You may have expected the first ever portable motion picture camera to be housed in some form of stuffy box?but in fact it was shaped like a rifle, which lends a new accuracy to the idea of shooting some film.
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By Gavin Jones
ROME (Reuters) - Italy's new Economy Minister Fabrizio Saccomanni is a 70-year-old central banker virtually unknown to the general public, who should reassure financial markets and the rest of Europe that the country will not stray from fiscal orthodoxy.
He has spent most of the last 46 years at the Bank of Italy, where he is deputy governor, having been passed over for the top job when Mario Draghi left in 2011 to head the European Central Bank.
Few can doubt Saccomanni's knowledge of economics and finance, but without any party affiliation he may lack the political clout to push through unpopular policies and risks being caught in the crossfire of cabinet infighting.
Draghi pushed for his deputy to replace him when he left the Bank of Italy but Saccomanni was opposed by Silvio Berlusconi's center-right government and compromise candidate Ignazio Visco leapfrogged him in the bank's hierarchy to become governor.
That was not the first time Saccomanni missed out. In 1998 he was expected to be Italy's first member of the ECB's six-member executive board but lost out to Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, who was more favored by Romano Prodi's center-left government.
Reserved but amiable, with a dry sense of humor, Saccomanni continues a tradition of technocrats who have made the move from the Bank of Italy to the economy ministry, the most recent examples being Padoa-Schioppa and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.
He had to overcome the resistance of Berlusconi, a key stakeholder in Prime Minister Enrico Letta's left-right coalition, who said on Friday that Saccomanni would be an unacceptable appointment.
"We've had enough of technocrats, we have been through a government that created a disaster because of its excessive fiscal rigor," he said, in reference to Mario Monti's outgoing technocrat administration.
RECESSION
Saccomanni publicly backed Monti's austerity policies several times, abandoning his usual reserve to take on a role of convincing the press and investors of Italy's creditworthiness at the height of the euro zone debt crisis in 2011 and 2012.
However the central bank's forecasts proved far too optimistic on Italy's growth prospects as the country sank into its longest recession for 20 years.
As economy minister, Saccomanni's primary task will be to breathe life into the euro zone's third largest economy with structural reforms and growth-boosting measures without allowing public finances to go off the rails.
One thing the center-right and center-left components in the broad coalition most strongly agree on is that Italy must try to re-negotiate its fiscal targets with Brussels and win more leeway to stimulate the ailing economy.
With his economic experience, international credibility and fluent English, Saccomanni will be well placed to present Italy's case.
Despite his low public profile he has been well known to the international financial elite for decades. He sits on the board of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel and was one of the behind-the-scenes negotiators who prepared Italy for European Monetary Union in the 1990s.
A native of Rome, he studied economics at Milan's Bocconi University and later at Princeton University in the United States and joined the banking supervision department of the Bank of Italy in 1967.
He has been at the central bank ever since, excluding stints on secondment to the International Monetary Fund from 1970 to 1975 and as deputy president of the London-based European Bank for Re-construction and Development from 2003-2006.
Saccomanni is married with no children.
(Editing by Stephen Powell)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italys-saccomanni-moves-central-banker-economy-minister-185526638.html
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James E. Dutschke stands in the steet near his home in Tupelo, Miss., and waits for the FBI to arrive and search his home Tuesday April 23, 2013 in connection with the recent ricin letters sent to President Barack Obama and Sen. Roger Wicker. The Mississippi man charged with sending poisoned letters to President Barack Obama and others was released from jail Tuesday on bond, while FBI agents returned to Dutschke's house where they'd previously searched (AP Photo/Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Thomas Wells) MANADATORY CREDIT
James E. Dutschke stands in the steet near his home in Tupelo, Miss., and waits for the FBI to arrive and search his home Tuesday April 23, 2013 in connection with the recent ricin letters sent to President Barack Obama and Sen. Roger Wicker. The Mississippi man charged with sending poisoned letters to President Barack Obama and others was released from jail Tuesday on bond, while FBI agents returned to Dutschke's house where they'd previously searched (AP Photo/Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Thomas Wells) MANADATORY CREDIT
James Everett Dutschke works on his mini-van in his driveway in Tupelo Miss., Friday, April 26 2013. Dutschke, 41, was arrested after midnight Saturday at his home by FBI special agents in connection with the letters, FBI spokeswoman Deborah Madden said. The letters, which tests showed were tainted with ricin, were sent last week to Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and earlier to an 80-year-old Mississippi judge, Sadie Holland. Madden said FBI special agents arrested Dutschke without incident. (AP Photo/Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Thomas Wells) MANDATORY CREDIT
BRANDON, Miss. (AP) ? An ex-martial arts instructor made ricin and put the poison in letters to President Barack Obama and others, the FBI charged Saturday, days after dropping similar charges against an Elvis impersonator who insisted he had been framed.
The arrest of 41-year-old James Everett Dutschke early Saturday capped a week in which investigators initially zeroed in on a rival of Dutschke's, then decided they had the wrong man. The hunt for a suspect revealed tie after small-town tie between the two men and the 80-year-old county judge who, along with Obama and U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, was among the targets of the letters.
Dutschke's house, business and vehicles in Tupelo were searched earlier in the week often by crews in hazardous materials suits and he had been under surveillance.
Dutschke (pronounced DUHS'-kee) was charged with "knowingly developing, producing, stockpiling, transferring, acquiring, retaining and possessing a biological agent, toxin and delivery system, for use as a weapon, to wit: ricin." U.S. attorney Felicia Adams and Daniel McMullen, the FBI agent in charge in Mississippi, made the announcement in a news release Saturday.
Dutschke's attorney, Lori Nail Basham, said she had no comment. Earlier this week she said that Dutschke was cooperating fully with investigators and Dutschke has insisted he had nothing to do with the letters. He was arrested about 12:50 a.m. at his house in Tupelo and is expected in court Monday. He faces up to life in prison, if convicted.
He already had legal problems. Earlier this month, he pleaded not guilty in state court to two child molestation charges involving three girls younger than 16. He also was appealing a conviction on a different charge of indecent exposure. He told AP earlier this week that his lawyer told him not to comment on those cases.
The letters, which tests showed were tainted with ricin, were sent April 8 to Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Mississippi judge, Sadie Holland.
Wicker spokesman Ryan Taylor said since the investigation was ongoing, the senator couldn't comment.
The first suspect fingered by the FBI was Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, an Elvis impersonator. He was arrested on April 17 at his Corinth, Miss., home, but the charges were dropped six days later and Curtis, who says he was framed, was released from jail.
The focus then turned to Dutschke, who has ties to the former suspect, the judge and the senator. Earlier in the week, as investigators searched his primary residence in Tupelo, Dutschke told The Associated Press, "I don't know how much more of this I can take."
"I'm a patriotic American. I don't have any grudges against anybody. ... I did not send the letters," Dutschke said.
Curtis' attorney, Christi McCoy, said Saturday: "We are relieved but also saddened. This crime is nothing short of diabolical. I have seen a lot of meanness in the past two decades, but this stops me in my tracks."
Some of the language in the letters was similar to posts on Curtis' Facebook page and they were signed, "I am KC and I approve this message." Curtis' signoff online was often similar.
And Dutschke and Curtis were acquainted. Curtis said they had talked about possibly publishing a book on a conspiracy that Curtis insists he has uncovered to sell body parts on a black market. But he said they later had a feud.
Curtis' attorneys have said they believe their client was set up. An FBI agent testified that no evidence of ricin was found in searches of Curtis' home. Curtis attorney Hal Neilson said the defense gave authorities a list of people who may have had a reason to hurt Curtis and Dutschke came up.
Judge Holland also is a common link between the two men, and both know Wicker.
Holland was the presiding judge in a 2004 case in which Curtis was accused of assaulting a Tupelo attorney a year earlier. Holland sentenced him to six months in the county jail. He served only part of the sentence, according to his brother.
And Holland's family has had political skirmishes with Dutschke. Her son, Steve Holland, a Democratic state representative, said he thinks his mother's only other encounter with Dutschke was at a rally in the town of Verona in 2007, when Dutschke ran as a Republican against Steve Holland.
Holland said his mother confronted Dutschke after he made a derogatory speech about the Holland family. She demanded that he apologize, which Holland says he did.
On Saturday, Steve Holland said he can't say for certain that Dutschke is the person who sent the letter to his mother but added, "I feel confident the FBI knows what they are doing."
"We're ready for this long nightmare to be over," Holland told The Associated Press.
He said he's not sure why someone would target his mother. Holland said he believes Dutschke would have more reason to target him than his mother.
"Maybe he thinks the best way to get to me is to get to the love of my life, which is my mother," Holland said.
___
Associated Press writer Jack Elliott Jr. in Jackson contributed to this report.
___
Follow Mohr at http://twitter.com/holbrookmohr.
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The US reluctance to join with three key allies ? Britain, France, and now Israel ? in concluding that Syria?s Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons in his country?s civil war confirms President Obama?s consistent wariness about US intervention in the two-year-old conflict.
Beyond that point, however, former officials and analysts are split over why Mr. Obama is so cautious about the issue ? he even refused to answer a reporter?s question on the topic Tuesday ? and what the apparently high bar the administration has set for evidence of chemical weapons use means.
?It?s a hard call as to whether the administration is trying to avoid something, or if they just don?t have the evidence,? says Wayne White, a former State Department official with experience in Middle East intelligence.
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Obama has said repeatedly since last August that Syria?s use of chemical weapons is a US ?red line? and would be a ?game changer? for the US. But now some critics say the president?s caution suggests a moving or ?fuzzy? red line.
For some, the president is simply being prudent, especially if the evidence presented so far is ?inconclusive,? as a number of senior administration officials, including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, have said. Obama, they add, wants to avoid a rush to judgment that turns out to be mistaken ? and which could appear to the world like a repeat of the 2003 US decision to invade Iraq over weapons of mass destruction that didn?t exist.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday that the US is being ?extremely deliberate? in investigating and evaluating the reports of chemical weapons use. And on Wednesday in Cairo, Secretary Hagel suggested the US would not be rushed to judgment by allies, saying, ?Suspicions are one thing. Evidence is another.? He then added, ?I think we have to be very careful here before we make any conclusions.?
But for others, the reason Obama is setting the bar high ? in a situation where incontrovertible evidence could remain very difficult to come by ? is because he has no desire to ratchet up US involvement in the Syrian conflict unless forced to.
The danger of this approach, critics say, is that it encourages an increasingly desperate President Assad to test the limits of US reluctance ? perhaps even with limited, hard-to-prove use of some chemical weapons.
And even if some isolated use of chemical weapons is proved, some analysts say, Obama is still unlikely to intervene in Syria in a manner that could tip the scales in the conflict.
?Even if CW [chemical weapons] were used, [the response] will depend a bit on how much and what we?re talking about,? says Mr. White, the former State Department official.
If chemical weapons use is proven ?there will have to be some response from the administration,? he adds, ?but unless it?s indiscriminate use, I don?t see us doing something like a no-fly zone that could really make a difference.?
Given Obama?s pattern to this point of gradually ramping up humanitarian aid and non-lethal material assistance to the rebels, the administration might bow to French and British pressure to approve providing the rebels with arms, White says. ?But something like that, that might have made a difference 18 months ago, won?t be a game-changer now.?
That?s because the rebels are now so divided, and because the groups the US would be willing to arm are not the ones ? specifically the more extremist Islamist factions ? achieving advances against Assad on the battlefield.
White, who is now an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, says the administration may be ?playing for time,? with its talk of deliberate evaluation of evidence, as it tries to overcome its deep divisions over how the US should approach the complex and ever-deepening Syria crisis.
But it also may be that the ?evidence? its allies have provided the US ? supposedly photos of victims with tell-tale signs of chemical-weapons contact from the Israelis, soil samples in the case of the French and British ? isn?t very convincing.
Secretary of State John Kerry said in Brussels Tuesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told him in a telephone conversation that he was unable to confirm assertions from Israeli Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, head of research and analysis for Israeli military intelligence, that Syria has used chemical weapons several times since the first of the year.
British military intelligence officials originally reported in late March their finding that Assad?s forces had actually used an intense military-grade tear gas in a reported attack March 19 on the city of Halab. Reports claimed that 30 people died in the attack, but the tear gas is not a chemical weapon and it was not clear what caused the deaths.
White says Iraq?s Saddam Hussein ? who used chemical weapons to kills thousands of Kurds in 1988 ? also used a military grade tear gas known as CS on Iranian troops who were advancing on the southern Iraqi city of Basra in 1982. The gas repelled the Iranian forces but did not kill them by the thousands as a nerve gas would have, White says.
The United Nations has formed an investigative group to go into Syria and determine what chemical weapons if any were used, but so far Assad is not letting the team in. And without such a team on the ground, it may remain impossible to deliver the kind of ?conclusive evidence? the Obama administration says it has yet to see.
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chemical-weapons-syria-obamas-high-bar-proof-could-232636199.html
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A significant problem regarding health care access involves obtaining hospital admission for those experiencing a mental health crisis.
The backlog in obtaining insurance approval for admission to a hospital bed is problematic for the patient in crisis, other emergency room patients and physicians.
A research letter to be published in the May issue of the journal Annals of Emergency Medicine argues that pre-authorization process is akin to health care ?rationing by hassle factor.?
?An emergency department is just about the worst place for a psychiatric patient to wait for an inpatient bed, and yet that is exactly what the pre-authorization process forces on millions of these vulnerable people,? said senior author J. Wesley Boyd, M.D., Ph.D.
?The thousands upon thousands of hours emergency physicians spend obtaining prior authorization for admission to the hospital are hours we are not spending on direct patient care. Only Medicare does not require prior authorization for us to admit psychiatric patients to the hospital; maybe they are onto something.?
In the study, researchers recorded data on 53 patients ? most were in the emergency department because they were having suicidal thoughts.
Half of the authorization requests took under 20 minutes to be approved, but 10 percent of the patients? authorizations took an hour or more. Only one of the 53 patients? insurance carriers denied pre-authorization. There are approximately 2.5 million psychiatric admissions to hospitals every year in the U.S.
?Psychiatric care is really the poor stepchild in the world of insurance coverage,? said lead author Amy Funkenstein, M.D., of Brown University in Providence, R.I..
?Insurance carriers reimburse poorly and as a consequence, hospitals often have inadequate resources for patients who urgently need this care. The situation is so dire that ERs are now being designed and configured to house psychiatric patients awaiting placement as inpatients. These patients deserve better.?
Source: American College of Emergency Physicians
Man waiting in the Emergency Room photo by shutterstock.
APA Reference
Nauert PhD, R. (2013). Slow Insurance Approvals Strand Mental Health Patients in ER. Psych Central. Retrieved on April 25, 2013, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/04/25/slow-insurance-approvals-strand-mental-health-patients-in-er/54083.html
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CAIRO (AP) ? U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel indicated on Wednesday that he was caught by surprise when Israeli officials publicly revealed their assessment that Syria has used chemical weapons in its civil war.
Hagel told reporters that his Israeli counterpart, Moshe Yaalon, did not alert him to the assessment when they met in Tel Aviv on Monday. The assessment was announced publicly on Tuesday by a senior official with Israel's military intelligence office.
"They did not give me that assessment; I guess it was not complete," Hagel said after several hours of meetings with senior Egyptian officials on the fourth stop of a week-long Mideast tour. "So I have not seen the specifics of it" or discussed it with Israeli officials.
He said he and Yaalon discussed the issue of Syria's chemical weapons, but Hagel would not elaborate further.
The Obama administration has said Syrian government use of chemical weapons would be a "game changer," implying that it might, if confirmed, compel the U.S. to get more directly involved in the civil conflict.
Hagel said that Washington is looking for "real intelligence" on the issue of Syrian chemical weapon use.
"Suspicions are one thing. Evidence is another," he said. "I think we have to be very careful here before we make any conclusions, draw any conclusions, based on real intelligence." He said his comments should not be interpreting as questioning the validity of other counties' intelligence on Syria. The important point, he said, is that "the United States relies on its own intelligence ? and must."
After his meetings in Cairo, which included talks with President Mohammed Morsi and the Egyptian defense minister, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Hagel flew to Abu Dhabi on the Persian Gulf.
Hagel said his Cairo stop was important for reinforcing U.S. support for the Egyptian government's transition to democracy and its efforts at economic reform.
By including Cairo on his first Mideast tour as defense secretary, Hagel was highlighting the Obama administration's hope of preserving influence with the Egyptian military as the country struggles with its transition to democracy.
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel. The U.S. is deeply concerned, however, that continued instability in Egypt will have broader consequences in a region already rocked by unrest, including in the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hagel-israel-did-not-tell-him-intel-syria-184631082--politics.html
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By Josh Grossberg, E! Online
The Rock is taking this "no pain, no gain" thing to heart. Dwayne Johnson announced he's set to undergo surgery next week for an abdominal injury.
"Saw my Dr who had to push my intestines back thru the tear in my abdomen. Kinda romantic," the pro-wrestler-turned-movie star tweeted on Sunday. "Surgery is next week. #BringItOn."
VIDEO: Michael Bay talks Dwayne Johnson's baby oil routine
As it happened, Johnson was MIA for last night's Hollywood premiere of his new action flick, the Michael Bay-directed "Pain and Gain" costarring Mark Wahlberg.
A rep for the 40-year-old thesp was unavailable for comment.
But news of the operation comes after Johnson got back in the ring earlier this month to take on rival John Cena at Wrestlemania 29, a title match he subsequently lost.
"Pain and Gain" hits theaters this Friday.
PICS: Here are some other celebs not feeling too hot these days
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NEW YORK (AP) ? Jason Segel is becoming an author.
The star of the TV series "How I Met Your Mother" and "Freaks and Geeks" has a deal with Random House Children's Books for a middle-grade series set in a haunted town. The series is called "Nightmares!" and will debut in the fall of 2014.
Random House announced Wednesday that best-selling children's author Kirsten Miller will collaborate with Segel. The publisher is calling the series a story of kids "overcoming their fears."
The 33-year-old Segel is also known for the films "Knocked Up" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jason-segel-working-middle-grade-book-series-144200424.html
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Individual cancer cells that break away from the original tumor and circulate through the blood stream are considered responsible for the development of metastases. These dreaded secondary tumors are the main cause of cancer-related deaths. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) detectable in a patient's blood are associated with a poorer prognosis. However, up until now, experimental evidence was lacking as to whether the "stem cell" of metastasis is found among CTCs.
"We were convinced that only very few of the various circulating tumor cells are capable of forming a secondary tumor in a different organ, because many patients do not develop metastases even though they have cancer cells circulating through their blood," says Prof. Andreas Trumpp, a stem cell expert. Trumpp is head of DKFZ's Division of Stem Cells and Cancer and director of the Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technology and Experimental Medicine (HI-STEM) at DKFZ. "Metastasis is a complex process and cancer cells need to have very specific properties for it. Our hypothesis was that the characteristics of cancer stem cells, which are resistant to therapy and very mobile, are best suited," says Trumpp.
Ir?ne Baccelli from Trumpp's team developed a transplantation test for experimental detection of metastasis-initiating cells. In collaboration with Prof. Andreas Schneeweiss from the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg along with colleagues from the Institute of Tumor Biology in Hamburg and the Institute of Pathology of Heidelberg University Hospitals, the researchers analyzed the blood of more than 350 breast cancer patients. Using specific surface molecules, Baccelli isolated circulating tumor cells from the blood and directly transplanted them into the bone marrow of mice with defective immune systems. "Bone marrow is a perfect niche for tumor sells to colonize," Trumpp explains. After more than one hundred transplantations, metastases actually started forming in the bones, lungs and livers of some of the animals.
This proved that CTCs do contain metastasis stem cells ? even though apparently with a low frequency. What characterizes these cells? To characterize their molecular properties, the researchers analyzed the surface molecules of those CTCs where the cell transplantation had led to metastases.
Three molecules characterize the metastasis stem cell
In a systematic screening process, Baccelli first isolated cells carrying a typical protein of breast cancer stem cells (CD44) on their surface from the CTCs. This protein helps the cell to settle in bone marrow. Next, the researchers screened this cell population for specific surface markers which help the cells to survive in foreign tissue. These include, for example, a signaling molecule that protects from attacks by the immune system (CD47) and a surface receptor that enhances the cells' migratory and invasive capabilities (MET).
Using a cell sorter, the researchers were then able to isolate those CTCs which exhibit all three characteristics (CD44, CD47, MET) at once. Another round of transplantation tests showed that these really were the cells from which the metastases originated.
Depending on the patient, cells exhibiting all three surface molecules ("triple-positive" cells) made up between 0.6 and 33 percent of all CTCs. "It is interesting that only cells with the stem cell marker CD44 carry the combination of the other two surface molecules," said Ir?ne Baccelli. "It looks like the triple-positive cells are a specialized subtype of breast cancer stem cells circulating in the blood."
Triple-positive cells as prognostic biomarkers
Are the triple-positive cells a more precise biomarker of breast cancer progression than the number of CTCs alone? In a small patient group, the researchers observed that as the disease advances, the number of triple-positive cells increases, but the total number of CTCs does not. In addition, patients with very high numbers of triple-positive cells had particularly high numbers of metastases and a much poorer prognosis than women in whom only few of these metastasis-inducing cells were detected. "On the whole, triple-positive cells seem to have a substantially higher biological relevance for disease progression than previously studied CTCs," Andreas Schneeweiss explains. The researchers plan to confirm these new results in a large study.
Andreas Trumpp considers it good news that the two proteins CD47 and MET are the ones characterizing metastasis-initiating cells. Therapeutic antibodies targeting CD47 to inhibit its functions are already being developed. A substance inhibiting the activity of the MET receptor has already been approved and shows good effectiveness for treating a certain type of lung cancer. The substance may also help breast cancer patients with detectable metastasis-inducing cells. "The triple-positive cells we have found turn out to be not only a promising biomarker of disease progression in breast cancer but also a prospect for potential new therapeutic approaches for treating advanced breast cancer," says Andreas Trumpp.
###
Ir?ne Baccelli, Andreas Schneeweiss, Sabine Riethdorf, Albrecht Stenzinger, Anja Schillert, Vanessa Vogel, Corinna Klein, Massimo Saini, Tobias B?uerle, Markus Wallwiener, Tim Holland-Letz, Thomas H?fner, Martin Sprick, Martina Scharpff, Frederik Marm?, Hans Peter Sinn, Klaus Pantel, Wilko Weichert and Andreas Trumpp: Identification of a population of blood circulating tumor cells from breast cancer patients that initiates metastasis in a xenograft assay. Nature Biotechnology 2013, DOI: 10.1038/nbt.2576
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres: http://www.helmholtz.de/en/index.html
Thanks to Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres for this article.
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By David Jones
NEWARK (Reuters) - Grammy Award-winning singer Lauryn Hill was given a two-week reprieve on her sentencing for federal tax evasion on Monday as a federal judge admonished her defense counsel for failing to come up with most of the tax money promised prior to her scheduled hearing.
Hill, a solo artist and a member of the Fugees rap trio, pleaded guilty in June 2012 to failure to file federal tax returns from 2005-2007, when she earned $1.8 million. She faces up to a year in prison for each charge.
Lawyers for Hill, who burst to stardom with her 1998 album the "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill," said they made a $50,000 payment toward the back taxes and penalties, but still need to come up with another $504,000 no later than May 3.
They had expected Hill to raise money from signing a new recording contract by the fall of 2012, but Hill was unable to complete the recording sessions. She has not released an album since 2001.
Hill, a mother of six children, including five with Rohan Marley, the son of reggae legend Bob Marley, claimed she failed to pay the taxes while she was sheltering her family to get away from excessive publicity and threats.
Attorney Nathan Hochman, representing Hill, said the singer had lined up a deal with a "hard money lender" for a loan that was secured by two real estate assets, and that she was expecting final approval of the loan sometime this week.
"For Miss Hill, the only question was when she was going to pay those taxes, not if," Hochman told reporters after the hearing.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo rescheduled the final sentencing hearing until May 6, but warned lawyers for the hip hop star that the court would not allow another slip up.
"This is not someone who stands before the court penniless," Arleo told the court.
(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Vicki Allen)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/singer-lauryn-hill-gets-reprieve-tax-evasion-sentencing-024854846.html
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BEIRUT (AP) ? Six days of fighting in a Damascus suburb has killed more than a hundred people and possibly many more, activists said Monday, in what the government also acknowledged may be a dramatic spike in the rising death toll in Syria.
The reports came as President Bashar Assad's forces pressed on with a major offensive against rebels closing in on parts of the Syrian capital, and while government troops moved to encircle the contested town of Qusair near the Lebanese border.
The precise number of those killed in the latest fighting in the Jdaidet Artouz and Jdaidet al-Fadel districts could not be immediately confirmed. The two adjacent neighborhoods are around 15 kilometers (10 miles) southwest of Damascus.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll, mostly due to shelling, could be as high as 250. Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said the group has documented 101 names of those killed, including three children, 10 women and 88 men, but he fears a much higher toll. The dead included 24 rebels, he added.
The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, put the death toll at 483. It said most of the victims were killed in Jdaidet Artouz. State-run news agency SANA said Syrian troops had "inflicted heavy losses" on the rebels in the suburbs.
A government official in Damascus told The Associated Press that rebels were behind the "massacre" in Jdaidet al-Fadel, saying they sought to blame government forces who entered the area after the killings occurred.
"The army discovered the massacre after entering the area," the official said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. The corpses were already decomposed, he added.
Jdaidet al-Fadel is mostly inhabited by Syrians who fled the Golan Heights after the area was captured by Israel in 1967. Jdaidet Artouz has a large Christian and Druse population.
Mohammed Saeed, an activist based near Damascus, said rebels withdrew as soon as the government offensive began last week. After that, he said via Skype, troops and pro-government gunmen stormed the area and killed some 250 people.
"The situation is very tense," Saeed said, adding that the area has no electricity, water, or mobile phone service. "There is widespread destruction in Jdaidet al-Fadel including its only bakery."
Reports of death tolls in Syria's civil war often conflict, especially in areas that are difficult to access because of the fighting. The government also bars many foreign journalists from covering the conflict. Both activist groups, the Observatory and the LCC, rely on a network of activists on the ground in different parts of Syria.
In August, activists said days of shelling and a killing spree by government troops left 300 to 600 dead in the Damascus suburb of Daraya, just north of Jdaidet al-Fadel.
The main opposition group, the Cairo-based Syrian National Coalition described the killings as "the latest heinous crime committed by the Assad regime." It added in a statement that "the deafening silence of the international community over these crimes against humanity is shameful."
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the reports of the massacre underline the urgent need to bring Syria's war to an end.
"I am appalled by the reports of the killing by Syrian Government forces of dozens of people, including women and children, in the town of Jdaidet Al-Fadel, a suburb of Damascus," Hague said in a statement. "This is yet another reminder of the callous brutality of the Assad regime and the terrible climate of impunity inside Syria."
Also Monday, two bombings targeted an army checkpoint and a military post in a third Damascus suburb, Mleiha, killing eight soldiers there, according to the Observatory.
The army also pressed on with its offensive near the Lebanese border, where it has been pushing for two weeks to regain control along with the help of a Hezbollah-backed militia known as the Popular Committees. The region is strategic because it links Damascus with the Mediterranean coastal enclave that is the heartland of Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
The fighting around Qusair also points to the sectarian nature of the Syrian conflict, which pits a government dominated by the president's Alawite minority against a primarily Sunni Muslim rebellion, and underscores widely held fears that the civil war could drag in neighboring states.
The pro-government daily Al-Watan predicted Monday that "the liberation" of the area will be completed within a "few days." Troops have already captured several towns and villages around Qusair.
The report claimed the army was making a "rapid" advance in the outskirts of Qusair, inflicting heavy losses on the rebels and forcing some of them to retreat toward Lebanon.
In Lebanon, there are deep divisions over the Syrian conflict, with Lebanese Sunnis mostly backing the opposition while Shiites support Assad. Lebanese fighters have also traveled to Syria to join either Sunni or Shiite groups, and several have been killed in clashes.
Over the weekend, several rockets fell in the predominantly Shiite Lebanese towns and villages along the border and some Lebanese schools in the area remained closed Monday for fear of more shelling.
Syria's conflict started with largely peaceful protests against Assad's regime in March 2011 but eventually turned into a civil war. More than 70,000 people have been killed so far, according to the United Nations.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-activists-fear-heavy-toll-near-damascus-130104103.html
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? Airline passengers will have to leave their knives at home after all. And their bats and golf clubs.
A policy change scheduled to go into effect this week that would have allowed passengers to carry small knives, bats and other sports equipment onto airliners will be delayed, federal officials said Monday.
The delay is necessary to accommodate feedback from an advisory committee made up of aviation industry, consumer, and law enforcement officials, the Transportation Security Administration said in a brief statement. The statement said the delay is temporary, but gave no indication how long it might be.
TSA Administrator John Pistole proposed the policy change last month, saying it would free up the agency to concentrate on protecting against greater threats. TSA screeners confiscate about 2,000 small folding knives from passengers every day.
The proposal immediately drew fierce opposition from flight attendant unions and federal air marshals, who said the knives can be dangerous in the hands of the wrong passengers. Some airlines and members of Congress also urged TSA to reconsider its position.
The delay announced by TSA doesn't go far enough, a coalition of unions representing 90,000 flight attendants nationwide said Monday.
"All knives should be banned from planes permanently," the group said in a statement.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who opposed the policy, said TSA's decision is an admission "that permitting knives on planes is a bad idea." He also called for a permanent ban.
Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., another opponent, said he will continue to push TSA to drop the proposal entirely.
"People with radical ideas can use everyday objects to cause great harm," Markey said. "If there is an opportunity to decrease risks to Americans, we have a duty to protect our citizens and disallow knives from being taken onto planes."
The proposed policy would have permitted folding knives with blades that are 2.36 inches (6 centimeters) or less in length and are less than 1/2-inch (1-centimeter) wide. The policy was aimed at allowing passengers to carry pen knives, corkscrews with small blades and other small knives.
Passengers also would have been be allowed to bring onboard as part of their carry-on luggage novelty-sized baseball bats less than 24 inches long, toy plastic bats, billiard cues, ski poles, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks and two golf clubs, the agency said.
Security standards adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency, already call for passengers to be able to carry those items. Those standards are non-binding, but many countries follow them.
The proposal didn't affect box cutters, razor blades and knives that don't fold or that have molded grip handles, which are prohibited.
Passengers were prohibited from carrying the small knives onboard planes after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Some of the terrorists in those attacks used box cutters to intimidate passengers and airline crew members.
It's unlikely in these days of hardened cockpit doors and other preventative measures that the small folding knives could be used by terrorists to take over a plane, Pistole told Congress last month.
There has been a gradual easing of some of the security measures applied to passengers after the 9/11 attacks. In 2005, the TSA changed its policies to allow passengers to carry on airplanes small scissors, knitting needles, tweezers, nail clippers and up to four books of matches. The move came as the agency turned its focus toward keeping explosives off planes, because intelligence officials believed that was the greatest threat to commercial aviation.
And in September 2011, the TSA no longer required children 12 years old and under to remove their shoes at airport checkpoints. The agency recently issued new guidelines for travelers 75 and older so they can avoid removing shoes and light jackets when they go through airport security checkpoints.
___
Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/feds-delay-policy-allow-small-knives-planes-000334255.html
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LG's just shed some much-needed light on its May 1st New York event. Turns out the "genius" the company will be celebrating stands for Atlas Genius -- as in the band -- and the star of this fete: the Optimus G Pro. We've already seen and very favorably reviewed the global model of LG's performance flagship (for the G's successor, you'll have to wait until Q3) and now it looks like the US is in store for a potential carrier-branded version of its own. If it arrives internally unmolested, we're looking at a 5.5-inch 1080p True HD IPS+ display, Snapdragon 600 and a 2.1-megapixel / 13-megapixel camera setup capable of dual video recording. We'll be on-site for this stateside debut, so stay tuned for the full monty.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, LG
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Let's be frank: many dedicated console gamers among us have at least briefly dreamed of ordering food without having to lift our hands from the controller. That's about to be more than a fleeting fantasy for Xbox 360 owners, as Microsoft is launching a Pizza Hut app today for those permanently lodged in the living room. The release puts all of the delivery menu a quick hop away on the Dashboard, including custom orders. Buyers can tempt their friends through Facebook, and there's even Kinect support for greasy-handed customers who'd rather not touch the gamepad (or a napkin, apparently) when requesting a second serving. Microsoft stresses that the Pizza Hut partnership isn't the start of a broad trend toward ordering real products through an Xbox, which is just as well -- our arteries can only take so much inactivity at once.
Filed under: Gaming, Microsoft
Source: Polygon
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By Michael Martina and Maxim Duncan
LUSHAN, China (Reuters) - Rescuers struggled to reach a remote, rural corner of southwestern China on Sunday as the toll of the dead and missing from the country's worst earthquake in three years climbed to 208 with almost 1,000 serious injuries.
The 6.6 magnitude quake struck in Lushan county, near the city of Ya'an in the southwestern province of Sichuan, close to where a devastating 7.9 quake hit in May 2008, killing 70,000.
Most of the deaths were concentrated in Lushan, a short drive up the valley from Ya'an, but rescuers' progress was hampered by the narrowness of the road and landslides, as well as government controls restricting access to avoid traffic jams.
"The Lushan county center is getting back to normal, but the need is still considerable in terms of shelter and materials," said Kevin Xia of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
"Supplies have had difficulty getting into the region because of the traffic jams. Most of our supplies are still on the way."
In Ya'an, relief workers from across China expressed frustration with gaining access to Lushan and the villages beyond, up in the mountains.
"We're in a hurry. There are people that need help and we have supplies in the back (of the car)," said one man from the Shandong Province Earthquake Emergency Response Team, who declined to give his name.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs put the number of dead at 184 and missing at 24, with more than 11,800 injured.
Hundreds of armed police were blocked from using roads that were wrecked by landslides and marched in single file with shovels en route to Baoxing, one of the hardest hit areas. Xinhua news agency said 18,000 troops were in the area.
The Foreign Ministry thanked foreign governments for offers of help, but said the country was able to cope.
In Lushan, doctors and nurses tended to people in the open or under tents in the grounds of the main hospital, surrounded by shattered glass, plaster and concrete. Water and electricity were cut off by the quake, but the spring weather is warm.
"I was scared. I've never seen an earthquake this big before," said farmer Chen Tianxiong, 37, lying on a stretcher between tents, his family looking on.
In another tent, Zhou Lin sat tending to his wife and three-day-old son who were evacuated from a Lushan hospital soon after the quake struck on Saturday.
"I was worried the child or his mother would be hurt. The buildings were all shaking. I was extremely scared. But now I don't feel afraid any more," said Zhou, looking at his child who was wrapped in a blanket on a makeshift bed.
Premier Li Keqiang flew into the disaster zone by helicopter to comfort the injured and displaced, chatting to rescuers and clambering over rubble.
"Treat and heal your wounds with peace of mind," Xinhua quoted Li as telling patients at a hospital. "The government will take care of all the costs for those severely wounded."
Chen Yong, the vice director of the Ya'an city government earthquake response office, told reporters on Saturday that the death toll was unlikely to rise dramatically.
Already poor, many of the earthquake victims said the government was their only hope.
Cao Bangying, 36, whose family had set up mattresses and makeshift cots under a dump truck, said her house had been destroyed.
"Being without a home while having a child of this age is difficult," Cao said, cradling her nine-month-old baby. "We can only rely on the government to help us."
No schools had collapsed, unlike in 2008 when many poorly constructed schools crumpled causing huge public anger, prompting a nationwide campaign of re-building.
Ya'an is a city of 1.5 million people and is considered one of the birthplaces of Chinese tea culture. It is also the home to one of China's main centers for protecting the giant panda.
(Writing by Ben Blanchard, Additional reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rescuers-struggle-reach-china-quake-zone-toll-climbs-032552277.html
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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (AP/File)
Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remains in serious condition at the heavily-guarded Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the FBI said early Sunday.
The update on Tsarnaev's condition comes as federal authorities are waiting to question the 19-year-old, who is accused of helping carry out the attack that killed three people and wounded 180 others, many of them critically, near the finish line of Monday's race.
According to a federal official, Tsarnaev is sedated and unable to speak.
He was brought by ambulance to the facility after he was captured in Watertown, Mass., on Friday, following an intense manhunt that included at least two shootouts with police and ended with the bloodied suspect taken into custody from a tarp-covered boat he had been hiding in. He apparently suffered gunshot wounds to the neck and leg.
Tsarnaev's 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, the other suspect wanted by the FBI, was killed during a late-night firefight with police in Watertown. Tsarnaev managed to escape on foot, prompting a citywide lockdown as police conducted a house-by-house search for the alleged killer.
[Related: Arrest presents intelligence opportunity]
The Tsarnaev brothers, who were born in the former Russian territory known as Kyrgyzstan and are of Chechen descent, lived in Cambridge, Mass., for several years. Dzhokhar became a naturalized American citizen last year.
Under U.S. law, authorities have 72 hours after Tsarnaev's arrest to file a criminal complaint against him. When they do, Tsarnaev is expected to face terror charges that could bring the death penalty.
"I hope that the U.S. attorney, Carmen Ortiz, takes him on the federal side and throws the book at him," Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday.
"We don't know if we'll ever be able to question the individual," Menino added.
Richard Roper, a former U.S. District Attorney in the Northern District of Texas, told Yahoo News Dzhokhar could be charged in his hospital room.
?Then when he?s better, he can make an appearance in court,? Roper said.
[Slideshow: 'We Got Him': Newspaper covers capture dramatic arrest]
Hours after the FBI made a public plea to help identify the suspects from video and photos at the marathon, the brothers allegedly shot and killed an MIT police officer and wounded a transit cop. Authorities said the pair launched explosives during a dramatic high-speed chase in residential Watertown early Friday.
No motive has been revealed for Monday?s attack.
Immediately after Dzhokhar?s capture, federal prosecutors stirred controversy in legal circles by refusing to grant Dzhokhar his Miranda rights against self-incrimination, citing public safety concerns.
"He is not going to be read the Miranda warnings," ABC News Senior Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas said Sunday. "They are going to use the Public Safety Exception, and dive in without advising him of his right to remain silent. They are taking this extraordinary step because there could be an imminent threat still out there. ... There's deep, deep concern about the amount of ammunition, guns and working bombs these men had."
Boston Police commissioner Ed Davis told "Fox News Sunday" that the amount of explosives police found suggested that the brothers may have been planning another attack.
"We are hoping, for a host of reasons, that the suspect survives," Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said Saturday. "Because we have a million questions, and those questions need to be answered."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/tsarnaev-condition-hospital-fbi-153246539.html
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BEIJING (AP) ? A U.S. private equity tycoon announced Sunday the establishment of a $300 million endowed scholarship program in China for students from around the world, and billed it as a rival to the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship.
Stephen A. Schwarzman, founder of the private equity firm Blackstone, said he would give $100 million as a personal gift and raise another $200 million to endow the Schwarzman Scholars program at Beijing's Tsinghua University. It will be the largest philanthropic gift with foreign money in China's history, according to the tycoon and the university.
The Wall Street mogul said China's rapid economic growth and rising global influence would define the 21st century, as U.S. ties to Europe did to the 20th century ? when the Rhodes Scholarship was created at Oxford University with the goal of producing outstanding leaders.
"China is no longer an elective course, it's core curriculum," he said in Beijing.
By partnering with the prestigious Chinese university, Schwarzman said he hoped the educational program would train future world leaders and play a positive role in relations between China and the United States.
"For future geopolitical stability and global prosperity, we need to build a culture of greater trust and understanding between China, America and the rest of the world," he said.
Tsinghua ? known for its engineering programs but in the midst of transforming itself to be more comprehensive in academic offerings ? also has produced many of China's senior leaders, who have traditionally been technocrats. It is the alma mater for both President Xi Jinping and former President Hu Jintao.
The $300 million endowment will allow 200 students each year to take part in a one-year master's program at Tsinghua ? all expenses paid ? in public policy, economics and business, international relations or engineering, beginning in 2016. Schwarzman said 45 percent of the students would come from the United States, 20 percent from China and the rest from other parts of the world.
Already, $100 million has been raised in the last six months from private donors, Schwarzman said.
Both President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping sent congratulatory letters, which were read out loud at the announcement ceremony at the Great Hall of People ? China's symbolic heart of political power. "That was pretty remarkable to listen to," Schwarzman said. "That was pretty awesome."
Vice Premier Liu Yandong attended the announcement and gave a speech.
The announcement also was the top news on state-run China Central Television's evening newscast, which is typically reserved for the activities of China's top leaders.
The program's advisory board includes former world leaders such as France's Nicolas Sarkozy, Britain's Tony Blair, Canada's Brian Mulroney and Australia's Kevin Rudd. Former U.S. secretaries of state Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice are also on the board, as is renowned cellist Yo-yo Ma.
"The board shares my belief that fostering connections between Chinese students, American students and students from around the world is a critical aspect of ensuring geopolitical stability now, and into the future," Schwarzman said.
He said the program would be jointly governed by the Schwarzman Education Foundation and Tsinghua University on matters including curriculum and faculty.
Schwarzman said he believes the program will enjoy academic freedom like any other Western educational institute and that he understands no topic will be off limits in the classrooms at the Schwarzman College, home to the program, to be built on the Tsinghua campus.
Many international corporations already have signed on as donors to the program, including BP, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Boeing, GE, JPMorgan Chase, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Caterpillar, Credit Suisse and Deloitte. International companies often give charitable gifts to cultivate ties with potential future leaders.
Tsinghua traces its roots to 1911, when the United States used the indemnity money paid by the Chinese government after an anti-foreigner rebellion to establish a preparatory school for students later sent to study in America.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blackstone-founder-creates-300m-china-scholarship-073646622.html
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Hi
Using Drupal (7.22) Kickstart (commerce_kickstart-7.x-2.6), where do I get to move the branding zone so it's below the menu zone? ie. I want to move the menu up.
Do the declarations in the info file determine it by their order? I've swapped so it says:
zones[menu] = Menu
zones[branding] = Branding
&
regions[menu] = Menu
regions[branding] = Branding
but the branding zone is still rendered above the menu.
It's swapped in the blocks admin page, but not .. in the website page itself.
I can't see any positional CSS, it's not Javascript that's doing it .. what am I missing?
Cheers
J
Source: http://drupal.org/node/1975988
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The Chechen people didn't choose the modern name of their capital. That came from the Russians, a name that encodes much of Chechnya's identity: Grozny -- The Fearsome.
Although physically diminutive -- smaller than New Jersey or Slovenia -- Chechnya has an enormous warrior reputation. Resistance is a consistent thread running through its complicated history: against Mongol hordes, against Turkic fighters, against Russian troops.
Chechens are variously seen as valorous defenders of their beleaguered homeland and as vile terrorists. The Chechen roots of the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects -- one now dead -- has drawn new attention to Chechen identity.
THE PEOPLE
Chechens are one of a bewildering array of ethnic groups originating in the steep and inhospitable Caucasus Mountains. Of the estimated 1.7 million Chechens worldwide, about 1.4 million live in Russia, mostly in Chechnya proper. Their Chechen language is unrelated to Russian or other major tongues, adding to a sense of ethnic unity.
BEFORE THE 20th CENTURY
Beginning with resistance to Mongol invasions in the 13th century, Chechens became known as formidable warriors. As part of their obdurate determination, Chechens developed their characteristic fortress towers -- tall, thin spires used as residences as well as defensive positions. As czarist Russian forces began offensives to take control of the Caucasus in the 19th century, Chechnya's warlords earned a reputation for being wily, bold and venal. The young Leo Tolstoy, serving in the army in Chechnya, drew on his experiences for his noted story "The Caucasus Prisoner."
Russian forces gained control of Chechnya in 1859 after some four decades of fighting. The Russian fortress that was a key element of the conquest eventually gave its name to what became Chechnya's capital.
ETHNIC CLEANSING
During World War II, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin saw Chechens as likely allies of the Nazis, so deported them en masse to Siberia and Central Asia in 1944. They were allowed to return only in 1957 and the suffering of the deportation remains a potent touchstone for Chechens.
MODERN WARS
As the Soviet Union began to collapse in the late 1980s, air force general Dzhokhar Dudayev, a Chechen, became sympathetic to the independence movement in Estonia where he commanded a division. Dudayev refused orders to mobilize his forces to take control of Estonia's parliament and broadcast facilities, then resigned from the military in 1990 and returned to Chechnya to lead the separatist movement there. A full-scale war with Russian forces began in late 1994. Although Russian forces inflicted enormous damage, the rebels fought them to a standstill. In the fall of 1996, several months after Dudayev was killed in a rocket strike, the army withdrew.
Chechnya then fell into appalling lawlessness, plagued by widespread ransom kidnappings; some abductees were beheaded. Dudayev's successor Aslan Maskhadov unsuccessfully tried to rein in a rising strain of Wahhabi Islamic violence led by his rival, warlord Shamil Basayev. After Basayev initiated an invasion of neighboring Dagestan in 1999 to try to form an Islamic caliphate, Chechnya's days of de-facto independence were numbered. Russian forces pulverized Grozny again and rebels fled the capital, but tormented Russian soldiers with hit-and-run attacks for years afterward before fading from view.
YEARS OF TERROR
Before the insurgents were quelled, they mounted several grisly terror attacks outside Chechnya. In 2002, Chechens seized a Moscow theater and some 850 hostages, a siege that ended with 129 hostages and all 41 hostage-takers dead when Russian forces filled the auditorium with a narcotic gas. In 2004, the insurgents seized a school in the town of Beslan; more than 330 people, about half of them children, died in the siege's end. A suicide bomber killed 37 people at Moscow's busiest airport in 2011.
CHECHNYA NOW
Under Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya has quietened. A huge infusion of federal funds has turned parts of ruined Grozny into a shiny display of new buildings. But Kadyrov is widely denounced for human rights abuses, including allegations of killing opponents. He has also imposed some Islamic restrictions on the region, including mandatory public headscarves for women.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chechen-identity-hinges-fierce-resistance-122138720.html
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The Pitt News, a student newspaper at the University of Pittsburgh, fired one of its editors this week over his connection to a secret society on campus known as the Druids.
The Pitt News recently wrote a two-part investigative series on the affiliations between members of the student government and the Druids. The paper reported that six of the nine students elected to the Student Government Board are Druids, although none of them would admit publicly to being a member of the group.
The reporting also found Assistant Opinions Editor Nick Stamatakis was a Druids member, a fact he had not disclosed even though Pitt News staffers are required to reveal their group affiliations. Without noting his connection, Stamatakis had written the editorial board's endorsement of one of the alleged Druids members in that individual's successful bid for Student Government Board president, Pitt News Editor-in-Chief Amy Friedenberger said in a letter from the editor a week ago.
Friedenberger wrote in a follow-up note Monday that she had found at least two other occasions on which Stamatakis had written or sought to advance a story about Druids. Because he had violated the newspaper's Code of Ethics, Friedenberger said, Stamatakis was "no longer an employee at The Pitt News."
Stamatakis told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he had "stayed very impartial. I feel I tried to walk as ethical a line as I could."
The Druids formed in 1920 as a society to recognize the University of Pittsburgh's "outstanding men," according to a student organization website. The Pitt News reported that the group had historically consisted of student leaders "looking to do good things," as 1974 Pitt graduate Thomas Bailey put it. The group hosted social events and was open about its membership through the 1970s, but went underground some time between 1996 and 2000.
The group is not officially recognized by the university now, and because the Druids keep most of their membership and activities secret, not much is known about them. They have surfaced at various points doing good deeds, such as the time in 2004 when they gave out gift certificates to the school book store and left notes congratulating sororities on a successful rush.
They also occasionally receive press coverage for colorful antics, such as when members were spotted on campus in hooded cloaks and carrying large swords in April 2002. The Pitt News reported the group sent a holiday greeting card to student organizations in 2011 showing the Druids members dressed in their robes (looking somewhat like the Nazg?l, or Ringwraiths, from the Lord of the Rings trilogy).
According to Friedenberger, Stamatakis said that the Druids had removed him as a member because his being a Pitt News staffer had allegedly "caused problems" when the paper was investigating the group.
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