T10:55:00.000-05:00

SWIFTWATER, Pa. — Police are taking to the air to search for more body parts after a severed head and dismembered remains were found in trash bags along two interstates in the Pocono Mountains.

A helicopter will be used to assist about 20 troopers on the ground as they search along Interstates 80 and 380, although the aerial search was called off Wednesday due to high winds, said state police Lt. Robert Bartal.

"We will be continuing (to search) for the next couple of days," he said. "We have a pretty large area."

A state road worker salting I-380 discovered a bag containing a woman's severed head about 9 a.m. Tuesday in the median in Coolbaugh Township, Monroe County.

The highway was closed and traffic was diverted as troopers combed the road shoulders and medians. They found at least eight bags containing body parts along five miles of Interstate 80 and 15 miles of I-380, stretching from Stroudsburg to Gouldsboro.

Officials have said it is possible there are more body parts.

The victim's identity has not been determined. The remains were taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital, where an autopsy was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
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Police were uncertain how long the remains had been along the highway. Bartal said Wednesday that troopers are reviewing missing persons reports for possible clues to the woman's identity, and are pursuing a number of leads.

Carjacker Kills Baby, Injures Mother In Gary, Ind.

2008-01-30T21:31:00.000-05:00

GARY, Ind. (CBS) ― Police in Gary, Ind., are searching for a carjacker who shot and killed a baby boy and injuring his mother, and the city's mayor says "there will be no rest, peace or tranquility" until the suspect is caught.

As of 11 a.m., police said they were questioning someone, but have no charges in the case, reported CBS station WBBM-TV in Chicago. Police also said a shooting in a carjacking is very rare in Gary.

The boy, 13-month-old Josiah Shaw, was pronounced dead around 10 p.m. at the Methodist Hospitals in Gary. Police say he was shot in the face.

His mother, Kwana Shaw, 28, was also at the hospital in an unknown condition Tuesday morning.

It all began at 7:40 p.m. Monday, when his mother Kwana Shaw called 911 to report an apparent carjacking. She told dispatchers a man forced his way into her sport-utility vehicle near 21st place and Virginia Street in Gary.

She also said a man drove off with Josiah still inside the vehicle.

Police found the red Ford Explorer about two hours later with the child inside. Like his mother, Josiah had been injured by the suspected gunman.

Someone also witnessed a man running out of the SUV. The Gary SWAT team and a K-9 unit arrived on scene but could not find the man. The SWAT team then was dispatched elsewhere.

City officials are furious about the case.

"In Gary, Indiana, we're not going to allow anyone to kill a baby and just walk away, no matter where they live, if it's in Gary or outside the community," said Gary Mayor Rudy Clay, "and I talked to the police chief and I told him there will be no rest, peace or tranquility until we catch the person that did this."

Gary police Cmdr. Samuel Roberts Jr. added: "Citizens of Gary and the community of Gary are made up of a lot of God-fearing people with sensitivity that wouldn't allow that. But this individual evidently is different, and we hope to bring him to justice."

Roberts said Kwana Shaw was in critical condition at last check and had to go into surgery, but he would not confirm the hospital where she was being treated. Police hope to speak with her on Wednesday.

Roberts also said Gary police arrested a 33-year-old man on a traffic warrant, and information they have received has led them to question him in connection to the carjacking, but no charges have been filed in the case.

The Motivator

2008-01-30T11:41:00.001-05:00

“Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.”

-Will Rogers

Mexico has warrant out for arrest of Laurean

2008-01-30T11:33:00.000-05:00

International officials also seeking Marine

JACKSONVILLE - Mexican officials have issued an arrest warrant for a Marine from Camp Lejeune accused of murdering a pregnant colleague, and international authorities also are searching for the fugitive, an FBI spokesman said Tuesday.

Newsom Summerlin, a spokesman for the FBI's Charlotte office, said Mexican officials Monday signed and issued a provisional arrest warrant for Marine Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, 21.

He is charged with killing Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach in Jacksonville in mid-December.

"It's simply another step in the process that has to be followed," Summerlin said of the action.

Law enforcement agencies and the news media have reported that Laurean, a native of Mexico who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, apparently had been headed for Mexico and might have been seen there.

Summerlin said Laurean also is the subject of an international wanted persons notice.

"We've always said we strongly suspect, but have not confirmed, that he is in Mexico," Summerlin said.

Interpol, an international law enforcement organization based in Paris, issued a "red notice" for Laurean at the request of the Interpol National Central Bureau in Washington, a component of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Martin Renkiewicz, director of the U.S. National Central Bureau and a senior Department of Homeland Security law enforcement official, said in a news release that the red notice adds the fugitive notice to law enforcement and border lookout systems as well as a central database for 186 member countries.

"We are here to assist the authorities in Onslow County at an international level to locate and bring this fugitive back to North Carolina to stand trial," Renkiewicz said.

Laurean was charged Jan. 12 with murder and later charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. He is accused of killing Lauterbach, who was about eight months pregnant, then burning and burying her body in his backyard.

Summerlin said the FBI has been successful in apprehending and returning suspects from Mexico when they are not facing a possible death penalty.

The Onslow County district attorney said he agreed not to seek the death penalty against Laurean because Mexico has a history of not allowing extradition of suspects facing the death penalty.

The FBI maintains a tip line at (800) 225-5324 and is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the location and arrest of Laurean.

Coughlin upset with mouthy Plaxico

2008-01-30T10:46:00.000-05:00

Plaxico Burress, Giants GM Jerry Reese and co-owner Steve Tisch have all issued what have been portrayed as guarantees of victory in Super Bowl XLII. None of them was a strong, Namath-like proclamation. But they all got more attention than the Giants would have preferred. Confidence is fine, but there is apparently a line that players aren't supposed to cross. Burress straddled it a few days ago when he said the Giants' receivers "do things just as well or maybe better than some of those" Patriots receivers. And he apparently jumped over it on Monday when he reportedly not only guaranteed victory, but also predicted the final score. When asked about Burress' proclamation, Tom Coughlin was clearly upset with his star receiver yesterday.

The Motivator

2008-01-29T12:32:00.000-05:00

"Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want."

-Jim Rohn

Sylvester Stallone admits using HGH

2008-01-29T12:30:00.000-05:00

Here is a shocker!!!

Sylvester Stallone says he used human growth hormone to get buff for the new "Rambo" movie, and defends its use.

"HGH (human growth hormone) is nothing," the 61-year-old actor tells Time magazine in its Feb. 4 issue. "Anyone who calls it a steroid is grossly misinformed."

Because it is nearly undetectable, HGH has become a substance of great concern in major league baseball and other sports battling allegations of rampant doping.

"Testosterone to me is so important for a sense of well-being when you get older," he says. "Everyone over 40 years old would be wise to investigate it because it increases the quality of your life. Mark my words. In 10 years it will be over the counter."

Stallone directed and co-wrote the new "Rambo" movie, which arrived in theaters Friday.

State of The Union: Shocking Omission

2008-01-29T12:25:00.000-05:00

We had been looking forward to President Bush’s State of the Union address for months, knowing that it would once again bring to the fore the most pressing issue of our generation: human-animal hybrids.

On Monday afternoon, whitehouse.gov, our one-stop shopping site for neutral-colored residences, posted this important update on the proceedings:

“President Bush will deliver his State of the Union address on January 28, 2008. Whatever the form, content, delivery method or broadcast medium, the President’s annual address is a backdrop for national unity.”

Our guesses — and please bear in mind that we are neither pundits nor smart people — were:

Form: Macaroni collage
Content: In-depth analysis of monumentally important human-animal hybrid controversy
Delivery Method: Ice Cream Truck
Broadcast Medium: Tin cans, string

Boy, was our collective face red! Turns out, Bush chose to go with:

Form: Speech
Content: Economic stuff, Incentive stuff, Legacy stuff
Delivery Method: Mouth
Broadcast Medium: TV

Truly, the address was a firm, sure-footed and resounding proclamation that even our 43rd president himself was surprised he had to do another of these things.

9:06: The President arrives, fashionably late, and fashionably attired in a blue tie the exact shade of America’s current malaise. After much hand-shaking, he takes his place at the rostrum, in front of Dick Cheney, a human-zombie hybrid, and Nancy Pelosi, a human-woman hybrid.

9:07: Bush gets down to business right away, talking about the economy, his stimulus plan, etc. Obviously, he’s saving human-animal hybrids for later in the speech.

9:12: Tax relief. No mention of how human-animal hybrids could affect it.

9:22: Human-alcohol hybrid Ted Kennedy checks his program, trying to figure out who the guy in the blue tie behind the podium is, and if there’s an intermission.

9:29: “I call on Congress to ban unethical practices such as…” This is it! “…the buying, selling, patenting, or cloning of human life.” Human-animal hybrids, here we —

Um.

Hello?

He’s just moved on to “matters of justice.” Matters of justice!? How about the injustice of not discussing human-animal hybrids?!

9:30: Okay, now we’re ticked.

9:33: America is responding to immigration by “deploying fences.” If we had human-animal hybrids, we could line them up along the Mexican border. They would be dangerous, yet understanding. Does nobody see this?

9:40: Iraq.

9:53: Iran.

9:55: Wiretapping.

10:00: Wow. He’s really not even going to mention them.

10:01: “…And the state of our union will remain strong.” “God bless America.”

Yes, we’re a little shocked right now.

But in a way, we’re almost glad President Bush didn’t discuss human-animal hybrids in this year’s State of the Union. Perhaps he understood that, with only one year left, they’re simply too big for him to take on. (Some are, quite literally. Especially if the human is tall to begin with, and then the animal it’s fused with is like a rhino or a blue whale.)

We look forward to next year, when the State of the Union is delivered by someone else. Someone more attuned to the plight of the human-animal. Maybe a centaur.

Hit man for hire sought in Craigslist ad

2008-01-29T12:22:00.000-05:00

There are some jobs offered on Craigslist that some people would kill for, but this one may have asked a bit too much.

A Michigan woman is accused of using the popular bulletin board site to try to hire a hit man to kill the wife of a man with whom she had had an affair. Ann Marie Linscott, 49, was arrested Thursday at her home in Grand Rapids, after allegedly posting an ad in November for a "freelance" job, according to a report by the Associated Press.

Respondents to the ad were offered $5,000 to "eradicate a female living in Oroville, California," and given her name, address and other personal information, the AP reported, citing authorities and court documents.

Authorities are expected to ask that Linscott be extradited to face charges in California. Her court-appointed attorney was not reachable for comment Saturday.

Craigslist is no stranger to postings that solicit illegal activities. In the past, the popular site has seen ads for prostitution, fake sex ads to harass people, and even an invitation to loot and trash a house.

But this appears to be the first time someone has solicited murder on the site, according to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster.

"Out of 550 million classified ads posted over 12 years, this is the first such incident that we're aware of," Buckmaster wrote in an e-mail to the AP. "But again, the ad itself was generic, and we're not a party to subsequent private e-mail communications."

Even law enforcement officers were left shaking their heads.

"I've seen some screwy things, but I've personally never heard of anything like this," Drew Parenti, special agent in charge of the Sacramento, Calif., FBI office, told the AP.

The Motivator

2008-01-28T11:24:00.001-05:00

"Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence."

-Vince Lombardi

Ben Roethlisberger likes tall guys; Hines Ward no longer likes Ben Roethlisberger

2008-01-28T11:20:00.000-05:00

Ben Roethlisberger recently expressed a desire for the Steelers to acquire a tall receiver, which, at least to me, doesn't sound like an unreasonable request. As it turns out, though, it made Hines Ward so mad that he's vowed to never again taste Big Ben's Beef Jerky.

In Ben's defense, he didn't make the request in any kind of a way that was disparaging to the Steelers current receivers. In fact, he went out of his way to make the point that he liked them:

"I'm always going to ask for a tall receiver," Roethlisberger said in an interview with the Post-Gazette. "That's just me. Our receivers are unbelievable, but our tallest guy might be Hines. Or Santonio [Holmes]. Hines is going to say he's 6 foot, but he's 5-11."

That doesn't sound so inflammatory. But here are some of the things that Hines told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in response:

"I don't hear Tom Brady or Peyton Manning asking for that."

"I don't know, whatever he says. I have no idea. To me, it's a rare combination of receivers out there who are good and tall. We won a Super Bowl, we didn't have a tall receiver then. I don't see Tom Brady caring about who's tall or not. He got Randy this year, but he did it before without him.''

"To me, I have enough problems to worry about than what Ben wants -- I can't give him the contract. He wants a tall receiver? Why did we draft Santonio [Holmes]?"

Uh-oh ... someone's got a little man complex. That seems like a gross overreaction to an innocuous statement about a preference for a receiver with some height.

I'll say this for Ben, too: When he did play alongside Plaxico Burress with the Steelers, Plax made a ton of plays for him. Any time Ben got in trouble, he'd scramble, and it seemed like he always ended up looking for Plax downfield. They made a lot of plays that way.

Not that I don't enjoy the public sniping, but I think Hines is just going to have to get over this one. I think it's obvious, judging from the number of times that Rothelisberger throws Ward's way, that Roethlisberger likes him and thinks he's a good receiver.

So Ben likes tall guys ... so what? that doesn't mean you aren't special in your own way, Hines. It's not you, it's Ben. It's about what he's going through right now. At this point in his life, he just wants to be with someone who doesn't have to sit on seven phone books to be able to drive. I'm sure you two can still be friends

Police won't question Olsen about Ledger

2008-01-28T11:18:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK - Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says Mary-Kate Olsen will not be questioned by detectives about Heath Ledger's death.

"There's absolutely no indication investigators were going to speak to Mary-Kate Olsen," Kelly said at a news conference. "They determined that they had all the info needed from witnesses who were on scene: That's the cleaning woman, the masseuse."

Police are waiting for toxicology reports on the 28-year-old Australian actor before they decide whether to charge masseuse Diana Wolozin for practicing without a license, Kelly also said Sunday.

Wolozin found Ledger's body Tuesday afternoon in his Manhattan apartment. She had an appointment with Ledger, who starred in "Brokeback Mountain" and other films.

Police have said Wolozin made three calls to Olsen before dialing 911 for help, then phoned the 21-year-old actress a fourth time after paramedics arrived.

At some point during the calls, Olsen, who was in California, summoned her personal security guards to the apartment to help, police have said.

Olsen hasn't spoken publicly about the calls. She has only said: "Heath was a friend. His death is a tragic loss. My thoughts are with his family during this very difficult time."

The cause of Ledger's death will not be known for at least a week, after medical examiners complete toxicology tests.

Authorities suspect a possible drug overdose, but nothing conclusive has been determined. Several prescription drugs were found in the Manhattan apartment where Ledger's body was found.

The Motivator

2008-01-27T11:36:00.000-05:00

"Of course it's hard. It's supposed to be hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. Hard is what makes it great."

-From the movie "A League of Their Own."

Vending machine dispenses marijuana

2008-01-27T11:29:00.000-05:00

Thought I saw it all until now. Check out the video below.

Baby nearly killed with N.J. teen mom, police say

2008-01-27T11:16:00.000-05:00

The two men accused of beating a teenage mother to death and throwing her body into the Pennsauken Creek had to decide after the killing what to do with her five-week-old baby girl, authorities said today.

"There was some indication that they discussed whether the baby should go in the river with the mother," said Joshua Ottenberg, acting Camden County prosecutor.

Instead, Douglas Mandichak and Christopher Mikels left the infant in the yard of Cherry Hill home, where she was found strapped into a car seat around 7 a.m. Saturday, authorities say.

Police continued to comb the banks of the creek this morning for the baby's mother, 17-year-old Felicia Mikels, of Pennsauken. Although Mikels' body has not been found, searchers discovered her child's stroller in the creek today.

Christopher Mikels, 26, told police that he believes he is the father of the baby. He is Felicia Mikels' paternal uncle, which means he could be charged with statutory rape, which covers incest involving relatives over the age of consent, Ottenberg said.

The two Mikelses lived in Pennsauken at the home of Felicia's grandmother. Felicia Mikels' father also lived in the house.

The prosecutor said Felicia Mikels was killed over an argument over money, although it wasn't clear who was owed or how much.

He said Mandichak and Christopher Mikels planned for days to either scare the teenager or kill her. On Friday night, they lured her to a bowling alley on Maple Avenue in Pennsauken by sending a text message to her cell phone.

Felicia Mikels went to the bowling alley with her baby, Miciana, in tow.

Some time that evening, the men took Felicia Mikels to an industrial park in Pennsauken. Mandichak then beat her with a piece of wood, Ottenberg said. The men put her body in a tarp and put her in the creek, before dropping off the baby in the yard of a house at Marlowe and Downing Streets in Cherry Hill.

Felicia Mikels's family reported her missing around 1 a.m. Saturday. The baby was discovered in a blanket-covered car seat decorated with Winnie the Pooh about 7 a.m.

Investigators interviewed Christopher Mikels shortly after his niece was reported missing. He said he got a text message from her Friday night that said she was running away.

Ottenberg said Mikels sent himself that text message from his niece's phone after the killing.

He said Mikels and Mandichak had been cooperating with investigators, and one of the men showed police this morning where they put her body into the creek, near North Fork Landing Road.

Investigators also were searching the industrial park for the piece of wood used to kill Mikels.

Ice forced state police divers to call off a hand search of the murky bottom of the Pennsauken Creek in Cinnaminson this morning, a state police spokesman said. This morning, police dogs sniffed along the creek's edges as troopers with high-tech sonar devices scanned the frozen waters searched for clues.

Mandichak has been charged in Felicia Mikels' death, and Christopher Mikels has been charged as an accomplice. Both are being held at the Camden County jail on $750,000 bail.

The Motivator

2008-01-26T23:07:00.000-05:00

"It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop."

-Confucius

Boys' tongues stuck to frozen flagpole

2008-01-26T23:03:00.000-05:00

‘I decided to try it because I thought all of the TV shows were lies,’ kid says

CHESTERTON, Ind. - Two fourth-grade boys mimicking a scene from the movie "A Christmas Story" wound up with their tongues stuck to a frozen flagpole.

Gavin Dempsey and James Alexander were serving on flag duty at Jackson Elementary School Friday morning, with the job of raising and lowering the school's flags. They decided to see if their tongues really would stick to the cold metal.

"I decided to try it because I thought all of the TV shows were lies, but turns out I was wrong," Gavin said.

Karen Alexander, James' mother, said her son told her he got the idea from the movie, which is based on stories about a boy growing up in the northwest Indiana community of Hammond in the 1940s.

"I can't believe he did it, but they learned their lesson," she said.

James said he plans to eat a lot of ice cream to help nurse his wound.

"When you're young, you're just messing around," he said.

Billie Dempsey, Gavin's mom, said a nurse called them to tell them the boys' tongues were bleeding.

"The nurse asked them, 'OK, who double-dog dared who?'" Billie Dempsey said, a reference to a phrase that a character in the movie used to dare another child to stick his tongue to the pole.

Army Rangers, medic arrested on drug, firearms charges

2008-01-26T22:54:00.000-05:00

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Four active-duty U.S. soldiers -- three of them elite Army Rangers -- have been arrested and charged with planning to rob drug traffickers.

A courtroom sketch shows David White, left, Stefan Champagne, center, and Carlos Lopez.

Wearing street clothes, Rangers Carlos Lopez, 30, and David Ray White, 28, and Army medic Stefan Andre Champagne, 28, appeared in federal court Friday.

They're charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine and with carrying firearms in connection with that conspiracy.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Baverman ordered them held in custody until a preliminary hearing Wednesday.

Another Ranger, Randy Spivey, 32, is scheduled to appear in court Monday.

"It is a sad day when members of one of America's most elite corps of soldiers, the Army Rangers, are alleged to have become involved in criminal activity," U.S. Attorney David E. Nahmias said of the case.

"These men were trained to defend the people and principles of this country, not to use their skills to steal cocaine from drug dealers at gunpoint."

Lopez, White and Champagne were arrested Thursday at a storage facility in Sandy Springs, Georgia, a suburb just north of Atlanta, by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who had set up a sting operation.

Spivey was apprehended at Camp Frank D. Merrill, an Army Ranger training center in Dahlonega, Georgia, on Friday, the ATF said. Dahlonega is about 60 miles north of Atlanta.

Lopez, White and Champagne were to commit the robbery while Spivey covered for them back at the camp, where the men are stationed, according to an affidavit filed with U.S. District Court.

All four were to get a cut of the spoils of the robbery, the affidavit from ATF Agent Brett Turner says.

The investigation began in November, when the ATF "became aware" that some soldiers were interested in robbing drug dealers of their cocaine, Turner says.

He posed as a disaffected security guard for the drug traffickers who wanted to "rip them off." The first try to set up the "robbery" failed, but a second attempt earlier this month succeeded, leading to the arrests at the storage facility and, a day later, the Ranger camp.

A subsequent search found that Lopez, White and Champagne were carrying semiautomatic pistols and had an AR-15 assault rifle and a field pouch with 15 magazines of ammunition for it in their vehicle. Agents also found a ski mask, binoculars and a Taser among the items the men brought with them.

The four soldiers face minimum mandatory sentences of 10 years in prison each for the drug conspiracy and an additional five years, consecutive, for the weapons allegation.

The Army Rangers are an elite light infantry fighting force capable of deploying anywhere in the world within 18 hours.

They became a permanent presence in the U.S. military in the 1970s. From the Colonial Era until that time, Rangers were activated for specific missions or conflicts and then deactivated when their work was completed

The Motivator

2008-01-26T13:08:00.000-05:00

"Any system or blueprint for success is better than none at all. Think on paper."

-Brian Tracy

Tom Brady Is Limping; Should the Spread Be Shrinking?

2008-01-26T13:06:00.000-05:00

Should the Patriots be favored by 14 points if Tom Brady is hobbling around on a walking boot?

Even true-blue Giants fans have to admit that they’ll need a break to beat the Patriots. The Brady injury probably isn’t it. He’ll almost certainly be ready by the Super Bowl. (Besides, Pats fans needn’t fret. They’ve got Matt Cassel primed to go as the backup. And no worries, the immortal Matt Gutierrez can play if Cassel is injured.)

But will Brady be limited? Maybe. He was photographed and filmed in New York City yesterday with his girlfriend, the model Gisele Bundchen, and he was favoring his right foot. The Boston Globe has the details here.

An excerpt:

Brady appeared to be limping Sunday as he left his news conference following the Patriots’ 21-12 victory over the San Diego Chargers in the AFC Championship game.

Yesterday, Brady did not directly answer a question about being hurt during his regular appearance on WEEI’s “Dennis and Callahan” show. When he was asked about having his leg looked at on the sideline early in the fourth quarter, he replied:

“There are always kind of bumps and bruises. I’ll be ready for the Super Bowl. I’m not missing this one. I’d have to be on a stretcher to miss this one. There will just be some treatment this week and, like I said, games like this you get a little nicked up, but it’s nothing serious.”

Calling a team that is 18-0 fortunate is pushing it, but the Patriots were ripe for an upset Sunday, and they faced a San Diego team with an injured LaDainian Tomlinson (limited to two series) and a practically crippled Philip Rivers. It turns out that Rivers not only played with a fully torn A.C.L., but he also had a secret arthroscopic knee surgery six days before the game. The San Diego Union-Tribune has the story here.

Feel free to play Las Vegas oddsmaker. The Brady injury is far from the only thing to consider. The Giants have been beating the odds for a while now. What do you think the point spread should be?

The Motivator

2008-01-25T16:14:00.002-05:00

"Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it."

-Coach George Halas

Fire breaks out at Las Vegas' Monte Carlo

2008-01-25T16:05:00.000-05:00

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A fire on the roof of the Monte Carlo hotel-casino forced guests and gamblers to flee and sent a plume of smoke above the Las Vegas Strip before easing about an hour later, hotel officials said.

No major injuries were reported, said Clark County spokesman Eric Pappa.

The fire, which was reported around 11 a.m., halted gambling at the casino as it spread from the center of the building across the roof. Fiery debris fell to the street below, and orange flames lapped at the casino's script sign.

Larry Wappel, 25, of San Pierre, Ind., said he and his brother, Eric Wappel, were in a room on the 30th floor when they heard housekeeping staff banging on doors and yelling "Fire, get out!" He said it took about 10 minutes to walk single-file down the stairs to get to ground level.

"There were a couple of ladies crying, but it was pretty calm," he said.

Another guest, Renza Badilla, 45, said she exited through the hotel kitchen to find burning debris and embers falling from the roof.

"I think people were shocked when they saw the smoke," said Badilla, who said she was in the buffet on the main casino level when fire alarms sounded.

Investigators were trying to determine whether the fire had simply burned the resort's facade or penetrated rooms in the upper floors, which contain suites. Guests were being taken the MGM Grand Garden Arena and employees were evacuated to the adjacent New York-New York hotel, Absher said.

Huge crowds formed to watch the fire, and traffic on the Las Vegas Strip was gridlocked as streets were blocked off around the hotel.

The nearby resorts, Bellagio and New York New York were not evacuated.

The Monte Carlo Resort & Casino has 3,002 guest rooms and 211 suites. The resort, located on Las Vegas Boulevard, near Tropicana Avenue, opened in June 1996.

The 32-story casino-hotel modeled after the Place du Casino in Monte Carlo, Monaco, was a joint venture between Steve Wynn's Mirage Resorts and Circus Circus Enterprises.

Cell Porn Scandal Hits Pa. High School

2008-01-25T15:58:00.000-05:00

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Police faced a difficult if not impossible task Thursday as they tried to stop the spread of pornographic video and photos of two high school girls, images that were transmitted by cell phone to dozens of the girls' classmates and then to the wider world.

District Attorney James B. Martin said at least 40 Parkland High School students believed to have received the images would not face prosecution as long as they show their phones to police by Tuesday to ensure the images have been erased.

But students at the school said the distribution was far more widespread.

"Most people got it and kept passing it along for fun to everyone in their phonebook," said Jon Gabriel, 16, a junior who said he received and deleted the images.

A state trooper was sent to the school Thursday and will return for two more days to ensure that images were erased from the cell phones of students whose parents got letters from prosecutors. The letter explained what had happened, set a deadline for erasing the images and asked the parents to sign consent forms.

Martin said students who fail to comply by the deadline could be prosecuted in juvenile court for possession of child pornography.

One of the girls in the pictures is shown engaging in a sex act with an unidentified boy, Martin said. The other girl took and transmitted a photo of her bare breasts, he said.

Martin said he was not certain if the girl shown having sex had known she was being photographed. As for the other student, "she's a victim and she's not a victim," he said.

"Our thrust has been to get the kids to come forward and we've indicated we will not charge them for possessing the images," Martin told The Associated Press. "I'm not sure what we're going to do with the participants at this point."

Students interviewed at the school Thursday said the pictures made the rounds about two months ago, and that the images have been distributed well beyond the high school — to Temple and Harvard universities, to a high school in Bethlehem, even to someone in Oregon.

"The school isn't going to get everybody because it is everybody. I don't know anybody who didn't get the pictures," said Samantha Smith, a 16-year-old junior who said she deleted the images when she got them.

Senior Nicco Delnero, 17, said teachers discussed the episode with students, "telling us how it could hurt the girls in the future."

On the social networking site Facebook, one student started a group called, "Parkland. ... Where Pornstars Are Born."

Authorities began investigating about two weeks ago after some students notified school administrators, Martin said.

"A couple kids got these images, didn't much want them, didn't quite know what to do with them once they were received, and they were brought to the attention of the school resource officer," Martin said.

Officials do not believe the pictures were taken on school property.

Phone messages left Thursday for the principal and superintendent were not returned, and a reporter was turned away from both the high school and the district office.

About 3,200 students are enrolled at Parkland, a perennial football powerhouse that draws students from three largely wealthy townships outside Allentown.

The Motivator

2008-01-24T12:09:00.000-05:00

"If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door."
-Milton Berle

Kansas Baptist Church Intends to Picket Heath Ledger's Funeral Because He Played Gay Character

2008-01-24T11:50:00.000-05:00

A radical Baptist church in Kansas known for picketing the funerals of soldiers who perished in Iraq said it intends to protest Heath Ledger's memorial service with signs claiming the actor died and is in Hell because he played a gay character in “Brokeback Mountain.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies the church as a hate group and the organization is monitored by the Anti-Defamation League, according to its Wikipedia entry.

Phelps-Roper said the church group will also be picketing the Academy Awards this year.

Both the printed release and Phelps-Roper’s verbal diatribe about Ledger were rife with homophobic slurs. She said that those who call her and other members of Westboro Baptist Church bigots must also think God is a bigot.

“God hates fags,” she said. “The wrath of God has been revealed before the eyes of this nation with the death of Heath Ledger. … This nation worships the dead almost as much as they worship their filthy sex acts. America is doomed.”

Sounding Off: Snow Day Phone Call Flap

2008-01-23T18:10:00.000-05:00

School Administrator's Wife Leaves Angry Message for Student, Which He Posts on Web

The wife of a Virginia school administrator was not pleased when a 17-year-old student called her home last week.

Devraj "Dave" S. Kori called Dean Tistadt's listed home phone number to complain about not getting a snow day after last week's snowstorm. Kori left a message, along with his name and phone number.

Kori later got an angry message from Candy Tistadt, the school administrator's wife, which the student then posted on the Internet.

The student who placed the call told "Good Morning America" today that he felt his call about the snow day was polite and professional.

Candy Tistadt would not comment this morning, but her husband, the school administrator, told The Washington Post that the whole incident has been horrible for his wife and that they've both learned a lesson about the long reach of the Internet.

The Motivator

2008-01-23T13:10:00.000-05:00

A game is like a mirror that allows you to look at yourself.

-Robert Kiyosaki

Fed Cuts Interest Rates by 75 Bps

2008-01-23T12:49:00.000-05:00

Fed Cuts Interest Rate Amid Global Stock Sell-Off and Fears of Recession

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve unexpectedly slashed a key interest rate by a bold three-fourths of a percentage point on Tuesday, responding to a global plunge in stock markets that heightened concerns about a recession. The Fed signaled that further rate cuts were likely.

The reduction in the federal funds rate from 4.25 percent down to 3.5 percent marked the biggest reduction in this target rate for overnight loans on records going back to 1990. It marked the first time that the Fed has changed the funds rate between meetings since 2001, when the central bank was battling the combined impacts of a recession and the terrorist attacks.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues approved the large rate cut after an emergency video conference on Monday night, a day when global markets had been pounded by rising concerns that weakness in the world's largest economy was spreading worldwide.

Despite the Fed's bold move, Wall Street plunged at the opening with the Dow Jones industrial average down 465 points before stocks began to rebound. The Dow finished the day off 128.11 points at 11,971.19. Analysts said the milder decline at the end of the day after such a rough start showed the Fed's effort to reassure Wall Street had an impact.

In a brief statement explaining its move, the Fed said that "appreciable downside risks to growth remain" and officials pledged to "act in a timely manner" to deal with the risks facing the economy. The action was approved on an 8-1 vote.

Analysts said the fact that the Fed did not wait until its meeting next week to cut rates underscored the seriousness of the situation.

"The world's stock markets are in meltdown so the Fed came in with an inter-meeting move to try to stop the panic," said Christopher Rupkey, senior economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.

The Bush administration, which had announced on Friday that President Bush supported a $150 billion economic stimulus package, said Tuesday that it was not ruling out doing more than the $150 billion proposal if necessary. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson were conferring with congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday, with all sides saying they want to reach agreement quickly.

The Fed was expected to cut rates further, possibly as soon as their next meeting on Jan. 29-30, if there are continued signs that the economy is weakening.

"This move by the Fed was essential," said Lyle Gramley, a former Fed governor who is now a senior analyst with the Stanford Financial Group in Washington. "Bernanke promised in a speech earlier this month to take substantive action in a timely and decisive manner."

Gramley said that Bernanke was now exercising the kind of forceful leadership the markets had been hoping to see since the credit crisis hit in August.

David Jones, chief economist at DMJ Advisors, said Fed officials have a range of options available at next week's meeting from a quarter-point move to a half-point move to holding rates steady but indicating the Fed is prepared to move again between meetings should conditions deteriorate further. Jones predicted the Fed would lower the funds rate to 3 percent by the end of March.

In addition to cutting the funds rate, the Fed said it was reducing its discount rate, the interest it charges to make direct loans to banks, by a similar three-quarters of a percentage point, pushing this rate down to 4 percent.

Commercial banks responded to the Fed's action on the funds rate by announcing similar cuts of three-quarter of a percent on its prime lending rate, the benchmark for millions of business and consumer loans. The action will mean the prime lending rate will drop from 7.25 percent down to 6.50 percent.

Global financial markets had plunged Monday as investors grew more concerned about the possibility that the United States, the world's largest economy, could be headed into a recession. Many markets suffered their biggest declines since the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

In its statement, the Fed said it had decided to cut the federal funds rate "in view of a weakening of the economic outlook and increasing downside risks to growth."

The central bank said that the strains in short-term credit markets have eased a bit, but "broader financial market conditions have continued to deteriorate and credit has tightened further for some businesses and households. Moreover, incoming information indicates a deepening of the housing contraction as well as some softening in labor markets."

Before Tuesday's move, the Fed had cut interest rates three times, beginning in September, the month after a severe credit crunch had roiled Wall Street and global financial markets. The Fed cut the funds rate by a half-point in September and then by smaller quarter-point moves in October and December.

"The committee will continue to assess the effects of financial and other developments on economic prospects and will act in a timely manner as needed to address those risk," the Fed statement said.

The Fed's action was approved on an 8-1 vote with William Poole, president of the Fed's regional bank, dissenting. The statement said that Poole objected because he did not believe current conditions justified a rate move before the Fed's meeting next week.

Heath Ledger Autopsy ruled inconclusive

2008-01-23T12:35:00.000-05:00

The cause of the actor Heath Ledger’s death could take two weeks to determine, the New York City medical examiner’s office said on Wednesday. An autopsy was conducted Wednesday morning, but the results were inconclusive and blood and tissue tests need to be completed, said Ellen Borakove, the spokeswoman for the office.

Other details surrounding Mr. Ledger’s death emerged on Wednesday as rumor and speculation swirled. Police officials said that the masseuse who discovered Mr. Ledger unconscious told them that she made two phone calls to the actress Mary-Kate Olsen, a friend of Mr. Ledger’s, moments before she called 911.

Mr. Ledger, 28, the Australian-born star of “Brokeback Mountain,” was found dead on Tuesday afternoon in bed in his apartment in SoHo, with a bottle of prescription sleeping pills nearby.

Although the police said on Wednesday that a rolled-up $20 bill was also found, they said that tests of the bill found no trace of drugs and that they had turned up no illegal drugs anywhere in the apartment. Mr. Ledger left no suicide note, the police have said.

The authorities found six different types of prescription drugs in Mr. Ledger’s apartment, including sleeping pills and antianxiety medicine, according to a law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing. Three of the drugs were prescribed in Europe, said the official, who noted that Mr. Ledger had recently returned to the United States from London.

According to the police, the masseuse who found Mr. Ledger on Tuesday, Diana Wolozin, arrived at Mr. Ledger’s apartment, at 421 Broome Street, about 2:45 p.m. to give him a massage and saw his bedroom door closed.

When he had not emerged by around 3 p.m., she called his cellphone, got no answer and entered the bedroom, where she saw him in bed.

She went to the closet, took out a massage table and started to set it up near his bed, the police said. Then she went over to Mr. Ledger and shook him, but got no response. Using his cellphone, she pressed a speed-dial button and called the 21-year-old Ms. Olsen, who she knew was a friend of Mr. Ledger’s, to ask for help.

According to the authorities, Ms. Wolozin told Ms. Olsen, who was in California, that Mr. Ledger was unconscious. Ms. Olsen said she would call private security people she knew in New York.

Ms. Wolozin again shook Mr. Ledger, called Ms. Olsen a second time, and said she feared Mr. Ledger might be dead and would call 911.

Ms. Wolozin called 911 at 3:26 p.m. to say that Mr. Ledger was not breathing. The call was made less than 15 minutes after she first saw him in bed and only a few moments after the first call to Ms. Olsen. The 911 operator urged Ms. Wolozin to try to revive Mr. Ledger, but Ms. Wolozin’s efforts were not successful.

Emergency medical workers arrived at 3:33 p.m., at almost exactly the same moment as a private security guard summoned by Ms. Olsen. The medical workers moved Mr. Ledger’s body to the floor and then used a defibrillator and CPR, to no avail. He was pronounced dead at 3:36 p.m. By that point, two other private security guards summoned by Ms. Olsen had arrived, as had police officers.

Mr. Ledger had been snoring around 1 p.m. when a housekeeper, Teresa Solomon, arrived at the apartment, she told the police. Ms. Solomon went into Mr. Ledger’s bedroom to change a light bulb in an adjacent bathroom and saw Mr. Ledger face-down on the bed.

The police said that all five witnesses — Ms. Solomon, Ms. Wolozin, and the three guards summoned by Ms. Olsen — were cooperating with the authorities.

The police said they could not immediately say if Ms. Wolozin was a licensed masseuse. There is no Diana Wolozin listed in the state database of licensed massage therapists. It is a felony to practice massage without a license in New York.

After the two-hour autopsy at the medical examiner’s headquarters Wednesday, Ms. Borakove, the spokeswoman for the office, said that the cause of death was still unclear.

“If you have no apparent cause, you have to do further testing,” she said. The two types of tests that still have to be performed include toxicology, which examines the adverse effects of chemicals in the bloodstream, and histology, in which thin slices of tissue are analyzed by pathologists.

“Toxicology is done on blood and urine and what is in the stomach contents,” Ms. Borakove said. “It does not take one day. It takes 10 days to two weeks.”

It is the medical examiner’s office that will ultimately determine whether Mr. Ledger died of suicide, natural causes, accident or foul play. The police have said that there is no evidence of foul play and no note or any other obvious evidence pointing toward suicide.

Mr. Ledger, whose breakthrough role as a gay cowboy in the 2005 movie “Brokeback Mountain” earned him a nomination for an Academy Award, moved to SoHo sometime after he separated last summer from his companion, the actress Michelle Williams, and left the town house they and their 2-year-old daughter shared in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.

He led a high-visibility life in Manhattan, and was often spotted at clubs and bars with actresses and models.

Mr. Ledger’s death has drawn international attention and even affected President Bush’s schedule. Out of deference to Mr. Ledger, the president postponed an appearance Wednesday to promote an advertising campaign on preventing prescription drug abuse, Reuters reported.

“We did not want anyone to think we were trying to link into that story in any way,” said Dana Perino, his spokeswoman.

Outside Mr. Ledger’s home in SoHo and his former residence in Brooklyn, news crews clustered for a second day and mourners and fans trickled by to leave flowers or notes.

Ms. Williams returned to the Brooklyn house shortly before 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

On the doorstep was a letter taped to a teddy bear, signed by the Melendez family.

“Stay strong,” the note said. “Just remember he loved you and your baby very much.”

Heath Ledger,28 yrs old, found dead.

2008-01-22T19:41:00.000-05:00

Academy Award nominee Heath Ledger, 28, has died of a possible drug overdose involving sleeping pills in New York, police have confirmed.

The actor was sick with pneumonia when he died, the TMZ.com website has reported.

Ledger was found dead in his bed at his apartment on Broome Street, Soho, in Manhattan, by his housekeeper about 3.35pm local time.

Ledger's body was removed from his New York apartment and wheeled into the back of a medical examiner's van.

A huge crowd of news photographers gathered outside the apartment in the Soho building lit up the scene with flashes as authorities wheeled his body on a trolley from the complex into the van.

A police spokesman told smh.com.au the cause of death was unknown, despite the presence of drugs.

"We don't have that [the cause of death] yet. The matter is still under investigation," the spokesman said.

He was pronounced dead at 3.45pm (7.45am AEDT) by a medical examiner who went to the apartment.

Naked and unconscious

Ledger was naked and unconscious, The New York Times reported.

New York police officer Martin Brown said investigators would most likely not know the cause of death until an autopsy was held on the body.

Asked if foul play had been ruled out, Officer Brown said it had not.

"That's what needs to be investigated," Brown told AAP.

"It takes a while. The medical examiner will do an autopsy and they will determine the cause of death."

Pills found

US television network NBC reported his body was found surrounded by pills.

The New York Times reported Ledger was discovered by a masseuse who arrived at his apartment for an appointment.

The masseuse was let in to the home by a housekeeper, who then knocked on the door of Ledger's bedroom, The New York Times reported.

When no one answered, the housekeeper and the masseuse opened the bedroom and found Ledger unconscious.

They shook him, but he did not respond. They immediately called the authorities.

"It's all preliminary at this stage," Officer Brown said.

"We had a call for an unconscious male at 421 Broome Street.

"At 3.26pm [New York time] we got to the scene and there was an unconscious male.

"We called EMS [ambulance] to the scene and EMS pronounced the unconscious male dead.

"Preliminarily, it is believed it is the actor Heath Ledger."

Police officers stood guard at the Soho apartment building as a crowd of photographers gathered outside.

Asked about reports of the pills in Ledger's apartment, Brown said: "I can't confirm that but I've heard the same thing."

Ledger was taking sleeping pills after completing I'm Not There, in which he played one of the many incarnations of singer Bob Dylan.

He told The New York Times in a November interview that he "stressed out a little too much'' during the Dylan film, and had trouble sleeping while portraying the Joker, whom he called a "psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy".

"Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night," Ledger told the Times.

"I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going."

He said he took two Ambien pills, which only worked for an hour, the paper said.

The Motivator

2008-01-22T01:15:00.001-05:00

"The most important key to achieving great success is to decide upon your goal and launch, get started, take action, move."

-John Wooden

Shaky Brady sporting cast on foot

2008-01-22T01:04:00.000-05:00

QB admits he’s nicked up, but vows to be Super

The Patriots [team stats]’ hopes for a fourth Super Bowl title in seven years and an unprecedented 19-0 season certainly hit a major speed bump yesterday, as Tom Brady [stats] was spotted wearing what appears to be a walking cast on his right foot.

Two weeks before a date with the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII isn’t the best time for the quarterback who runs the league’s most prolific offense, not to mention the player the Patriots can least afford to lose, to turn up with an injury problem.

A video taken of Brady in New York yesterday, which is available on TMZ.com, shows the NFL’s MVP returning to girlfriend Gisele Bundchen’s apartment. He’s dressed in dark glasses and a black hoodie with a coat over it, walking gingerly on the sidewalk after emerging from a black SUV parked on the street.

The walking cast clearly is visible below the denim jeans he is wearing. He has a white sneaker on his other foot. The video has him carrying a bouquet of flowers, slowly moving up the steps to Bundchen’s West Village apartment.

During his weekly appearance on WEEI’s “Dennis and Callahan” show, Brady didn’t dismiss the notion he had suffered some type of leg injury during Sunday’s AFC Championship win over the San Diego Chargers.

Brady was asked to respond to reports of an observer noticing that he was a little gimpy at one point during the game, and was examined by a doctor. He paused a bit before answering.

“Ah, you know, there’s always bumps and bruises. I’ll be ready for the Super Bowl,” Brady said, when asked point-blank if he had a leg injury. “I’m not worried about that. I’m not missing this one. I’d have to be on a stretcher to miss this one. There will be treatment this week. In games like this, you get a little nicked up. It’s nothing serious.”

Brady had an uncharacteristically rough game, throwing three interceptions for the first time this season. Despite throwing a pair of touchdown passes, he seemed a bit off all game. Many of Brady’s throws weren’t on target, with receivers such as Kevin Faulk [stats] having to dive or reach backward for the ball.

That’s not Brady.

Some of his problems might have been due to the windy conditions, while the Chargers also may have accounted for some of Brady’s ineffectiveness.

The foot problem, however, adds a new wrinkle, something that is going to cause much worry and concern in the coming week and beyond.

While Brady does have time to recover, the idea of him being hampered or hindered in any way is disconcerting given the upcoming opponent in the Super Bowl.

If he can’t push off that right (plant) foot, he can’t get zip on the ball. A closer look at Sunday’s game footage shows Brady at times appeared to be throwing off one foot, or not getting the proper help from his plant foot.

Moreover, the Giants have one of the better pass rushes in the NFL. If Brady is having trouble with his mobility, that could loom as an even larger problem, especially against an opponent that gave the Patriots one of their toughest games of the year.

During the Patriots’ 38-35 win in the final regular-season game Dec. 29, while Brady was sacked only once, he was constantly pressured and harried by Giants defensive linemen Michael Strahan, Osi Umenyiora and Justin Tuck.

Brady has started in 124 consecutive games, the third longest streak by a quarterback in NFL history.

When asked if the problem would flare up around the Pro Bowl, the week after the Super Bowl, Brady cracked: “You can count on that, you can definitely count on that.”

The Motivator

2008-01-21T15:26:00.000-05:00

You'll never get a Purple Heart hiding in a foxhole! Follow me!

-Capt. Henry P. Crowe, USMC

Ravens hire Phila Eagles coach to relace Billick

2008-01-21T15:21:00.000-05:00

John Harbaugh was hired by the Ravens yesterday in a bold move that gives the longtime assistant coach his first head-coaching opportunity.

The Ravens will introduce the 45-year-old Philadelphia Eagles secondary coach, who comes from a football family, during a news conference at noon today.

Harbaugh, who has never been in charge of an offense or a defense in the National Football League, made a name for himself as a special-teams coach.

John Harbaugh became the ninth-youngest head coach in the NFL. The former Eagles defensive backs coach turned 45 on Sept. 23. Here are the youngest head coaches in the league.

Name, Team, Age
Lane Kiffin, Raiders, 32
Mike Tomlin, Steelers, 35
Eric Mangini, Jets, 37
Sean Payton, Saints, 44
Mike McCarthy, Packers, 44
Scott Linehan, Rams, 44
Jon Gruden, Buccaneers, 44
Jack Del Rio, Jaguars, 44

"It's not a well-traveled path, but we'll prove special-teams coordinators can coach," Harbaugh told Philadelphia radio station WIP a half-hour after being hired. "But a football coach is a football coach. I guess the Ravens saw something they liked."

Harbaugh, who was not made available to local reporters yesterday, left in a limousine for Philadelphia and will return today for the news conference.

Considered a dark-horse candidate when the Ravens' search began, Harbaugh impressed team officials with his intense coaching style and magnetic personality.

The hiring of Harbaugh ends the Ravens' 18-day search for a coach. He will become the third coach in Ravens history, replacing Brian Billick, who was fired Dec. 31 after nine seasons with the team.

"We have the head coach, and we're very excited about it," Ravens spokesman Kevin Byrne said.

An NFL source said Harbaugh will sign a four-year deal worth $2 million to $2.5 million a season, typical for a first-year coach.

"They've got a great organization, a tremendous owner, a tremendous general manager and a good football team sitting there right now. I mean, today," Harbaugh told the Delaware County Times in Pennsylvania. "I can't wait to get started. It's an opportunity I want to make the most of. I'm going to do everything possible to be successful."

Owner Steve Bisciotti offered Harbaugh the job at 5:35 p.m. in the team's boardroom in front of the search committee. After Harbaugh accepted, Bisciotti called former majority owner Art Modell so that he could be one of the first to know.

Harbaugh, the NFL's ninth-youngest head coach, is eight years younger than Billick, which Ravens center Mike Flynn said shouldn't be a problem.

"It's not going to matter," Flynn said. "He's ready for the job. I'm sure he's going to do his homework and will establish his philosophy. ... I think he'll have instant credibility and respect. It's something he would have to lose."

The Ravens will fly Harbaugh's parents to Baltimore for the official announcement.

His father, Jack, a 41-year coaching veteran, was head coach at Western Kentucky University when the team won the 2002 Division I-AA national championship.

Harbaugh's brother, Jim, the Ravens' quarterback in 1998, is now head coach at Stanford University.

The Ravens first targeted Dallas Cowboys offensive coordinator Jason Garrett and tried to hire him during a seven-hour visit Tuesday. Garrett turned down the Ravens' offer Thursday and decided to remain with Dallas.

Harbaugh, who was considered the fallback if Garrett wasn't hired, was the second candidate to be interviewed twice, arriving at Ravens headquarters about 9 a.m. yesterday

He doesn't have credentials typical of some other head coach candidates but has been considered by several NFL teams. A high-ranking Ravens official said last year that Harbaugh would be an excellent head coach.

Harbaugh was a finalist for the UCLA job last month and for the Miami Dolphins' opening last year.

"He always aspired to be something more than a special-teams coordinator," said former Eagles linebacker Ike Reese, whom the Ravens' search committee contacted as part of its evaluation. "He always felt he brought more insight to the game of football, and he wanted to ultimately be a head coach. I'll be pulling for him. I'm an immediate Ravens fan."

Harbaugh has built a reputation as an energetic teacher who gets the most out of his players.

He shifted to secondary coach this season to give himself a better chance to become a head coach. He had spent the previous nine seasons coaching the Eagles' special teams. Before joining Philadelphia's staff, Harbaugh held a variety of college jobs for 13 years.

"I couldn't be happier for John and his entire family," Eagles head coach Andy Reid said. "He has worked very hard to become a head coach in the National Football League. I know how much this means to him. He is very deserving of this opportunity, and we will miss him in Philadelphia. I wish him all the best in Baltimore."

Others interviewed by the Ravens were former Ravens defensive coordinator Rex Ryan; Dallas Cowboys assistant head coach Tony Sparano, who was hired by the Miami Dolphins; New York Jets offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer; and Indianapolis Colts assistant head coach Jim Caldwell, who withdrew.

"When you're in this process of finding a head coach, you're kind of in limbo as a team," Ravens tight end Todd Heap said. "Now, we can finally go forward. It's going to be an exciting time."

Reporting for duty General Butt Naked!!!

2008-01-21T15:13:00.000-05:00

I found this to be a little funny. Imagine having this nickname...

MONROVIA, Liberia - One of Liberia's most notorious rebel commanders, known as Gen. Butt Naked for charging into battle wearing only boots, has returned to confess his role in terrorizing the nation, saying he is responsible for 20,000 deaths.

Joshua Milton Blahyi, who now lives in Ghana, returned last week to face his homeland's truth and reconciliation commission, this time wearing a suit and tie. His nom de guerre is derived from his platoon's practice of charging naked into battle, a technique meant to terrify the enemy.

Other former warlords, though, have refused to ask forgiveness, dismissing a commission many in Liberia see as toothless. Blahyi is urging other former killers to come forward as the country founded by freed American slaves in 1847 struggles to recover from past horrors.

"I could be electrocuted. I could be hanged. I could be given any other punishment," the 37-year-old Blahyi said in a weekend interview following his truth commission appearance last week. "But I think forgiveness and reconciliation is the right way to go.

"I have been looking for an opportunity to tell the true story about my life — and every time I tell people my story, I feel relieved."

The civil war, which killed an estimated 250,000 people in this nation of 3 million, was characterized by the eating of human hearts and soccer matches played with human skulls. Drugged fighters waltzed into battle wearing women's wigs, flowing gowns and carrying dainty purses stolen from civilians.

Before he led his fighters into battle, wearing only a pair of lace-up boots, Blahyi said he made a human sacrifice to the devil.

The sacrifice was typically "the killing of an innocent child and plucking out the heart which was divided into pieces for us to eat," he told The Associated Press on Saturday. He appeared before the commission Jan. 15 — and put a figure to his killing spree for the first time.

"More than 20,000 people fell victim (to me and my men). They were killed," said Blahyi, who dated the beginning of his murders to 1982, when he was ordained as a ritual priest responsible for making human sacrifices before battle. He said when he later led his fighters against the insurgency launched by Charles Taylor, he commanded them to embrace this tradition.

Some say Blahyi's confession is proof Liberia needs a war crimes court, not a commission.

The commission, modeled on the one in post-apartheid South Africa, has been taking testimony from victims and former rebels for two years, urging a full accounting of wartime atrocities. While the commission cannot charge killers with a crime, it can recommend charges be brought.

Meanwhile, several notorious killers have refashioned themselves as influential politicians in Liberia.

"If you have an individual admitting that he and his group killed over 20,000 people, certainly there should be a mechanism put in place for such people to face justice," said Mulbah Morlue, who heads the Forum for the Establishment of a War Crimes Court in Liberia.

Yet some praise Blahyi.

"You can't have true reconciliation without knowing the truth," said Johnny Lamine, a Monrovia resident. "Blahyi's story is alarming, but ... let's know who did what in Liberia during the war."

Others in a country where some feel everyone is tainted said they would rather not dig up the past. Because the violence was so widespread it's not uncommon to find Liberian families that have both victim and perpetrator under the same roof — a daughter who was raped and a son who took up a gun and went on to rape the daughters of other families.

"Liberians have tried to forget these stories," Mary Kollie said Sunday as she waited for a taxi home from church.

In the interview, Blahyi told the AP: "Some people see me and congratulate me. Others see me and say I should not be walking down the streets of Monrovia posing proud. But I continue to tell such people I am not proud, I am ashamed."

In 1996, he said in a 1997 interview with the AP, God appeared to him as he charged naked into a battle and told him he was a slave to Satan, not the hero he considered himself to be.

He became a born-again Christian and for a while, traversed the war-wracked streets of Monrovia selling cassettes of his sermons.

Liberia's violence began in 1979 when security forces killed dozens of people during massive riots. The following year, President William Tolbert was ousted in a coup by Samuel K. Doe, an illiterate master sergeant, who ordered Tolbert's Cabinet members tied to poles on a beach and executed.

Rebels led by Taylor invaded in 1989, plunging the country into another civil war. The war went into a momentary lull after 1997 when Taylor was elected president and again surged, ending only when Taylor was forced into exile in Nigeria in 2003. He is now facing charges of crimes against humanity at a tribunal in the Hague for atrocities committed by a rebel movement he allegedly supported in neighboring Sierra Leone.

The Motivator

2008-01-20T16:14:00.000-05:00

Since my cousin,Cpl Thomas Hannigan, is visiting this weeekend on a 96er from Camp Lejeune, I thought I would show him some love with the quote today and tomorrow. Oorah!

The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!

-Eleanor Roosevelt

Plummeting temperatures mean frozen balls and sleeveless jerseys

2008-01-20T16:08:00.000-05:00

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -- Baby, it's cold outside.

So cold, one team has practiced with footballs straight out of the freezer. But not so frigid that many players say they will go sleeveless.

As for the plummeting temperatures being an advantage for the Green Bay Packers in Sunday's NFC championship game against the New York Giants, the hosts aren't quite so sure.

"It's not like they're coming from Florida," guard Daryn Colledge noted.

Of course, Colledge is from Alaska, so zero degrees might be balmy to him.

Forecasts are calling for thermometer readings around 3 degrees for the 5:30 p.m. CST kickoff; yep, a night game in January on the Green Bay tundra. If the wind kicks up, temperatures certainly will dive below zero, and head toward the NFL records.

The coldest game in NFL history was not the 1967 NFL title game at Lambeau Field when the Packers beat Dallas 21-17 in the Ice Bowl. It was minus 13 that day and the wind chill factor was estimated at minus 48.

But in the 1981 AFC championship game, while the temperature was minus-9, the wind chill plunged to minus-59 at Cincinnati as the Bengals beat San Diego 27-7.

BRRRRRR!!!!!

"You know in football we all like to think of ourselves as tough guys," Packers cornerback Charles Woodson said. "So no matter what the weather is, I think most guys will probably go out there no sleeves and play it just like it was 80 degrees."

Even if it's 80 degrees colder.

Brett Favre, who had little trouble in last week's divisional-round win over Seattle played amid snowflakes the size of golf balls, is 43-5 when the temperature in Green Bay is 34 or lower. He will make his 275th consecutive start Sunday in conditions suited for, well, staying inside. The NFL's career leader in most passing categories would take 34 -- or even 24 -- degrees for the final step to the Super Bowl.

And, no, Favre is not a big fan of icicles hanging from face masks.

"First of all, I don't know if I have ever gotten used to it," said the Mississippi native who last took the Pack to the Super Bowl 10 years ago. "It is for three hours during the week. We practice indoors -- not a whole lot different than anyone else. Yeah, you live in it. I'm not out making snowmen."

Packers coach Mike McCarthy recalled how poorly his team played on Dec. 23 in a 35-7 loss at Chicago, a game that even Favre admitted he was cold throughout. So McCarthy used some frozen balls at practice this week to help simulate likely conditions Sunday.

"Is that what was going on?" veteran wide receiver Donald Driver said with a laugh. "Basically, they never told us that the balls were coming out of the freezer, we just kind just felt it as we caught it: 'Wow, the balls are cold.' We thought most likely the balls had been outside all day, but they were in the freezer.

"Mostly, I think it's for concentration because when it's warm weather you basically don't have to concentrate too much on the ball. If you've got good hands, you're going to catch. But I don't care how good your hands is, in cold weather you have to focus on the ball and make sure you catch it before you run with it.

"You know you can't control the conditions, you can't control the weather, so you've just got to go out there and play regardless of the situation. So I think we've just been successful in it because we live here and we play and we wake up in the morning every day in it. But you still have to go out there and play."

The Giants (12-6) will show up and play, and likely play well considering they've won nine straight road games, including two in the playoffs. Both of those, of course, were in Tampa and Dallas, where anything below freezing is cause for panic.

Star defensive end Michael Strahan promises there won't be panic even if it is the coldest day any of the Giants have encountered.

"This is going to be a game of will, a game of whoever wants it the most," Strahan said. "That is what the playoffs are all about, so this is going to be a very interesting battle. Us, a team that has a strong will and plays well on the road, and that team that has a strong will and plays well at home."

The Packers (14-3) are 8-1 at home. None of those games was played in anything close to the bitter cold they will face Sunday, not even last weekend's snowfest.

One of the team's corporate partners, Mills Fleet Farm, is donating 30,000 hand warmers for fans entering the game. Dr. Don Hartig of the Bellin Health Family Medical Center in Howard advised spectators to dress appropriately, wearing loose, dry layers, a hat, mittens instead of gloves, and waterproof insulated boots.

So don't go sleeveless? When told fellow end Justin Tuck was planning the same fashion statement as many of the Packers, the veteran Strahan shivered.

"I told him I'm wearing layers," Strahan said. "These guys can wear short sleeves. I'm not trying to impress anybody. For what? Oh, I'm strong!

"I guarantee you Justin Tuck's goose bumps will be bigger than his muscles."

Roy Jones wins one-sided decision over Felix Trinidad

2008-01-20T16:06:00.000-05:00

Didn't catch the fight last night??? Me neither. Here is the re-cap if you were wondering.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Roy Jones Jr. defiantly wore a gilded crown into a ring surrounded by hostile fans of a Puerto Rican hero. He then taunted Felix Trinidad, waggling his chin and shaking his rump, before rudely flooring Tito twice.

Some old guys just never learn how to behave -- yet the 39-year-old Jones showed he can still get down to business, pounding another iconic boxer whose prime is well past.

Jones pranced and punched his way to a unanimous victory over Trinidad on Saturday night, dominating their 170-pound bout. From the opening minutes to the increasingly lopsided final rounds, Jones simply was too fast, even in a fight that was several years too late.

Jones and the 35-year-old Trinidad might have put on the year's best fight -- if the year was still 2001, back when both were kings of the sport.

"I can't believe you stayed in there 12 rounds with me," Jones said to Trinidad after the fight. "People thought we were old."

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Actually, they still do. The 1990s' most dominant boxer has reflexes that are fading, but not totally faded -- and more than enough to beat another declining dynamo.

Jones (52-4, 38 KOs), the erstwhile pound-for-pound king who had lost three of his past five fights, was content mostly to clown away the early rounds of his first significant victory in four years. When he finally went to work, he knocked down Trinidad in the seventh and 10th, landing a power punch in nearly every exchange.

"He was slipping some really good punches," Jones said. "I was missing knocking him out by about an inch on some of those shots."

Trinidad (42-3) hadn't fought in 32 months since his second retirement. Tito still is his native island's most beloved athlete, judging by the frenetic support from the Madison Square Garden crowd, but the 35-year-old revealed the rust many expected in just his fifth fight in 6 1/2 years, his first since a decisive loss to Winky Wright.

Fighting 10 pounds over his heaviest previous weight, Trinidad couldn't match even Jones' diminished skills.

"I take nothing away from Roy, but if I could have avoided the knockdowns, I think I could have won the fight," said Trinidad, who hasn't decided whether he'll fight again. "Roy was very fast and strong. He threw great punches. I have no excuses. He demonstrated speed and took my body."

Judge Julie Lederman scored the bout 117-109 for Jones, while Nelson Vasquez and Tom Kaczmarek saw it 116-110. The Associated Press also called it for Jones, 118-108.

Jones connected on 172 of his 482 punches (36 percent), while Trinidad was 160-for-552 (29 percent). Jones had a big lead in power punches, landing 147 to Trinidad's 101 -- including a commanding 97-52 edge for Jones in power connections over the final seven rounds.

Though Jones hardly earned a title shot with this win, he would love to fight Joe Calzaghe, the unbeaten 168-pound Welsh champion, assuming Calzaghe beats Hopkins in their expected meeting in April. Jones even said he would travel to Europe for the fight, something he's been reluctant to do throughout his career.

Roy Jones Jr. reacts after defeating Felix Trinidad in light heavyweight boxing action Saturday Jan. 19, 2008 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
AP - Jan 20, 1:32 am EST
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"I'd go to Wales tomorrow," Jones said

After Jones mostly played defense in the first 2 1/2 rounds, he repeatedly teased Trinidad late in the third, pounding his own stomach and sticking out his chin while doing a jig. Tito was more businesslike, but mostly ineffective against Jones' defense.

With chants of "Tito!" filling the Garden, Jones finally landed a few damaging punches in the sixth round. Jones then dropped Trinidad to his knees early in the seventh with an overhand right.

Jones soon had control of the fight, sitting back on defense and pounding Trinidad's head. He floored Trinidad again late in the 10th with a jab and a straight right hand, removing nearly all doubt in the outcome.

Fans were left to wonder what might have happened if these champions had been matched sooner. Though both won armloads of title belts and millions of fans during their primes, Jones and Trinidad were kept apart by obstacles ranging from mandatory title defenses to the jab of Bernard Hopkins, whose upset win over five-time champ Trinidad sank a potential matchup with Jones six years ago.

Both then plummeted from the sport's elite ranks in 2005 with embarrassing defeats and eroding skills. Trinidad retired for the second time, while Jones was reduced to fighting in Boise and Biloxi -- but last year, Trinidad asked promoter Don King for a comeback fight against Jones, the eight-time champion who turned 39 on Wednesday.

Few would argue Jones hasn't been the same since he fell from his perch as boxing's pound-for-pound best with three consecutive losses from 2004-05, including knockouts by Glen Johnson and Antonio Tarver.

Saturday's 170-pound catch weight presented potential problems for both fighters: The normally skinny Trinidad had never fought above 160, but Jones hadn't been as light as 171 since 1998. After winning a heavyweight title in 2003, Jones shed 18 pounds of muscle to make weight in his first fight against Tarver, and the ordeal contributed to his fall from pre-eminence.

Trinidad seemed joyous as he basked in the pre-fight cheers of his fans, but he also wasn't the same Tito who has enthralled Puerto Ricans and millions of New Yorkers since winning his first welterweight title in 1993. Thousands of those fans turned out at the Garden, yet exorbitant ticket prices kept many more away in a crowd of 12,162, well short of capacity.

The Motivator

2008-01-19T13:45:00.000-05:00

"What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?"

- Dr. Robert Schuller

Lejeune commander: Stay away from protesters

2008-01-19T13:42:00.000-05:00

The commander of Camp Lejeune, N.C., ordered her leathernecks to stay away from an anti-military and anti-gay group that has promised to demonstrate at the base following the death of a pregnant Marine.

The Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church, which frequently pickets the funerals of military members, said it will demonstrate at the base at noon Saturday.

“God hates the U.S. Marines,” the group said in a statement.

Col. Adele Hodges, base commander, told her troops to “leave the area immediately” if they came into contact with the group.

“Do not attempt to engage in any verbal taunting or physical altercation with this group,” Hodges said, in a written message to the Marines. “We believe they want to generate additional publicity by provoking such a confrontation. Do not help them in this effort by engaging in any provocative behavior.”

Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, 20, was seven months pregnant when she was reported missing from the base Dec. 19. The burned remains of Lauterbach and her baby were found Friday in the backyard of Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, who is accused of killing her. A preliminary autopsy found the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.

Laurean is the subject of an international manhunt. He is a naturalized American citizen with ties to Mexico, where he was born.

The church group announced the planned demonstration on its Web site.

“The wonderful, spit-and-polish Marine [Lauterbach] is over eight months pregnant and says another wonderful Marine raped her, and … now she turns up dead,” the statement reads. “Based on our extensive experience with Marines for over a decade, we can testify that these are typical Marines.”

The fundamentalist church has received national attention in recent years for picketing military funerals, claiming that God is punishing the U.S. for allowing homosexuality.

In October, a Baltimore jury awarded the father of a Marine killed in Iraq $10.9 million in damages after finding that the church had inflicted emotional distress and invaded his family’s privacy by picketing the funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder of York, Pa.

The church has appealed the case, and one of its leaders, Shirley Phelps-Roper, said members would continue to picket military funerals.

The Motivator

2008-01-18T00:43:00.000-05:00

"Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

- George Bernard Shaw

Youtube video leads to gang members arrest.

2008-01-18T00:39:00.000-05:00

Watch these brain surgeons get themselves arrested by means of Youtube.

Boy, 14, hits burglar with bat inside Mesa home

2008-01-18T00:00:00.000-05:00

This is a feel good story.

A 14-year-old boy came face-to-face with a burglar ransacking his Mesa home on Tuesday and used a baseball bat to level the playing field.

Michael Six hid in his bedroom closet and called 911 after seeing the man using a screwdriver to break into a back sliding glass door about 8:30 a.m.

The Kino Jr. High ninth-grader stayed calm and talked in a low voice as he described the burglar's where-abouts as he moved through the house. At one point, speaking in a near-whisper, he said he heard the man going through his mother's jewelry box in a nearby bedroom.

Then Michael, clutching an aluminum baseball bat, heard his locked bedroom door rattle as the man used the screwdriver to bust in.

“You need to get out of the window,” the 911 operater told Michael. “I can't,” he answered, a hint of anxiety in his voice.

"I didn't know what to do,” Michael said Wednesday, the day after the incident. “I didn't think I could pop (the window) open. My adrenaline was running. I was scared.”

The man was still clutching the screwdriver as he bent over and rummaged through the boy's backpack. Then Michael, a 5-foot, 10-inch, 150-pound former baseball player, stepped out and swung.

The burglar cursed as Michael nailed him on the lower back and on the left shoulder.

“Sorry, man!” Michael yelled amid the chaos. The man, who Michael described as “big,” then “turned around and took (the bat) from me," he said.

The burglar immediately ran out the back door as Michael busted through the screen of his bedroom window and met police outside. He was not injured.

It took police just over five minutes to arrive, but Michael said, “It felt pretty fast – like two minutes."

Michael's father, Randy Six, praised his son's calm under pressure.

"He was trapped, and you know what you do when you get backed up in a corner – you come out swinging."

Police arrested Thomas Gonzales Garza, 30, of Chandler in a nearby backyard.

Garza, who police said confessed to the burglary, faces charges of residential burglary, aggravated assault on a minor, criminal trespassing and criminal damage.

He was not seriously injured and did not need medical attention, police said.

List of players, ex-players named in Mitchell report

2008-01-17T00:52:00.000-05:00

The following players were connected to steroids, either use or possession, in the report:
Chad Allen,Mike Bell,Gary Bennett,Larry Bigbie,Ricky Bones,Kevin Brown,Ken Caminiti,
Mark Carreon,Jason Christiansen,Howie Clark,Roger Clemens,Paxton Crawford,
Jack Cust,Brendan Donnelly,Chris Donnels,Lenny Dykstra,Matt Franco,Ryan Franklin,
Eric Gagne,Jason Grimsley,Jerry Hairston,Phil Hiatt,Matt Herges,Glenallen Hill
Todd Hundley,Ryan Jorgensen,Wally Joyner,Mike Judd,David Justice,Chuck Knoblauch,
Tim Laker,Mike Lansing,Paul Lo Duca,Exavier “Nook” Logan,Josias Manzanillo,
Cody McKay,Kent Mercker,Bart Miadich,Hal Morris,Daniel Naulty,Denny Neagle,
Rafael Palmeiro,Jim Parque,Luis Perez,Andy Pettitte,Adam Piatt,Todd Pratt,
Stephen Randolph,Adam Riggs,Brian Roberts,F.P. Santangelo,David Segui,Mike Stanton,Ricky Stone,Miguel Tejada,Derrick Turnbow,Mo Vaughn
Ron Villone,Fernando Vina,Rondell White,Jeff Williams,Todd Williams,Kevin Young,
Gregg Zaun

The following players were cited under “Alleged Internet Purchases of Performance Enhancing Substances By Players in Major League Baseball” in the report:
Rick Ankiel,David Bell,Paul Byrd,Jose Canseco,Jay Gibbons,Troy Glaus,
Jose Guillen,Darren Holmes,Gary Matthews Jr.,John Rocker,Scott Schoeneweis,
Ismael Valdez,Matt Williams,Steve Woodard

The following players were linked through BALCO in the report:
Marvin Benard,Barry Bonds,Bobby Estalella,Jason Giambi,Jeremy Giambi
Benito Santiago,Gary Sheffield,Randy Velarde

What's the word on "Scientology"?

2008-01-17T00:07:00.000-05:00

I have been wondering what the whole stink was over with Tom Cruise and his faith. For those that were wondering what "Scientology" is, I thought I would take the time to enlighten others.

As Wikipedia defines it...Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices initially developed by L. Ron Hubbard in 1952 as a successor of his earlier self-help system, Dianetics.Hubbard later characterized Scientology as an "applied religious philosophy" and the basis for a new religion.Scientology encompasses a spiritual rehabilitation philosophy and techniques, and covers topics such as morals, ethics, detoxification, education and management. The practice and promotion of the Scientology belief system is organized via the Church of Scientology, the first of which was founded in the year 1953.

The term "Scientology" and related terms are trademarks held by the Religious Technology Center which grants the mother church of the Scientology religion, the Church of Scientology International (CSI), the right to use the trademarks and to license their use to all other Scientology churches and entities.Other organizations that promote the use of Scientology’s related techniques are the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises and the Association for Better Living and Education.

Scientology and the organizations that promote it have remained highly controversial since their inception. Journalists, courts and the governing bodies of several countries have stated that the Church of Scientology is a cult and an unscrupulous commercial enterprise that harasses its critics and abuses the trust of its members.Scientology officials argue that most negative press has been motivated by interest groups and that most of the controversy is past history. The U.S. State Department has commented negatively in their annual International Religious Freedom Reports on countries that discriminate against Scientologists and their religious freedoms.

2 Cops Killed in 'Ambush' in Georgia

2008-01-16T17:23:00.000-05:00

By DANIEL YEE

DECATUR, Ga. (AP) — Police combed the area for two gunmen Wednesday after two off-duty DeKalb County officers were killed in a possible ambush at an apartment complex in what residents described as a high-crime neighborhood.

The two officers, working as security guards at the complex, were investigating a suspicious person at the complex when shots were fired early Wednesday, DeKalb County Police Chief Terrell Bolton said.

Authorities were searching for two males seen running from the scene. Police used dogs and a helicopter to search for the suspects, and schools were locked down during the investigation in the area about 6 miles east of downtown Atlanta.

He told reporters the dead officers were wearing their police uniforms.

Bolton said the shooting looked like an ambush. "It just appeared that they were gunned down without a chance," he said.

At an afternoon news conference, Bolton called the shootings a "must-solve crime" and urged witnesses to come forward.

Bolton did not say whether the officers had a chance to return fire before they were killed and he did not say what led to the shooting.

A $30,000 reward was offered for information leading to arrests in the case, said DeKalb County Chief Executive Officer Vernon Jones.

"These police officers were heroes, they were committed and dedicated to law enforcement," Jones said. "We will not rest until those folks responsible for this are apprehended and justice is served."

Patreka Anderson, a resident of the complex, said she was awakened by the gunshots but did not think anything of it because the neighborhood around the Glenwood Gardens apartment complex is a high-crime area with a lot of drug activity and prostitution.

"We always hear shooting," she said. "I didn't think that was any big deal."

Teofil Taut, who said he has owned the 176-unit complex for about two years and lives in one of the buildings, said he hired police as part-time security officers in December to keep homeless people from breaking into the apartments.

Another resident, nurse's assistant LaShawn Corbin, said she is considering moving, even if it means paying more for an apartment.

"We don't expect the people who try to protect us to be hurt so seriously," she said. Corbin said she would fear leaving her children there "because the person who did it has no conscience for human life."

The slain officers were identified as Ricky Bryant, Jr., 26, and Eric Barker, 33. Bryant was a two-year veteran of the department, and Barker had worked there for four years. Both were married and had four children each

"It's a challenging day for us," Bolton said. "However, today's act of senseless violence is a display of what we're seeing around the country where people will shoot down a police officer without regard to any repercussions."

The Motivator

2008-01-16T13:52:00.000-05:00

"Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Patriots' Randy Moss hit with restraining order

2008-01-16T13:35:00.000-05:00

A temporary restraining order has been issued against Patriots [team stats]’ receiver Randy Moss, after a Florida woman alleged he beat her and then refused to allow her to seek medical attention on Jan. 6, according to court documents.

Rachelle Washington, 35, of Fort Lauderdale, filed a petition for a restraining order in Broward County on Monday. A temporary injunction was issued Monday against Moss by the Broward County court, ordering him to stay at least 500 feet away from her, her home and her car.

At Gillette Stadium this morning, Moss addressed the allegation, saying he’s “never laid a hand on a woman in 30 years.”

He asked fans not to rush to judge him.

A hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 28 at the Fort Lauderdale courthouse on the restraining order and the woman’s allegations.

In the court papers, Washington says the alleged incident occurred on Jan. 6 at her home. Washington alleges Moss committed “a battery upon (Washington) causing serious injury. (Moss) refused to allow (Washington) to seek medical treatment.”

Washington claims the two have been in an “intimate relationship since 1997.” She also claims in the papers that Moss has guns and has “a drug or alcohol problem.”

On Jan. 6, the Patriots were in the midst of their bye week, preceding their first playoff game on Jan. 12 against the Jacksonville Jaguars [team stats].

Moss had one catch in the 31-20 win over the Jaguars. The Patriots are currently preparing for Sunday’s AFC Championship Game against the San Diego Chargers.

30 Reasons A Girl Should Call It A Night

2008-01-15T19:07:00.000-05:00

As featured on Myspace and Facebook...

If you can relate to any of these.. you must join the club!!!

1. You have absolutely no idea where your friends are.

2. You have absolutely no idea where your car is... wait did you bring your car??

3. You've become convinced that dancing with your arms overhead, shaking your ass, and yelling WOO HOO is truly the sexiest dance move EVER.

4. You've suddenly decided you want to kick someone's ass and honestly believe you can do it (bitch...i ain't playin...).

5. You start singing 80's songs at the top of your lungs and showing off your dance skills to the car next to you.

6. Your bladder becomes amazingly full every 10 minutes.

7. You sit down and the room and people around you start spinning profusely.

8. Your slurring your words so bad, that nobody can understand what your saying and then when they say what, you can't even remember what you were talking about.

9. You've come up with the brilliant idea that you can create less hassle on your friends by just "sleeping over" at a your guy friend's house.

10. You see beers all over a table so you lift each one up until you find one half full and chug it when no one is looking.

11. You talk to stupid skanks you really hate and tell them you really do like them and that ya’ll should be friends.

12. You pass out at the party. And the next morning there is writing all over your face and limbs. (If you pass out with your shoes on, you are fair game).

13. You find yourself peeing behind random buildings.

14. You become overly enthusiastic when someone offers you $20 dollars to make out with your friend (when you totally would have done it for free).

15. The man you're flirting with used to be your TA.

16. You've suddenly taken up smoking, and become really good at it.

17. Every conversation starts with a booming, "DON'T take this the WRONG WAY but..."

18. Your make-up is smeared all over your face and somehow you have still managed to make out with 5 different guys. very classy.

19. The urge to take off articles of clothing becomes strangely overwhelming.

20. Your eyes just don't seem to want to stay open on their own, so you keep them half closed and think it looks exotically sexy.

21. You yell at the bartender, because you think he cheated you by giving you lemonade, but that's just because you can no longer taste the vodka.

22. You think you're in bed, but your pillow feels strangely like the bathroom floor.

23. Your hugs begin to resemble wrestling take-down moves.

24. You begin to think you're a really good dancer and anyone within arms reach becomes your new dancing partner.

25. You've taken off your shoes because you believe it's their fault that you're having problems walking.

26. You can't feel your phone vibrating in your pocket and then when you look to see what time it is, you find you have 7 missed calls from someone you
"supposively" met at the last party.

27. One minute you're strutting your stuff, the next minute you're rolling on the ground, and you can't seem to remember the transition.

28. You can no longer feel your face or limbs so you flail your body about to try to regain feeling.

29. You call your ex-boyfriend 1,000 times and leave lots of really nice voicemails saying that ya'll need to hang out more.

30. You start hugging strange people and having great converstations with strangers at whataburger.

Pacman accused of punching woman in club.

2008-01-15T18:17:00.000-05:00

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A woman is seeking an arrest warrant against suspended Tennessee Titans cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones, claiming he punched her at an Atlanta strip club.

Fulton County Magistrate Court officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Wanda S. Jackson asked for the warrant after a Jan. 3 altercation at the Body Tap Strip Club.

Jackson, an attorney, says in her filing that she was in the club's office when an angry Jones accused managers of stealing his money and bracelet.

"I was sitting in the office and he lunged at me numerous times in an effort to do grave bodily harm," Jackson wrote in the warrant application filed Jan. 7. "Veronica Jones, an owner, went into the hall to deal with a member of his entourage. I followed to gawk. He was in the hall, surprisingly reached over or around a security guard and sucker punched me in my left eye."

Jackson did not immediately return a phone message requesting comment. Jones' attorney Manny Arora said no warrant has been issued against his client.

Norris Arnold, a court support manager for Fulton County, said a magistrate judge will review Jackson's application on Feb. 8 to determine whether the warrant will be filed.

WSB-TV in Atlanta reported that Jackson said she was in the strip club because of a divorce case she is handling.

Last month Jones pleaded no contest to a disorderly conduct charge related to a strip club shooting in Las Vegas last February that left one man paralyzed. He agreed to a year of probation, random drug testing, community service and anger management classes.

Jones has been arrested six times since being drafted sixth overall in 2005, including two arrests in Georgia in 2006 that the Titans did not learn about until 2007.

In April, Jones was suspended by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for the entire 2007 season for his role in inciting the Las Vegas incident.

At the time of his suspension, one of the changes Jones told Goodell he intended to make was to stay out of clubs and to avoid situations in which he might be compromised. Goodell has said that he has apprised Jones that he will ultimately be judged by his actions, not his words.

In mid-December, the NFL rejected an appeal by the players' union on behalf of Jones to have him reinstated for the final two games of the regular season.

The Motivator

2008-01-15T12:02:00.000-05:00

“Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes the furthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The "sure thing" boat never gets far from shore.”

-Dale Carnegie

Texas UFO Sighting Has Local Town Talking

2008-01-15T12:01:00.000-05:00

The Stephenville Texas UFO was reportedly seen by dozens of people as the locals claim to have seen a large metal object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some say they saw fighter jets chasing the UFO.

“It is the talk of the town right now” says Angela Joiner, a local newspaper reporter.

While town officials search for a logical explanation such as an army aircraft, residents say the UFO was too big, too quiet, and flew too low to the ground to be a plane.

A Joint Reserve Naval Air Station spokesman says that an aircraft from the base were in the area on January 8, when the bulk of UFO sightings were reported. He also mentioned that the UFO might just be an optical illusion created by two commercial planes.

A freight company owner who saw the UFO, Steve Allen, said "People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it's the end of times," He claims that the UFO he saw last week was a mile long and half a mile wide. "It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts."

Fourteen percent of Americans were surveyed last year stating that they have seen a UFO before.

According to the Mutual UFO Network, California, Colorado and Texas receive about 200 UFO sightings per month.

The Mutual UFO Network plans to visit the town to investigate the Stephenville UFO.

The Motivator

2008-01-14T14:06:00.000-05:00

"Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action."

-Benjamin Disraeli

Lynsey Nordstrom Posed as Jessica Simpson to Distract Tony Romo

2008-01-14T14:04:00.000-05:00

Lynsey Nordsstrom was sent to the Giants vs. Cowboys game in Irving Texas by the New York Post as Jessica Simpson in an attempt to throw off Tony Romo’s game.

Romo has a history of playing poorly when a girlfriend watches the game. Both Carrie Underwood, who dated Romo in 2006, and his current love interest, Jessica Simpson are to blame for Romo’s lack of focus on the field.

Lynsey Nordstrom, who is an aspiring makeup artist, was approached by the Post to act as Simpson’s body double and was given good tickets to the game.

Nordstrom wore a pink, No. 9 Cowboys jersey, similar to the one Simpson wore four weeks ago. She tried to get closer the Dallas’ bench but she was quickly turned away.

A security guard told Lynsey Nordstrom “Y’all get back to your seats…We don’t need Jessica Simpson.” By befound@finditt.com - www.finditt.com

Lynsey Nordstrom is the splitting image of Jessica Simpson (or is it spitting image?). Anyway, Lynsey Nordstrom has made a career of being a celebrity look-alike with all the ups and downs that entails.

In fact, depending upon how you look at it Lynsey Nordstrom’s latest gig could be both an up and a down. A guy named Steve from NJ.com is trying to revive the Ruin Romo campaign and acquire the services of Lynsey Nordstrom to distract the Dallas quarterback during this weekend’s football game.

Instead of fans sitting in the stands wearing Jessica masks it will be Lynsey Nordstrom sitting there looking all pretty, ya’ll. Or, perhaps, both Jessica Simpson and Lynsey Nordstrom will be sitting in different places confusing the quarterback more than the Giant’s safety blitz.

On her Myspace page, Lynsey Nordstrom pays homage to Jessica saying that she has been inspired by the singer. A self-confessed dreamer and dork, Lynsey may not know how to separate her sentences into paragraphs, but she’s a thrill-seeker will all the right attributes to become successful: hard worker, passionate and the god-given grace to look like one of the most famous stars on the planet.

Lynsey may not get her cowboy boots at Nordstroms, but if she could get any genetically closer to Jessica, she’d be a clone. So, put on a little Judy Collins singing “Send In the Clones” and cheer on the Ruin Romo gal of the week, Lynsey Nordstrom. - By Celebrity Oops Blog

Terrell Owens Crying While Defending Tony Romo!

2008-01-14T13:55:00.000-05:00

Jessica Simpson and Tony Romo's relationship is bringing tears to Terrell Owens' eyes - literally.

T.O., who had jokingly criticized Jessica for distracting Tony during a previous game (resulting in a loss), quickly came to the defense of the quarterback after last night's 21-17 win by the New York Giants.

Terrell Owens, the 6'3" wide receiver was very emotional during the post-game conference, where he told reporters that it's unfair to blame Tony for their loss.

"You guys can point the finger at him and talk about the vacation, but if you do that, it's really unfair," he said.

"We lost as a team. We lost as a team."

And when asked why he became so emotional while defending his star player, Owens said it was because he'd been there.

For those of you who haven't seen the video, check it out below:

Head to Head: Mia Rose versus Esmee Denters

2008-01-13T23:05:00.000-05:00

Here it is. Two girls that sold themselves to the masses by using Youtube. After watching both, go to the poll and tell me who you think is better. Mia Rose is on top and Esmee Denters is below her.

Romo left to explain both a trip and an offseason that will be longer than planned

2008-01-13T22:37:00.000-05:00

IRVING, Texas — Jessica Simpson had probably given up and gone shopping during the drive commanded by her boyfriend that took up much of the second quarter and gave the Dallas Cowboys what turned out to be a short-lived lead over the New York Giants.

But, really, what's a girl to do? Long drives can just be so boring.

Not terribly effective, either, as Tony Romo and the Cowboys found out Sunday when they extended their streak in playoff futility to 11 years in a loss so hard to take that even the popcorn man himself, Terrell Owens, was reduced to tears.

In truth, no one knew where Simpson was, though there was no shortage of blonde women in No. 9 jerseys in Texas Stadium. But most in the white-wearing crowd of 63,660 no doubt thought she had sneaked back into a suite and put yet another hex on her boyfriend during an especially futile fourth quarter for the celebrity-squiring quarterback.

As steady as could be when the game plan called for controlling the ball, Romo was equally shaky when he was forced to bring the Cowboys from behind. And when Romo's last pass went into the hands of New York's R.W. McQuarters in the end zone, the worst fears of Cowboys fans upset over his vacation with Simpson to Cabo seemed to come true.

All week long, the talk around town was that Romo should have never left town, especially with the celebrity wannabe whose presence in this very same stadium a few games earlier coincided with one of the quarterback's worst performances of the year. Fans worried that Romo wasn't focused, and worried more that Yoko Romo would interfere with their chance to finally celebrate.

Oh, Yoko.

In Romo's defense, he wasn't helped by a ball dropped by Anthony Fasano on the goal line and two other drops by Patrick Crayton in crucial moments. He didn't have a lot to do with the penalties that hurt the Cowboys late, save for an intentional grounding call on the second-to-last drive.

And he wasn't on the field playing defense when the Giants scored in just 46 seconds after Dallas had taken a 14-7 lead with a 20-play drive that chewed up more than a sixth of the game.

"This is not about Tony," Owens said, his lower lip quivering and sniffling away tears in a passionate defense of his quarterback. "You guys can point the finger at him. You can talk about the vacation, but if you do that it's really unfair. It's really unfair. He's my teammate. He's my quarterback. If you guys do that, it's unfair. We lost as a team. We lost as a team, man."

Indeed, Owens was so passionate in the defense of his quarterback that he probably will be the first invited to the season-ending barbecue that Romo and Simpson will now have plenty of time to plan.

But this was Romo's moment to shine, his moment to put away last year's bobbled snap that left him in tears. Just as important, this was his moment to show that a little Mexican R&R wasn't such a bad thing after all.

"I'm content in my own skin. I feel like I'm doing it the right way," Romo said. "When I made the choice to those things I thought I was making good decisions like not going to Vegas and drinking for two or three days."

Romo's decisions looked good for much of the game as he took the Cowboys on two first-half touchdown drives of 96 and 90 yards, only to go to the locker room at halftime tied 14-14. With Marion Barber gaining yards in big chunks, Romo hitting short passes, and the Cowboys keeping the ball away from the Giants it seemed like only a matter of time before the New York defense simply wilted on the field.

That didn't happen, though, even after the Cowboys held the ball for more than half of the third quarter before settling for a field goal that gave them their last lead. The Giants only had the ball a combined 6:20 on their scoring drives, but it was enough to hang on to a 21-17 win.

And when Romo was forced to try long passes and big plays in the fourth quarter against a re-energized Giants defensive front, he was only able to complete six of 15 passes for 81 yards.

Romo's trip to Cabo was certain to be second-guessed now, despite support for it both from Owens and the head Cowboy himself. Jerry Jones somehow managed to find time from selling trucks, pizza and Pepsi on TV to put on his extra-large hat as Cowboys owner, president, general manager, and part-time team physician to give his blessing.

With good reason, because the only thing Romo did other than frighten Cowboys fans with his romantic fling was give people even more reason to watch Dallas and buy more No. 9 jerseys to wear while they read People magazine.

"The facts are I like it, you're absolutely right," Jones said before the game. "All of that sizzle, extra interest, really adds to what the Cowboys are all about."

Image, of course, sells, but the reality for the Cowboys is they haven't won a playoff game since Romo was a sophomore in high school. They had a team that was at one point 12-1 this season and they lost at home to a team they had beaten twice before.

Now they face an offseason that will last longer than planned, and have to get over a loss even Jones can't sugarcoat. And even the prospect of going home to Simpson didn't help lift the disconsolate Romo's spirits.

"It hurts," he said. "When you don't come through, especially in the quarterback position, it's really a tough pill to swallow."