Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/316259301?client_source=feed&format=rss
Selena Gomez ariel winter Paige Butcher David Petraeus Petraeus Mia Love wall street journal
Sunday, June 30, 2013
PFT: Prosecutor says all men in car with Lloyd in custody
Getty ImagesTwo Bills fans got engaged at the 50-yard line of Ralph Wilson Stadium after a 5K race.
Dolphins WR Brian Hartline invested some of the earnings from his new contract into a gas station/convenience store project.
ESPNBoston.com doesn?t give T Markus Zusevics much chance of making the Patriots.
Said former Jets QB Joe Namath of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the museum at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, ?It will be the getting together of so many guys I have not been around for so long. This is something that?s never been done before, that many people in one sport together that are in the Hall of Fame.?
A trade?that an outgoing?Browns regime made led to LB Ray Lewis landing on the Ravens.
Bengals FB Chris Pressley is looking forward to another shot in front of the Hard Knocks cameras.
He?s an essential member of the histories of both the Bengals and Browns, but a collection of photos at a Massillon, Ohio museum focus on Paul Brown?s days coaching Ohio State.
Steelers RB Isaac Redman has dropped 10 pounds.
Texans RB Arian Foster gives his thoughts about his Top 100 ranking.
Chris Hinton is one of the candidates at tackle for the Indianapolis Star?s all-time Colts team.
DL Kyle Love looks like the most promising waiver pickup by the Jaguars so far.
Titans TE Delanie Walker continues his anti-drunk driving advocacy.
Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post doesn?t think Broncos CB Champ Bailey will struggle next season.
Every Chiefs season ticket holder is getting a free bag for stadium use.
Raiders RB Darren McFadden is one of several players heading into a crucial season.
Chargers QB Philip Rivers didn?t know WR Danario Alexander when Alexander signed with the team, but he?s well aware of him now.
Ten things you probably don?t know about Cowboys WR Dwayne Harris.
Dan Graziano of ESPN.com thinks David Diehl will start at right tackle for the Giants.
The Eagles landed one player on the NFL Network?s top 100 list.
The Redskins have to be better against tight ends in 2013.
Seizing up the Bears as a 2013 opponent.
Lions S Glover Quin found football was a better path than some other jobs he tried.
Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers have given the Packers a very long stretch of strong quarterback play.
The University of Minnesota isn?t worried about getting TCF Bank Field ready for the Vikings.
The woman who was convicted of murdering former Panthers RB Fred Lane is no longer working at a summer camp for children.
Cardinals LB Jasper Brinkley teamed up with his brother Casper to host a football camp.
CB Cortland Finnegan says that TE Jared Cook is a different player with the Rams than he was when both men were with the Titans.
Ravens coach John Harbaugh, 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh and their father Jack?were honored with?the Blanton Collier Award in Kentucky.
More than 600 kids turned out for Seahawks S Earl Thomas? football camp.
edgar rice burroughs dallas clark litter marinol flight attendant pau gasol trade michael madsen
President Obama Discusses Africa, U.S. Relations Aboard Air Force One
Home???Politics???President Obama Discusses Africa, U.S. Relations Aboard Air?Force?One 
Veteran journalist April Ryan interviews President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One enroute to South Africa.
On a flight to South Africa, President Barack Obama sat down with veteran journalist April Ryan to discuss the future of Africa ? on cultural, economic and healthcare fronts ? and the continent?s relationship with the United States.
During the brief interview, the POTUS touched on the legacy of ailing revolutionary hero Nelson Mandela, the potential of a cure for HIV/AIDS, and the competition between the U.S. and China for position on what he called the ?youngest? continent.
President Obama reiterated that African youth were poised to usher in an era of self-sustainability and prosperity for the continent, but that it is necessary to build an infrastructure around them to facilitate their success.
Hear the exclusive interview at AprilDRyan.com.
SEE ALSO:
Originally seen on http://newsone.com/
Azarenka NFL fantasy football Chris Kluwe Jennifer Granholm Tulane player injured fox sports obama speech
Davis Chides Perry, Says She'll Fight to Stop Abortion Bill (ABC News)
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Zaki Hasan: INTERVIEW: Director Paul Feig on The Heat, Bridesmaids, and Freaks and Geeks
As an actor, Paul Feig has appeared on shows as diverse The Facts of Life, The Drew Carey Show, and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. As creator of the short-lived, much-loved NBC series Freaks and Geeks, he helped launch the careers of such current comedy icons as Seth Rogen, Jason Segal, and James Franco. As a director, he helped 2011's Oscar-nominated comedy smash Bridesmaids, which should have firmly put to bed the antiquated notion that women can't be funny.
I guess what I'm saying is that after this many years in the trenches, Paul Feig knows his way around the serious business of being funny. His latest project is The Heat, now in theaters, re-teaming him with Bridesmaids alum (and Oscar-nominee) Melissa McCarthy alongside Sandra Bullock. I recently had the opportunity to participate in a panel interview with the director about the film, his two stars, and other lessons he's learned from his time in the industry. Here's the transcript:
Given all of your television experiences that you've done, both as an actor and filming some great television series, how has that formed your work as a director - a feature film director??
TV is such a great proving ground. I went to USC film school, so I had film school, but I always credit TV as the ultimate film school. Because you're working in a world where you are in a very tight schedule, and also a lot of times you are not getting the script until very late in the process. I used to be very prep heavy.
I would storyboard, work all the stuff out and TV actually freed me from that made me a better comedy director because I show up and I'm ready to be in the moment because what happens is we get to the set and you start doing the scene, or say even rehearsing or whatever, and you go, like, "Oh, these funny things." You have to be able to adapt very quickly and from television I was able to do that, and so I feel like it just helps me capture the energy of a funny performance better by not being so planned out.
So, I always say a little bit of chemistry goes a long way, and in this film [Melissa] McCarthy and [Sandra] Bullock have fantastic chemistry. How did you decide on the two of them coming together? Was it always the two of them?
It was just a happy accident, weirdly. I got sent the script and was told that Sandra was interested in being in it but then there was nobody mentioned for the other role. So I started reading it, and about ten page in suddenly I had this epiphany of like, "This is Melissa!" And she and I had been trying to figure out something to do together since Bridesmaids. After that moment to me, it was just like, "There's nobody else who could play this role. This has to be the two of them."
And fortunately we were able to nail them down and because of that, you know, I'd never done a movie before where I didn't audition people together but, since they're two big movie stars, we're just so happy to get 'em. And when I was going to the first rehearsal, I remember thinking, like, "What if they don't ?have any chemistry?"
You think to yourself, "Clearly they're gonna be great together!" and you get two people together and it's like, "Oh, they're terrible." But they just hit it off like a house on fire the very first time they met. They bonded over being mothers of young kids, and then from there just their comedy sensibilities meshed and yet were different enough. They both kind of enjoyed each other, and was kind of in awe of what each other did.
As a comedy director, how beholden do you feel to the words on a page, and how much leeway are you willing to give to just let a scene play out? Because, somebody like Melissa McCarthy, at some point you probably just want to let her go and do her thing.
Yeah, I'm very beholden to the script in that we really work those scripts hard, because you need...that is your template. That is your blueprint. But then once I get to the sets, I'm not even that hardcore about it like, "We have to get those word for word," 'cause I want people to start to make it their own immediately. That's when it's funny. I feel like actors sort of reciting lines, there's an energy that you lose for comedy.
We definitely stick to what we have but then we really start loosening it up very quickly, and then that will slowly evolve, because on the set I'm coming up with ideas in the moment, I'm kind of calling them in, the actresses are having their moments. Katie Dippold, who wrote this script, she was with me the entire time.
We bring in other writers to sit with us, and what they do is they have Post-it pads, and they write jokes and they put 'em on my script -- they put 'em on my arms and everything, so I'm just sitting there getting these jokes, 'cause I like to create lightning in a bottle really is what it is. And then we cross-shoot, so we're kind of shooting both actresses at the same time, so if they surprise the other one with something the first time, we have it.
Then we just kind of go. From there sometimes it degenerates into just total anarchy, but most of the time it's pretty controlled though, because again if it gets too far afield you can't use it. But at the same time, I never wanna stop something that I think won't fit in, because sometimes we'll just figure out how to use it, and it'll be great.
Following up on that, with all the improvisation you've done, how many scenes did you have to cut out? Did you have a preset running time for it? Because comedy really depends...sometimes when you see a movie that runs over two hours you feel like there's a lot of padding...
I very much don't like movies to run over two hours. I actually still to this day feel like Bridesmaids was a little long, 'cause we were like two hours and five minutes long on that. My target is always about 1:45, and this movie's like 1:50. If something's working, I won't cut it out. I've sat through movies that are seventy minutes long and they feel like they're five hours long, and I've sat through three hours movie that feel like they go by like that.
So it's really that just needs to dictate it, but that's why we do so much test screening during all of post. I start 2-3 weeks into my director's cut doing recruited 500 people screenings 'cause then it allows me to...I'll get to a point where I'm like, "I think this works." We're trying out stuff we like, but I'm not in love with everything, so that if people don't react to something it's very easy to be like, "Okay, throw that out. Lose that."
You do your full director's cut at ten weeks, and by the time you show it to the audience, you're just like, you're in love with everything and you're just tense, and they don't laugh and you're like, "Well they don't get it!" It's like, you've gotta be brutal. We don't even settle for chuckles. We record the audience and some people will go, "Did that get a laugh?" and ?you listen, and like a few people laughed and you're like, "You know what, it's not strong enough. Let's try to top that."
We always want big laughs from the audience, and so by the time, after ten test screening over the course of several months you end up with something that you go, like, "This works." We know it may have varying levels of working with different crowds, but we know that it always works. The majority of the people are going to laugh. It's a big commercial comedy. There's a lot of money at stake for the studio so you really have to be scientific amidst the art of comedy.
A small extension of that: do you cut your own trailers, or did you cut the trailer for this film? I noticed there - and this sort of goes with that improv - there are some scenes in the film that differ from those that show up in the trailer.
Yeah, I don't cut the actual commercials. What I do is I feed them, really from the very beginning of the process, they're getting the dailies even when we're shooting, but then I always set up a thing between the editing room and with the marketing department to go like, "Here's a bunch of funny stuff we found. Here's a bunch of funny combos." I have no problem with putting stuff in the trailers and the TV spots that aren't in the movie because I know whatever we put in the movie is gonna be funnier than those jokes, and we have all these extra funny things. And I hate when I go to the movies and I feel like I've seen all the comedy already. For us it's very...it's fun to say, "Look, this is gonna be funny, here's a bunch of funny things."
And when you go to the movie, then it's this great surprise, like, "Oh, hurray, I didn't expect that." Even that scene in the trailer where she breaks the glass , and then faints, that's great for that, but in the context of the movie it didn't feel right. Like, I didn't believe that Melissa's character would faint, and it's so funny when she starts laughing, but that's an extra thing. You go, like "I know what's coming...oh, that's different, and that's funny!"
Circling back around to Bridesmaids, obviously that was a huge success in a way that I think a lot of people were surprised. Were you surprised by it?
I was surprised by the level of success it hit. You never make something thinking it's not gonna do well, but at the same time, I was kind of in my head it was like, "If we could get to $100 million I would be thrilled," 'cause then it would kind of be considered as having done well, it'll show the town that women can attract an audience. And then when it went past that, it was kind of like, "Oh!" But it was great, I was so happy.
Did that put pressure on you for your follow-up?
I put pressure on myself for that, because you don't want to backslide if you can avoid it. And I like making the bigger commercial comedies. I've seen a few directors I know have that big success, and then they immediately parlay that into their small personal film, which from an industry point-of-view is kind of like, not that exciting 'cause they go like, "What, has he only got one in him?" And I'll be honest, I've made indie films before, and while I love it, I really love making something that a lot of people are gonna see. And the fact that you make a studio film, you get a marketing machine behind you, you know you're going to get out there.
I suffered with little indie films, where...just trying to get people to care about them, and we all work too hard to not have our stuff seen, so I love it. But with this...I couldn't figure out what to do next, and it took me awhile, so when this script came it seemed like the perfect next step from Bridesmaids, 'cause it's still strong women, but it's not that same story and it's even more of a bridge between men and women, because it's creeping into the male genre but it's with these two women. So, my hope is always to just make people not care if it's men or women in a movie, they'll just go, like, "That looks funny," and guys will not be afraid of a movie with two women on the poster.
I couldn't help think about Jerry Lewis' statement recently about female comedians...
Yeah, what is Jerry doing? I love Jerry Lewis, he's one of my heroes, and it's like, "Jerry, just stop."
Sometimes when it comes out that way, it's like, "It was such a different generation." But even then there were female comics...
That's what I don't get. I mean, some of my favorite female comedy actresses, if you look at Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday, and all those old screwball comedies, the women are hilarious in those movies, so I don't quite know where this is coming from. It's such an antiquated...you kinda can't believe that we're still kind of having the conversation sometimes.
When Bridesmaids was coming out, it was all about "Can women be funny?" It was like, "Seriously? Is that the question?"
"With this cast you're gonna ask that question?"
Yeah, I know! Like, aren't these the funniest women you've ever seen? And I've known funny women my whole life and grew up around them and knew women who were funny actresses, and then professionally I've met a bunch, worked with a ton. So it's never...I'm always perplexed by people's perplexion at that.
Well, this sort of is a corollary to the idea that women couldn't carry a film - ?especially comedy, that you always needed a male anchor as well. Remember a couple of years ago, I forget what studio it was, one of the senior executives was very vocal about it. He wasn't going to greenlight any movies that starred a woman.
Oh, totally. I ran up against that for years and years. I mean, there's things I want to develop...I did a movie, a Christmas movie called Unaccompanied Minors, based on a Miss American Life story, about a pair of sisters, one sister gets lost. And when the script was sent to me, it was with a boy and his little sister, and I was like, "Well, can we make this like it was in the thing, and have two girls?" And it was like, "No, no, you can't." They were so, kind of like, "You can't do that," that you almost go like, "Oh, I guess you can't."
With Bridesmaids, you kind of go, like, "Why?" I'd been hearing for years you just can't have women in this stuff. And I'm like, "Why? Who says?" Women are half the population of the planet. I think they will show up to a movie with themselves in it, and so it's nice to slowly be proving that wrong. But it's still...there's still not that many movies starring women. We're the only...us and ?Aubrey Plaza in the To-Do List are kind of the only...and those are smaller movies, we're the only big studio film that's got all these women in it, and it's embarrassing.
Speaking of that struggle, in Bridesmaids you have Annie with...she tries to be independent and she has that failed bakery. And you have Sarah in this movie, who can be seen as abrasive because she's ambitious, and she has that failed marriage. Is that meant to be a commentary on sort of that struggle in the industry, or is it more incidental to the story?
I always want to have flawed characters who have things to overcome. I mean, with Bridesmaids it was very much...we're introducing you to a character who's kind of, quote-unquote, a loser, when we meet her, and so in order to stick with that character, you had to go, "Oh, she used to not be like this, she used to together, she used to be strong, and she's in a bit of a downslide." That allows you to go through her destroying her friend's wedding showers, stuff like that. With this it was really about strong professional women who've not compromised.
And it's great, because they're great at their jobs, and we're not judging that, whereas in so many movies it's like, "You have a job, you're not getting a husband!" It's like, no one cares about that. I just like the idea of a character who's great, but she has a flaw, which is she's a little too arrogant, or she just needs to learn how to work with people, which is all in service of getting her to having a friend, to be able to open up. But it's not any big commentary really, beyond just letting these characters be three-dimensional and flawed and having a journey to go on.
Circling back around to television: Freaks and Geeks. It's been 13 years. It came and went, but it's now thought of as one of the greatest comedies of all time. Do you feel vindication from that?
Yeah, you definitely do. When the rug is pulled out from you so unceremoniously...we kind of knew we were gonna get cancelled at the same time. Ratings-wise we were not good, so I can never get too mad at them about it. Still, to the critical acclaim we had at the time, today I think would have floated us. The business is so different now, with all shows out on DVD and streaming.
Now they're seeing, like, if you have a show that you know is good, but it doesn't have an audience, keep it going, because people eventually binge-watch it, then it'll pick up. So, I think if we'd had the business model around that we do now, I bet we probably would have survived. But being the show that, 13 years later, people are still commenting on...it's crazy. It's such a wonderful feeling.
And it was talent-rich too. There were so many people involved that, wow, they've all gone on. You're kind of like the godfather of modern comedy.?
That's right. I don't really like to think that. It's funny, because people occasionally go, "Is there gonna be reunion?" It's like, I can't afford the cast!
*****
Many thanks to Paul Feig for his time. Be sure to check out?The Heat, now playing in a theater near you!
?
?
?
Follow Zaki Hasan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/zakiscorner
"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zaki-hasan/interview-director-paul-f_b_3522200.html
melissa mccarthy Andy Dick Tim Hardaway Anne Smedinghoff jana kramer carrie underwood garth brooks
Findings reported from Albert Einstein College of Medicine describe advances in diabetes
By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Clinical Trials Week -- Investigators publish new report on Diabetes. According to news reporting originating in Bronx, New York, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, "Obesity is important for the development of type-2 diabetes as a result of obesity-induced insulin resistance accompanied by impaired compensation of insulin secretion from pancreatic beta cells. Here, based on a randomized pilot clinical trial, we report that intranasal oxytocin administration over an 8-week period led to effective reduction of obesity and reversal of related prediabetic changes in patients."
The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, "Using mouse models, we further systematically evaluated whether oxytocin and its analogs yield therapeutic effects against prediabetic or diabetic disorders regardless of obesity. Our results showed that oxytocin and two analogs including [Ser4, Ile8]-oxytocin or [Asu1,6]-oxytocin worked in mice to reverse insulin resistance and glucose intolerance prior to reduction of obesity. In parallel, using streptozotocin-induced diabetic mouse model, we found that treatment with oxytocin or its analogs reduced the magnitude of glucose intolerance through improving insulin secretion. The anti-diabetic effects of oxytocin and its analogs in these animal models can be produced similarly whether central or peripheral administration was used."
According to the news reporters, the research concluded: "Oxytocin and its analogs have multi-level effects in improving weight control, insulin sensitivity and insulin secretion, and bear potentials for being developed as therapeutic peptides for obesity and diabetes."
For more information on this research see: Treatment of obesity and diabetes using oxytocin or analogs in patients and mouse models. Plos One, 2013;8(5):e61477. (Public Library of Science - www.plos.org; Plos One - www.plosone.org)
Our news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained by contacting H. Zhang, Dept. of Molecular Pharmacology, Diabetes Research Center, Institute of Aging, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, United States (see also Diabetes).
Keywords for this news article include: Bronx, Obesity, New York, Diabetes, Treatment, Bariatrics, Proinsulin, United States, Overnutrition, Peptide Hormones, Diet and Nutrition, Nutrition Disorders, North and Central America, Clinical Trials and Studies.
Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world. Copyright 2013, NewsRx LLC
To see more of the NewsRx.com, or to subscribe, go to http://www.newsrx.com .
Source: http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=19561&Section=Aging
natalie wood patriots Sandy Hook Hoax 2014 Corvette Stacie Halas Corvette Stingray Claire Danes
Deal of the Day: Birmingham Police Credit Union Savings Interest Rates at 1.00% APY
No savings plan is complete without the inclusion of interest. It?s like a reward for having the discipline to deposit money on a regular basis ? an aid for building that nest egg or retirement fund. With higher?savings interest rates, saving money becomes easy; with the Birmingham Police Credit Union, it becomes easier with a 1.00% annual percentage rate attached to a standard share savings account.
Birmingham Police Credit Union Savings Account Terms and Conditions
Birmingham Police Credit Union?s standard ?passbook? savings account comes with 1.00% interest, attainable when credit union members open an account with a minimum $10 deposit. A minimum balance of $100 is needed to begin accruing the posted APY; balances above $10,000 and $25,000 will receive even higher savings interest rates. All deposit accounts with the credit union, including this one, are also federally insured up to $250,000 by the National Credit Union Administration.
About Birmingham Police Credit Union
Members of the Birmingham Police Credit Union are members for life. Membership with the Birmingham, AL nonprofit is open to personnel of the Birmingham Police Department, including:- Sworn Officers
- Civilian Personnel such as Administrative Assistants
- Dispatchers/Communications
- Corrections Officers
- Family members of sponsor members to include spouses, children, grandchildren, parents, brothers and sisters
Save more with savings interest rates.
Other Terms and Conditions may apply. Additionally, interest rates are based on the institution?s online published rates and may have changed since this offer was posted. Please contact the financial institution for the most recent rate updates and to review the terms of the offer.
Source: http://www.gobankingrates.com/savings-account/birmingham-police-credit-union-1-00/
Limo Fire Mayweather vs Guerrero Mario Machado May the Fourth be with you James Righton finish line kentucky derby
Prosecutors seek forfeiture of homes owned by Jesse Jackson Jr.
By Brendan O'Brien
(Reuters) - Prosecutors asked a federal judge on Friday to allow two houses owned by disgraced former Illinois Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife to be subject to forfeiture, ahead of the couple's sentencing next week.
Jackson pleaded guilty in February to misusing campaign funds while his wife, Sandi, a former Chicago city council member, pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns that failed to report the campaign money as income.
The couple owns houses in Washington and Chicago, according to the forfeiture motion filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In addition to the property, prosecutors also requested an account containing about $80,000 be forfeited. The court documents did not give the value of the homes.
Prosecutors are seeking a prison term of 48 months for Jesse Jackson Jr., once considered one of the most promising black politicians in the United States. His wife faces 18 months behind bars at their sentencing scheduled for Wednesday.
Jesse Jackson Jr., 48, resigned from U.S. Congress after he was re-elected in a safe Democratic seat last year, saying he was doing so for health reasons. He has undergone extensive treatment for depression, including spending weeks last summer at the Mayo Clinic.
Jesse Jackson Jr., the son of civil rights leader and former presidential candidate Jesse Jackson Sr., pleaded guilty to misusing about $750,000 in campaign funds on luxuries such as fur capes, celebrity memorabilia and a Rolex watch.
The younger Jackson ran for Congress and won at age 30. He served from 1995 until his resignation.
(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Tim Gaynor and Lisa Shumaker)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/prosecutors-seek-forfeiture-homes-owned-jesse-jackson-jr-022640309.html
grenada grenada Sikh Sanya Richards Ross decathlon Honey Boo Boo Child Nathan Adrian
Market bomb, shooting kill 7 in Iraq
BAGHDAD (AP) ? Iraqi officials say a bomb has gone off in an outdoor market in west Baghdad, one of two attacks in Sunni-majority parts of the country that have left seven dead.
Police officials say that the blast Saturday morning in the capital's western suburb of Abu Ghraib killed four people and wounded 12 others.
Also, police said that attackers using guns fitted with silencers killed three off-duty policemen in a drive-by shooting near Fallujah, 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of Baghdad.
Health officials confirmed the casualties. All spoke anonymously because they were not allowed to brief reporters.
The new violence came a day after a series of deadly attacks that left 19 dead. Violence has been on the rise in Iraq recently amid political and sectarian tension.
Associated PressMichael Clarke Duncan Nazanin Boniadi Deval Patrick Dedication 4 labor day college football scores khan academy
'Blast furnace' heat engulfs U.S. West into weekend
PHOENIX (Reuters) - An "atmospheric blast furnace" engulfed the sunbaked U.S. West in dangerous triple-digit temperatures on Friday, forecasters said, raising concerns for homeless people and others unable to escape near record temperatures expected over the weekend.
An excessive heat warning is in effect for the sun-baked deserts of southeast California, parts of Nevada and southern Arizona through Sunday, as a large area of high pressure traps hot air across the area, the National Weather Service said.
Highs of 129 F (54 C) are forecast for California's Death Valley over the weekend, while the tourist mecca of Las Vegas is expected to match all-time record highs of 117 degrees (47 C) Saturday through Monday.
"An atmospheric blast furnace will be at full throttle heading into the weekend over the interior West with heat reaching dangerous levels," said AccuWeather.com senior meteorologist Alex Sosnowski.
"While many folks over the interior West are accustomed to and expect hot weather during the summer, the developing pattern will take the heat to the extreme," he added.
The National Weather Service warned that the "exceedingly high temperatures" can cause potentially fatal heat stroke, and noted that those without air conditioning or working outdoors were particularly at risk.
In an effort to safeguard hundreds of homeless people in Phoenix, where temperatures are expected to top 118 F (48 C) over the weekend, emergency shelters are temporarily laying on an extra 150 beds.
"Phoenix is a major city with a lot of concrete that tends to hold a lot of that heat in, so it's just like you're in a dry sauna," said Irene Agustin, of the Central Arizona Shelter Services nonprofit in Phoenix.
"When you're homeless ... you are out in the elements for long periods of time ... it can cause heat exhaustion, illness and sometimes death," she added.
The National Weather Service said the heat warning currently remains in place through Sunday, but could be extended into next week should conditions persist.
(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Bernard Orr)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blast-furnace-heat-engulfs-u-west-weekend-232624926.html
justin timberlake gerard butler danielle fishel daylight savings Daylight Savings Time 2013 DeAndre Jordan Oz the Great and Powerful
Friday, June 28, 2013
America's deadliest soldier or stolen valor?
A new war memoir, "Carnivore" by Dillard Johnson, makes some rather extraordinary claims, according to media appearances and promotional material from publisher HarperCollins. But it's looking likely that these claims are exaggerated, and in some eyes are veering towards stolen valor territory.
The book is subtitled "A memoir by one of the Deadliest American Soldiers of All Time" and in it Sgt. 1st Class Johnson and his co-author write that he had 2,746 "confirmed" enemy kills during his time serving in Iraq, with 121 of those "confirmed sniper kills, the most ever publicly reported by a US Army soldier."
But his claims have sent the online veteran community into an uproar, with many vets calling them implausible and some men who served with him saying his statements are downright falsehoods. He served as a commander of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle with the 3rd Squadron, 7th US Cavalry, which took the lead in the charge to Baghdad after US forces went over the berm to invade Iraq in March 2003.
"I don?t want to take away from what [Johnson] did do, he did do great things: led a platoon, completed the missions," Brad Spaid tells the Monitor. He is a former staff sergeant who served with Johnson in Iraq and now has a civilian job with the Veteran's Administration and has read the book. "We lost some really good NCOs, guys that we really looked up to, and we feel that ? on Facebook and blogs other vets are coming out and calling us out and calling us liars and idiots, and it takes away from what we really did?. We don?t want to become a laughing stock, we want to be remembered for what we did and move on."
RECOMMENDED: US military muscle
That Sergeant Johnson (who received a Silver Star) and his fellows in the 7th Cavalry faced heavy fighting and performed admirably in Iraq is beyond question. The brief unit history on their website recounts that "combat operations for Operation Iraqi Freedom began on March 20th when the squadron crossed into Iraq as the lead element of the [3rd Infantry Division]. The Squadron attacked to Baghdad fighting both the Republican Guard and the Saddam Fedayeen. It was the longest cavalry charge in the history of the world and it ended in the capture of Baghdad."
But while I haven't yet read the book, the headline claim is an extraordinary one, based on my five years covering the Iraq war between 2003 and 2008. An ounce of common sense also comes into play.
In late 2007, after Johnson had left Iraq, statistics provided to USA Today by the US-led coalition, estimated that 19,429 militants had been killed by all coalition forces, including Iraqi ones, since the start of the war in 2003. Johnson's claimed "confirmed kills" of 2,746 would amount to 14 percent of all those deaths, an astonishing number for a single soldier who did not serve in the hottest battles of the post-invasion war.
His statement is even more remarkable when compared to the brief history given at the unit's home page, which recounts that "by the time the Squadron had redeployed it had killed 2,200 Iraqi personnel, 64 tanks, 41 armored vehicles, numerous active air defense systems, as well as trucks and civilian vehicles used as suicide bombers."
The squadron experienced heavy fighting between the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003 and when it left in August. It returned to Iraq for 12 months in 2005. Former Staff Sgt. Brad Spaid, who was with the 3/7th's Apache Troop in Iraq in '03 and with the Crazy Horse Troop that Johnson belonged to in '05, estimates that they only had about six engagements during that second deployment with at most five to six insurgents killed in each one. Yet Johnson's confirmed kills claim is 124 percent of the total on the unit's history page for 2003 and, by Mr. Spaid's reckoning, would still be well above 100 percent of the total if he claimed every single kill made in 2005.
To be sure, the real number of militants killed by US forces in Iraq is essentially unknown, any statistics a combination of guesswork made amid the haze of battle when units were running on to the next engagement, not spending time counting up dead bodies and figuring out who delivered the shot that struck them down. A press contact for HarperCollins' William Morrow imprint, which published "Carnivore," had not returned a call for comment at the time of publication.
Whatever the uncertainty around body counts, the claims invite incredulity, and will raise doubts about any other claims made in the book, which is currently being heavily promoted by the NewsCorp media empire. NewsCorp owns HarperCollins and the tone of NewsCorp's news properties about the book has been gushing and uncritical. For instance the company's New York Post carried an "exclusive" on June 23 that begins:
With 2,746 confirmed kills, Sgt. 1st Class Dillard Johnson is the deadliest American soldier on record ? and maybe the most humble.
As a commander of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle nicknamed ?Carnivore,? Johnson, 48, helped lead the ground assault during Operation Iraqi Freedom, overwhelming the enemy with a relentless show of military might that left a trail of dead in his wake.
Johnson was obliged to report confirmed kills to his superiors, cataloging the dead in a green journal that revealed the astonishing tally ? which only began to come light as he and co-writer James Tarr were researching his exploits for his memoir.
And here's a partial transcript of his appearance on Fox and Friends yesterday morning (titled: "True stories from one of America's deadliest soldiers") with the interviewer in full "hooah!" mode (the transcript is mine; I've summarized the interviewer's comments):
Interviewer: "Hear this incredible story, and meet this incredible man. With 2,746 confirmed kills Army Sgt. 1st Class Dillard CJ Johnson is one of the deadliest American soldiers on record..."
Johnson: "I've just always been lucky I guess, you know, it's better to be lucky than good. I grew up and I always wanted to be Sgt. Rock, Sgt. Fury from the comic books and I believe in America and what it stands for."
Interviewer: You've got 100 plus sniper kills, why did you write this book?
Johnson: I wrote this book "because I kept winding up in other books and magazines and stuff over an insert from 'On Point.' It was out there in public domain, and all these other writers kept using it. And Charlie Horse really deserves, Crazy Horse, the unit I was in, really deserves the credit for what went on over there as far as the battle and the confirmed kills. And the confirmed kills aren't as if I went out there and actually counted bodies to go through this ? a lot of them are attributed from the book 'On Point' and the other ones are when I actually did battlefield assessment to give my commander an evaluation of what was going on out there. But there were other troopers that did as much as I did or even more out there with it."
Interviewer: What should people understand about our fighting men and women?
Johnson: "They should really know that there's nobody out there doing this for a paycheck. They're doing it for love of country and love of their fellow soldier and they're putting their entire life on hold and their life at risk every day so that people can enjoy the freedoms that they have.... I don't think people really understand, you know, when we go to war with someone else, they don't understand what that country was like and everything else. America has been very fortunate as far as how our civilians act and everything else and we don't have the same culture that these other countries do, and all we can really do when we go to these other countries [is] give them a fighting chance, you know, for democracy..."
Dennis Goulet, who was the leader of the troop's 4th platoon (Johnson was the 3rd platoon's sergeant), writes that he doesn't believe Johnson's sniper claims, particularly an account of killing two insurgents at a range of 852 meters. "I can tell you ... the man was no sniper," he writes in an e-mail. "The only weapon system he had that could reach that far would be the Barrett or the Bradley gun. I was either with him on every mission and if I wasn't with him, every enemy engagement would have to be reported to the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) and it's not like he was out there by himself."
A Dec. 14, 2005 release put out by a public affairs officer for the 2nd Brigade Combat Team appears to say that Johnson killed two Iraqi insurgents at 852 meters in an engagement at Salman Pak, just south of Baghdad. (I write "appears" only because I can only find the release on unofficial sites like this one, not on official military sites, but it looks legitimate). But neither Mr. Goulet nor Spaid has any recollection of this achievement.
Goulet says the .50 caliber Barrett sniper rifle the unit carried was "seldom used" and doesn't recall Johnson killing anyone with it. I'm "not trying to discredit the man's service to the country, but there are hundreds of others that deserve recognition for their service, to include five men who lost their lives in 2005. It's about all who served in 3-7, NOT Johnson," writes Goulet.
Spaid says there are other elements in the book that ring false to him. In the book, Johnson recounts firing 7,000 rounds of depleted uranium ammunition from his Bradley Fighting Vehicle (nicknamed "Carnivore" and so yielding the title of the book) and dismounting to fight hand-to-hand. Spaid says at the time the heavy armor unit was not trained for that kind of infantry fighting and doubts that happened, recalling that he was only issued a 9mm pistol "with about 27 rounds" at the time. "We never dismounted, we were heavy armor."
Spaid says he checked with the Master Sergeant responsible for tracking ammunition used during that deployment ? an important job since guns require maintenance after firing a certain number of those rounds and could explode, injuring or killing their crew, if they didn't get it. He says the sergeant told him "for Johnson to go through 7,000 depleted uranium rounds, that would have been 1/3 of what we?d been given for the entire invasion to be split between 50 or 60 Bradleys." He also points out that a Bradley carrying that many rounds would be physically impossible.
Other stories he casts doubt on include Johnson's claim that he cut through a 220 volt cable with a small knife to darken an Iraqi hut he was hiding in when insurgents entered. "That area where he was ? there wasn't electricity," says Spaid. "And I've been to college, I think that many volts would melt a knife that size, even if it was insulated, not just leave a few nicks."
The tales of the 7th Cavalry in Iraq are filled with heroism, tragedy, and obstacles overcome, and I hope to revisit some of those stories later this week so that it isn't all about Johnson.
But as the saying goes, the first casualty when war comes is truth. Sometimes the casualties continue to accrue long after the guns have fallen silent.
RECOMMENDED: US military muscle
Related stories
Read this story at csmonitor.com
Become a part of the Monitor community
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/americas-deadliest-soldier-stolen-valor-212237661.html
irs forms kevin hart oklahoma city bombing Audrie Pott Bombing In Boston Rebel Wilson Patriots Day
Texts, video cited in charges against Hernandez
Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, left, stands with his attorney Michael Fee, right, during arraignment in Attleboro District Court Wednesday, June 26, in Attleboro, Mass. Hernandez was charged with murdering Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player for the Boston Bandits, whose body was found June 17 in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Mass. (AP Photo/The Sun Chronicle, Mike George, Pool)
Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, left, stands with his attorney Michael Fee, right, during arraignment in Attleboro District Court Wednesday, June 26, in Attleboro, Mass. Hernandez was charged with murdering Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player for the Boston Bandits, whose body was found June 17 in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Mass. (AP Photo/The Sun Chronicle, Mike George, Pool)
Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, left, stands with his attorney Michael Fee, right, during arraignment in Attleboro District Court Wednesday, June 26, in Attleboro, Mass. Hernandez was charged with murdering Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player for the Boston Bandits, whose body was found June 17 in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Mass. (AP Photo/The Sun Chronicle, Mike George, Pool)
Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, left, stands with his attorney Michael Fee, right, during arraignment in Attleboro District Court Wednesday, June 26, in Attleboro, Mass. Hernandez was charged with murdering Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player for the Boston Bandits, whose body was found June 17 in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Mass. (AP Photo/The Sun Chronicle, Mike George, Pool)
FILE - This Dec. 25, 2012 file photo taken by a sister and provided by the Boston Bandits football team shows Odin Lloyd, 27, whose body was found Monday, June 17, 2013 in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Mass. Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was arraigned Wednesday, June 26, 2013, on a charge of murdering Lloyd. (AP Photo/Lloyd family via the Boston Bandits, File)
Family of Odin Lloyd react during the arraignment of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez in Attleboro District Court Wednesday, June 26, in Attleboro, Mass. Hernandez was charged with murdering Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player for the Boston Bandits, whose body was found June 17 in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Mass. (AP Photo/The Sun Chronicle, Mike George, Pool)
ATTLEBORO, Mass. (AP) ? In the final minutes of his life, Odin Lloyd sent a series of texts to his sister.
"Did you see who I was with?" said the first, at 3:07 a.m. June 17. "Who?" she finally replied.
"NFL," he texted back, then added: "Just so you know."
It was 3:23 a.m. Moments later, Lloyd would be dead in what a prosecutor called an execution-style shooting orchestrated by New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez because his friend talked to the wrong people at a nightclub. Hernandez was charged Wednesday with murder.
Hernandez was cut from the NFL team less than two hours after he was arrested and led from his North Attleborough home in handcuffs, and nine days after Lloyd's body was discovered by a jogger in a remote area of an industrial park not far from Hernandez's home. The 2011 Pro Bowl selection had signed a five-year contract last summer with the Patriots worth $40 million.
His attorney, Michael Fee, called the case circumstantial during a Wednesday afternoon court hearing packed with reporters, curiosity seekers and police officers. Fee said there was a "rather hysterical atmosphere" surrounding the case and urged the judge to disregard his client's celebrity status as he asked for Hernandez, 23, to be released on bail.
The judge, though, ordered Hernandez held without bail on the murder charge and five weapons counts. If convicted, Hernandez could get life in prison without parole.
Hernandez stood impassively with his hands cuffed in front of him as Bristol County Assistant District Attorney Bill McCauley laid out a detailed timeline of the events, cobbled together from sources including witnesses, surveillance video, text messages and data from cellphone towers.
Lloyd, 27, a semi-pro football player with the Boston Bandits, had known Hernandez for about a year and was dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancee, the mother of Hernandez's 8-month-old baby, McCauley said.
On June 14, Lloyd went with Hernandez to a Boston club, Rumor. McCauley said Hernandez was upset Lloyd had talked to people there with whom Hernandez had trouble. He did not elaborate.
Two days later, McCauley said, on June 16, Hernandez texted two unidentified friends. He asked them to hurry to Massachusetts from Connecticut. At 9:05 p.m., a few minutes after the first message to his friends, Hernandez texted Lloyd to tell him he wanted to get together, McCauley said.
Later, surveillance footage from Hernandez's home showed his friends arrive and go inside. Hernandez, holding a gun, then told someone in the house he was upset and couldn't trust anyone anymore, the prosecutor said.
At 1:12 a.m., the three left in Hernandez's rented silver Nissan Altima, McCauley said. Cell towers tracked their movements to a gas station off the highway. There, he said, Hernandez bought blue Bubblicious gum.
At 2:32 a.m., they arrived outside Lloyd's home in Boston and texted him that they were there. McCauley said Lloyd's sister saw him get into Hernandez's car.
From there, surveillance cameras captured images of what the prosecutor said was Hernandez driving the silver Altima through Boston. As they drove back toward North Attleborough, Hernandez told Lloyd he was upset about what happened at the club and didn't trust him, McCauley said. That was when Lloyd began sending texts to his sister.
Surveillance video showed the car entering the industrial park and at 3:23 a.m. driving down a gravel road near where Lloyd's body was found. Four minutes later, McCauley said, the car emerged. During that period, employees working an overnight shift nearby heard several gunshots, McCauley said.
McCauley said Lloyd was shot multiple times, including twice from above as he was lying on the ground. He said five .45 caliber casings were found at the scene.
Authorities did not say who fired the shots or identify the two others with Hernandez.
At 3:29 a.m., surveillance at Hernandez's house showed him arriving, McCauley said.
"The defendant was walking through the house with a gun in his hand. That's captured on video," he said.
His friend is also seen holding a gun, and neither weapon has been found, McCauley said.
Then, the surveillance system stopped recording, and footage was missing from the six to eight hours after the slaying, he said.
The afternoon of June 17, the prosecutor said, Hernandez returned the rental car, offering the attendant a piece of blue Bubblicious gum when he dropped it off. While cleaning the car, the attendant found a piece of blue Bubblicious gum and a shell casing, which he threw away. Police later searched the trash bin and found the gum and the casing. The prosecutor said it was tested and matched the casings found where Lloyd was killed.
As McCauley outlined the killing, Lloyd's family members cried and held each other. Two were so overcome that they had to leave the courtroom.
The Patriots said in a statement after Hernandez's arrest but before the murder charge was announced that cutting Hernandez was "the right thing to do."
"Words cannot express the disappointment we feel knowing that one of our players was arrested as a result of this investigation," it said.
Hernandez, originally from Bristol, Conn., was drafted by the Patriots in 2010 out of the University of Florida, where he was an All-American.
During the draft, one team said it wouldn't take him under any circumstances, and he was passed over by one club after another before New England picked him in the fourth round. Afterward, Hernandez said he had failed a drug test in college ? reportedly for marijuana ? and was up front with teams about it.
A Florida man filed a lawsuit last week claiming Hernandez shot him in the face after they argued at a strip club in February.
Hernandez became a father on Nov. 6 and said he intended to change his ways: "Now, another one is looking up to me. I can't just be young and reckless Aaron no more. I'm going to try to do the right things."
___
Associated Press writers Bridget Murphy in Boston and Howard Ulman in North Attleborough contributed to this report.
Associated Pressdrew brees drew brees usps Ola Ray Ginobili miley cyrus miley cyrus
Spiral galaxies like Milky Way bigger than thought
June 27, 2013 ? Let's all fist bump: Spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way appear to be much larger and more massive than previously believed, according to a new University of Colorado Boulder study by researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope.
CU-Boulder Professor John Stocke, study leader, said new observations with Hubble's $70 million Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, or COS, designed by CU-Boulder show that normal spiral galaxies are surrounded by halos of gas that can extend to over 1 million light-years in diameter. The current estimated diameter of the Milky Way, for example, is about 100,000 light-years. One light-year is roughly 6 trillion miles.
The material for galaxy halos detected by the CU-Boulder team originally was ejected from galaxies by exploding stars known as supernovae, a product of the star formation process, said Stocke of CU-Boulder's astrophysical and planetary sciences department. "This gas is stored and then recycled through an extended galaxy halo, falling back onto the galaxies to reinvigorate a new generation of star formation," he said. "In many ways this is the 'missing link' in galaxy evolution that we need to understand in detail in order to have a complete picture of the process."
Stocke gave a presentation on the research June 27 at the University of Edinburgh's Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics in Scotland at a conference titled "Intergalactic Interactions." The CU-Boulder research team also included professors Michael Shull and James Green and research associates Brian Keeney, Charles Danforth, David Syphers and Cynthia Froning, as well as University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Blair Savage.
Building on earlier studies identifying oxygen-rich gas clouds around spiral galaxies by scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College and the University of California, Santa Cruz, Stocke and his colleagues determined that such clouds contain almost as much mass as all the stars in their respective galaxies. "This was a big surprise," said Stocke. "The new findings have significant consequences for how spiral galaxies change over time."
In addition, the CU-Boulder team discovered giant reservoirs of gas estimated to be millions of degrees Fahrenheit that were enshrouding the spiral galaxies and halos under study. The halos of the spiral galaxies were relatively cool by comparison -- just tens of thousands of degrees -- said Stocke, also a member of CU-Boulder's Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, or CASA.
Shull, a professor in CU-Boulder's astrophysical and planetary sciences department and a member of CASA, emphasized that the study of such "circumgalactic" gas is in its infancy. "But given the expected lifetime of COS on Hubble, perhaps another five years, it should be possible to confirm these early detections, elaborate on the results and scan other spiral galaxies in the universe," he said.
Prior to the installation of COS on Hubble during NASA's final servicing mission in May 2009, theoretical studies showed that spiral galaxies should possess about five times more gas than was being detected by astronomers. The new observations with the extremely sensitive COS are now much more in line with the theories, said Stocke.
The CU-Boulder team used distant quasars -- the swirling centers of supermassive black holes -- as "flashlights" to track ultraviolet light as it passed through the extended gas haloes of foreground galaxies, said Stocke. The light absorbed by the gas was broken down by the spectrograph, much like a prism does, into characteristic color "fingerprints" that revealed temperatures, densities, velocities, distances and chemical compositions of the gas clouds.
"This gas is way too diffuse to allow its detection by direct imaging, so spectroscopy is the way to go," said Stocke. CU-Boulder's Green led the design team for COS, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder for NASA.
While astronomers hope the Hubble Space Telescope keeps on chugging for years to come, there will be no more servicing missions. And the James Webb Space Telescope, touted to be Hubble's successor beginning in late 2018, has no UV light-gathering capabilities, which will prevent astronomers from undertaking studies like those done with COS, said Green.
"Once Hubble ceases to function, we will lose the capability to study galaxy halos for perhaps a full generation of astronomers," said Stocke. "But for now, we are fortunate to have both Hubble and its Cosmic Origins Spectrograph to help us answer some of the most pressing issues in cosmology."
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/astronomy/~3/JOkGclMu0Qg/130627102625.htm
sacha baron cohen best picture nominees 2012 academy awards 2012
Why Are You the Only One Who Really Got The Election Right? (LIVESTREAM)
TIME: 9:30p-10:30p EST
Columnist, statistician, and prognosticator Nate Silver, whose website, FiveThirtyEight.com is the only one to have correctly predicted the outcomes of the 2012 and 2008 elections. On Wednesday, June 26, from 9:30pm to 10:30pm EST, he shares his perspectives with award-winning journalist Katie Couric. (He also really knows baseball!)
For more information and a schedule of events for the 2013 Aspen Ideas Festival, click here. For real time tweets from the festival, see below:
"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/nate-silver-aspen-ideas-festival_n_3504912.html
Psy Gentleman Angel Cabrera Jay Z Open Letter glee glee masters live frozen four
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Pardoned financier Marc Rich dies in Switzerland
GENEVA (AP) -- He was a wheeler-dealer pardoned by another consummate dealmaker, a working-class Jewish boy who left Belgium to escape the Nazis and rose to become the billionaire "King of Commodities."
Marc Rich's connections to the rich and powerful not only made him fabulously wealthy but when he was indicted for fraud, racketeering and tax evasion on a grand scale, they helped secure him a pardon from Bill Clinton, hours before the U.S. president left office.
That triggered a political firestorm from critics who alleged Rich bought his pardon through donations that his ex-wife had made to the Democratic Party.
Rich died Wednesday of a stroke at a hospital in Lucerne, near his home for decades. He was 78, and his Israel-based spokesman Avner Azulay said he would be buried Thursday in a kibbutz in Israel.
Throughout his storied career at the pinnacle of high finance, Rich was known as a man who could deliver the big deals thanks to personal relationships he had forged with powerful figures around the world.
In a rare 1992 interview with NBC, Rich said that in his business, "we're not political...That's just the philosophy of our company."
Yet Rich cultivated contacts with powerful politicians ? in the Middle East as well as the United States ? and used those ties to make billions, often when it seemed all doors were closed.
During the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, Rich used his Middle East contacts to purchase crude oil from Iran and Iraq and made a fortune selling it to American companies.
In 1981, Rich and a partner bought 20th Century Fox and three years later he sold his interest to Rupert Murdoch for $250 million.
But in 1983, while he was in Switzerland, Rich was indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury on more than 50 counts of fraud, racketeering, trading with Iran during the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis and evading more than $48 million in income taxes.
At the time it was the largest tax evasion case in U.S. history and could have earned him more than 300 years in prison.
Although the Swiss refused to arrest or extradite Rich, he stayed on the FBI's Most Wanted List, narrowly escaping capture in Finland, Germany, Britain and Jamaica, until Clinton granted him a pardon on Jan. 20, 2001 ? the day he handed over the keys to the White House to George W. Bush.
Last-minute presidential pardons are not uncommon in the United States, but this one raised a furor. Critics believed the case showed that justice means one thing for ordinary people and another for powerful insiders.
Rich had other advocates, however.
For years influential Israelis, including ex-Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the former chief of the Mossad spy agency, Shabtai Shavit, had been urging Clinton to pardon Rich, who over two decades had contributed up to $80 million to Israeli hospitals, museums, symphonies and to the absorption of immigrants.
Moreover, Federal Election Commission records showed that Rich's ex-wife, songwriter Denise Rich, had donated $201,000 to the Democratic Party in 2000.
At the time, Rich's lawyers were urging the U.S. to drop the tax evasion case. When the Justice Department refused to negotiate, Rich's attorneys turned to Clinton.
Federal authorities investigated but found no evidence of wrongdoing. Election officials also dismissed a complaint accusing Denise Rich of donating campaign money and furniture to Hillary Clinton in exchange for the pardon.
Bill Clinton also denied any wrongdoing and said he acted on advice by prominent legal experts not connected to the trader.
Nevertheless, the current U.S. attorney general Eric Holder, who was deputy attorney general under Clinton, told a House committee weeks after the president's decree that if he had known all the facts of the case, "I would not have recommended to the president that he grant the pardon."
Rich was born in Antwerp, Belgium, on Dec. 18, 1934. His Jewish family fled from the Nazis to the United States, where he went to school and college in New York.
After dropping out of college, Rich went to work for the commodity traders Phillips Brothers, now called Phibro, in New York. He quickly got the knack of trading and in 1967 was sent by the company to work in Madrid, where he met Pincus "Pinky" Green, his future partner.
In 1973, Rich and Green left the company after arguing over the size of their bonuses. They set up Marc Rich and Co., based in the Swiss town of Zug, whose low taxes have made it one of the world's oil trading centers.
Business boomed. Rich specialized in acting as a middle man for purchases in global trouble spots ? such as Iran, apartheid-era South Africa or Cuba and Libya during U.S. trade embargoes.
Rich and Green were the first traders to use short-term purchases, now known as the spot market, to make big money, quickly. Buying large volumes when the price was low, they were able to control the market when prices rose.
With Rich in Switzerland, his companies pleaded guilty to the U.S. charges, paying fines of about $130 million.
"It's an unfortunate situation," Rich told NBC. "But the question is, was there crime? And I'm saying I don't think so."
He added that as Marc Rich and Co. was a Swiss company, it was legal for the firm to do business with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Iran.
Rich worked on making himself popular by becoming a major philanthropist, giving money to the arts and charities in the hope of building good contacts and guarding against extradition. He renounced his U.S. citizenship and became a citizen both of Israel and Spain.
But he earned the hatred of U.S. labor unions during the 1990-92 Ravenswood Aluminum Corp. strike in West Virginia.
His company was a part-owner of Ravenswood Aluminum, whose workers accused Rich of locking 1,500 steelworkers out of the plant when their contract expired and hiring replacement workers without negotiating.
The union won the 20-month labor battle, but not before union members picketed outside Rich's Swiss offices.
In 1993, Rich sold his own company ? which was then renamed Glencore, now the world's largest commodity trader ? and set up a new firm, Marc Rich and Co. Holding, also based in Zug.
Although a Russian firm, Crown Resources, tried to buy its commodities unit in 2001, the buyout fell through and Rich remained active in the trading business.
After spending several years in Zug, Rich moved to "La Villa Rose" on the shores of Lake Lucerne in nearby Meggen. He also owned property in the swish ski resort of St. Moritz and in Marbella, on the south coast of Spain.
Rich married for a second time, to German-born Gisela Rossi, in 1998. They divorced in 2005. Rich had two daughters, Ilona Schachter-Rich and Danielle Kilstock Rich.
___
Reid reported from Berlin. Ian Deitch in Jerusalem and and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pardoned-financier-marc-rich-dies-114643030.html
ja rule amityville horror acm passover recipes 2012 kids choice awards kansas ohio state wrestlemania results
Report: Hernandez investigated for double murder
Getty ImagesIn their zeal to defend the name Redskins against disorganized and scattered opposition that gradually is becoming more organized and less scattered, the NFL team bearing that name has had a tendency to seize in knee-jerk fashion upon anything that supports the position that the name isn?t offensive.
The two primary tactics having entailed citing the various high schools that still use the name (there are fewer all the time) and trumpeting the opinions of Native Americans who have no problem with the name, and who ostensibly would regard as a compliment the greeting, ?What?s up, redskin??
As explained by Dave McKenna in an item published earlier today by Deadspin (yeah, I know that one of the morons who works there recently called me a moron . . . again), a supposed Native American Chief whom the Redskins recently trotted out in support of the name isn?t a Chief, and may not even be a Native American.? But the Redskins, who apparently have chosen to dispense with steps like vetting a guest, put the guy on their in-house web show, described him as a Chief, and had him explain why he supports the name.
And, yes, the guy actually said that Native Americans on the ?reservation? actually great each other with, ?Hey, what?s up, redskin??
Complicating matters for the league is that Commissioner Roger Goodell recently pointed to the same non-Chief-possibly-non-Native-American in a letter to member of Congress defending the ongoing use of the name Redskins.
The full item is worth a read, even though it?s a little lengthy.? Also, it probably should include a disclaimer that the author once triggered a defamation lawsuit from owner Daniel Snyder, which gives McKenna a natural bias.
But the point has been made.? Yet again, the Redskins end up looking bad while trying to make their name look good.
If nothing else, we now know why they?ve hired Frank Luntz.? Then again, maybe they think he?s a Chief, too.
nationwide race wanderlust gone tyler perry good deeds pretty in pink shark tank john wall
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)