ORLANDO, Fla./WASHINGTON - An FBI agent shot and killed a Florida man who turned violent while being questioned about the Boston Marathon bombings early on Wednesday, the bureau said.
A friend of the dead man told the Orlando Sentinel and Orlando television stations that he was 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev of Orlando, a Chechen who had previously lived in Boston. Two brothers identified by the FBI as suspects in the April 15 bombings were also ethnic Chechens with roots in Russia?s volatile North Caucasus region.
The FBI said in a statement that a special agent, ?acting on the imminent threat posed by the individual, responded with deadly force. The individual was killed and the special agent was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.?
It said the shooting occurred in Orlando, Florida, while the special agent and other law enforcement agents were interviewing the man about the blasts that killed three people and injured 264 others at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
?A violent confrontation was initiated by the individual,? the FBI said, without providing further details.
Todashev?s friend, Khusn Taramiv, said Todashev knew bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev because both were mixed martial-arts fighters but had no connection to the bombing.
?Back when he used to live in Boston, right, they used to hang out,? Taramiv told Central Florida News 13. ?He met them few times ?cause he was MMA fighter the other guy was boxer, right. They just new each other that?s it.?
The shooting occurred at an Orlando apartment complex where several people of Chechen descent lived. Taramiv said Todashev and others in the complex had been questioned several times by law enforcement agents since the day the Tsarnaev brothers were identified as the bombing suspects.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died in a gunfight with police. His brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was found hiding in a boat in Watertown, Massachusetts, four days after the bombings. He was charged with crimes that could carry the death penalty if he is convicted.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been on a U.S. government database of potential terrorism suspects and the United States had twice been warned by Russia that he might be an Islamic militant, according to U.S. security officials.
In Florida, the Orange County Sheriff?s Office said Todashev had been arrested on May 4 and charged with aggravated battery with great bodily harm. Details about the circumstances of the arrest were not immediately available.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., right, confers with the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, May 20, 2013, as the committee assembles to work on a landmark immigration bill to secure the border and offer citizenship to millions. The panel is aiming to pass the legislation out of committee this week, setting up a high-stakes debate on the Senate floor. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., right, confers with the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, May 20, 2013, as the committee assembles to work on a landmark immigration bill to secure the border and offer citizenship to millions. The panel is aiming to pass the legislation out of committee this week, setting up a high-stakes debate on the Senate floor. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Senate Judiciary Committee members Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., left, and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. confer on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, May 20, 2013, as the committee assembled to work on a landmark immigration bill to secure the border and offer citizenship to millions. The panel is aiming to pass the legislation out of committee this week, setting up a high-stakes debate on the Senate floor. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Far-reaching immigration legislation neared a final committee vote on Tuesday as the White House and Democratic supporters sought to delay a showdown over the rights of gay spouses until a debate in the full Senate.
"There have been 300 amendments. Why shouldn't we have one more?" replied Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was responding to concerns that a vote on the issue inside the panel could unravel months of work on the bill, which gives a chance at citizenship to millions of immigrants living in the United States illegally.
The measure also creates a new program for low-skilled foreign labor and would permit highly skilled workers into the country at far higher levels than is currently the case. At the same time, it requires the government take new steps to guard against future illegal immigration.
As the day wore on, opponents of the bill made a final bid to strip the measure of its signature feature ? a path to citizenship that could take 13 years and payment of fines totaling $2,000 to travel. Sen. Ted Cruz' proposal failed on a vote of 13-5.
The rejection was one of numerous ways in which the bipartisan coalition behind the White House-backed measure demonstrated its command of the proceedings.
Without so much as a roll call vote, the panel adopted a compromise setting the terms of the expansion of H-1B high tech visas, a deal that brought Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah over to the ranks of supporters.
Under the deal, the number of highly skilled workers admitted to the country would rise from 65,000 annually to 110,000, with the possibility of a further rise to 180,000 depending in part on unemployment levels.
Firms where foreign labor accounts for at least 15 percent of the skilled work force would be subjected to tighter conditions than companies less dependent on H-IB visa holders.
The compromise was negotiated by Hatch, whose state is home to a growing high tech industry, and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. It is designed to balance the interests of industry, which relies increasingly on skilled foreign labor, and organized labor, which represents American workers.
AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka attacked the deal sharply, saying Hatch's amendments "are unambiguous attacks on American workers," and change the bill so high tech companies can bring in foreign workers "without first making the jobs available to American workers.
At the same time, he reaffirmed organized labor's continuing support for the overall measure, a statement that allowed Schumer to add to the bill's majority in committee without driving organized labor into the camp of its opponents.
Robert Hoffman, senior vice president for government affairs at the Information Technology Industry Council, welcomed the deal. "We think it strikes a very good balance between worker protections already in the bill and changes that essentially would make the H-1B visa workable," he said.
"We obviously want to keep moving the bill forward and building support for the legislation, and this agreement allows us to do so."
At the White House, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met privately in the Oval Office with a small group of the bill's supporters, part of the administration's campaign to build support.
Justino Mora, 23, who participated, later said he had told the group he came to the United States at age 11, brought by his mother from Mexico to escape poverty and an abusive father. Now a student at UCLA, he has achieved legal status as a result of administration policy that permits individuals brought to the United States as children to legalize.
His mother remains in the county illegally, he said, adding that he told Obama and Biden of the fear and uncertainty of not knowing if she will be deported or detained from one day to the next. "They both were very moved by that aspect. They're both parents," Mora said in an interview.
The controversy over the rights of gay spouses, with the ability to fracture a bipartisan coalition behind the legislation, has hovered in the background of the debate from the beginning.
As drafted by the Gang of Eight, four Republicans and four Democrats who negotiated the basic provisions of the legislation, gay spouses do not have the same right to a green card as heterosexual spouses.
Leahy has introduced a proposal to reverse that, a provision that gay rights organizations seek and that ordinarily the White House and all the committee's Democrats would back. In this case, though, its approval would almost certainly lead Republicans to abandon the bill, and it would face a quick demise on the Senate floor.
"It would kill the bill," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was a member of the Gang of Eight but does not have a seat on the Judiciary Committee. "You'd lose the evangelicals, you'd lose the Catholic Church, and the issue is wending its way through the courts. ... And so for the amendment to be included is destructive to this carefully crafted compromise."
Two people familiar with the deliberations said the White House had suggested to Leahy that it would be best to put the controversy aside until the bill goes before the full Senate, and congressional officials said similar pleas had come from Democratic senators. All said they were not authorized to discuss the matter on the record and insisted on anonymity.
Leahy's comment to reporters was unlikely his final word on the issue, and hardly the first time he has demonstrated his independence on this and other bills. Most recently, he was the sole opponent of an amendment that passed 17-1 on Monday to make a third drunk driving conviction a deportable offense for immigrants in some instances.
Still, a vote on the proposal could create political difficulty for Democrats on the committee who support gay rights and are also members of the Gang of Eight, including Schumer and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. Durbin has told outside groups he will back the change if it is offered. Schumer hasn't said which way he would vote.
All eight authors of the bill have pledged to maintain the essential outlines of the legislation. A vote to add the gay rights provision could lead to approval on a party-line vote in committee.
___
AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) ? Country music performer Toby Keith says he grew up in the area near Oklahoma City that was hit by a devastating tornado.
Keith issued a statement saying Monday's tornado in Moore, Okla., devastated the community in which he grew up.
The city has embraced Keith's celebrity and his name is on the Moore water tower.
Keith says he remembers riding his bicycle through the stricken neighborhoods. Rescuers are still working to pull people from the rubble in the community that's southwest of Oklahoma City.
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron is "losing control of his party", Conservative Party grandee Geoffrey Howe said on Sunday, as a row raged over whether a close aide to Cameron had labeled grassroots activists "mad, swivel-eyed loons".
The furor threatens to further alienate Cameron and his inner circle from the core of his party, with whom ties are already almost at breaking point.
Differences with the grassroots over Britain's membership of the European Union and Cameron's support for legalizing same-sex marriage have raised questions over his leadership and could hurt the party's chances in the next election, due in 2015.
"Sadly, by making it clear in January that he opposes the current terms of UK membership of the EU, the prime minister has opened a Pandora's box politically and seems to be losing control of his party in the process," Howe wrote in an article for the Observer newspaper.
Howe was former prime minister Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving cabinet minister, but fell out with her over relations with Europe and is best remembered for a scathing resignation speech that helped topple her as leader in 1990.
Cameron's Conservatives have been rattled by the surging popularity of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), whose main aims are to pull Britain out of the EU and curb immigration.
Its rise has fuelled a heated national debate over whether Britain derives sufficient benefits from EU membership to outweigh the financial cost and the ceding of some important powers to Brussels, like the ability to limit immigrants from the other 26 countries in the union.
An opinion poll by pollster ComRes for the Sunday Mirror and Independent on Sunday newspapers put support for UKIP at 19 percent, which ComRes said was the highest level the party had achieved in any survey yet.
The opposition Labour party led with 35 percent, while the Conservatives were on 29 percent and their Liberal Democrat coalition partners on 8.
"The ratchet-effect of Euroscepticism has now gone so far that the Conservative leadership is in effect running scared of its own backbenchers, let alone UKIP," Howe said, referring to the hundreds of rank-and-file Conservative members of parliament who occupy the rows of seats behind Cameron and his ministers.
REFERENDUM PROMISE
In January, Cameron promised that if the Conservatives won the 2015 election they would call a national referendum in 2017 on whether Britain should stay in or leave the EU. But that did not go far enough for many Conservatives, who last week forced him to back a new bill that would enshrine it in law.
The Conservatives' restive right wing also last week voted to criticize the government's legislative agenda for not including such a bill in the first place, an unusual move in British politics that embarrassed Cameron.
Compounding Cameron's problems are media reports that an un-named close aide, at a private dinner last week, described the Conservative grassroots as "swivel-eyed loons".
Cameron's office says the comment did not come from them, and insist the prime minister is still in charge of his party.
The row comes at an especially bad time for Cameron, whose flagship bill to legalize same-sex marriage will be debated in parliament this week. Conservative activists wrote to Cameron on Sunday warning that the move would boost UKIP's membership.
"The prime minister seems to have gathered around himself a metropolitan elite who seem to inhabit a different planet to most of us ... Droves of previously loyal Conservative Party members are leaving," Bob Woollard, chairman of the Conservative Grassroots umbrella group, told the BBC.
Cameron says he would like to do more to satisfy the Conservative core, but is held back by being in coalition with the left-leaning Liberal Democrats.
Ties between the two parties have frequently come under strain since they teamed up in 2010, but they have pledged to stay together to help revive Britain's weak economy.
However, in an article published on Sunday, Cameron hinted that he could end the partnership before the 2015 election.
"Can we improve the state of the country? Can we fulfill our manifesto? The best way to do that is to continue with the coalition, but if that wasn't the case then we'd have to face the new circumstances in whatever way we should," he told Britain's Total Politics magazine.
NTU student-built innovations to help improve and save livesPublic release date: 20-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lester Kok lesterkok@ntu.edu.sg Nanyang Technological University
Nanyang Technological University (NTU) students have developed new and practical life-saving innovations inspired from everyday problems, including improving the safety of cyclists on the roads and keeping the dengue menace in check.
A near collision alarm system fitted with an ultrasonic sensor and LED lights, "BikeSense," will alert the cyclist via a beeping alarm, when a vehicle is too close for comfort. At the same time, the system will flash a red light at the rear of the bicycle, to catch the drivers' attention and to warn them to keep at a safe distance.
Another group of students have come up with an auto-close drain cover which will block mosquitoes from entering the drain to breed, while allowing a large amount of water to flow through during heavy downpours. Named "Block-It-Out", the idea arose from the rising epidemic of dengue fever which Singapore is now experiencing.
Other practical inventions include overcoming the problem of domestic helpers falling from high floors and preventing soldiers collapsing from heat strokes.
The "WiseWindow" is a window which can swivel, allowing you to clean both the inside and outside of the window at the same time without risk of leaning out of the window. The invention will not only save time, but more importantly it promotes safety and is elderly friendly.
A heat alarm mounted on a soldier's vest it expected to help prevent heat-related injuries such as heat strokes, which may led to death in serious cases. Named the "Health Emergency Alarm Thermometer System" (HEATS), the device will light up if the soldier's body temperature rises above the norm, which is an early indication of dehydration and heat injury.
These safety devices are some of the winners at the 15th Engineering, Innovation and Design (EID) Open House and competition held on Saturday, 18 May, at NTU, which saw 79 student teams taking part.
EID Chairman, Associate Professor Rajesh Piplani, said many of the students have been inspired to improve and save lives of people after reading the many reports in the media of accident-related deaths.
"Recently, there have been reports of fatalities involving cyclists and also accidents involving pickup trucks, people suffering from heat injuries during training and workplace falls, which students are made aware of and are encouraged to develop solutions for," said Prof Piplani.
"Creating innovative devices which overcomes real problems is an integral part of the education process at NTU, because we want to instil a sense of responsibility in our students, pushing them to think out of the box while having to employ engineering concepts and knowledge learnt in classes. The process of applying theoretical knowledge is not easily taught, so NTU's Engineering, Innovation and Design course gives them the chance to learn such skills through hands-on work."
The annual event showcases prototypes designed and built by Year Two students from the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, who have taken the EID course as part of their curriculum. EID requires students to identify a real life problem, devise a solution for it, and develop a prototype and a business plan to market the idea.
This year 580 students submitted projects in five categories: Lifestyle, Design & Innovation, Energy & Environment, Health & Assistive Technology, and Safety & Security. In each category, the top teams bag cash prizes of $1,200, $800, and $500 for the first, second, and third place respectively.
For the Safety & Security category, BikeSense and WiseWindow won first and second prize respectively. HEATS won second prize in the Health & Assistive Technology while Block-It-Out also won the second prize in the Energy and Environment Category.
Teams are judged by alumni engineers and industry players, based on potential market value, technological innovation, cost (development and material) and the 'X-factor'. ST Engineering is the event's sponsor.
A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has 33,500 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the colleges of Engineering, Business, Science, and Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences. It has a new medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, set up jointly with Imperial College London.
NTU is also home to world-class autonomous institutes the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI), Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N) and the Institute on Asian Consumer Insight (ACI).
A fast-growing university with an international outlook, NTU is putting its global stamp on Five Peaks of Excellence: Sustainable Earth, Future Healthcare, New Media, New Silk Road, and Innovation Asia.
Besides the main Yunnan Garden campus, NTU also has a satellite campus in Singapore's science and tech hub, one-north, and a third campus in Novena, Singapore's medical district.
For more information, visit http://www.ntu.edu.sg
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NTU student-built innovations to help improve and save livesPublic release date: 20-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lester Kok lesterkok@ntu.edu.sg Nanyang Technological University
Nanyang Technological University (NTU) students have developed new and practical life-saving innovations inspired from everyday problems, including improving the safety of cyclists on the roads and keeping the dengue menace in check.
A near collision alarm system fitted with an ultrasonic sensor and LED lights, "BikeSense," will alert the cyclist via a beeping alarm, when a vehicle is too close for comfort. At the same time, the system will flash a red light at the rear of the bicycle, to catch the drivers' attention and to warn them to keep at a safe distance.
Another group of students have come up with an auto-close drain cover which will block mosquitoes from entering the drain to breed, while allowing a large amount of water to flow through during heavy downpours. Named "Block-It-Out", the idea arose from the rising epidemic of dengue fever which Singapore is now experiencing.
Other practical inventions include overcoming the problem of domestic helpers falling from high floors and preventing soldiers collapsing from heat strokes.
The "WiseWindow" is a window which can swivel, allowing you to clean both the inside and outside of the window at the same time without risk of leaning out of the window. The invention will not only save time, but more importantly it promotes safety and is elderly friendly.
A heat alarm mounted on a soldier's vest it expected to help prevent heat-related injuries such as heat strokes, which may led to death in serious cases. Named the "Health Emergency Alarm Thermometer System" (HEATS), the device will light up if the soldier's body temperature rises above the norm, which is an early indication of dehydration and heat injury.
These safety devices are some of the winners at the 15th Engineering, Innovation and Design (EID) Open House and competition held on Saturday, 18 May, at NTU, which saw 79 student teams taking part.
EID Chairman, Associate Professor Rajesh Piplani, said many of the students have been inspired to improve and save lives of people after reading the many reports in the media of accident-related deaths.
"Recently, there have been reports of fatalities involving cyclists and also accidents involving pickup trucks, people suffering from heat injuries during training and workplace falls, which students are made aware of and are encouraged to develop solutions for," said Prof Piplani.
"Creating innovative devices which overcomes real problems is an integral part of the education process at NTU, because we want to instil a sense of responsibility in our students, pushing them to think out of the box while having to employ engineering concepts and knowledge learnt in classes. The process of applying theoretical knowledge is not easily taught, so NTU's Engineering, Innovation and Design course gives them the chance to learn such skills through hands-on work."
The annual event showcases prototypes designed and built by Year Two students from the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, who have taken the EID course as part of their curriculum. EID requires students to identify a real life problem, devise a solution for it, and develop a prototype and a business plan to market the idea.
This year 580 students submitted projects in five categories: Lifestyle, Design & Innovation, Energy & Environment, Health & Assistive Technology, and Safety & Security. In each category, the top teams bag cash prizes of $1,200, $800, and $500 for the first, second, and third place respectively.
For the Safety & Security category, BikeSense and WiseWindow won first and second prize respectively. HEATS won second prize in the Health & Assistive Technology while Block-It-Out also won the second prize in the Energy and Environment Category.
Teams are judged by alumni engineers and industry players, based on potential market value, technological innovation, cost (development and material) and the 'X-factor'. ST Engineering is the event's sponsor.
A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has 33,500 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the colleges of Engineering, Business, Science, and Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences. It has a new medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, set up jointly with Imperial College London.
NTU is also home to world-class autonomous institutes the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI), Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N) and the Institute on Asian Consumer Insight (ACI).
A fast-growing university with an international outlook, NTU is putting its global stamp on Five Peaks of Excellence: Sustainable Earth, Future Healthcare, New Media, New Silk Road, and Innovation Asia.
Besides the main Yunnan Garden campus, NTU also has a satellite campus in Singapore's science and tech hub, one-north, and a third campus in Novena, Singapore's medical district.
For more information, visit http://www.ntu.edu.sg
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Christine White and William Shatner in "Nightmare At 20,000 Feet" in 1963.
Christine Lamson White may have had a career in Hollywood spanning over 20 years, but to many she'll always be known as "the woman on the plane next to William Shatner."
The actress starred alongside Shatner in the iconic "Twilight Zone" episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," in which he believes he sees a gremlin tearing up the wing of the plane.
Lamson died on April 14 at Brinton Woods Nursing Home in Washington, D.C., as her death notice in the Carroll County Times reports. She was 86.
Washington, D.C. native White was born in 1926 and acted in plays while studying English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also earned a Masters degree in speech and drama from Catholic University. By the 1950s she had relocated to Hollywood and appeared in series including "Perry Mason," "The Loretta Young Show" and "Bonanza." According to the New York Times, she appeared in more than 50 television shows and movies during her acting career.
Eventually she left acting to return to Washington, D.C to help care for her aging mother, and wrote, produced and distributed quarterly bulletin called "The Rampart Papers."
Her obituary indicated that she "became acquainted with several celebrities" including James Dean; in a biography of the actor by Val Holley White admitted their relationship "did become romantic at times." She appeared in a 1976 dramatization of Dean's life, "James Dean" as a secretary; according to the IMDb it was her last acting credit.
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) ? Authorities in hazardous materials suits searched a downtown Spokane apartment Saturday, investigating the recent discovery of a pair of letters containing the deadly poison ricin.
Few details have been released in the case, and no arrests have been made. Federal investigators have been searching for the person who sent the letters, which were postmarked Tuesday in Spokane.
The letters were addressed to the downtown post office and the adjacent federal building, but authorities have not released a potential motive. They also have not said whether the letters targeted anyone in particular.
Ricin is a highly toxic substance made from castor beans. As little as 500 micrograms, the size of the head of a pin, can kill an adult if inhaled or ingested.
There have been no reports of illness connected to the letters.
FBI agents, Spokane police and U.S. Postal Service inspectors descended on the three-story apartment building Saturday morning and the investigation continued into the afternoon.
FBI spokeswoman Ayn Sandalo Dietrich would not say whether agents were questioning anyone in connection with the case.
"We are not actively looking for a subject," Sandalo Dietrich said. "We are not asking the public's help in bringing someone in."
Despite the hazmat suits, officials said apartment residents were not at risk, and people were seen coming in and out of the brick building in the city's historic Browne's Addition neighborhood.
"There's no public risk," Sandalo Dietrich said.
Sandalo Dietrich would not say specifically why the FBI was searching the apartment.
"Information we developed led us to believe this was a productive spot to search," she said.
Two letters containing the substance were intercepted at the downtown Spokane post office Tuesday.
The Postal Service has received no other reports of similar letters, said Jeremy Leder of the Postal Inspection Service on Saturday.
In a statement following the discovery, the Postal Service said the "crude form of the ricin suggests that it does not present a health risk to U.S. Postal Service personnel or to others who may have come in contact with the letter."
The Spokane investigation comes a month after letters containing ricin were addressed to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a Mississippi judge. A Mississippi man has been arrested in that case.
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) ? Tens of thousands of commuters are bracing for a difficult trip around southwest Connecticut and to New York City beginning Monday as workers repair the Metro-North commuter rail line crippled by a derailment and crash.
Crews will spend days rebuilding 2,000 feet of track, overhead wires and signals following the collision between two trains Friday evening that injured 72 people, Metro-North President Howard Permut said Sunday. Nine remained hospitalized.
"This amounts to the wholesale reconstruction of a two-track electrified railroad," he said.
Several days of around-the-clock work will be required, including inspections and testing of the newly rebuilt system, Permut said. The damaged rail cars were removed from the tracks on Sunday, the first step toward making the repairs.
Service disruptions on the New Haven line between South Norwalk and New Haven are expected to continue "well into the coming week," Permut said.
Each day, approximately 30,000 Metro-North customers use the stations where service has been shut down, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates Metro-North.
Amtrak service between New York and New Haven also was suspended, and there was no estimate on service restoration. Limited service was available between New Haven and Boston.
Jim Cameron, chairman of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, said he's asked officials in numerous towns to suspend parking rules to accommodate what could be tens of thousands of motorists driving to unaffected train stations. Twelve stations are affected by the shutdown.
Starting with the Monday morning rush-hour, a shuttle train will operate about every 20 minutes between New Haven and Bridgeport and two shuttle buses will run between Bridgeport and Stamford stations, state transportation officials said.
For morning and evening peak commutes, limited train service will operate between Grand Central Terminal and Westport.
State officials say travel times will be significantly longer than normal and trains will be crowded. Commuters are advised to use the Harlem line in New York.
Cameron said he doubts many commuters will use three modes of transportation to get to work: driving their cars to catch a bus to get to a train station for the final leg.
Commuters will more likely rely on their cars, leading to massive traffic problems on highways that are already clogged on normal days, Cameron said. He suggested that local and regional officials post highway signs directing motorists to available parking so motorists "don't get off the highway and drive in circles looking for where to dump their cars."
About 700 people were on board the trains Friday evening when one heading east from New York City's Grand Central Terminal to New Haven derailed just outside Bridgeport. It was hit by a train heading west from New Haven.
Dan Solomon, a trauma surgeon who lives in Westport and was headed to work at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, was on the train that derailed. He said he treated several injured passengers, including a woman with severely broken ankles.
He said he was in a front car that was not as badly affected as cars in the rear of the train.
"I hardly lost my iced tea," Solomon said in an interview.
He said walls were torn off both trains and he quickly checked injured passengers to separate the most badly injured from others.
"When the EMS arrived, I was covered in everyone's blood," he said.
Investigators are looking at a broken section of rail to see if it is connected to the derailment and collision.
NTSB investigators arrived Saturday and are expected to be on site for seven to 10 days. They will look at the brakes and performance of the trains, the condition of the tracks, crew performance and train signal information, among other things.
The MTA operates the Metro-North Railroad, the second-largest commuter railroad in the nation. The Metro-North main lines ? the Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven ? run northward from New York City's Grand Central Terminal into suburban New York and Connecticut.
The last significant train collision involving Metro-North occurred in 1988 when a train engineer was killed in Mount Vernon, N.Y., when one train empty of passengers rear-ended another, railroad officials said.
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Sonic the Hedgehog is rolling with Nintendo.
Sega says it will exclusively release the next three games starring the popular blue critter on Nintendo platforms. The first title will be called "Sonic Lost World" and is set for release on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS later this year.
"With 'Sonic Lost World,' we're going to introduce new gameplay and enemies, which is always fun," said John Cheng, president and chief operating officer of Sega of America Inc. "In terms of Sonic and his friends, he'll have his same friends there, and I think there'll be some new ones as well. It's not a reiteration. It's going to be all new."
The original fast-paced side-scrolling "Sonic the Hedgehog" debuted in 1991. The twirling, ring-hoarding hedgehog became Sega's mascot and a video-game icon rivaling the likes of Mario and Pac-Man.
While his recent interactive exploits haven't achieved the same level of success as previous "Sonic" outings, the character has remained a presence in pop culture, appearing in cartoons, downloadable games and the Disney film "Wreck-It Ralph."
"The onetime rivalry between Mario and Sonic has grown into a friendship that has never been closer," said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime in a statement. "These announcements in conjunction with Sega demonstrate the commitment we have to bringing great games to the Wii U platform, and set the stage for our upcoming announcements at E3."
Sonic has competed against Nintendo Co.'s mustachioed spokesman Mario since 2007 in the "Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games" mini-game series. Cheng said the characters would be back for more match-ups in "Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games."
Over the past 22 years, Sonic and his friends have starred in dozens of games, including the hallmark 1992 sequel "Sonic the Hedgehog 2," 1997 3-D racer "Sonic R," 2002 hand-held adventure "Sonic Advance" and 2011 anniversary mash-up "Sonic Generations."
Sega says more than 75 million games and smartphone apps featuring Sonic have been sold worldwide. After the publisher stopped producing its own game consoles in 2001, Sega began releasing "Sonic" games for other systems, including Sony Corp.'s PlayStation and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox.
Microsoft is expected to unveil a new Xbox console at an event in Seattle next week, following Sony's tease of the forthcoming PlayStation 4 earlier this year in New York.
Last fall, Nintendo launched the next generation of gaming consoles with the Wii U, which comes with a tabletlike controller called the GamePad. Nintendo said last March it has sold 3.45 million units worldwide, a disappointing start for the first of a new generation of gaming systems. Sega's Cheng believes bringing Sonic exclusively to the Wii U will help Nintendo.
"It should be a win-win situation," said Cheng. "Don't count Nintendo out."
___
Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang .
If there's one thing I can tell you definitively about the future of journalism, it's that young people of the present will be the leaders of that future.
Those in college now, who have recently finished college, or maybe a few years out of college, they're the leaders of tomorrow. There are a lot of questions about what that future will look like, but these folks have the creativity, innovative mindset and smarts to take journalism to places it's never been before.
These are the Millennials. They grew up with computers, instant messaging on AIM, using Facebook in school, they're not afraid to communicate in GIFs or acronyms, and they're poised to do great things in the future. That's why they're worth watching. And that's why I thought I'd put together a list of them.
Thanks to some crowdsourcing help on Twitter and Facebook, here are more than 100 young people to watch in the social media and journalism space going forward. These people have bright futures ahead of them!
Did I miss someone great? Tweet me @ckanal and I can consider adding them.
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Follow Craig Kanalley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ckanal
KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber in a car attacked a convoy of foreign troops in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 15 people including six Americans, Afghan and foreign officials said, in one of the worst attacks in the Afghan capital in months.
Forty people were wounded in the blast at around 8 a.m. (0330 GMT) during the morning rush-hour. It caused heavy damage to mud-built houses in the vicinity.
The Hezb-e-Islami insurgent group, which is allied with the Taliban, claimed responsibility For the attack on the two-vehicle convoy.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the bomber killed two of its members and four civilian contractors. It declined to give nationalities.
But two senior officials, one Afghan and the other from ISAF, said the two ISAF soldiers and four contractors were all American.
Afghan officials said nine Afghan civilians were killed, including two children.
"Some of the dead civilians were badly burnt and cannot be recognized," Kaneshka Baktash, a spokesman for the Health Ministry, told Reuters.
Helicopters buzzed over Kabul's diplomatic area after the attack and sirens whined.
"We were in our home drinking tea when the we heard a blast and our windows shattered, the glass wounded all of us," Zohra, a wounded girl who only gave her first name, said from a hospital bed. Her head was wrapped in a bandage.
A Hezb-e-Islami spokesman told Reuters U.S. military advisers were the targets.
"We planned this attack for over a week," the spokesman, Haroon Zarghoun, said by telephone.
Last year, in a similar attack, the group killed seven South African and Russian pilots on their way to work in Kabul.
Hezb-e-Islami, which means Islamic Party, is a radical militant group which shares some of the anti-foreigner, anti-government aims of the Taliban.
But the political wing of the group, founded by warlord and former anti-Soviet fighter Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, has been in exploratory talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on a peace deal to end the 12-year war.
The National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's intelligence agency, says it thwarts a large number of attacks on the capital on a weekly basis.
The last suicide bomb attack in Kabul was in March, when a man blew himself up at a Defense Ministry gate, killing nine Afghans, during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi, writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman, Editing by Robert Birsel)
Soccer fans in America often have a chip on their shoulder about football.? And for good reason.? Football is the dominant sport in the country, soccer isn?t.
Then again, soccer is boring.? Football isn?t.
It creates potential friction where an NFL team also owns a professional soccer team.? In New England, the Krafts are getting the brunt of some of that friction via fans of the soccer team the Krafts own.
Julian Cardillo of the Boston Globe (via SportsBusiness Daily) writes that ?[i]t appears to many that the Revolution are the Kraft family?s second priority, rather than an equal investment, to the New England Patriots.?
If it appears that way, that appearance would be accurate.? The Patriots have become one of the elite franchises in the NFL, the premier professional sports league in the United States.? The Revolution are an also-ran, at best, in a league that is an also-ran, at best.
Revolution Brian Bilello seems to think that the griping comes from soccer?s anti-football bias.
?I think both the Kraft family and the Hunt family, because they have NFL sides as well, I think there?s a weird perception,? Bilello told Cardillo.? ?Both families have been involved with the sport since the very beginning.? The fact that they?re involved in the NFL, that hurts them.?
Still, a Sports Illustrated poll of anonymous players pegged the Krafts as the worst owners in the MLS, and players like Thierry Henry and David Beckham have balked at playing on the FieldTurf at Gillette Stadium.
?There?s a lot of great things about having the Krafts as owners,? Bilello said.? ?They?ve supported this league.? They do things behind the scenes not just for the Revolution, but for the sport of soccer in this country.?
None of that matters to the average soccer fan, who can?t understand why Americans haven?t embraced the sport the way the rest of the world has.
Meanwhile, we can?t understand why the rest of the world hasn?t embraced football the way Americans have.
President Barack Obama forced out the acting IRS commissioner on Wednesday in response to allegations the agency had inappropriately targeted conservative groups. Critics have said the IRS scandal is just one of a series of incidents where the Obama administration has avoided taking responsibility.
By John Whitesides,?Reuters / May 15, 2013
President Barack Obama makes a statement on the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups for extra tax scrutiny in Washington, Wednesday.
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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With no sign of an end to three mushrooming scandals, the?White House?acknowledged the rising political dangers on Wednesday by launching a concerted effort at damage control.
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In a whirlwind few hours, the administration moved forcefully to counter criticism of its handling of the deadly attacks in?Benghazi,?Libya, the seizure of reporters' phone records in a Justice Department leak investigation, and the?Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny.
In the most aggressive response, President?Barack Obama?ousted the acting IRS?commissioner on Wednesday evening.
It was the sort of concerted response that Obama's political allies had been waiting for, but Republicans' skeptical reaction shows that Obama has a long way to go to dig his way out of the scandals and build goodwill as he tries to salvage his second-term legislative agenda.
"This was a belated acknowledgment that Obama is in trouble," said?Jack Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College in?California. "The question is whether it was too little, too late."
After a largely scandal-free first term, the administration had been slow to respond decisively to the growing criticism - mostly from Republican foes but in some cases from Democrats - in the three controversies.
Days of deflecting blame by administration officials had sparked criticism of Obama's willingness to accept responsibility. During a House?Judiciary Committee?hearing on Wednesday afternoon with U.S. Attorney General?Eric Holder, Republicans repeatedly attacked the administration for not being forthright on the emerging scandals.
"I believe there has been a pattern by this administration in not taking responsibility for failures, avoiding blame, pointing the fingers in somebody else's direction," said U.S. Representative?Steve Chabot, a Republican from?Ohio.
But Obama, known for his deliberative style and an aversion to overreacting, decided on Wednesday it was time to fight back.
Appearing at the?White House, he said the administration had forced the resignation of acting IRS?Commissioner?Steven Miller?and he strongly condemned the agency's apparent targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny. He promised to cooperate with?Congress?in an investigation.
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - E! president Suzanne Kolb on Wednesday sent a letter to eight striking "Fashion Police" writers, defending the show's host Joan Rivers and insisting on a sanctioned election before it would come to the negotiating table.
The writers have been on strike since April 17, after expressing a desire to organize and join the Writers Guild of America West. The writers want the network to recognize the WGA as their bargaining representative, while the network is insisting that a National Labor Relations Board election be held first.
"Why strike over an election if you believe the vote will be in favor of representation?" Kolb asks in the letter.
The writers maintain that demanding an election before negotiating is a stalling tactic, since they've made their desire to be in the guild clear.
Weeks before going on strike, the writers filed $1.5 million in wage and hour claims with the California Division of Labor Standard Enforcement (DLSE) against the network and show host Joan Rivers' production company, Rugby productions. They are seeking payment for unpaid regular and overtime hours worked.
Here's Kolb's complete letter:
Let me begin by thanking you for the work you have done for Fashion Police, and for your time in reading this letter. My purpose in writing is to share with you the network's position, as well as correct some of the false information that surrounds this issue, and most importantly reemphasize the resolution that can bring us all to the negotiating table.
First, Joan Rivers has been and remains emphatically supportive of you. And, despite what has been reported to the contrary, her company does not produce Fashion Police nor set the compensation of E! Networks Productions' writers. The personal attacks on Joan have been grossly unfair and inaccurate as the responsibility of the show lies on my shoulders, not hers.
Additionally, I want to make it clear that E! is not anti-WGA. We have other WGA shows, and we will negotiate with the guild should you formally elect them as your representative. We require an NLRB administered election prior to collective bargaining because it is a fair and important part of the process. Although the WGA claims to have a practice of not participating in NLRB elections, they in fact participated in them for Chelsea Lately and The Soup, both of which now have guild deals. The WGA has convinced you that a strike is necessary in order to gain a union contract. But history at E! has shown that not to be true. You are actually losing paychecks because of the guild's dislike of elections.
This leads me to ask you, why strike over an election if you believe the vote will be in favor of representation? Please reconsider striking over something as democratic as an election. There will be no resolution to this matter without one.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission warned China on Wednesday it was ready to launch an investigation into anti-competitive behavior by producers of mobile telecommunications equipment, opening a new front in a trade offensive against a key partner.
EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said in a statement that he and fellow commissioners had agreed in principle to open an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy case, but would first seek to negotiate a solution with Chinese authorities.
"The clock is ticking. We have had an open-door policy for negotiations with our Chinese partners for approximately one year now and we hope that the Chinese authorities step forward and engage with us in a serious manner," De Gucht's spokesman told a news briefing.
The European Union is China's most important trading partner, while for the EU, China is second only to the United States. Chinese exports of goods to the 27-member bloc totaled 290 billion euros ($376 billion) last year, with 144 billion euros going the other way.
The EU trade deficit in goods with China has dipped since a 2008 peak, but the European Union has increased the number and scale of trade-related investigations into alleged anti-competitive behavior by China and Chinese competitors.
The EU has 31 ongoing trade investigations, 18 of them involving China. The largest to date is that into 21 billion euros of imports from China of solar panels, cells and wafers, for which it is set to impose punitive duties.
The proposed telecoms investigation would mark a new twist in the EU's trade defense against China because it would be launched by the European Commission itself and not in response to a complaint by industry.
Officials have indicated that, while European manufacturers such as Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent have suffered as a result of cheap imports, they are not prepared to make a formal complaint for fear of reprisals.
The EU said that by launching a case on its own initiative - known as an ex-officio case - it would provide a degree of protection for EU companies.
"This possibility is particularly important as it offers a 'shield' when the risk of retaliation against European companies asking for trade defense instruments is high," the Commission said in a statement explaining its decision.
Chinese telecoms operators will start awarding contracts for super-fast mobile networks this year, expected to give a big boost to Huawei, the world's number two producer, and ZTE, the world's fifth largest equipment manufacturer.
China exports network equipment, base stations and connections used by telecoms providers to transmit voice and data messages worth more than 1 billion euros a year to the European Union, giving them almost a quarter of the market.
The investigation is not into end-user devices such as telephones and modems.
The Commission did not identify any of the Chinese producers or European manufacturers it believes are threatened.
No one was immediately available for comment at Ericsson, the global leader, with some 35 percent of the mobile equipment market.
($1 = 0.7705 euros)
(Reporting by Ethan Bilby, additional reporting by Robin Emmott in Brussels, Simon Johnson in Stockholm; writing by Philip Blenkinsop; editing by Luke Baker and Mike Collett-White)
HAR?(Houston Association of Realtors) has released their March numbers.
Please contact me for additional information or if you have any questions.
The Highlights are:
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?? Single-family homes sales or up for the 22nd consecutive monthly increase, 17% higher than a year ago
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?? The median price of existing single-family homes increased to $172,000 up 6.5% vs Mar-12.
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?? The Average single-family home price reached the second all-time highest level of $236,195
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?? Inventories (or homes on the market) are extremely low. While this is accounting for the higher sales, median, and average price increases, the appraisals are not caught up to market yet. This means that buyers may not qualify for a home mortgage or have to pay the difference out of pocket.
Still great signs that the market?is becoming a sellers? market; this just goes to show, that even more, you need a qualified Real Estate Consultant on your side.
ANSWER: Citibank s stock has fallen about 93% from May 2007 to November 21, 2008.
Here s the deal:
1.The U.S. Gov will take a new Billion equity state in CitiGroup.
2.The U.S. Gov already took a Billion equity state in CitiGroup in October 2008.
All of this Billion will have come from the 0 Billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Of that fund, there would be a little less than 0 Billion remaining, all of which is borrowed money to begin with.
3.The US Government, through the U.S. Treasury and FDIC will also guarantee up to 6 Billion of higher risk loans and mortgage backed securities that CitiGroup is holding. CitiGroup accepts the first billion in losses, and 10% thereafter. The USG, The Treasury and the FDIC will take on 90% of the risk thereafter.
What do we (tax payers get)?
4.About Billon worth of CitiGroup preferred stock with 8% dividend, plus warrants for about 254 million shares of CitiGroup common stock with a strike price of .61 per share. The US Treasury and the FDIC will receive this deal. 5.The USG will also have control over executive bonuses.
Why this bailout plan is bad deal for U.S. tax payers.
The US government under FDIC banking rules could have just decided to take over all of CitiGroup for its Friday s closing market value of about .54 Billion. Instead, the US Governments hands CitiGroup another Billion on top of the Billion last month, and then guarantees 6 Billion more.
Anyone could have just as well as bought CitiGroup for Billion based on last Friday s close. But no, expert government negotiators made sure that not only should US tax payers nearly pay the full market value for CitiGroup on top of the Billion loan last month, plus guarantee over 0 Billion more in exchange for part interest in CitiGroup?
Part Interest ownership? This look like a bailout of massive proportions, potentially three times the size of the AIG bailout.
The USG paid100% of the total market value for CitiGroup (approx. Billion), and got back Billion of preferred stock, and some 254 million warrants for CitiGroup common stock. Those warrants won t be profitable for the taxpayers unless CitiGroup s common stock jumps 181% from 11-21-2008 s close.
What?
Let me see if I understand this. We basically pay Billion (approximately the full market value of CitiGroup add about billion and there is the full value of the stock). Now, on top of that, we loaned you Billion last month (now we have loaned you billion), and we are also guaranteeing over 0 Billion more.
And what we get in return is Billion of preferred stock, and a handful of warrants which will only be profitable if you stock soars 181% and at that point we only break even?
On top of this, Citigroup is NOT required to loan 1 penny of this money; they have full discretion of what to do with it.
Want more? The people who helped run Citigroup in the ground were not required to leave. So the same mismanagement that plunged Citigroup to failure, are still running the company with more tax payer bailout money. And is billion in bail out enough?
For those who missed the last Billion we loaned to CitiGroup, here are the terms:
These terms benefit Citigroup, not the lender the US taxpayers.
Who negotiated this deal for the tax payer? Fire them too.
And to satisfy the public s concern over executive compensation, CitiGroup agrees that the USG will control the bonuses. Control the bonuses? CitiGroup has failed by any accounting measurements, and we are glad that we can control bonuses?
Why not say, Look, CitiGroup. We just took you over under FDIC authority. We declare you as insolvent, and taking you into receivership. You can still operate, but under our rules. Forget bonuses, no one deserves them or will be getting them until you repay all your debt back to the taxpayers with interest, and your stock has reached its previous all time high.
You re on the hook for your debt. You named the bad loans, bad investments, now eat it like everyone has. Starting putting up some assets for sale to reduce your liabilities. You said Friday, 11-21-08 that you did not want to sell Smith Barney, and you did not want to spin off the bank including Travelers Insurance. Tough. We the US tax payers - own, you and the assets are now for sale.
By the way, the entire Board of Directors, and all top management is technically fired. They will all be replaced shortly. You can continue working until then, and we are adjusting your pay based on performance. Since we have minimum wage laws, that is about what you will be getting.
The people who run this bank are about as idiotic for not being able to see that their own industry was falling apart. And the people who think they can
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Public release date: 20-May-2013
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