I smell gas:
"Baker, Columbia Gas unveil massive recovery plan" by Milton J. Valencia, Matt Rocheleau and Laura Crimaldi Globe Staff September 21, 2018
LAWRENCE — Governor Charlie Baker on Friday said he is deploying the National Guard to the Merrimack Valley in a massive relief effort that will distribute thousands of hot plates and space heaters, and set an ambitious two-month timeline to rebuild the network damaged during last week’s natural gas explosions.
Officials targeted Nov. 19 for restoring gas service to some 8,600 customers in Andover, Lawrence, and North Andover, as thousands of relief workers, construction workers, and translators race to restore service before the onset of cold weather.
“They say sometimes it takes an army, but in this difficult situation that couldn’t be more true,” Baker said during an hour-long news conference.
At Baker’s direction, Columbia Gas of Massachusetts hired a retired Navy Seabee, Joseph Albanese, to oversee the effort. Albanese served in the military for 28 years, working on construction projects in the Middle East. He runs a Waltham construction company that has built numerous local projects.
See: Major office development coming to Waltham
The sheer scale of the response underscores the gravity of the undertaking. Thousands of residents, including some of the poorest in the state, cannot cook or take hot showers.
Hundreds of business are out of service, their employees without work. And the arrival of cold weather will exacerbate health and safety threats and worsen conditions for the pipe work.
That's odd because I was told "everyday life in the affected neighborhoods started to show signs of resuming Sunday. Most streets were reopened, electricity was restored, children raced bikes along sidewalks, and one resident on Abbott Street in Lawrence smoked a turkey in his backyard, while nearby grocery stores, barbershops, and even a few bars were back in business."
“What can we do to get people back to normalcy?” said Mayor Dan Rivera of Lawrence. “It’s not about fixing people, or fixing walls, or appliances. This is about getting people back to their normal lives.”
Meanwhile the Globe has learned that the US attorney in Boston is investigating the cause of the explosions.
The aid effort begins Saturday, when soldiers from the National Guard will deliver the first of 7,000 hot plates in Lawrence; residents of North Andover and Andover can get theirs at local claims centers. Some 24,000 space heaters will be available Monday. Firefighters and electricians will first inspect homes to determine if they can be safely used.
Baker said Columbia Gas will cover the higher electric bills expected from the use of the equipment.
Fire safety experts expressed concern about the number of space heaters, especially in older, more densely settled neighborhoods where outdated electrical systems are more likely.
“With that many going out, there are going to be problems. It’s the law of averages,” said retired Revere fire chief Gene Doherty. And Lorraine Carli of the National Fire Protection Association warned that the hot plates can be a danger.
“In general, cooking is a leading cause of home fires,” said Carli. “The big safety message there is to pay attention if you’re cooking. And keep anything that can catch fire . . . away from the stovetop.”
Federal prosecutors are also investigating whether Columbia Gas could be held criminally liable under a federal pipeline safety law that has been used to prosecute companies in other explosions around the country, according to an official who asked not to be named because the matter is confidential.
The head of the public corruption unit at the US attorney’s office in Boston, Fred Wyshak, this week visited a construction site at South Union and Salem streets in Lawrence.
Meanwhile, weary Lawrence residents welcomed the relief effort, but expressed skepticism at the promise of speedy work.....
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"Gas service could take ‘several months’ to restore in Merrimack Valley" by Milton J. Valencia and Matt Rocheleau Globe Staff September 21, 2018
NORTH ANDOVER — Columbia Gas said Thursday that restoration of gas service across the Merrimack Valley could take “several months,” a dark new prediction for local business owners and residents as frustrations continue to grow with the company amid uncertainty over the future.
“We are just getting so many [different] answers, I don’t know exactly how we will be affected,” said Shahram Naghibi, owner of the Chama Grill on Main Street. While his restaurant has no gas, it has served as the location for a meeting between Governor Charlie Baker, Town Manager Andrew W. Maylor, and dozens of business owners who have gone without service since last week’s gas fires and explosions rocked communities in North Andover, Andover, and Lawrence.
Naghibi said he has to decide whether to convert to propane gas, a costly endeavor, or wait out the restoration of service.
“It would come out of my own pocket, but the whole goal is getting back into business,” he said. “It doesn’t look like we will be opening soon.”
More than 8,600 gas customers could go without service entering the winter months, as it may be weeks before even preliminary findings of the probe are announced.....
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Related:
National Guard members deliver hot plates to Lawrence residents
Residents briefly evacuate homes because of ruptured gas line in Marlborough
Speaking of blowups:
Trump lashes out at Kavanaugh accuser
Kavanaugh accuser won’t testify Monday but open to doing so later next week
Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser agree to testify on Thursday before Senate panel
How is she getting there?
For some, the year’s lessons feel forgotten
They must mean the accusers of, oh, Keith Ellison, Eric Schneiderman, Tom Brokaw, and all the others that have been banished and forgotten by the political cudgel being waged in the name of women.
How well can a person remember things that happened more than 30 years ago?
I guess that is up to the juries and psychologists, but maybe someone should get a yearbook.
The tragedy and trauma now define her as we are all witnesses to an accusation in the three-ring circus, and they are going to fry his balls before this is through (and we will have a new face of evil).
[flip to below fold]
After Cape shark fatality, tourism industry reels
Also see:
Girl critical after second shark attack on Australian isle
They’re angry, they’re from Canada, and they’re threatening the coastal ecosystem
Related:
"Several whale species have been dying at an unusually high rate since at least 2017 as part of three ongoing unusual mortality events. From what the scientists could see, there was no evidence of entanglement or open trauma from a possible vessel strike, said Tony LaCasse, a spokesman for the New England Aquarium....."
Save the..... cats?
Just going on a lark, here, but I'm wondering if the dead whales and the shark preference for man meat is due to something like radiated seawater or other environmental contaminants. These are top of the food chain animals, too. What if there is no longer life in the sea?
I'd say go sniff it out but.....
"A pet groomer who was wanted by police in New Hampshire for allegedly allowing a golden retriever to die under her care in June turned herself in on Wednesday, police said. On June 21, Beth Bessemer, 57, of Hampton, N.H., allegedly left the dog unattended in a crate with a heated dryer pointed at him and a noose around his neck, which resulted in his death. Bessemer is the owner of Mrs. Doolittle’s Bath House in Hampton. The dog’s owner reported the death to Hampton police Aug. 28. After conducting an investigation, police were granted an arrest warrant for Bessemer for two counts of cruelty to animals, police said. Bessemer was released on her own recognizance after turning herself in and was ordered to stay away from other people’s pets. She is scheduled to be arraigned Oct. 30 in Seabrook District Court, police said."
Also see: Two bear cubs shot, killed after getting into resident’s chicken coop and beehive
I'm going to yo-yo past this as the whistle blows:
"Man accused of defiling flags in veterans cemetery faces charges" by John R. Ellement Globe Staff September 20, 2018
A Boston man is being charged by Somerville police with allegedly uprooting four American flags installed at the Somerville Veterans Memorial Cemetery and urinating on them while on a date, according to court records.
Wait until Trump hears about this.
Michael C. Lacey, 31, is listed at a Boston address with his employer, an unidentified Boston restaurant, according to records filed at Somerville District Court. A warrant was outstanding Thursday for his arrest, according to court records.
Somerville Police Deputy Chief James Stanford said in an e-mailed statement that authorities had obtained criminal charges against a man for the incident. The alleged actions gained extensive attention on the Internet after a passerby posted an account of what happened along with photographs of Lacey and the woman he was with that day.
Somerville police have otherwise declined comment on the case.
According to the police report, Lacey and the woman were on their third date after first meeting on the website OKCupid. The woman, who cooperated with police, said they had been drinking wine at her apartment and then went for a walk at the St. Paul Cemetery in Arlington.
The woman told police he “made some type of anti-government type comment.’’
Related: UN: Excessive drinking killed over 3 million people in 2016
Time to BAN BOOZE!
Also see: Marijuana stores unlikely to open until late October or November
I won't hold my hit.
According to the report, the woman started walking away before Lacey began urinating. The Globe is not identifying the woman because she is not facing any criminal charges in connection with the incident, according to court records.
Lacey rejoined her a few moments later, and they returned to her apartment. Later that night, her landlord notified her about a social media posting that included a photograph of her and the man police later identified as Lacey.
She told police they were on their third meeting since first connecting through the OKCupid website. “She stated that she did not know Lacey that well, but had some conversations with him regarding his outlook on political views and his dislike for American government policies and the current president,’’ police wrote.
OH!
Lacey was described as a restaurant cook who was originally from Oregon. A tipster who contacted Somerville police reported that Lacey had dyed his hair brown; photos posted on social media showed Lacey with blonde hair.
If convicted of destroying an American flag and defacing a veteran’s memorial, Lacey faces a maximum of five years in state prison.
Lacey’s alleged actions were seen by George D. Gatteny Jr., who posted photos of the allegedly urine-soaked flags, photos of Lacey and the woman after the incident, and a description of what he saw. The posting had 80,000 shares on Facebook and drew 30,000 comments.
Gatteny said in an interview Thursday that the woman “didn’t do anything. She was just there. I am hoping she learned her lesson,” but, he said, what he saw Lacey do was wrong, and he should now be held accountable.
“The people in that cemetery fought and died so he could express himself,’’ Gatteny said. “But not like that . . . I hope he is held accountable.”
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No offense, but this smells like a staged stunt for propaganda purposes.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
At least he wasn't on drugs:
"Lawyer requests federal investigation into drug lab scandals" by Shawn Musgrave Globe Staff September 21, 2018
A defense attorney has called for a federal investigation into scandals at the state’s drug labs in Jamaica Plain and Amherst. The scandals, which first came to light more than five years ago, have led to the dismissal of more than 30,000 drug convictions because of misconduct by state chemists and prosecutors.
In a letter sent recently to US Attorney Andrew Lelling, the defense lawyer called the state’s inquiry into Sonja Farak, the Amherst chemist arrested in 2013 for stealing from the evidence locker, “constitutionally inadequate.”
The attorney, Jim McKenna of North Grafton, told the Globe his decision to reach out to Lelling “came down to the end of the process of elimination.”
“There is no one left except the US attorney,” McKenna said. He believes the state attorney general’s office — under both Martha Coakley and Maura Healey — “failed repeatedly” to investigate Farak. McKenna also said the state inspector general’s investigation into Annie Dookhan, arrested in 2012 for tampering with samples, was incomplete.
A spokeswoman for Lelling said she was unable to confirm whether the US attorney’s office would open an investigation.
Farak and Dookhan worked together at the Hinton drug lab in Jamaica Plain for nine months before Farak transferred to Amherst in 2004. Farak later testified she smoked crack cocaine several times a day while at Amherst. Following extensive litigation, prosecutors agreed earlier this year to vacate every single conviction based on evidence she analyzed while at Amherst, but McKenna says there’s been far too little scrutiny into Farak’s time at the Hinton drug lab.
“Such an investigation was required by both constitutional obligation and the public trust, yet — after all these years — is not even on the horizon,” McKenna wrote in his letter to Lelling.
Following Dookhan’s arrest, then-Governor Deval Patrick tasked the state inspector general’s office with investigating how her tampering went undetected for so long. In 2014, the inspector general determined Dookhan was the “sole bad actor” at the lab.
There was massive corruption over there before the Globe discovered the state troopers, and the costs are now reaching into five figures.
Btw, what was a “bag of crack doing on the desk of the guy in charge?”
Won't be helping Patrick's 2020 campaign, either.
McKenna and other defense attorneys dispute this finding, noting that the inspector general report barely mentions Farak. A footnote in the report describes Farak as an “Amherst lab chemist” without indicating that Farak also overlapped with Dookhan at the Hinton lab.
The inspector general found Dookhan’s supervisors failed to catch many red flags, including her “spectacular productivity.” Dookhan confessed to reporting results without running any tests on some samples, a type of forensics fraud called “dry labbing.” She sometimes processed more than twice as many samples as her colleagues in a given month, the inspector general reported, but defense attorneys believe the inspector general may have excluded Farak from its Hinton lab analysis, perhaps because of her relatively short tenure there. A statistician hired by the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state public defender agency, found Farak analyzed even more cocaine samples than Dookhan did in certain months.
“The data reveals that Farak’s testing volume not only rivaled Annie Dookhan’s, it dwarfed it,” wrote CPCS attorney Chris Post and defense attorney Luke Ryan to the state’s top court in January.
The inspector general’s office, which declined to comment on McKenna’s letter to the US attorney, has opposed attempts to obtain details about its Hinton lab investigation. And under Massachusetts law, most inspector general documents are confidential and shielded from public records laws.
That's the kind of transparency you get in a deep-blue state.
Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey, who heads the Massachusetts District Attorney Association, defended the inspector general’s investigation as thorough.
The state’s response to the Farak scandal is currently being considered by the state Supreme Judicial Court. At oral arguments in May, defense attorneys asked the court to dismiss all cases that passed through the Amherst lab during Farak’s tenure on the grounds that she sometimes stole from samples assigned to other chemists.
In 2015, the state Supreme Judicial Court found the state’s investigation into Farak’s misconduct was “cursory at best,” and a judge ruled in 2017 that two former state prosecutors committed “a fraud upon the court” by hiding evidence of Farak’s longstanding drug use.
Healey’s office declined to comment.....
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Related: Three former State Police lieutenants indicted in AG’s OT probe
"‘A space that is worthy of them’: Brooke High School opens new building in Mattapan" by Morgan Hughes Globe Correspondent September 21, 2018
Students, educators, and local officials on Friday celebrated the formal opening of the new $41 million Brooke High School and Eighth Grade Academy in Mattapan.
The school, which was completed in August, eventually will house up to 600 high school students and 180 eighth-graders from Boston and Chelsea. The 90,000 square-foot facility on American Legion Highway teems with natural light and offers modern classrooms, science and computer labs, a robotics space, and arts studios.
“[This building] means that our students can now come to school each day to learn and achieve in a space that is worthy of them,” said Jon Clark, co-director of Brooke Charter Schools.
Students in the Brooke schools network have attained top scores on state tests in recent years, where students spend their after-school hours building robots for competitions. About 93 percent of the student body is black or Hispanic.
Mayor Martin J. Walsh praised the new building’s robotics and lab spaces. “This is a 21st century school, clearly designed for success,” Walsh told attendees at the ribbon cutting.
How have those school buses been running anyway because the Globe stopped riding them since then?
The building was designed by Arrowstreet. About $9 million came from private donors, and the rest from public and private loans.
It's not even public school anymore, it's the elite culling the cream for several reasons.
City Council president Andrea Campbell, whose district includes Mattapan, commended the community effort it took to develop and build the school. She said it’s not just the building that leads Brooke students to success, but the dedicated people inside.
“We’re not going to eradicate poverty overnight; we’re not going to close the achievement gap overnight,” Campbell said. “This is a place where students and families can think, can dream big, can see the possibilities for themselves.”
Dailin Morfa, a junior at Brooke High School, said high expectations at Brooke helped her grow as a student and as a person.....
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Here is what you have to look forward to after graduation:
"Five budding entrepreneurs are living in a glass box at MIT this weekend" by Andy Rosen Globe Staff September 21, 2018
Organizers at MIT, InCube’s first location outside Switzerland, said they hoped the contest would celebrate the university’s longtime love affair with the “hackathon,” a public session where groups work together to hatch new ideas that can develop into products or businesses.
MIT has long seen hackathons as an ideal way for students to try out the technical and entrepreneurial skills they’re learning in school. InCube, they said, is a chance to let the world see the excitement and adventure of intensive group problem-solving.
The transparent cube shows “what the entrepreneurial journey looks like,” said Gene Keselman, executive director of the MIT Innovation Initiative. “People can stand around it and watch it like they’re spectators or something.”
As opposed to the Black Cube.
Each InCube challenge is meant to be a real-world problem that passersby can relate to, said Signe Lin Kuei Vehusheia, an MIT researcher who helped organize the event.
“Basically, this is to ensure that we’re not working on a challenge that no one cares about and also that the final product is not irrelevant,” she said.
Then I think you failed because I don't care and it's not relevant.
The students can leave to use the bathroom, change their clothes, and conduct research.
Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose?
They can also step outside the cube to quiz passersby about project ideas and to demonstrate what they’re working on.
On Thursday, a Pro EMS ambulance was parked beside the cube.....
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Related:
"The first annual FRAXA Biotech Games on Thursday raised more than $30,000 for research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bear Lab....."
MIT student finds fame with a yo-yo
More fun and games:
"HUBweek unveils new events, headliners" by Andres Picon Globe Correspondent September 20, 2018
HUBweek, Boston’s “festival for the future,” will kick off its weeklong series of conferences, exhibits, and dance parties early next month with a new and diverse cast of speakers and artists, organizers said Thursday.
Among the headline speakers this year are Governor Charlie Baker, SoulCycle cofounder Julie Rice, CTE research pioneer Ann McKee, and former Suffolk assistant district attorney Adam Foss.
The festival’s activities are based on the theme “We the Future” and will focus on dozens of topics at the crossroads of art, science, and technology. The events of the Oct. 8-14 festival will be dispersed throughout Greater Boston, and the final events will take place on City Hall Plaza at The HUB, an events space that will host dozens of exhibits and performances, as well as the festival’s two flagship conferences — the Change Maker Conference and the HUBweek Forums.
The Change Maker Conference on Oct. 8 and 9 will be a “multidisciplinary experience and interactive program” that will explore the ways in which people can lay the foundation for a future that is inclusive and equitable, organizers said.
What city are they holding this in?
At least the poor fare better.
The featured speakers include Foss, Alaa Murabit, a United Nations high-level commissioner, and Alister Martin, the cofounder and chief executive of Symbiosis A.I. and an MGH resident physician. The speakers will be complemented by performances by Thread Ensemble, composer-performer Ben Cosgrove, and spoken word artist D. Ruff.
Three other headline conferences will take place on Oct. 10, 11, and 12. Baker and McKee, among others, will speak at the Oct. 10 conference on the future of health, wellness, and medicine. The following day, several speakers, including Tye Brady of Amazon Robotics and Colin Angle of iRobot, will discuss the future of work, data, and robotics. On Oct. 12, former US secretary of defense Ash Carter, and others will explore the future of mobility, energy, and cities.
You will be going in rever$e if he is driving.
Another major part of the festival is the Oct. 8 HUBweek Hackathon, in which teams of competitors tackle three challenges related to the future of health, the future of work, and the future of cities.
For those who are more interested in the fine arts, HUBweek Walls will feature 10 artists from around the country who will paint murals on shipping containers at City Hall Plaza in front of the public. The exhibition will begin on Sept. 23 and end on Oct. 9.
To cap off each event-packed day between Oct. 10 and 13, HUBweek is hosting Party Time, a series of evening parties involving performers, virtual reality installations, and silent discos, where participants can hear music only by wearing special headphones supplied at the event.
HUBweek was founded in 2014 by The Boston Globe, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Massachusetts General Hospital. Those interested in participating in HUBweek can do so for free by getting a general admission pass. Those who want additional access to HUBweek events can purchase the HUBweek Insider Pass. Register at HUBweek.org.
The pre$$ is about nothing more than self-promotion of their agenda.
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Why is that promotional flier masquerading as news?
"HUBweek unveils new events, headliners" by Andres Picon Globe Correspondent September 20, 2018
HUBweek, Boston’s “festival for the future,” will kick off its weeklong series of conferences, exhibits, and dance parties early next month with a new and diverse cast of speakers and artists, organizers said Thursday.
Among the headline speakers this year are Governor Charlie Baker, SoulCycle cofounder Julie Rice, CTE research pioneer Ann McKee, and former Suffolk assistant district attorney Adam Foss.
The festival’s activities are based on the theme “We the Future” and will focus on dozens of topics at the crossroads of art, science, and technology. The events of the Oct. 8-14 festival will be dispersed throughout Greater Boston, and the final events will take place on City Hall Plaza at The HUB, an events space that will host dozens of exhibits and performances, as well as the festival’s two flagship conferences — the Change Maker Conference and the HUBweek Forums.
The Change Maker Conference on Oct. 8 and 9 will be a “multidisciplinary experience and interactive program” that will explore the ways in which people can lay the foundation for a future that is inclusive and equitable, organizers said.
What city are they holding this in?
At least the poor fare better.
The featured speakers include Foss, Alaa Murabit, a United Nations high-level commissioner, and Alister Martin, the cofounder and chief executive of Symbiosis A.I. and an MGH resident physician. The speakers will be complemented by performances by Thread Ensemble, composer-performer Ben Cosgrove, and spoken word artist D. Ruff.
Three other headline conferences will take place on Oct. 10, 11, and 12. Baker and McKee, among others, will speak at the Oct. 10 conference on the future of health, wellness, and medicine. The following day, several speakers, including Tye Brady of Amazon Robotics and Colin Angle of iRobot, will discuss the future of work, data, and robotics. On Oct. 12, former US secretary of defense Ash Carter, and others will explore the future of mobility, energy, and cities.
You will be going in rever$e if he is driving.
Another major part of the festival is the Oct. 8 HUBweek Hackathon, in which teams of competitors tackle three challenges related to the future of health, the future of work, and the future of cities.
For those who are more interested in the fine arts, HUBweek Walls will feature 10 artists from around the country who will paint murals on shipping containers at City Hall Plaza in front of the public. The exhibition will begin on Sept. 23 and end on Oct. 9.
To cap off each event-packed day between Oct. 10 and 13, HUBweek is hosting Party Time, a series of evening parties involving performers, virtual reality installations, and silent discos, where participants can hear music only by wearing special headphones supplied at the event.
HUBweek was founded in 2014 by The Boston Globe, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Massachusetts General Hospital. Those interested in participating in HUBweek can do so for free by getting a general admission pass. Those who want additional access to HUBweek events can purchase the HUBweek Insider Pass. Register at HUBweek.org.
The pre$$ is about nothing more than self-promotion of their agenda.
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Why is that promotional flier masquerading as news?
Here is one of the founders who will be helping out with inequality:
"Harvard raises $9.62 billion in 7-year fund drive" by Andres Picon Globe Correspondent September 20, 2018
Harvard University’s seven-year fund-raising campaign generated more than $9 billion in new money that will support education and other projects throughout the institution, according to the university.
The $9.62 billion raised came from more than 633,000 donations from 153,000-plus households in 173 countries, according to the university.
The campaign was made public in 2013, two years after it was launched, according to Chris Hennessy, a university spokesman.
A large portion of the money raised will be set aside to expand the university’s financial aid capabilities. About $1.3 billion will go toward scholarships and fellowships, which the university said makes it possible “for extraordinary students studying in every discipline to become innovators in their fields and leaders in their communities, regardless of their financial circumstances.”
Just as long as you are not Asian.
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The money is also being used to improve the physical campus.
"Florence’s death toll includes millions of animals" by Michael Sasso Bloomberg September 20, 2018
An estimated 5,500 hogs and 3.4 million chickens and turkeys have already died as a result of Florence, which hit landfall Sept. 14. Six days later, flooding remains a problem, with some roads still impassable and some rivers still near cresting.
Now that's a Holocaust™!
Many of the state’s 2,100 hog farms ‘‘are returning to normal,’’ according to the North Carolina Pork Council, but about a dozen still remained unreachable as of Thursday morning, Andy Curliss, the group’s leader, said.
What happened to waste pits?
The current push to save animals will, by necessity, be followed by a more grisly effort: The need to quickly and safely get rid of millions of carcasses that carry significant health risks.
Speed is key. As livestock carcasses degrade, they release fluids, gases, and a slew of toxic chemical, biological, and radiological compounds, the US Department of Agriculture has said. If left untouched, what is released by the carcasses can leach into drinking water, and carcasses can draw flies and rats who can spread pathogens to humans and other livestock.
Can then blame them for climate change and bad drinking water.
The animals killed by Florence will be buried, composted, or ‘‘rendered’’ for usable parts, state officials said. The state is working to supply woody materials that can be placed around dead birds, helping them compost more quickly. Several landfills with impermeable linings may take larger carcasses, again topped with woody materials.
Environmentalists, meanwhile, said they remain concerned based on results from past storms, including Hurricane Matthew two years earlier and Hurricane Floyd in 1999, an event that killed at least 20,000 hogs.
‘‘Every time I see the same things: flooded lagoons, chicken houses filled to the roof with dead chicken,’’ said Rick Dove, an official with the environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance and a resident of New Bern, N.C. ‘‘We never learn from any of these storms. We have the same problems: dead animals, and feces and urine running down the rivers.’’
The final death toll won’t be known for several days, at the minimum. The state is sending inspectors into farm areas to assess the damage, but as of Wednesday they were waiting for flood waters to recede in many areas, the department said in a release.....
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Related:
Hurricane Florence has gone, but challenges for the Carolinas have just begun
Hawaiian park reopens after volcano’s eruption
The lava has stopped flowing?
Also see:
"A massive landslide buried dozens of homes near a central Philippine mountain Thursday, killing at least 21 people and sending rescuers scrambling to find survivors after some sent text messages pleading for help. The slide surged down on about 30 houses in two rural villages after daybreak in Naga city in Cebu province, Police Chief Roderick Gonzales said by telephone as he helped supervise the search and rescue. Seven injured villagers were rescued from the huge mound of earth and debris. Some victims managed to send messages after the landslide hit, Gonzales said, adding that an elderly women and a child were among the dead. The landslide hit while several northern Philippine provinces are still dealing with deaths and widespread damage wrought by Typhoon Mangkhut. It’s not clear what set off the landslide, but some residents blamed limestone quarries, which they suspect may have caused cracks in the mountainside facing their villages. Villarba said a light rain stopped when the landslide hit and there was no rain on Wednesday. The nearest quarry was abandoned about a year ago, but another government-authorized quarry is still being operated not far away, and villagers also profit from the limestone business, said Angeline Templo, an assistant to the mayor. The Philippines is one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries. It is lashed by about 20 storms each year and is located in the Pacific ‘‘Ring of Fire’’ that is vulnerable to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Poverty has forced many to live on or near volcanoes, steep mountains, and storm-vulnerable coasts, often leading to disasters....."
"Small earthquake hits Manchester, N.H." by Katie Camero Globe Correspondent September 21, 2018
The number of earthquakes California records in one year will take New England about 100 years to match, said Dr. John Ebel, a senior research scientist at the Boston College Weston Observatory.
Related(?): "Not aliens after all? Mysterious solar observatory closure triggered by FBI child porn probe" (Delimont). Child porn investigation seems to be the new excuse - see also Paddock's brother - for intelligence shenanigans the details of which they don't want us to see, as who's going to argue against stopping child porn?"--xymphora
The reason being that the West Coast has many more faults — locations under the earth’s surface where rocks break or crack, which spark a release of energy largely known as an earthquake, Ebel said.
These faults are considered zones of weakness, Ebel said, and New England lacks a significant amount of them for the area to be earthquake prone, like California, but it is always better to be safe than sorry, Ebel said, because researchers cannot predict when earthquakes will occur.
Ebel said research indicates earthquakes show no preference for season, weather types, or solar cycles, making their surprise visits even harder to understand and predict.
“You should just know the fundamentals of safety for earthquakes,” he said in the case of a serious earthquake.
“People are usually hurt by things falling on them, so get under a heavy piece of furniture and get away from any objects that can fall on you.”
If protecting yourself under furniture is not an option, Ebel advised to do what is called the “drop, cover, and hold,” in which you curl up in a ball and cover your head with your hands to protect yourself from falling objects.
They used to call it duck and cover!
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Also see: Eighty years ago Friday: Great hurricane of 1938 hit New England
"Closing in on Captain Cook’s long-lost ship in the waters off Newport, R.I." by Emily Sweeney Globe Staff September 21, 2018
A team of researchers believes it might have located, in the waters off Rhode Island, a long-lost ship that Captain James Cook sailed on his historic voyage to New Zealand and Australia.
The discovery of Cook’s ship, known as the HMS Endeavor, could bring to light an important piece of history and solve what the Sydney Morning Herald has called “one of the greatest maritime mysteries of all time.”
“The Endeavour is Australia’s equivalent of the Mayflower,” said Charlotte Taylor, an archeologist with the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission.
So how did it end up off the coast of Rhode Island? According to the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project’s website, after Cook claimed Australia for Britain in 1770, the Endeavour returned to England in 1771 and then served as a Royal Navy store ship until it was sold a few years later. It was later renamed the Lord Sandwich and was given to the British government to transport troops over to fight in the American Revolutionary War. At one point, it was used to hold American prisoners of war.
The ship finally met its demise in 1778, when the French arrived to help the American colonists in Rhode Island, and the British intentionally sank several vessels in an effort to create a blockade and stop the French fleet from sailing in. The ship that Cook used on his historic voyage was among those that sunk.
The Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project hopes to pinpoint the exact location of the ship soon, and researchers appear to be closer than ever to accomplishing that goal.
“This year, 2018, is the 250th anniversary of Cook’s departure from England in the Endeavour, and 2020 is the anniversary of Cook’s claim of Australia for Britain,” the website states. “The identification of the Lord Sandwich ex Endeavour in Newport Harbor will be particularly significant during this time of historical celebrations.”
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Looks like fall is finally here.
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"Red Sox fan dies after climbing on roof of train in New York" by Emily Sweeney Globe Staff September 21, 2018
A Red Sox fan was killed after he climbed onto the roof of a train in New York and was electrocuted by the overhead wires, passengers and officials said.
The man was identified by MTA officials as Michael Vigeant, 24, of Hudson, N.H.
MTA Metro-North Railroad officials said the incident occurred Wednesday around 11:30 p.m. on the New Haven line, which had just departed from Yankee Stadium.
Michael Pellicci, 47, of Stamford, Conn., was among the many baseball fans on the train that night.
Pellicci said at one point, the train stopped. Passengers were talking, and he overheard a woman say, “Did I just see someone run across the track?”
They looked out the window, but it was dark. Then when the train started moving again, Pellicci said a conductor rushed over to the door and grabbed a man in a Red Sox shirt, whom Pellicci believes was Vigeant’s brother, and said, “What are you doing?”
Pellicci said he appeared to be climbing the ladder to the top of the train when the conductor pulled him inside.
Pellicci said the brother jokingly said he was looking for the “observation deck,” to which the conductor replied, “The only thing up there for you is 12,000 volts.”
Then everyone heard a thud. There was a flash of light.
Pellicci said Vigeant fell between the two cars. It was clear that he’d been electrocuted, he said.
“His arm was totally burnt,” Pellicci said. “It was bad.”
Pellicci said bystanders on the train and police began performing CPR on Vigeant.
“Nobody hesitated,” he said. “It was done out of pure heart.”
Pellicci commended the actions of those volunteers, the police, and especially the conductor, who stopped Vigeant’s brother from climbing up to the top of the train.
If it hadn’t been for the conductor, the brother surely would have suffered the same fate, he said.
“He pulled the brother in,” Pellicci said. “He saved that kid’s life.”
The train was between Larchmont and Mamaroneck station when it happened. Trains on the New Haven line subsequently experienced delays until about 3:20 a.m., officials said.
Bob Fredericks, a senior writer for the New York Post, said he was on the train with his family when a conductor came over the intercom, “sounding stressed, asking for any doctors or nurses to rush to the head of the train.”
“Several men and women sprinted past us up the aisle of the packed train — filled with both Yankee and Red Sox fans, many highly inebriated — toward the front of the train,” Fredericks said in an e-mail to the Globe.
“No one really knew what was going on, and it was starting to take on a ‘Lord of the Flies’ feel as the AC was off and onboard toilets stopped working,” he said.
Fredericks said eventually one of the volunteers returned to their train car looking shaken. After she explained what happened, most of the passengers quieted down, he said.
Fredericks said passengers were stuck on the stranded train for more than two hours until a rescue train pulled up.
Vigeant was taken to a local hospital, where he died, officials said.
“Our sympathies go to the family during this very difficult time,” Metro-North spokeswoman Nancy Gamerman said. “The incident is under investigation and we will release further information when it is available.”
Fredericks said what happened to the young man was “very, very sad,” and he felt sorry for his family.
Pellicci echoed those sentiments.
“I feel so bad for those parents getting that phone call,” Pellicci said. “It’s a shame.”
Pellicci said one reason why he’s talking about the incident is that he never wants to see a tragedy like this happen again.
He also wants his sons, who are 11 and 12, to realize that a foolish stunt can result in life-changing consequences.
“You can’t do things that may seem cool or funny or just because everyone else is doing it,” he said. “These are two brothers who made a silly decision, and one of them got killed over it.”
On the night they clinched the division, too.
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Related: Red Sox division title banner mystery thickens
They must be talking about this.
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"Marlborough police are searching for three men who allegedly busted into a local residence early Friday and pistol-whipped an occupant before making off with property, authorities said. In a statement, city police officials said the violent break-in occurred shortly before 6:30 a.m. at a home on Arnold Street. “It was reported that three masked men entered the residence, brandished a handgun, and began demanding property from the occupants,” the release said. “One victim was ‘pistol whipped’ with the firearm and was later transported to the Hospital for a laceration. The suspects stole a small amount of property from the residence. They also [stole] the victim’s car, which was located on Frye Street a short time later.” Police said they don’t believe the crime was random, nor do they think other residents are in immediate danger....."
Fitchburg couple indicted for allegedly killing their 6-year-old daughter
"No bail for son of Belmont woman killed in Watertown crash" by Travis Andersen Globe Staff September 20, 2018
WALTHAM — A visibly distressed Philip Horner was held up by court officers Thursday during his arraignment on charges of repeatedly stabbing a 60-year-old tow truck driver whose vehicle had somehow crushed Horner’s mother at a busy Watertown intersection Wednesday morning.
Horner, 38, wore a gray hospital gown and was slowly lowered to the ground at one point during the brief hearing in Waltham District Court. He made what appeared to be gurgling sounds near the end of his arraignment on charges including armed assault with intent to murder.
A plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf, and he was held without bail and sent to a secure facility for a mental health evaluation.
Court records made public after the arraignment show that an eyewitness cellphone video captured Horner’s alleged attack on Thomas P. Fogerty, 60, of Quincy, near the intersection of Watertown and California streets.
Horner, of Belmont, flew into a rage after his mother, Benita A. Horner, 68, was killed after becoming pinned under the rear wheels of Fogerty’s truck, court filings show.
The witness’s video showed a screaming Horner initially swinging his arms and “assaulting Mr. Fogerty about the face and body” inside the truck, a police report said.
Then, Horner came down from the vehicle and began crawling on the ground, screaming “no no no” while Fogerty said, “I didn’t see anything” and exited the truck, the filing said.
Horner then removed a knife from his fanny pack, turned toward Fogerty, and stabbed him multiple times, including one blow directly into the older man’s back that Horner “plunged into him and then twisted with force,” the report said. The video captured Fogerty falling to the ground and again saying “I didn’t see anything” and “come on man,” according to the filing.
The same witness who shot the video told police there had been a “truck versus pedestrian accident” involving Fogerty and the Horners, the report said.
Benita Horner was pronounced dead at the scene, and Fogerty was rushed to a Boston hospital, where he was in critical condition Wednesday night.
Authorities haven’t released details on how Benita Horner, who shared a residence with her son in Belmont, became trapped under the wheels of the truck. Fogerty has not been charged with any crimes or cited for motor vehicle violations.
Investigators said Wednesday that the tow truck struck and killed Benita Horner as she tried to cross Route 16 with her son at Galen Street around 11:20 a.m.
Horner’s court-appointed lawyer, Nicholas J. Louisa, declined to discuss the allegations or his client’s mental health during brief remarks to reporters after the hearing. “I would just say that Mr. Horner and his family [have] asked that the media please respect his privacy,” Louisa said.....
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Related: Man charged for stabbing after road rage incident in Norton
WALTHAM — A visibly distressed Philip Horner was held up by court officers Thursday during his arraignment on charges of repeatedly stabbing a 60-year-old tow truck driver whose vehicle had somehow crushed Horner’s mother at a busy Watertown intersection Wednesday morning.
Horner, 38, wore a gray hospital gown and was slowly lowered to the ground at one point during the brief hearing in Waltham District Court. He made what appeared to be gurgling sounds near the end of his arraignment on charges including armed assault with intent to murder.
A plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf, and he was held without bail and sent to a secure facility for a mental health evaluation.
Court records made public after the arraignment show that an eyewitness cellphone video captured Horner’s alleged attack on Thomas P. Fogerty, 60, of Quincy, near the intersection of Watertown and California streets.
Horner, of Belmont, flew into a rage after his mother, Benita A. Horner, 68, was killed after becoming pinned under the rear wheels of Fogerty’s truck, court filings show.
The witness’s video showed a screaming Horner initially swinging his arms and “assaulting Mr. Fogerty about the face and body” inside the truck, a police report said.
Then, Horner came down from the vehicle and began crawling on the ground, screaming “no no no” while Fogerty said, “I didn’t see anything” and exited the truck, the filing said.
Horner then removed a knife from his fanny pack, turned toward Fogerty, and stabbed him multiple times, including one blow directly into the older man’s back that Horner “plunged into him and then twisted with force,” the report said. The video captured Fogerty falling to the ground and again saying “I didn’t see anything” and “come on man,” according to the filing.
The same witness who shot the video told police there had been a “truck versus pedestrian accident” involving Fogerty and the Horners, the report said.
Benita Horner was pronounced dead at the scene, and Fogerty was rushed to a Boston hospital, where he was in critical condition Wednesday night.
Authorities haven’t released details on how Benita Horner, who shared a residence with her son in Belmont, became trapped under the wheels of the truck. Fogerty has not been charged with any crimes or cited for motor vehicle violations.
Investigators said Wednesday that the tow truck struck and killed Benita Horner as she tried to cross Route 16 with her son at Galen Street around 11:20 a.m.
Horner’s court-appointed lawyer, Nicholas J. Louisa, declined to discuss the allegations or his client’s mental health during brief remarks to reporters after the hearing. “I would just say that Mr. Horner and his family [have] asked that the media please respect his privacy,” Louisa said.....
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Related: Man charged for stabbing after road rage incident in Norton
Turns out electric scooters are illegal in Massachusetts.
His accomplice was a woman.
"The State Police Bomb Squad found four pipe bombs in a safe in a Billerica home as law enforcement officials investigated the death of a man found dead inside a Dickinson Street home Wednesday morning, officials said. The bomb squad rendered the four pipe bombs safe, said Jennifer Mieth, spokeswoman for the state fire marshal’s office. The squad is assigned to the fire marshal’s office. Mieth said there was no indication the man had current plans to use the bombs. The man’s death is under investigation by Billerica police. “There is no public safety issue regarding this incident,’’ police wrote on social media....."
"Widow of slain Weymouth police sergeant weeps, cries out in courtroom at shooting suspect" by Jerome Campbell Globe Staff September 20, 2018
DEDHAM — The widow of police Sergeant Michael Chesna wept continuously in court Thursday and used obscenities as the man accused of fatally shooting her husband in July was arraigned and ordered held without bail.
As Emanuel Lopes was escorted from a Norfolk Superior courtroom in an orange jumpsuit, Cynthia Chesna called him several expletives before breaking into a loud sob.
“He is an evil person for what he did to my husband,” Cynthia Chesna told a crowd of officers who escorted her from the courtroom.
Three rows of Weymouth police officers sat stone-faced to one side of the courtroom.
On Sept. 7, a grand jury indicted Lopes for the deaths of Chesna and of 77-year-old Vera Adams, who was fatally shot while standing in her sunporch on the morning of July 15.
Lopes, a Weymouth resident who was then 20, had crashed a car that morning, then allegedly shot Chesna after the police officer was called to the scene to investigate. Lopes threw a rock at Chesna, knocking him down, then shot the officer multiple times with Chesna’s own gun. He then allegedly fired shots into Adams’s house, killing her, according to police.
Norfolk Assistant District Attorney Greg Connor said the events leading up to the shootings began around 7 a.m. that day, after Lopes left his girlfriend’s house in her white BMW.
“[Lopes’s girlfriend] saw that her car was missing and she sent him a series of texts saying she was going to call the police for stealing her car,” Connor said.
About a half-hour later, Lopes’s girlfriend reported the car stolen and Weymouth officers saw it backtracking toward her house in excess of 80 miles per hour, Connor said.
Lopes lost control of the BMW near the intersection of Main and Columbian streets in Weymouth and collided with another car.
“He then exited the vehicle and knocked on the window of the other vehicle, and apologized, and was seen running away towards the hospital,” Connor said. “It was determined that he headed towards Burton Terrace.”
Around 7:45 a.m., a Burton Terrace resident called police to report a rock, “half the size of a soccer ball,” crashing through his kitchen window, Connor said.
Chesna, who was among several officers who responded to the scene, withdrew his gun and told Lopes to put the rock down, but he didn’t comply.
“The defendant [walked] briskly away with the rock over his head and [threw] the rock in a double-hand style towards Sergeant Chesna’s face,” Connor said.
Lopes then picked up Chesna’s gun and fired eight rounds, five of them aimed at the officer’s face.
Chesna was rushed to South Shore Hospital, where he later died.
Another officer fired a round at Lopes, Connor said, hitting him in the knee. Lopes fled but was found in a backyard, where he was taken into custody and to South Shore Hospital to be treated for the gunshot wound.
Officers found three bullets in the sliding door on Adams’s porch.
Lopes’s attorney, Larry Tipton, requested his client be released on a cash bail and sent to a mental health facility, adding that Lopes tried to cut his throat with scissors five years ago. On the day of the killing, Lopes had told family members and medical personnel that “Martians had landed” and that he had seen Jesus, Tipton said.
“His mental health history is well documented,” Tipton said.
The judge did not grant the request for bail or referral to a mental health facility.
The attorneys involved in the case are scheduled to return, without Lopes, to court on Nov. 30 for a pretrial hearing.
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Oh, by the Weymouth.....
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Rosenstein suggested secretly recording Trump and discussed 25th Amendment
Related: "The New York Times has likely had this story for over a year and sat on it, only reporting on it now that Trump's declassification order will force this all to come out. The facts of this report suggest Rosenstein and the FBI committed treason and plotted to overthrow the President of the United States. They also suggests the New York Times is taking part in a criminal conspiracy working in tandem with the FBI to cover this all up. This damage control piece should be entered as evidence in upcoming criminal trials..... "
Also see: TREASON: Rod Rosenstein 'Plotted to Secretly Record Trump In The WH' to Get Him Ousted Under 25th Amendment
Their analysis of the article is why I didn't read it.
"In reversal, Trump no longer demands declassification of Russia documents" by Michael D. Shear September 21, 2018
WASHINGTON — In a rare retreat, President Trump on Friday reversed himself and said he was no longer demanding that documents related to the Russia investigation be immediately declassified and released to the public.
Taking to Twitter on Friday morning, Trump said that instead of an immediate release, Justice Department officials would review the documents, adding that “in the end I can always declassify if it proves necessary.”
“I met with the DOJ concerning the declassification of various UNREDACTED documents. They agreed to release them but stated that so doing may have a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe. Also, key Allies’ called to ask not to release,” Trump wrote. “Therefore, the Inspector General has been asked to review these documents on an expedited basis. I believe he will move quickly on this (and hopefully other things which he is looking at). In the end I can always declassify if it proves necessary. Speed is very important to me — and everyone!”
Less than a week ago, Trump had ordered that law enforcement and intelligence agencies declassify and release the documents, which include text messages about the Russia inquiry, along with other documents related to the surveillance of a former Trump aide.
A White House statement Monday said the president had called for the “immediate declassification” of materials that officials used to authorize surveillance of the aide, Carter Page. The president also ordered the release of unredacted text messages sent by current and former law enforcement officials whom Trump has accused of being part of a deep-state conspiracy against him.
Really no denying it at this point, try as they may.
Ordering the release of the documents was a cause célèbre for Trump’s most fervent supporters on Capitol Hill and at conservative media outlets, who have for months been claiming that the release of the documents would help prove a liberal plot to undermine Trump.
Just wonder what might make him do that.
The president’s abrupt reversal could anger those supporters if they view the decision as evidence that Trump exhibited weakness by caving to pressure from within his own administration.
Not a supporter really, not angry, disappointed is all. Wondering what threat he received. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that we will never get the truth from this government anyway.
In his tweets, Trump said Justice Department officials had agreed to release the unredacted documents, but had also warned of what the president called “a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe.” The tweet did not explain further.
Since when is he worried about perceptions regarding the Russia probe?
The president also said in the tweet — without elaboration — that “key Allies” had called to urge him not to declassify the documents.
Oh, yeah?
According to a former US official and a former British official, the British government expressed grave concerns to the US government about the release of classified information. The material includes direct references to conversations between US law enforcement officials and Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled a dossier alleging ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
You know, the one who was hired by Fusion GPS (who was hired by the Clintons) to talk to Russians to get dirt on Trump and who then passed it off to Bruce Ohr through his wife Nellie so they could put it into the system to obtain a fraudulent warrant to infiltrate and spy on the opposing party's presidential campaign. At the same time, several other agents (Comey, Brennan) were making the rounds on Capitol Hill in order to get influential members of Congress to write letters requesting investigation into the matters. There is your Russian interference.
Britain’s objection, these former officials said, was over revealing Steele’s identity in an official document, regardless of whether he had been named in press reports.
WTF then?
We all know who it is but in order keep the British government from embarrassment and confirming -- gasp! -- BRITISH INTERFERENCE in the 2016 election in favor of Clinton, Trump backs down?!
Like so many things in AmeriKa now, it's an open secret but you can't say anything!
Some of the documents at issue involve the beginnings of the Russia investigation, when law enforcement officials submitted an application seeking permission from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to wiretap Page. Trump and his Republican allies have claimed that law enforcement officials misled the court to get that permission.
The president’s declassification order Monday called on law enforcement officials to release about two dozen pages from the surveillance application. Much of the application has already been released, but Trump’s order would make more of the application available in unredacted form to the public.
Yeah, we don't get to see sh*t!
Trump and his allies claim it will show that officials misled the court by not disclosing that the application was based in part on the dossier, which they believe should be discredited as a partisan document funded in part by Democrats.
That looks criminal to me.
Little evidence has emerged to support those allegations, and Democrats have assailed the Republican efforts to release the documents, saying it is a political effort that could lead to a dangerous release of sensitive national security information.
Look who is telling us little evidence has emerged. The great liars of Iraq, Vietnam, etc, etc. Oh!
As for the national security classifications, that's also used to cover up criminal conduct that would embarrass said agencies and amount to criminal conduct for certain individuals.
In his tweet Friday, Trump also appeared to pull back on his demands for the release of text messages from officials, including James Comey, the former FBI director, and his deputy, Andrew McCabe.
Text messages between two former FBI officials, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, have revealed conversations that were critical of Trump. Allies of the president have said they believe more of the text messages would show bias against Trump within the law enforcement community.
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If he doesn't care, why should I?
It's a New York Times piece of cowflop (with all due respect to cowflops), and Lanny Davis, a lawyer acting as an adviser to Cohen, declined to comment. Davis said “no inference” should be drawn from his lack of comment.
See: Lanny the Liar
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"The woman who killed three people and wounded others before shooting herself to death at a Maryland drugstore warehouse had been diagnosed with a mental illness and used a legally purchased gun in the rampage, a law enforcement official said Friday. Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler told news reporters Friday that the suspect, 26-year-old Snochia Moseley of Baltimore County, had been diagnosed with a mental illness in 2016. ‘‘That’s as far as I’ll go with it,’’ he said, declining to give any more details on her mental state. He said Moseley had become increasingly agitated in recent weeks, and relatives had been concerned for her well-being....."
Related:
"4 dead, including suspect, after Maryland warehouse shooting" by David McFadden and Michael Kunzelman Associated Press September 20, 2018
ABDERDEEN, Md. — A 26-year-old woman reported to work Thursday at a Maryland warehouse and got into an argument, then used a gun to kill three people and wound several others before taking her own life, according to authorities and a witness account.
The suspect was a temporary employee at the Rite Aid distribution center in northeastern Maryland, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler said at a news conference. Gahler’s officer later identified her as Snochia Moseley of Baltimore County. Moseley had been hired for the holiday season and had been working there for less than two weeks.
The attack came nearly three months after a man armed with a shotgun attacked a newspaper office in Annapolis, Md., killing five staff members. Authorities accused Jarrod W. Ramos of attacking The Capital Gazette because of a longstanding grudge against the paper.
It came less than a year after a fatal workplace shooting less than 10 miles from the warehouse, in which five were shot, three fatally. And it followed another shooting Wednesday in Wisconsin in which authorities say a gunman shot four co-workers before being killed by responding officers.....
Why are all the workers speaking in Spanish?
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I predict this will fade as quickly as the newsroom shooting, the Youtube shooting (also done by a woman), the softball shooting, and Jacksonville. The shooters don't fit the pre$$ narrative.
Related:
"Police in an Iowa college town had repeated interactions with a troubled drifter in the weeks between his departure from prison and his alleged killing of a star golfer from Spain, records show. Ames police reports show that 22-year-old Collin Richards struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, mental health problems and homelessness after he got out of prison in June. His name also came up in a criminal investigation in which several officers served a warrant at the home of one of Richards’ associates in August, according to records released to the Associated Press. Richards is charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Iowa State University student Celia Barquin Arozamena while she played at Coldwater Golf Links on Monday."
Where she drew her last breath.
Also see:
Trump’s immigrant roundups increasingly net noncriminals
Mollie Tibbetts all but forgotten now, because "such cases are the exception rather than the rule."
Tell that to the victims.
Parents face tougher rules to get immigrant children back
Trump administration aims to sharply restrict new green cards for those on public aid
Trump complains about lack of funding for border wall in ‘ridiculous’ spending bill
The Globe now wants him to fire Jeff Sessions because the Ugandan pop star was deported.
At least he settled with the Native Americans.
Five people, three of them infants, stabbed at New York City day care center
"A woman stabbed five people — including three newborn babies — and then slashed her wrist early Friday inside a New York City home that was apparently being used as an unlicensed neighborhood nursery for new mothers and their children, authorities said. All of the victims in the attack, which happened before 4 a.m., were hospitalized but expected to survive. The 52-year-old suspect — an employee at the nursery — was taken into police custody and was being treated for her wounds and undergoing a psychiatric examination, authorities said. No immediate charges were filed, and police said the motive was under investigation. Investigators were trying to piece together what happened inside the building, a three-story, multifamily townhouse in a neighborhood popular with Chinese immigrants in the Flushing section of Queens. Local elected officials said it appeared it was an unlicensed facility for new mothers and their babies to convalesce for a month, in keeping with Chinese tradition....."
The kids were malnourished, and their care is going to prove costly for government.
"4 young children killed in Dutch train crossing collision" by Mike Corder Associated Press September 20, 2018
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A train slammed into an electric cargo bike in the Netherlands on Thursday, killing four young children and leaving two other people critically injured, authorities said.
Police spokeswoman Dianne van Gameren said the victims were ‘‘primary school age’’ and some of them came from the same family. Their identities were not released.
The accident happened in the southern town of Oss, 62 miles southeast of Amsterdam, at a rail crossing close to one of its railway stations. The crossing has warning lights and red-and-white barriers to keep pedestrians off the tracks when trains pass.
Police said the electric vehicle belonged to a children’s day-care center and was taking children to school when the collision happened.
The vehicle involved was an electric cargo bike, which has a large wooden or plastic box mounted to the frame in front of the rider. They were formerly used for transporting goods but are now very popular among Dutch parents for carrying young children. The driver stands on a platform behind a large container and steers using bicycle-like handlebars.
The two critically injured victims, a child and the woman operating the vehicle, were taken to a local hospital.
Maybe Boston shouldn't be complaining about the school buses after all.
ProRail, the company responsible for rail infrastructure in the Netherlands, said the cause of the collision is under investigation.
‘‘This is a very dark day, terrible for the next of kin and those involved,’’ said ProRail CEO Pier Eringa. ‘‘There are no words to describe this.’’
Eringa said initial investigations suggested that the barriers at the crossing were working correctly at the time of the accident.
‘‘Our thoughts are with the families who lost their children in the terrible accident in Oss,’’ a visibly upset Dutch Queen Maxima told reporters during a visit to the northern region of Friesland.
Oss Mayor Wobine Buijs-Glaudemans offered condolences to ‘‘the families, the school, the day-care center, and everybody else involved.’’
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"UK leader May hits back on Brexit plan; pound falls" by Jill Lawless Associated Press September 21, 2018
LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May’s strong words belied her weak position: She is a prime minister without a parliamentary majority, caught between the EU and a pro-Brexit wing of her Conservative Party that threatens to oust her if she makes a compromise too far.
May’s combative remarks were calibrated to appease euroskeptic Conservatives ahead of what’s likely to be a bruising annual party conference at the end of the month.
May’s statement followed a fraught EU summit in Salzburg, Austria.
That's odd because I was told the day before that "despite reports of a friendly spirit at a summit in Salzburg, Austria, the fundamental differences remained."
So was it fraught or friendly?
Depends on what day you went?
French President Emmanuel Macron called pro-Brexit UK politicians ‘‘liars’’ who had misled the country about the costs of leaving the 28-nation bloc.
He's a fine one to talk!
See:
Macron announces changes to France’s health care system
Macron’s new outburst gets business nod,
Well, he is a politician!
The only problem for the French is that the leader of the opposition is insane:
"French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is refusing to undergo a court-ordered psychiatric exam for tweeting brutal images of Islamic State violence, comparing the demand to methods used in totalitarian regimes. A preliminary charge of distribution of violent images was filed in March against Le Pen, a lawmaker, after her immunity was lifted. On Thursday, she tweeted a decision ordering a psychiatric exam that was dated Sept. 12 and gives her 10 days to modify questions to be asked. She said on BFM TV that totalitarian regimes use such methods against opponents to ‘‘make them look like they’re crazy.’’ Le Pen’s December 2015 tweets showed executions by Islamic State extremists, including the killing of American reporter James Foley. She posted them after the November 2015 Paris attacks by the Islamic State that killed 130 people."
I would holler sexism if I were her (was already cheated out of an election).
The judgment of British newspapers was brutal. The broadly pro-EU Guardian said May had been ‘‘humiliated.’’ The conservative Times of London said: ‘‘Humiliation for May as EU rejects Brexit plan.’’
The Brexit-supporting tabloid Sun branded bloc leaders ‘‘EU dirty rats,’’ accusing ‘‘Euro mobsters’’ Tusk and Macron of ‘‘ambushing’’ May.
UK Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab said the bloc had ‘‘yanked up the handbrake’’ on the negotiations, but despite all the heated British rhetoric, the EU’s position was not new.
May’s ‘‘Chequers plan’’ — named for the prime minister’s country retreat where it was hammered out in July — aims to keep the UK in the EU single market for goods but not services, in order to ensure free trade with the bloc and an open border between the UK’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.
EU officials have been cool on the plan from the start, saying Britain can’t ‘‘cherry-pick’’ elements of membership in the bloc without accepting all the costs and responsibilities.
Yet British politicians and diplomats were taken aback by Tusk’s blunt dismissal of the Chequers plan on Thursday — and by his light-hearted Instagram post showing Tusk and May looking at a dessert tray and the words: ‘‘A piece of cake, perhaps? Sorry, no cherries.’’
In a statement Friday, Tusk said the bloc’s position had ‘‘been known to the British side in every detail for many weeks.’’ He said EU leaders regarded Chequers as ‘‘a step in the right direction’’ but had been taken aback by May’s ‘‘uncompromising’’ stance in Salzburg.
Tusk said in Salzburg that an EU summit on Oct. 18-19 would be the moment of truth, when an agreement on divorce terms and the outlines of future trade would be sealed or would fail.
The biggest single obstacle to a deal is the need to maintain an open Irish border. Failing to do so could disrupt the lives of people and business on both sides, and undermine Northern Ireland’s hard-won peace.....
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The EU is getting ‘impatient,’ and there is also something else going down:
"Tanzanian ferry capsizes, leaving at least 131 dead" by Joseph Goldstein New York Times September 21, 2018
NAIROBI, Kenya — President John Magufuli declared a three-day mourning period, beginning Saturday. Kamwelwe said the funerals for the victims would be a national event, with the country’s leaders participating.
The ferry, managed by Tanzania’s Electrical, Mechanical, and Electronics Services Agency, had been traveling between two islands — Ukara and Ukerewe — when it capsized Thursday afternoon, according to local reports. The islands are on the southern, Tanzanian side of the lake, which is shared by Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The ferry journey takes about an hour.
Thursday is a big market day on Ukerewe, and the MV Nyerere is typically more crowded on that day than some other weekdays, local residents said. Many of those on the boat Thursday were returning home to the smaller Ukara Island after shopping on Ukerewe, residents said. As the ferry approached the shore around 2 p.m., many passengers appear to have rushed to the front of the boat, to get in position to disembark quickly.
The ferry was only 100 or 200 meters from shore, when “the balance of the boat was overwhelmed and it started to capsize,” said the commissioner for the local Mwanza region, John Mongella.
On the shore, dozens of people began to scream in horror and helplessness as they watched the ferry overturn.
One witness, Abdallah Mohammed, said that nearby fishing boats had converged on the ferry in an attempt to rescue as many people as they could.....
Their version of the Cajun Navy.
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Related:
Survivor found in capsized Tanzania ferry as death toll rises to 209
It was a brief search.
US-led airstrike kills 18 militants
Police raid office of opposition party
And where would that be?
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"Pope Francis on Friday accepted the resignations of two more bishops in Chile, as fallout mounted from widespread sex abuse scandals there. Earlier this year, Chile’s bishops submitted offers to resign en masse to Francis, in response to his belated crackdown on pedophile priests, other sex abuse by clergy there, and Chilean church hierarchy’s cover-ups of the wrongdoing....."
"In private letters, Benedict rebukes critics of Pope Francis" by Jason Horowitz September 20, 2018
ROME — The remarkable letter last month calling on Pope Francis to resign for allegedly shielding an abusive American cardinal also served as a public call to arms for some conservative Catholics who pine for the pontificate of the previous pope, Benedict XVI. For years now, they have carried his name like a battle standard into the ideological trenches.
Benedict apparently would like them to knock it off.
In private letters published Thursday by the German newspaper Bild, Benedict, who in retirement has remained studiously quiet through the controversies over Francis’ fitness to lead the church, says that the “anger” expressed by some of his staunchest defenders risks tarnishing his own pontificate.
“I can well understand the deep-seated pain that the end of my pontificate caused you and many others. But for some — and it seems to me for you as well — the pain has turned to anger, which no longer just affects the abdication but my person and the entirety of my pontificate,” Benedict wrote in a Nov. 23, 2017, letter to Cardinal Walter Brandmüller of Germany. “In this way the pontificate itself is being devalued and conflated with the sadness about the situation of the church today.”
I think we now know why he resigned, don't you?
--more--"
Related:
Cardinal hires ex-judge to review church sex abuse policies
Catholic Charities chief executive to retire
Retired Illinois priest faces deportation over illegal vote
Thank God that is all he did.
At the church she called home, she found her own quiet way to protest
It's the latest upheaval for them.
China and Vatican reach breakthrough on appointment of bishops
Yeah, Merry Christmas.
"Polish police looking for man who threw stone into synagogue" Associated Press September 20, 2018
WARSAW — Polish police are looking for a man who threw a stone into a synagogue in the city of Gdansk as members of the Jewish community were praying at the end of the Yom Kippur holiday.
On Thursday, police released security footage of the incident, which shows a man in a dark shirt and jeans walking up to the New Synagogue and throwing a stone into a window.
I don't know about you, but I'm tired if these self-inflicted acts of anti-semitism to bolster the narrative of Jewish victimhood.
In a statement, police said Wednesday’s incident occurred at 6 p.m. local time in the Baltic port city, and appealed to anybody who recognizes the man to contact police.
They said they had spoken to witnesses and were working to determine if the act was a ‘‘hooligan prank’’ or one motivated by religious hatred.
The same synagogue was also attacked during Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, an explosion of violence by Nazi Germany against Jews in 1938, when Gdansk was still the Free City of Danzig.
Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz said he was ‘‘appalled,’’ especially because it took place during prayers marking the end of Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. He called on residents to gather Thursday evening outside the synagogue in a show of protest.
Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said the last such incident in Poland occurred more than 20 years ago.
The World Jewish Congress said it was ‘‘shocked and dismayed’’ and that the incident evoked ‘‘the terrible tragedies that occurred in German-occupied Poland during the years of the Holocaust.’’
‘‘In recent years, Jews in Poland have been able to worship with a sense of security, and we hope that this attack does not herald negative change in that positive environment,’’ president Ronald Lauder said.....
--more--"
Related: What Does a Polack See in the Mirror?
Nothing. His doesn't have reflecting glass, ha-ha.
(A little self-deprecating humor there)
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"Taiwan police arrest US 3-D gun proponent accused of sex with minor" Associated Press September 21, 2018
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Authorities in Taiwan arrested the owner of a Texas company that sells plans to make untraceable 3-D printed guns who is wanted in the US over an accusation that he had sex with an underage girl and paid her $500 afterward, official media reported.
I'm already smelling set up.
The Central News Agency said Taiwanese police found and arrested Cody Wilson in a hotel in Taipei on Friday evening.
The Taiwanese news agency said the island’s immigration department would make arrangements for Wilson to return to the US as soon as possible.
Police in Austin, Texas, had earlier reported that Wilson’s last known location was Taipei.
Austin police Cmdr. Troy Officer said Wednesday that before Wilson flew to Taiwan, a friend of the 16-year-old girl had told him that police were investigating the accusation that he had sex with the youth.
In a court filing this week, Wilson was accused of having sex with the girl at an Austin hotel last month. A counselor for the teenager reported the accusation to Austin police a week later, according to the affidavit. Wilson met the girl through the website SugarDaddyMeet.com, where she had created an online profile, according to the document.
Austin is the home of Alex Jones, a new U.S. military command, and one might think a deep state base of controlled opposition and propaganda.
The girl, according to the affidavit, said they met in the parking lot of an Austin coffee shop before they drove to the hotel. The girl told investigators that Wilson paid her $500 after they had sex and then dropped her off at a Whataburger restaurant.
Wilson is identified in the affidavit as the owner of Austin-based Defense Distributed. After a federal court barred Wilson from posting the printable gun blueprints online for free last month, he announced he had begun selling them for any amount of money to US customers through his website.....
Now you know why he was baited with the honey trap.
--more--"
Related:
"Wall Street capped a milestone-setting week Friday with a mixed finish for the major U.S. stock indexes and the second all-time high in two days for the Dow Jones industrial average. An afternoon sell-off erased modest gains for the S&P 500 that had the benchmark index on track to eke out its own record high for much of the day. Losses for technology companies and retailers, two of the market’s hottest sectors this year, offset gains in energy and industrial stocks. “When you have a big up week like we’ve had, we’re at all-time highs, for people to take a little bit of risk off the table going into the weekend isn’t a big surprise,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab....."
"Stocks at records; Dow beats all-time high from January" by Alex Veiga Associated Press September 21, 2018
NEW YORK — Wall Street delivered another set of milestones Thursday as a wave of buying sent US stocks higher, driving the Dow Jones industrial average above the all-time high it closed at in January.
The S&P 500, the benchmark for many index funds, hit a new high, too, eclipsing the peak it reached last month.
Technology, bank, and health care stocks accounted for much of the broad rally.
Energy companies declined, along with crude oil prices.
A weaker dollar, which helps US exporters, and mostly encouraging economic reports helped put investors in a buying mood, a turnaround from earlier in the week, when the United States and China announced more tariffs on each other’s goods, triggering a sell-off.
‘‘Some of the economic data that came out today continued to show strength,’’ Lindsey Bell, an investment strategist at CFRA, said Thursday. ‘‘Given the strength in the economy, backed by the stimulus from tax reform as well as just fiscal stimulus in general, that should be able to offset some of the impact that we’re going to get from tariffs as we go into the end of the year.’’
‘‘Part of why you’re seeing such significant upside today is the amount of the tariffs was less than expected,’’ Bell said. ‘‘The market is still optimistic that we will resolve this issue, perhaps not before the midterm [elections], but hopefully before the end of the year.’’
The road to the latest records was hardly smooth. After the Dow’s all-time high in January, the market plunged in February and again in March. The Dow is now up 7.8 percent for the year, while the S&P 500 is up 9.6 percent.
At the same time, stock market wealth has been flowing disproportionately — and increasingly — to the most affluent households. The richest one-tenth of Americans own about 84 percent of the value of stocks.
That means the richest 0.1% own 84% of the wealth.
Wow!
The Dow and S&P 500 were on course to set record highs from the get-go Thursday as investors pored through a batch of economic data.
The Labor Department’s weekly tally of applications for unemployment aid was lower than expected, with claims falling last week to 201,000 — the fewest since November 1969.
An economic index from the Federal Reserve’s bank in Philadelphia also topped forecasts, and the Conference Board’s index of leading indicators, designed to anticipate economic conditions three to six months out, rose 0.4 percent last month. While slightly below forecasts, that still suggests the economy is on sure footing, said Tracie McMillion, at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
‘‘With a [reading] that high it’s very unlikely that there’s a recession on the horizon,’’ McMillion said. ‘‘The US market is responding to this foundation of economic strength. Pair that with a dollar that has started to depreciate a little bit and that’s good news for US companies that trade abroad.’’
That is what they said before the last one.
The Globe agrees a calamity has been averted, but also says the next recession is on its way even though for too many people, the ‘recovery’ never happened.
Also see: "Wells Fargo plans to cut up to 10 percent of its workforce over the next three years, the bank announced on Thursday, which will result in thousands of job losses for employees of the nation’s third-largest bank. Wells Fargo & Co. Chief executive Tim Sloan made the announcement to employees on Thursday. The bank currently employs roughly 265,000 workers, and plans to cut its headcount through both attrition and layoffs. The San Francisco-based bank has been under multiple clouds of scandal starting in 2015 when it admitted its employees opened millions of fake bank accounts for customers in order to meet unrealistic sales goals."
I'm stumpfed, readers. That's on top of the 638 job cuts announced earlier.
Maybe you should file a lawsuit.
A weaker dollar is particularly favorable for large-cap companies that do business overseas, because it makes their products more competitive.....
While it makes your dollars purchasing power less, American!
--more--"
They will be screaming for the mothers when the bottom drops out:
"Jack Ma scraps his pledge to create million US jobs" by Danielle Paquette Washington Post September 20, 2018
BEIJING — Chinese technology titan Jack Ma emerged from a meeting at Trump Tower last year with a bold promise: His e-commerce giant Alibaba would help Donald Trump create a million American jobs, but now Ma has retracted the pledge, saying the escalating trade war has wrecked it.
‘‘The promise was made on the premise of friendly US-China partnership and rational trade relations,’’ the celebrity billionaire told Chinese state media Wednesday. ‘‘That premise no longer exists today, so our promise cannot be fulfilled.’’
Analysts say this retraction would have been a loss for America’s workforce — if Ma’s offer had been serious in the first place.
‘‘It’s pretty obvious that Ma’s original pledge was political theatrics, not a serious promise,’’ said Arthur Kroeber, a founding partner at the Beijing consultancy Gavekal Dragonomics. ‘‘It was part of a Chinese effort to butter up Trump early in his tenure.’’
The escalating tariffs have put an end to that.
The pledge followed Ma’s visit to Trump Tower in New York, where, according to Trump administration officials at the time, Trump and the Chinese businessman discussed how Alibaba ‘‘can create 1 million US jobs by enabling 1 million US small businesses to sell goods into the China and the Asian marketplace.’’
Ma had said he wanted to boost small businesses, particularly in the Midwest, and help workers such as farmers and clothing makers connect to a larger market. (Alibaba has performed similar outreach to rural merchants in China.)
Derek Scissors, a China economy scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said, ‘‘If all tariffs went to zero, we’d still be waiting a long, long time for Ma to fulfill his pledge.’’
Trump had embraced Ma’s promise as an early win for his administration. The president had campaigned on ‘‘bringing back’’ US jobs lost to the forces of globalization, and businesses scrambled to give him credit for their expansion plans on American soil — even if some blueprints came together years before he sought office.
It's called reshoring.
‘‘Jack and I are going to do some great things,’’ Trump told reporters.
China business observers, however, raised an eyebrow.
‘‘Theatrics,’’ Duncan Clark, author of ‘‘Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built,’’ told the Washington Post a year ago.
‘‘Who knows what he meant then or now,’’ said Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder of J Capital Research in Beijing about Ma’s recent reversal.
‘‘Jack Ma is a master of marketing and very adept political operator,’’ said James McGregor, chairman of the greater China region for the consultancy APCO Worldwide.
Alibaba did not respond for requests for comment.
Kroeber, the China consultant, said Ma’s statement is likely sending another sort of message.
‘‘He’s signaling that he no longer believes that constructive engagement with the United States is possible,’’ he said.
Beijing vowed Tuesday to immediately strike back at Trump’s next avalanche of tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports, effective Sep. 24, with duties on an another $60 billion in American goods.
Trump has said such retaliation would compel him to slap levies on an additional $267 billion in Chinese products, effectively placing higher border taxes on everything the United States buys from China.
As the commercial battle intensified this month, Ma announced he planned to step down next year from his role as chairman at Alibaba. He said the increasingly chaotic international business climate had nothing to do with it.
Trump got him to back down?
--more--"
I would say this is where hostilities will break out, but.....
"Jack Ma scraps his pledge to create million US jobs" by Danielle Paquette Washington Post September 20, 2018
BEIJING — Chinese technology titan Jack Ma emerged from a meeting at Trump Tower last year with a bold promise: His e-commerce giant Alibaba would help Donald Trump create a million American jobs, but now Ma has retracted the pledge, saying the escalating trade war has wrecked it.
‘‘The promise was made on the premise of friendly US-China partnership and rational trade relations,’’ the celebrity billionaire told Chinese state media Wednesday. ‘‘That premise no longer exists today, so our promise cannot be fulfilled.’’
Analysts say this retraction would have been a loss for America’s workforce — if Ma’s offer had been serious in the first place.
‘‘It’s pretty obvious that Ma’s original pledge was political theatrics, not a serious promise,’’ said Arthur Kroeber, a founding partner at the Beijing consultancy Gavekal Dragonomics. ‘‘It was part of a Chinese effort to butter up Trump early in his tenure.’’
The escalating tariffs have put an end to that.
The pledge followed Ma’s visit to Trump Tower in New York, where, according to Trump administration officials at the time, Trump and the Chinese businessman discussed how Alibaba ‘‘can create 1 million US jobs by enabling 1 million US small businesses to sell goods into the China and the Asian marketplace.’’
Ma had said he wanted to boost small businesses, particularly in the Midwest, and help workers such as farmers and clothing makers connect to a larger market. (Alibaba has performed similar outreach to rural merchants in China.)
Derek Scissors, a China economy scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said, ‘‘If all tariffs went to zero, we’d still be waiting a long, long time for Ma to fulfill his pledge.’’
Trump had embraced Ma’s promise as an early win for his administration. The president had campaigned on ‘‘bringing back’’ US jobs lost to the forces of globalization, and businesses scrambled to give him credit for their expansion plans on American soil — even if some blueprints came together years before he sought office.
It's called reshoring.
‘‘Jack and I are going to do some great things,’’ Trump told reporters.
China business observers, however, raised an eyebrow.
‘‘Theatrics,’’ Duncan Clark, author of ‘‘Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built,’’ told the Washington Post a year ago.
‘‘Who knows what he meant then or now,’’ said Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder of J Capital Research in Beijing about Ma’s recent reversal.
‘‘Jack Ma is a master of marketing and very adept political operator,’’ said James McGregor, chairman of the greater China region for the consultancy APCO Worldwide.
Alibaba did not respond for requests for comment.
Kroeber, the China consultant, said Ma’s statement is likely sending another sort of message.
‘‘He’s signaling that he no longer believes that constructive engagement with the United States is possible,’’ he said.
Beijing vowed Tuesday to immediately strike back at Trump’s next avalanche of tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports, effective Sep. 24, with duties on an another $60 billion in American goods.
Trump has said such retaliation would compel him to slap levies on an additional $267 billion in Chinese products, effectively placing higher border taxes on everything the United States buys from China.
As the commercial battle intensified this month, Ma announced he planned to step down next year from his role as chairman at Alibaba. He said the increasingly chaotic international business climate had nothing to do with it.
Trump got him to back down?
--more--"
I would say this is where hostilities will break out, but.....
"South’s leader urges US to declare an end to 1950-53 Korean War" by Choe Sang-Hun New York Times September 21, 2018
SEOUL — President Moon Jae-in of South Korea urged the United States on Thursday to declare an end to the Korean War as an incentive for North Korea to denuclearize, a call that could put the Trump administration in a bind as it tries to revive stalled talks with Kim Jong Un, the North’s leader.
Moon said that during his landmark three-day summit with Kim this week, the North’s leader had repeatedly expressed willingness to give up his nuclear weapons quickly and to build new relations with Washington.
“He again and again reaffirmed his commitment to denuclearization,” Moon said at a news conference in Seoul, the South’s capital. “He said he wanted to achieve complete denuclearization as soon as possible and focus on economic development.”
One of the first steps Kim wants to take before moving toward denuclearization, Moon said, is to secure a joint statement declaring an end to the 1950-53 Korean War, which was halted only with an armistice.
US and South Korean analysts express fear that such a declaration would give Kim reason to demand that the United States withdraw its 28,500 troops from the South while North Korea is still a nuclear-armed state, but Moon said it would be merely a “political statement,” and that it would not affect the status of US troops in South Korea or his country’s alliance with the United States.
“I confirmed with Chairman Kim that his concept of the end-of-war declaration is the same as mine,” Moon said.
And seems reasonable. It's been over 60 years.
The South Korean leader said he would discuss making such a declaration by the end of the year when he meets with Trump in New York on Monday for the annual UN General Assembly session.
Earlier Thursday, Moon and Kim ascended Baekdusan, a still-active volcano near North Korea’s border with China that reaches more than 9,000 feet and looms large in the history and imaginations of Koreans on both sides of the border.
Baekdusan, sometimes called Mount Paektu in English and known as Changbaishan in Chinese, is the mythical birthplace of the Korean people. The visit there by the leaders of the divided peninsula punctuated their avowed intent to improve and normalize relations.
“This is an important first step,” Moon, an avid hiker who said he had long dreamed of climbing the mountain, told reporters at the peak. “I trust that the time will come when ordinary South Koreans will be able to come here on tours.”
Kim also said that he hoped South Koreans would soon be able to visit the mountain. “Since the division of Korea, people in the South have had a longing for the mountain but could not come.”
The visit offered both leaders an important photo opportunity and a propaganda victory. For Kim, Moon’s trip was a visit to the purported heart of the North’s communist revolution, the site at which his grandfather, Kim Il Sung led a guerrilla war against Japanese colonialists in the early 20th century, and where his father, Kim Jong Il, was born, according to North Korean propaganda. (Historians say Kim Jong Il was born in the Russian Far East, not in Kim Il Sung’s “secret camp” at the foot of Baekdusan, as the North claims.)
Everyone the New York Times accuses someone of propaganda it makes me want to vomit.
So Kim Il Sung must have been on our side during the Good War, huh?
North Korean schoolchildren and party cadets are sent on pilgrimages to the mountain, where they swear their loyalty to Kim, whose family claims to be of a “Baekdu bloodline.” The lake at the mountain’s peak, called Cheonji, or “Heavenly Lake,” appears frequently in the North’s propaganda. When Kim Jong Il died in 2011, the North’s state news media claimed that the thick ice on the lake cracked “so loudly, it seemed to shake the heavens and the Earth.”
Trump must be envious.
For Moon, photographs from the mountain were a signal to constituents in the South that he was making real gains in pursuing peace with the North, and that they, too, could one day visit the sacred summit.
Moon and Kim on Wednesday signed a series of agreements that Choi Jong-kun, Moon’s secretary for arms control, called a “de facto nonaggression treaty.”
They are moving ahead without us. Trump along for the ride.
Both sides agreed to create no-fly and no-hostility zones and to stop live-fire drills along their land and sea border. They also agreed to disarm Panmunjom, the truce village in the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, where North Korean troops fired a hail of bullets at a North Korean soldier who defected to the South last year.
Moon and Kim also agreed to open a facility near Mount Kumgang, in the southeastern part of North Korea, where relatives separated by the Korean War could hold regular reunions, and they said they would make a joint bid to host the 2032 Olympics, but Moon was accused by critics of being more interested in cultivating Pan-Korean unity than in removing the North’s nuclear weapons.
That is very important, so don't say Trump got nothing, and so what if they are cultivating unity? Better than being torn apart like here!
North Korea proposed to “permanently dismantle” its main nuclear complex, but only if Washington took “corresponding” measures, and the statement lacked concrete steps like submitting an inventory of the North’s nuclear assets and then disassembling them under international inspection.
Waiting on Washington may mean waiting forever.
On Thursday, Moon said he had discussed a step-by-step sequence toward denuclearization with Kim, as well as what the North wanted from Washington in return. He said he and Kim could not include those details in their joint statement because they had to be negotiated between the North and the United States.....
--more--"
Related:
"Abe Gets One Step Closer to Becoming Japan’s Longest-Serving Premier" by Motoko Rich September 20, 2018
TOKYO — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won a commanding victory in a vote for the leadership of Japan’s governing party Thursday, moving him closer to his dream of becoming the longest-serving prime minister in the country’s history and fueling his hopes of revising its pacifist constitution.
Abe’s win over a single challenger came despite the headwinds he faced from domestic political scandals, stagnant wages, and his declining influence with President Trump, particularly in negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program.
The victory gives Abe, 63, a new three-year term as president of the Liberal Democratic Party and assures him of remaining prime minister. Abe faces a full slate of challenges, including towering national debt, the increasing threat of climate change-related disasters, a rapidly aging society and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
And the ongoing crisis at Fukushima, right?
“Cooperating with you, I’d like to do my best to hand over to our children’s generation a Japan filled with hope and pride,” Abe said in his acceptance speech.
Above all, analysts said, Abe’s signature accomplishment is his stable political leadership in a country that had grown weary of a conveyor belt of prime ministers. Since World War II, the average tenure of Japanese prime ministers has been about two years.
Critics have been disappointed by Abe’s entanglement in influence-peddling scandals and his failure to deliver stronger economic growth or the gender equality measures that he has long promised, but his opponent in the party election, Shigeru Ishiba, a former defense minister, failed to generate enough enthusiasm to justify a change of course.
“People may not be wildly excited, but they can’t think of anybody who is going to do any better,” said Sheila A. Smith, a Japan expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “Whether it’s the party or it’s the Japanese voter writ large, I think they are pretty risk-averse right now, given all the challenges that Japan faces, not the least of which is the Trump administration.”
Next week in New York, Abe, who has persistently cultivated a cozy relationship with Trump, is expected to meet with him on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Abe could come under pressure to enter bilateral trade talks as the Trump administration mulls threatened tariffs on automobile imports.....
--more--"
Looks like it will be war with Iran after all.
SEOUL — President Moon Jae-in of South Korea urged the United States on Thursday to declare an end to the Korean War as an incentive for North Korea to denuclearize, a call that could put the Trump administration in a bind as it tries to revive stalled talks with Kim Jong Un, the North’s leader.
Moon said that during his landmark three-day summit with Kim this week, the North’s leader had repeatedly expressed willingness to give up his nuclear weapons quickly and to build new relations with Washington.
“He again and again reaffirmed his commitment to denuclearization,” Moon said at a news conference in Seoul, the South’s capital. “He said he wanted to achieve complete denuclearization as soon as possible and focus on economic development.”
One of the first steps Kim wants to take before moving toward denuclearization, Moon said, is to secure a joint statement declaring an end to the 1950-53 Korean War, which was halted only with an armistice.
US and South Korean analysts express fear that such a declaration would give Kim reason to demand that the United States withdraw its 28,500 troops from the South while North Korea is still a nuclear-armed state, but Moon said it would be merely a “political statement,” and that it would not affect the status of US troops in South Korea or his country’s alliance with the United States.
“I confirmed with Chairman Kim that his concept of the end-of-war declaration is the same as mine,” Moon said.
And seems reasonable. It's been over 60 years.
The South Korean leader said he would discuss making such a declaration by the end of the year when he meets with Trump in New York on Monday for the annual UN General Assembly session.
Earlier Thursday, Moon and Kim ascended Baekdusan, a still-active volcano near North Korea’s border with China that reaches more than 9,000 feet and looms large in the history and imaginations of Koreans on both sides of the border.
Baekdusan, sometimes called Mount Paektu in English and known as Changbaishan in Chinese, is the mythical birthplace of the Korean people. The visit there by the leaders of the divided peninsula punctuated their avowed intent to improve and normalize relations.
“This is an important first step,” Moon, an avid hiker who said he had long dreamed of climbing the mountain, told reporters at the peak. “I trust that the time will come when ordinary South Koreans will be able to come here on tours.”
Kim also said that he hoped South Koreans would soon be able to visit the mountain. “Since the division of Korea, people in the South have had a longing for the mountain but could not come.”
The visit offered both leaders an important photo opportunity and a propaganda victory. For Kim, Moon’s trip was a visit to the purported heart of the North’s communist revolution, the site at which his grandfather, Kim Il Sung led a guerrilla war against Japanese colonialists in the early 20th century, and where his father, Kim Jong Il, was born, according to North Korean propaganda. (Historians say Kim Jong Il was born in the Russian Far East, not in Kim Il Sung’s “secret camp” at the foot of Baekdusan, as the North claims.)
Everyone the New York Times accuses someone of propaganda it makes me want to vomit.
So Kim Il Sung must have been on our side during the Good War, huh?
North Korean schoolchildren and party cadets are sent on pilgrimages to the mountain, where they swear their loyalty to Kim, whose family claims to be of a “Baekdu bloodline.” The lake at the mountain’s peak, called Cheonji, or “Heavenly Lake,” appears frequently in the North’s propaganda. When Kim Jong Il died in 2011, the North’s state news media claimed that the thick ice on the lake cracked “so loudly, it seemed to shake the heavens and the Earth.”
Trump must be envious.
For Moon, photographs from the mountain were a signal to constituents in the South that he was making real gains in pursuing peace with the North, and that they, too, could one day visit the sacred summit.
Moon and Kim on Wednesday signed a series of agreements that Choi Jong-kun, Moon’s secretary for arms control, called a “de facto nonaggression treaty.”
They are moving ahead without us. Trump along for the ride.
Both sides agreed to create no-fly and no-hostility zones and to stop live-fire drills along their land and sea border. They also agreed to disarm Panmunjom, the truce village in the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, where North Korean troops fired a hail of bullets at a North Korean soldier who defected to the South last year.
Moon and Kim also agreed to open a facility near Mount Kumgang, in the southeastern part of North Korea, where relatives separated by the Korean War could hold regular reunions, and they said they would make a joint bid to host the 2032 Olympics, but Moon was accused by critics of being more interested in cultivating Pan-Korean unity than in removing the North’s nuclear weapons.
That is very important, so don't say Trump got nothing, and so what if they are cultivating unity? Better than being torn apart like here!
North Korea proposed to “permanently dismantle” its main nuclear complex, but only if Washington took “corresponding” measures, and the statement lacked concrete steps like submitting an inventory of the North’s nuclear assets and then disassembling them under international inspection.
Waiting on Washington may mean waiting forever.
On Thursday, Moon said he had discussed a step-by-step sequence toward denuclearization with Kim, as well as what the North wanted from Washington in return. He said he and Kim could not include those details in their joint statement because they had to be negotiated between the North and the United States.....
--more--"
Related:
"Abe Gets One Step Closer to Becoming Japan’s Longest-Serving Premier" by Motoko Rich September 20, 2018
TOKYO — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won a commanding victory in a vote for the leadership of Japan’s governing party Thursday, moving him closer to his dream of becoming the longest-serving prime minister in the country’s history and fueling his hopes of revising its pacifist constitution.
Abe’s win over a single challenger came despite the headwinds he faced from domestic political scandals, stagnant wages, and his declining influence with President Trump, particularly in negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program.
The victory gives Abe, 63, a new three-year term as president of the Liberal Democratic Party and assures him of remaining prime minister. Abe faces a full slate of challenges, including towering national debt, the increasing threat of climate change-related disasters, a rapidly aging society and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
And the ongoing crisis at Fukushima, right?
“Cooperating with you, I’d like to do my best to hand over to our children’s generation a Japan filled with hope and pride,” Abe said in his acceptance speech.
Above all, analysts said, Abe’s signature accomplishment is his stable political leadership in a country that had grown weary of a conveyor belt of prime ministers. Since World War II, the average tenure of Japanese prime ministers has been about two years.
Critics have been disappointed by Abe’s entanglement in influence-peddling scandals and his failure to deliver stronger economic growth or the gender equality measures that he has long promised, but his opponent in the party election, Shigeru Ishiba, a former defense minister, failed to generate enough enthusiasm to justify a change of course.
“People may not be wildly excited, but they can’t think of anybody who is going to do any better,” said Sheila A. Smith, a Japan expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “Whether it’s the party or it’s the Japanese voter writ large, I think they are pretty risk-averse right now, given all the challenges that Japan faces, not the least of which is the Trump administration.”
Next week in New York, Abe, who has persistently cultivated a cozy relationship with Trump, is expected to meet with him on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Abe could come under pressure to enter bilateral trade talks as the Trump administration mulls threatened tariffs on automobile imports.....
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Looks like it will be war with Iran after all.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Grab your popcorn!
"A Boston company sued a film festival founded by Michael Moore. Then Leonard Maltin weighed in" by Laura Crimaldi Globe Staff September 20, 2018
"A Boston company sued a film festival founded by Michael Moore. Then Leonard Maltin weighed in" by Laura Crimaldi Globe Staff September 20, 2018
Michael Moore’s documentaries have targeted the wealthy and powerful — General Motors, the health care industry, and President Trump, but in August at the Traverse City Film Festival in northern Michigan, the famed filmmaker had tough words for an adversary of much smaller stature: a Brighton multimedia company with 20 full-time employees.
In June, Boston Light & Sound sued the nonprofit film festival led by Moore in state court in Michigan over allegations that it owes the company about $160,000 for services and equipment it used during the 2017 event.
Not only is Moore denying the claim, he took the stage at the film festival and aired his own grievances with the company.
The fight over the unpaid bill seemed destined to be resolved without much notice until Sept. 9, when prominent film critic Leonard Maltin came to the company’s defense while Moore was premiering his new documentary, “Fahrenheit 11/9,” at the Toronto International Film Festival. The documentary opens Friday.
It's quite incendiary, or so I am told.
In a video published on Twitter that has been viewed about 415,000 times, Maltin called on Moore to stop discussing the legal dispute in public. He said Chapin Cutler, the president of Boston Light & Sound, is a longtime friend who does excellent work, and negative publicity from Moore threatens his business.
“Michael Moore is a man who’s always stood up for the little guy, right? And wants people to do the right thing. Well, do the right thing,” said Maltin, who was filmed as his daughter, Jessie, asked him questions. “Don’t smear Boston Light & Sound.”
Maltin said in the video that he took action after hearing, perhaps erroneously, that Moore addressed the dispute publicly at the Toronto festival, which ended Sunday, but in a telephone interview on Wednesday, Maltin said he isn’t certain that is true, and the Globe could not independently verify it.
Representatives for Moore, who established the Traverse City Film Festival in 2005, didn’t respond to questions Wednesday.....
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They have “no hostile feelings toward him. They just want to get paid.”
The next movie he is working on?
All the world is a stage, and he better be careful or he'll be doing commercials.
Related:
Lizzie Borden, and her ax, come to the big screen
She is now a sympathetic #MeToo-era heroine!
3 Boston hospitals reach $1 million settlement over patient privacy in ABC series
It was a hit heard ’round the world.
Time to get out of town:
"In a J.D. Power survey, travelers rank Logan among the worst big airports in US" by Christopher Muther Globe Staff September 20, 2018
It was a hit heard ’round the world.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Time to get out of town:
"In a J.D. Power survey, travelers rank Logan among the worst big airports in US" by Christopher Muther Globe Staff September 20, 2018
Despite a slew of recent renovations, travelers ranked Logan International Airport among the worst in the country for a third consecutive year, according to a J.D. Power survey released this week.
In a study of airports of comparable size, J.D. Power found that Logan came in 16th out of 19 airports. Orlando International and Las Vegas McCarran International tied for first place, while Newark Liberty placed last.
The study reported that travelers are more impressed with Logan’s food and retail offerings, accessibility, and baggage claim than in previous years, but those improved scores were not enough to keep the airport from being classified as “about average.” Not a distinction that many airports would trumpet.
Related(?): Trump slump? US tourism is down almost 4 percent
Logan has been in a near-constant state of renovation for the better part of a decade, trying to keep up with changing passenger tastes, security enhancements, and a growing number of airlines.
That construction has left the airport not always looking its finest.....
Far from it.
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Someone needs to clean that up.
You know what time it is?
"FanDuel to pay out disputed $82K football bet" by Wayne Parry Associated Press September 20, 2018
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Upon further review, a New Jersey man will get his full $82,000 payout on a disputed $110 sports bet.
And several other gamblers who made similar bets at wildly inflated odds will also be paid in full, FanDuel said Thursday.
The online sports betting company said it will pay Anthony Prince of Newark the full 750-1 payout he was promised when the company’s automated system mistakenly generated long odds on the final moments of the Denver Broncos-Oakland Raiders game on Sunday.
The company initially refused to pay the bet placed at its sports book at the Meadowlands Racetrack, saying it isn’t obligated to pay for obvious errors, but FanDuel reversed field after consulting with state gambling regulators.
They told them that if they don't pay they make the government look like organized crime, so they paid.
‘‘Above all else, sports betting is supposed to be fun,’’ the company said in a statement Thursday. ‘‘As a result of a pricing error this weekend, it wasn’t for some of our customers.’’
Most addictions are.
Prince was handed his 750-1 ticket with about a minute left in the game, as the Broncos trailed by 2 points on their final drive. Denver kicked a field goal with 6 seconds left to win 20-19, capping a second half comeback that started with the Broncos down 12-0.
FanDuel says its system should have calculated his odds at 1-6, meaning a bettor would have to wager $600 in order to win $100. The company said a 36-yard field goal itself has an 85 percent chance of success.
‘‘These kinds of issues are rare, but they do happen,’’ the company said. ‘‘So, this one’s on the house. We are paying out these erroneous tickets and wish the lucky customers well.’’
Prince could not immediately be reached for comment.
Kerry Langan, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, said the agency ‘‘is encouraged by FanDuel’s actions today. The division will continue to work with FanDuel and the state’s other licensed sports wagering operators to ensure the implementation of industry-wide best practices.’’
Kip Levin, FanDuel’s chief operating officer, said the company wants ‘‘to use this as a learning experience for our new customers about how sports betting works.’’
All told, 12 customers, including Prince, were given incorrect odds during an 18-second computer glitch. Levin would not say how much in total the company is paying, but said the promised payouts printed on the tickets or made online will be honored.
The dispute is one of the earliest for the budding sports betting industry in New Jersey, coming at a time when new sports books are opening in some other states and lawmakers throughout the country consider whether to also jump in for the potential tax revenue. New Jersey challenged a federal ban and won a US Supreme Court decision in May that cleared the way for gambling on games to expand beyond Nevada.
The idea that player money and winnings would be protected and regulated by the state has been a major selling point among sports betting supporters who contrasted legal gambling with shady offshore betting sites where players often have little recourse in disputes, but gambling regulators also have policies in place to void obvious errors in sports bets.
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Have a Good Life, readers.
