Thursday, May 23, 2013

Attacks in Iraq kill over 40, sectarian tensions high

By Kareem Raheem

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - A series of bomb and gun attacks across Iraq killed more than 40 people on Tuesday, a day after over 70 died in violence targeting majority Shi'ites that has stoked fears of all-out sectarian war with minority Sunnis.

Nearly 300 people have been killed in the past week as sectarian tensions, fuelled by the civil war in neighboring Syria, threaten to plunge Iraq back into communal bloodletting.

Ten years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq's Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds have yet to find a stable power-sharing deal and violence is again on the upswing.

In the biggest single incident on Tuesday, a car bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque in the Abu Ghraib area of western Baghdad killing 11 people and wounding 21, police and medics said.

"I heard a powerful bang and a fireball near the main gate of the mosque," said Uday Raheem, a policeman whose patrol was stationed near the mosque.

"We held back a while fearing a second explosion and then rushed to the blast location. The bodies of worshippers were scattered and some were shouting for help. bleeding to death."

Another bomb outside a cafe in the Doura district of southern Baghdad killed six more and wounded 18.

In Diyala province northeast of the capital, at least eight people, including two policemen, were killed in bombs and shootings, and in Kanaan, also to the northeast, two roadside bombs detonated in quick succession claiming three lives.

In the north of the country, three roadside bombs exploded near a livestock market in the ethnically-mixed city of Kirkuk, killing six people and shredding the bodies of humans and animals alike.

Mahmoud Jumaa, whose cousin was killed in the multiple bombings, appeared bewildered by their random nature.

"I heard the explosions, but never thought this place would be targeted since these animals have nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with sect, nothing to do with ethnicity or religion," he said.

Kirkuk is in a disputed oil-rich swathe of Iraq claimed both by the Shi'ite-dominated government in Baghdad and ethnic Kurds who run their own autonomous administration in the north.

Two car bomb blasts killed three people in a residential part of the town of Tuz Khurmato, also in the disputed area.

North of Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed three soldiers at a checkpoint in Tarmiya, police and medics said, and in Khalis gunmen broke into a house and killed and man and his wife, both of them Sunni Muslims.

The conflict in Syria, where mostly Sunni rebels are fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad, is turning in part into a regional proxy war between Sunni and Shi'ite powers.

Lebanon's Iranian-backed Shi'ite Hezbollah group is now openly fighting alongside Assad's forces, which are dominated by members of his minority Shi'ite-linked Alawite sect.

Iraq's Sunnis who resent their treatment by Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government have staged mass protests since December. Sunni militants, some of them linked to al Qaeda, have exploited the unrest, urging Sunnis to take up arms.

More than 700 people died violently in April, according to the United Nations, the highest monthly figure in almost five years. Iraq suffered a frenzy of Sunni-Shi'ite violence in 2006-07, when monthly death tolls sometimes topped 3,000.

(Reporting by Mustafa Mahmoud; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/car-bomb-near-sunni-mosque-west-baghdad-kills-190518743.html

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Police release photos from Tucson shooting rampage

FILE - This Jan. 8, 2011 file photo provided by the Pima County Sheriff's Office shows Jared Loughner, who carried out the shooting rampage in Tucson that killed six people and wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others. Authorities are set to release more than 300 photos on Tuesday May 21, 2013, that investigators took in the aftermath of the Tucson shooting rampage . (AP Photo/Pima County Sheriff's Department via The Arizona Republic, File)

FILE - This Jan. 8, 2011 file photo provided by the Pima County Sheriff's Office shows Jared Loughner, who carried out the shooting rampage in Tucson that killed six people and wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others. Authorities are set to release more than 300 photos on Tuesday May 21, 2013, that investigators took in the aftermath of the Tucson shooting rampage . (AP Photo/Pima County Sheriff's Department via The Arizona Republic, File)

FILE - This March, 2010 file photo provided by her office shows Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. Authorities are set to release more than 300 photos on Tuesday May 21, 2013, that investigators took in the aftermath of the Tucson shooting rampage that killed six people and wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others. (AP Photo/Office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, File)

(AP) ? Authorities on Tuesday released nearly 600 photos that investigators took in the aftermath of the Tucson shooting rampage that killed six people and wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others.

The photos showed the handgun, high-capacity pistol magazines and knife that Jared Lee Loughner carried with him as he carried out the January 2011 attack.

The images also include Loughner's receipt for the motel where he stayed the night before the shooting, a credit card record showing ear plugs he bought and dozens of vehicles that were in the parking lot of the shopping center where the shooting unfolded.

The release of photos didn't include any gruesome crime scene images of victims that are being shielded from the public out of respect to those who were injured and killed in the attack.

The images were released nearly two months after the sheriff's department made public roughly 2,700 pages of investigative reports examining the shooting, marking the public's first view into documents that authorities had kept private since the attack.

The records provided more detail about the deteriorating psychological condition of Loughner in the hours leading up to the attack and the first glimpse into Loughner's family.

News organizations seeking police records and photos from the shooting were denied access in the months after the attack and after the arrest of Loughner, who was sentenced in November to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years, after he pleaded guilty to 19 federal charges.

In late February, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns cleared the way for the release of the photos and records after Star Publishing Company, which publishes the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, joined by Phoenix Newspapers Inc., which publishes The Arizona Republic, and KPNX-TV, sought their release. The judge said Loughner's right to a fair trial was no longer on the line now that his criminal case has resolved.

Arizona's chief federal judge and a 9-year-old girl were among those killed in the rampage. Giffords, who was left partially blind with a paralyzed right arm and brain injury, resigned from Congress last year and has since started, along with her husband, a gun control advocacy group.

Loughner's guilty plea enabled him to avoid the death penalty. He is serving his sentence at a federal prison medical facility in Springfield, Mo., where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and forcibly given psychotropic drug treatments to make him fit for trial.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-05-21-Congresswoman%20Shot-Photos/id-fef75d4322df4cca921732f55cca6914

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'The Voice' Pays Tribute To Oklahoma Tornado Victims

Oklahoma natives Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert perform 'Over You' during the live elimination episode.
By Natasha Chandel

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1707837/the-voice-recap-oklahoma-tornado-tribute.jhtml

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Crews comb devastation in Oklahoma; confirmed death toll lowered ...

Destroyed vehicles lie in the rubble outside the Plaza Towers Elementary school in Moore, Okla., on Tuesday.

By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News

As evening drew to a close in Oklahoma, after a day of tireless searching for survivors among the debris left behind by a powerful tornado, officials said the operation could end by nightfall Tuesday.

"We will be through every damaged piece of property in this city at least three times before we're done and we hope to be done by dark tonight," Moore Fire Chief Gary Bird said at a news conference.

Emergency crews and National Guard troops picked through neighborhoods without recognizable streets in a grim, house-by-house search of the blasted-out husk of a city left behind by the ferocious tornado.

Authorities lowered the death toll to 24, less than half the figure they gave in the initial chaos after the twister, but there was still no full accounting of those missing. Nine of the confirmed dead were children, including seven in a flattened elementary school.

Four bodies were recovered, including a 3-month-old baby, at a local 7-Eleven.

Working with search dogs and under menacing skies, the crews meticulously combed the rubble in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, which took a direct hit when the tornado cut a 17-mile path of destruction on Monday afternoon.

Dozens of people were pulled from the wreckage in the initial hours after the storm, but there were no reports of additional survivors found Tuesday ? only scraps of wood, shreds of clothing, shards of glass and metal and cars crumpled into each other and into buildings. Entire stretches of Moore looked as if they had been put through a blender.

?I mean, there?s nothing,? said Robert Foster, whose family home was destroyed. ?People are walking up and down the streets. It?s really upsetting to look at. We grew up there. That?s our whole childhood. And it?s all flattened now.?

Gov. Mary Fallin said there were 237 injured, but authorities cautioned that figure and the death toll could still rise. Even with the benefit of a full day?s light, people were only beginning to grasp the scope of the destruction in Moore and parts of Oklahoma City.

The Oklahoma University Medical Center admitted 59 children and 34 adults.

The National Weather Service said survey crews had found at least one area of Category EF5 damage ? the highest classification for tornadoes, meaning winds had exceeded 200 mph.

Frank Keating, a former Oklahoma governor, said on MSNBC that as many as 20,000 families could be displaced.

?This was the storm of storms,? Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett said.

The first of the victims was publicly identified ? Ja?Nae Hornsby, a third-grader who was killed when the tornado demolished Plaza Towers Elementary School. She was remembered by her family Tuesday as full of joy and fond of playing dress-up. Her relatives gathered at a Baptist church in Oklahoma City to console each other.

A second victim, Hemant Bhonde, 65, became separated from his wife when the tornado struck their home, his family told NBC News. Bhonde's body was recovered Tuesday, hospital officials said. His wife survived.

Tannen Maury / EPA

Firefighters examine the rubble of a home in a destroyed neighborhood in Moore.

As they took the measure of what they had lost, people in Moore also marveled that they were alive, and began to share stories of survival and of how they protected each other when the twister struck, announcing itself with roaring wind.

Children from Plaza Towers Elementary School, where seven children were reported drowned in a pool of water, told of hearing sirens and running into a hall for cover, some still carrying their math books.

A teacher, Rhonda Crosswhite, said she huddled with students in a bathroom stall and draped herself over them for cover as the storm hit.

?One of my little boys, he just kept saying, ?I love you, I love you, please don?t die with me, please don?t die with me,?? she told TODAY. ?But we?re OK. And we made it out, and it finally stopped.?

She said all her students were accounted for.

Damian Britton, a fourth-grader, credited ?Miss Crosswhite? with saving his life. He estimated it took about five minutes for the twister to pass through before the students emerged from cover to survey the damage and check on their classmates.

?It was just a disaster,?? he said. ?There was just a bunch of stuff thrown around and the cars were tipped over, and it smelled like gas.?

At an afternoon news conference, Bird said that search dogs were no longer ?making any hits? at the school. He said no one had been found there Tuesday but cautioned that the search was still active.

?They will not declare that structure clear until they are down to the ground and have been through every piece of rubble in that building,? he said.

One child was killed at Briarwood Elementary School, elsewhere in Moore, said police Sgt. Jeremy Lewis. There was no word on how the ninth child died. Besides the 19 deaths in Moore, five were killed in southern neighborhoods of Oklahoma City.

Charlie Riedel / AP

Zac Woodcock salvages items from the rubble of a tornado-ravaged rental home in Moore.

Authorities said they hoped to have every home, business and car in Moore searched by nightfall. They worked under the threat of still more severe weather. Forecasters said parts of Oklahoma and Texas, including Dallas, were at risk for more tornadoes.

The tornado Monday spent 40 minutes on the ground, said Rick Smith of the National Weather Service.

?We?ve seen numerous structures that are wiped clean to the foundation,? he said.

Smith said that the first severe thunderstorm warning had gone out 44 minutes before the tornado touched down, and the first tornado warning 16 minutes ahead. The weather service said the storm, at its widest, stretched 1.3 miles.

President Barack Obama called it ?one of the most destructive tornadoes in history.? Speaking from the White House, he pledged the full help of the federal government and said there was no time to waste.

?In an instant, neighborhoods were destroyed, dozens of people lost their lives, many more were injured, and among the victims were young children trying to take shelter in the safest place they knew, their school,? he said. ?So our prayers are with the people of Oklahoma today.?

Fallin, after a helicopter tour that traced the tornado?s path, said searchers were having trouble because ?the streets are just gone. The signs are just gone.?

Expressions of grief and support came from across the world. Pope Francis said on Twitter: ?I am close to the families of all who died in the Oklahoma tornado, especially those who lost young children. Join me in praying for them.?

Queen Elizabeth II extended her deepest sympathies, and House Speaker John Boehner ordered flags at the Capitol to half-staff.

Relief efforts sprang up. The NBA?s Oklahoma City Thunder and its star player, Kevin Durant, each pledged $1 million. Others helped as they could: Miles from Moore, people went on Facebook to post family photos that had landed in their yards, hoping to match them with their owners.

Aerial pictures of the destruction brought to mind Joplin, the Missouri town virtually wiped off the map two years ago when an EF5 tornado killed 158 people and caused $2.8 billion in damage.

The twister cut a path similar to a tornado outbreak that ravaged Oklahoma and Kansas on May 3, 1999, killing 46 people and damaging or destroying more than 8,000 homes. Wind in that outbreak was clocked at 318 mph, the fastest ever recorded on earth.

Officials in Moore complained earlier this year about foot-dragging by the federal government over $2 million in federal grants for ?safe rooms? in 800 homes to protect them from severe weather.

A spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency told NBC News the agency was looking into the claim.

The city?s website also said, however, that Moore faced only a 1 to 2 percent chance of a tornado on any spring day, and that if a tornado did strike, there was less than a 1 percent chance that it would be as strong as the 1999 tornado.

Monday?s storm beat those odds. Alfredo Corrales and Viviana Lune rode it out in a shelter beneath their house. Corrales told TODAY that they had hunkered down there and heard voices above, and popped open the door to find several neighbors asking to come in.

The wind was so strong, Corrales said, that he and a neighbor had to hold the cellar door shut. When they emerged, they found a rewritten landscape.

?I saw basically nothing,? Luna said. ?There were no fences there anymore, trees were snapped in half, roofs of houses were gone. Everything from people?s houses and even from neighborhoods across the street was laying in our yards. Half of the roof is torn off, the garage is caved in ? it's just a total mess.?

More on the Oklahoma tornado:

How to help Oklahoma tornado victims

Tornado survivors: A 48-hour window of opportunity

?The school started coming apart?: Trapped students had nowhere to hide

?Bless you for posting?: Facebook group reunites tornado victims with photos, documents

Curse or coincidence? Scientists study Tornado Alley's past and future

NBC News' Jeff Black, Tracy Connor, Becky Bratu and Kristen Welker contributed to this report, as did NBC News contributor Alex Hannaford and The Associated Press.

This story was originally published on

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/21/18394047-crews-comb-devastation-in-oklahoma-confirmed-death-toll-lowered-to-24

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FBI identifies Benghazi suspects, but no arrests yet

WASHINGTON (AP) ? U.S. officials say they have identified five men they believe might be behind the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year. The officials say they have enough evidence to justify seizing them by military force as suspected terrorists ? but not enough proof to try them in a U.S. civilian court as the Obama administration prefers.

So the officials say the men remain at large while the FBI gathers more evidence. The decision not to seize the men militarily underscores the White House's aim to move away from hunting terrorists as enemy combatants and toward trying them as criminals in a civilian justice system.

The officials spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive briefings publicly.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-ids-benghazi-suspects-no-arrests-yet-180357480.html

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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Microsoft expected to reveal next-generation Xbox

REMOND, Wash. (AP) ? Will Xbox mark the spot once again for Microsoft?

The company is set to reveal the next generation of its Xbox entertainment console during a presentation Tuesday at its headquarters in Redmond, Wash.

It's been eight years since the launch of the Xbox 360. The original Xbox debuted in 2001, and its high-definition successor premiered in 2005.

For the past two years, Microsoft has led the gaming industry in console sales with the Xbox 360. In April alone, consumers spent $208 million on Xbox hardware, software and accessories, more than rival consoles from Nintendo and Sony, according to market research firm NPD Group.

Nintendo kicked off the next generation of gaming last November with the launch of the Wii U, the successor to the popular Wii system featuring an innovative tablet-like controller yet graphics on par with the Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Yet Nintendo said the console sold just 3.45 million units by the end of March, well below expectations.

Sony was next, teasing plans for its upcoming PlayStation 4 at an event last February in New York. The reaction to that console, which featured richer graphics and more social features, was mixed.

Microsoft hasn't said what games will be on display Tuesday, but Activison-Blizzard Inc. previously announced that "Call of Duty: Ghosts," the next chapter in its popular military shooter franchise, would make an appearance at the event.

Xbox has been the exclusive home to such popular gaming franchises as sci-fi first-person shooter "Halo," racing simulator "Forza" and alien shoot-'em-up "Gears of War." In recent years, Microsoft expanded the scope of the Xbox 360 beyond just games, adding streaming media apps and the family-friendly Kinect system.

"They need to show good games," said Stephen Totilo, editor of gaming site Kotaku.com. "There's been anxiety among Xbox fans that Microsoft has forgotten or doesn't value the core gamer as much. We saw this when Microsoft introduced the Kinect and went after families and kids."

Tuesday's event will give Microsoft the opportunity to address several questions about the rumored hardware, including what it will cost, whether it can play used games or Blu-ray discs and if it will require a constant connection to the Internet.

Microsoft likely won't showcase all aspects of the new Xbox. The company has another presentation scheduled three weeks later during E3, the gaming industry's annual convention in Los Angeles.

___

Online:

http://www.xbox.com/

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/microsoft-expected-reveal-next-generation-xbox-132539129.html

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CETC 2013 : CETC2013 - Conference on Electronics ... - WikiCFP

We are pleased to invite you to CETC 2013 , to be held in Lisbon during 5th ? 6th December 2013.

CETC2013 is a premier conference in the broad field of Electronics, Telecommunications and Computers. The aim of the conference is to provide a platform for engineers to disseminate and discuss their current research findings and also to explore recent development, current practices and future trends in Electronics, Telecommunications and Computers.

We also encourage the dissemination of R&D linked to the Industry. The conference program includes sessions with invited speakers and breakout sessions with oral, poster and demo presentations in the fields of Electronics, Telecommunications and Computers. CETC2013 is the second edition of the Conference on Electronics Telecommunications and Computers and it is organized by the Department of Electronics, Telecommunications and Computers Engineering of ISEL (Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa)

We invite submissions in the topics given below:

COMMUNICATION, NETWORKING & BROADCASTING
Internet
Security
Standards
Wireless Systems
Antennas and Propagation
Signal Processing
Information Theory
Physical Layer Transmission Technologies
Data Coding and Compression
Microwave Circuits and Systems

COMPUTING & PROCESSING
Hardware
Software
Embedded systems
Information Technology
Networks
Heterogeneous computing
High Performance Computing
Cloud Computing
Distributed Systems

MULTIMEDIA SYSTEMS & APPLICATIONS
Image and Video Retrieval
Mobile Computing
Human-Computer Interaction
Computer Assisted Diagnosis
Computer Entertainment
Media authoring and production
Ubiquitous Computing
Augmented Reality

BIOMEDICAL APPLICATIONS
Medical Imaging
Devices and Systems
Biomedical Electronics
Computer Assisted Diagnosis
Image and Signal Processing

SEMICONDUCTORS
Devices
Materials
Circuit Design
Optoelectronic Devices and Integration
Microelectronics
Nanotechnology
Photonics

ROBOTICS & CONTROL SYSTEMS
Artificial Intelligence
Robotics Software
Sensors & Actuators
Human-Robot Interaction
Data Acquisition and Control
Navigation Systems
Computer Vision and Processing

Source: http://www.wikicfp.com/cfp/servlet/event.showcfp?eventid=30890©ownerid=27888

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Warriors Fans Killed in Shooting After Playoff Loss

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/05/warriors-fans-killed-in-shooting-after-playoff-loss/

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Monday, May 20, 2013

Obama delivers historic commencement at Morehouse College

President Obama gives the commencement address at Morehouse College, May 19, 2013. (Jason Reed/Reuters)

President Barack Obama took a break from the trifecta of controversies?IRS, Department of Justice, Benghazi?swirling around the White House on Sunday to deliver the commencement address at Morehouse College, the historically black, all-male institution in Atlanta.

"What I ask of you today is the same thing I ask of every graduating class I address," Obama told 500 graduates and an estimated 10,000 onlookers, most of them in ponchos, on the school's stormy, rain-soaked campus. "Use that power for something larger than yourself."

While the message may have been unremarkable, the occasion was historic: Obama became the first sitting president to address Morehouse, the alma mater of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose spirit was evoked throughout the speech.

"Many of you know what it?s like to be an outsider, to be marginalized, to feel the sting of discrimination," Obama said. "That?s an experience that so many other Americans share. Hispanic Americans know that feeling when someone asks where they come from or tells them to go back. Gay and lesbian Americans feel it when a stranger passes judgment on their parenting skills or the love they share. Muslim Americans feel it when they?re stared at with suspicion because of their faith. Any woman who knows the injustice of earning less pay for doing the same work?she sure feels it."

Graduates of Morehouse's class of 2013 watch as Obama speaks, May 19, 2013. (Jason Reed/Reuters)

The president said that while it might be tempting for graduates to use their degrees for personal wealth, they should aim for more. "I know some of you came to Morehouse from communities where life was about keeping your head down and looking out for yourself," Obama said. "Maybe you feel like you escaped, and you can take your degree, get a fancy job and never look back. And don?t get me wrong?with the heavy weight of student loans, with doors open to you that your parents and grandparents could scarcely imagine, no one expects you to take a vow of poverty.

"It is not just the African-American community that needs you," Obama said. "The country needs you. The world needs you."

According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, attendees arrived as early 3:30 a.m. to reserve a spot at the open-air ceremony.

The president said that growing up, he used to chalk up some of his own "bad choices" to being black.

"We know that too many young men in our community continue to make bad choices," Obama said. "Growing up, I made a few myself. And I have to confess, sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. But one of the things you?ve learned over the last four years is that there?s no longer any room for excuses."

First-year Morehouse College president John Wilson introduced President Obama. Prior to taking the Morehouse job, Wilson ran the White House's historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) initiative.

After the ceremony, the president was scheduled to later attend a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee at the home of Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank.

It was Obama's second graduation speech in as many weeks. Last week, the president delivered the commencement address at Ohio State. His third and final speech of graduation season, at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., is slated for Friday.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-morehouse-commencement-speech-172854207.html

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Madonna, Miley, more rock Billboard fashions

Celebs

3 hours ago

Taking a page from the Grammys and the MTV VMAs and other awards show books that call for riskier fashion choices, the ladies of the Billboard Music Awards didn't disappoint Sunday night. Or maybe they did, depending on what disappoints you.

On the blue carpet before the show and onstage at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, the queens of pop, rap, country and whatever Ke$ha does pushed the limits. And then Madonna pushed a little further.

Check out the lineup below and be sure to vote for your ... favorite?

Madonna
The Material Girl busted out the garter belts and a fishnet mini skirt with matching fishnet glove things -- it's goth "Deadliest Catch."

Image: Madonna

Jason Merritt / Getty Images

Taylor Swift
The country princess sparkled in a blue mini-dress long before she changed into a unicorn T-shirt to perform the song "22."

Image: Taylor Swift

David Becker / Getty Images

Miley Cyrus
You have to be getting to like her short hair by now, right? It works. How about her diamond-patterned jumpsuit?

Image: Miley Cyrus

Ethan Miller / Getty Images

Jennifer Lopez
Thigh-high red leather boots, a shiny red leotard thing with red feathery arms -- J.Lo is the sexiest Muppet we've ever seen.

Image: Jennifer Lopez

Ethan Miller / Getty Images

Ke$ha
Does the wind blow in Las Vegas? If it did on Sunday night, that little dress flap would have left even less to the imagination.

Image: Ke$ha

Robyn Beck / AFP - Getty Images

Selena Gomez
Maybe this is why Justin Bieber took her back. Good thing that whoever slashed her dress with a sword left that part on her hip intact.

Image: Selena Gomez

John Shearer / AP

Nicki Minaj
In an answer to the red that J.Lo busted out, Minaj went a little more conservative, but that look in her eyes definitely says, "Look at my EYES."

Image: Nicki Minaj

David Becker / Getty Images

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/madonna-miley-j-lo-more-who-looked-best-billboard-awards-1C9993090

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Bill Cosby, Vindicated . . . By the Obamas? (Powerlineblog)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/307027650?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Syrian army, Hezbollah attack rebels in border town: opposition

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian troops supported by Hezbollah militants launched an offensive to retake a major town near Lebanon from rebels on Sunday, the heaviest fighting yet involving Lebanese armed group, opposition activists said.

At least 32 people were killed when rebel fighters clashed with mechanized Syrian army units and Hezbollah guerillas in nine points in and around the town of Qusair, 10 km (six miles) from the border with Lebanon's Bekaa valley, they said.

Speaking from Qusair, activist Hadi Abdallah said Syrian warplanes bombed Qusair in the morning and shells were hitting the town at a rate of up to 50 a minute.

"The army is hitting Qusair with tanks and artillery form the north and east while Hezbollah is firing mortar rounds and multiple rocket launchers from the south and west," he said.

"Most of the dead are civilians killed by the shelling."

The region near the Orontos River has been segregated into Sunni and Shi'ite villages in the civil war that grew out of protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

It is vital for Assad, who belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, to keep open a route from Shi'ite Hezbollah's strongholds in the Bekaa to areas near Syria's Mediterranean coast inhabited by co-religionist Alawites.

Opposition sources say Syria's coastal region could serve as an Alawite statelet in case Assad falls in Damascus, in a potential fragmentation of Syria along ethnic and sectarian lines that raises the prospect of many more deaths.

Sources in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley said shells fired by rebels hit the edges of the town of Hermel, a stronghold of Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, but no casualties were reported.

Syrian Television said the army is "leading an operation against terrorists in Qusair", with troops reaching the town's center.

"Our heroic forces are advancing toward Qusair and are chasing the remnants of the terrorists and have hoisted the Syrian flag on the municipality building. In the next few hours we will give you joyous news," the television said.

The United Nations says at least 80,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which started with peaceful demonstrations against four decades of family rule by Assad and his late father.

The protests were met by bullets, sparking an armed uprising that turned into a civil war mainly pitting majority Sunnis against the Alawite sect, which has controlled Syria since the 1960s.

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-army-hezbollah-attack-rebels-border-town-opposition-132854254.html

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'Trek' does $70.6M but falls short of studio hopes

(AP) ? "Star Trek: Into Darkness" has warped its way to a $70.6 million domestic launch from Friday to Sunday, though it's not setting any light-speed records with a debut that's lower than the studio's expectations.

The latest voyage of the starship Enterprise fell short of its predecessor, 2009's "Star Trek," which opened with $75.2 million.

Since premiering Wednesday in huge-screen IMAX theaters and expanding Thursday to general cinemas, "Into Darkness" has pulled in $84.1 million, well below distributor Paramount's initial forecast of $100 million. The film has added $80.5 million overseas.

The "Star Trek" sequel bumped "Iron Man 3" down to second-place after two weekends on top. Robert Downey Jr.'s superhero saga took in $35.2 million domestically and $40.2 million overseas to shoot its worldwide total to nearly $1.1 billion.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-05-19-Box%20Office/id-7dff183b5346410393aec05f198e3292

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Saturday, May 18, 2013

Newer diabetes medications may have additional cardiovascular benefits

May 17, 2013 ? A newer class of medications used to control blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetics may also improve cardiovascular health, researchers from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center reported in a new meta-analysis presented yesterday at the American Society of Hypertension's Annual Scientific Meeting and Exposition.

Researchers found that the use of glucagon-like peptide-1 agonists, known as GLP-1 mimetics, resulted in a systolic blood pressure (SBP) reduction of -2.22 mmHg, a loss of almost six pounds, and a decrease of HbA1c -- an indicator of blood sugar levels -- of 0.41 percent.

"While our findings must be viewed as preliminary it does provide compelling evidence of potential long-term cardiovascular advantages of GLP-1 analogs," said lead investigator Sanjay Rajagopalan, MD, John W. Wolfe Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and director for vascular research at Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center. "Stroke and heart disease are the leading causes of death in people with diabetes, so this is an area that deserves additional study."

For the meta-analysis, the researchers analyzed 33 randomized studies involving 12,469 patients with type 2 diabetes assessing the glycemic control efficacy of both short acting and long acting GLP-1 mimetics. They specifically looked at GLP-1 impact on sitting systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, weight, HbA1c and heart rate after 12-56 weeks of treatment. All studies included a comparator group that used other anti-glycemic medications or placebo.

"The significance of our meta-analysis is that it uses direct evidence from both published and unpublished trials that include blood pressure data and glycemic efficacy of GLP-1 agonists with a non-incretin control group including placebo," noted Rajagopalan. "The results were maintained when the placebo controlled trials alone were examined."

The research team also found that the baseline body weight, HbA1c, SBP, study duration, weight loss, HbA1c reduction or heart rate change did not predict the size of the estimated treatment effect or explain heterogeneity between studies.

GLP-1 is a peptide hormone that stimulates insulin and inhibits glucagon secretion in a glucose-dependent manner. Recent studies suggest that the GLP-1 receptor is widely expressed in the cardiovascular system with a variety of effects including improvements in endothelial function that may lead to lowering of blood pressure. GLP-1 mimetics are available globally for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes is a common form of diabetes mellitus that develops especially in adults and most often in obese individuals. It is characterized by hyperglycemia resulting from impaired insulin utilization coupled with the body's inability to compensate with increased insulin production. Diabetes affects an estimated 23.6 million people in the US (90 percent to 95 percent have type 2 diabetes) -- 17.9 million have been diagnosed, but 5.7 million are unaware they have the disease. According to the most recent statistics, diabetes was the sixth leading cause of death, and the fifth leading cause of death from disease in 2007. Diabetes costs $116 billion annually in direct medical costs and $58 billion annually in indirect costs (loss of work, disability, loss of life).

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/heart_disease/~3/0GOb63kwhd0/130517085058.htm

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A Den of Liberals

Outgoing acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller (R ) and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George are sworn-in during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservative groups on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 17, 2013. Outgoing acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller (R) and Treasury inspector general for tax administration J. Russell George on Friday

Photo by Jason Reed/Reuters

Maybe it wasn?t the best idea for acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller to resign before talking to Congress. He appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday as a sort of human sacrifice; the first bureaucrat to resign in the scandal, and not even the one Republicans or Tea Partiers wanted. Miller had been a deputy commissioner during the years of scandal, and the IRS inspector general?s report didn?t tie him to any bias or malfeasance.

?I resigned,? he shrugged, ?because as the acting commissioner, what happens in the IRS, whether I was personally involved or not, stopped at my desk.?

He wasn?t fighting for his job, which freed him up to be the most unsympathetic public servant not currently employed by a North Korean prison. Republicans insisted that the IRS had ?targeted? Tea Party groups when they applied for tax exemption, because the Inspector General (sitting right there in the room) had said so. Miller kept quibbling with the word ?targeted.? Republicans asked if the 501(c)(4) follow-up questions were criminal; Miller called them ?bad customer service.? Miller confirmed that the Treasury Department was made aware of the letters during the 2012 campaign, without quite appreciating why this made Republicans turn such a vibrant shade of red.

?Nothing bad is going to happen to you,? said Rep. Tom Reed, a ruddy, low-profile former mayor from western New York.

Miller, for some reason, saw an opening for some snark.

?Nothing bad is happening to me, congressman??

Reed snapped right back at him. ?You're getting paid for being here today, right?? he asked.

?Right,? said Miller, thoroughly defeated.

It was an ironic little exchange. For the moment, both of these men still work for the government. (Miller won?t actually leave his post until June.) One of them keeps his job by convincing conservative-minded voters in Corning, Orlean, and Pittsford, N.Y. to send him back to Washington. One of them was a civil servant. Nobody in politics appointed him to the job he?s leaving. The president can hire and fire IRS commissioners, but the people below him?the people fingered in the IG report, from D.C. to the fabled Cincinnati office?work their way up the ladder regardless of who the president is.

In theory, the civil-servant structure should make an organization less prone to an eruption of bias or of hive-mind behavior. But that?s not how it works. Liberals are more likely to enter the civil service, and to stick to it, than conservatives are. And why not? Conservatives want to shrink the size of government; Republicans have negotiated deals federally, and in the states, that slashed or froze the size of the bureaucracies. Ron Swanson aside, the public sector is no place for a libertarian.

Every single number proves this. Tim Carney has collected the campaign finance figures for IRS employees nationally and in the Cincinnati office. In the past three election cycles, IRS workers donated $247,000 to Democrats and $145,000 to Republicans. In Ohio, the number was skewed even further?75 percent to Democrats. According to a 2011 Gallup poll, around 40 percent of unionized federal employees identified as Democrats; only 27 percent identified as Republicans. State and local government employees are far more likely to be Democrats than Republicans.

If you check the timing of that poll, you realize something about how obvious this all is. Gallup went into the field to quiz bureaucrats because Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was rolling back collective bargaining rights for state employees. Doing so, as Republicans knew, would weaken a constituency that was inclined to vote for Democrats after filling their campaign accounts.

Now, does that excuse the IRS?s behavior in what Tom Reed called ?Tea Party-targeting-gate?? No. It explains the behavior. In the IG report, you encounter bureaucrats presented with a challenge??some organizations were classified as 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations but operated like political organizations??and responded by drafting a ?Be on the Look-Out? (or BOLO) memo with some anthropological advice about conservatives. Any application with ?Tea Party,? ?Patriots,? or ?9/12 Project? in the name was flagged, as was referring to ?government spending, government debt or taxes.? And this, as Doug Donovan reported, was before the surge in 501 applications really got going.

Based on what we know about the sort of people who aspire to become IRS commissioners, how much direct knowledge did they probably have about the conservative movement? How much did they fear it? So far in this story, Republicans have raced to find answers tying low-level IRS behavior to directives from the Obama administration, or table-pounding from Democrats who were worried about 501s like American Crossroads or Americans for Prosperity. But you don?t need to make that leap to explain why civil servants working for a tax-collection agency?the very heart of the Leviathan?might have been extra-skeptical of conservative groups.

Republicans have been clever in their response to all that. Led by Rep. Tom Price in the House and Sen. Dean Heller in the Senate, they?ve called for the IRS to be stopped from enforcing ?Obamacare? regulations. They received a remarkable gift horse on Thursday, when?after six days!?ABC News noticed that the former director of the IRS?s tax exempt division, Sarah Hall Ingram, was the current director of Affordable Care Act enforcement. By Friday morning, conservatives were asking Hall Ingram to be fired. Let?s say that her superior did let her go. Her likely replacement, the sort of person who?d spent enough time in the bureaucracy to be qualified, would be someone committed to the health of the state. What Republicans need, in the long run, is either a much-reduced government or a surge of civil-servant Ron Swansons.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=4989ac40e0f505ee1af0c6233c770a26

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Nine-year-old Mars rover passes 40-year-old record

May 17, 2013 ? While Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt visited Earth's moon for three days in December 1972, they drove their mission's Lunar Roving Vehicle 19.3 nautical miles (22.210 statute miles or 35.744 kilometers). That was the farthest total distance for any NASA vehicle driving on a world other than Earth until yesterday.

The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity received confirmation in a transmission from Mars today that the rover drove 263 feet (80 meters) on Thursday, bringing Opportunity's total odometry since landing on Mars in January 2004 to 22.220 statute miles (35.760 kilometers).

Cernan discussed this prospect a few days ago with Opportunity team member Jim Rice of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Apollo 17 astronaut said, "The record we established with a roving vehicle was made to be broken, and I'm excited and proud to be able to pass the torch to Opportunity."

The international record for driving distance on another world is still held by the Soviet Union's remote-controlled Lunokhod 2 rover, which traveled 23 miles (37 kilometers) on the surface of Earth's moon in 1973.

Opportunity began a multi-week trek this week from an area where it has been working since mid-2011, the "Cape York" segment of the rim of Endeavour Crater, to an area about 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers) away, "Solander Point."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL also manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project and its rover, Curiosity, which landed on Mars in August 2012.

For more information about Opportunity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov . You can follow the project on Twitter and on Facebook at: http://twitter.com/MarsRovers and http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers .

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/wuHIEDRP8yQ/130517120939.htm

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Friday, May 17, 2013

Hollywood and 9/11: The Movies and TV Dramas Resembling the ...

The famous Hollywood sign

"It represents capitalism. It represents freedom. It represents everything America is
about. And to bring those two buildings down would bring America to its knees."

- Line from Nosebleed, a movie originally set to start being
filmed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001

A significant number of movies and television dramas were being produced at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which had storylines with some remarkable similarities to the events of September 11, 2001. These storylines featured incidents such as terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, terrorists hijacking a commercial aircraft, and terrorists causing a jumbo jet to crash in New York.

The movies and TV shows would have featured some famous actors, and were being made for major companies, such as CBS and 20th Century Fox. Furthermore, employees of the military and other U.S. government agencies are known to have assisted in developing the storylines of some of these productions. Unsurprisingly, after September 11, the movies and TV shows were either canceled or significantly rewritten so as to remove any resemblance to the 9/11 attacks.

The existence of these movies and TV dramas, at the very least, disproves claims that the 9/11 attacks could not have been foreseen. It is worth considering, however, whether these productions served a more sinister purpose in relation to 9/11, albeit unknown to most of the people working on them.

This article examines seven movies and television dramas that were in production at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which all had notable similarities to aspects of what happened on September 11. These proposed movies and TV shows received some attention after September 11 because of their resemblance to the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon. Newsweek even commented that the amount of movies and TV shows about terrorism being made at that time "makes you wonder if this [i.e. terrorism] wasn't an obsessive theme in the culture even before September 11." [1] However, no one suggested that there might have been a more sinister reason for there being so many productions about terrorism. Instead, their existence was treated like a simple coincidence.

ACTION MOVIE FEATURED TERRORIST PLOT TO BLOW UP THE WORLD TRADE CENTER
A number of movies and TV shows that were being produced at the time of the 9/11 attacks are notable because they featured acts of terrorism in New York or, specifically, at the World Trade Center.

A movie that is particularly striking is Nosebleed, which would have been about a terrorist plot to bomb the Twin Towers. [2] It was going to feature the well-known martial artist and actor Jackie Chan as a window washer at the World Trade Center who uncovers the plot and tries to thwart the terrorists. [3]

The script for Nosebleed was initially written in 1999 by Stu Zicherman and Raven Metzner, and developed after that. Zicherman and Metzner had also come up with the film's storyline. [4]

A line reportedly in the script indicates that the fictitious terrorists intended to cause the Twin Towers to collapse--like what actually happened on September 11. A terrorist would say of the WTC: "It represents capitalism. It represents freedom. It represents everything America is about. And to bring those two buildings down would bring America to its knees." [5]

Nosebleed would have been a major film. It would have cost $50 million to $60 million to make, according to Variety magazine. [6] In May 2000, it was reported that Renny Harlin, who previously directed action movies such as Die Hard 2 and The Long Kiss Goodnight, was in talks to direct it, although whether he was subsequently taken on as director is unclear. [7]

FILMING WAS SET TO TAKE PLACE AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ON SEPTEMBER 11
Not only did the plot of Nosebleed have similarities to the 9/11 attacks, but a scene for the movie was scheduled to be filmed at the top of one of the Twin Towers at 7:00 a.m. on September 11. [8] The filming would have taken place at Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the North Tower, according to Jackie Chan, but it was canceled. So instead of being at the WTC, Chan was in Toronto working on another movie, The Tuxedo, on September 11. [9]

Had the filming gone ahead as originally scheduled, Chan and the other people involved would likely have died, since everyone who was in Windows on the World when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. on September 11 was trapped and subsequently died. [10] Chan told one newspaper, "I would probably have died if the shooting went ahead as planned." [11] He said that on September 11, after he learned about the attacks on the WTC, he was "like a walking dead man" for the rest of the day. [12]

It is unclear why the filming at the WTC was canceled. According to some reports, it was because the script for the scene there was late. [13] According to the Orlando Sentinel, it was because Chan "didn't want to make Nosebleed without a finished script." "The action was good, but, somehow, the script not ready," he commented. [14] But Chan gave a different explanation to the Boston Phoenix, saying: "The studio didn't really like the script of Nosebleed because it was not perfect yet. So my manager said: 'Don't worry. If you do not like this film, we can do Tuxedo. You will meet with [Steven] Spielberg to see if you like it or not.' Then I met with Spielberg and I say I will do Tuxedo, because I trust Spielberg." [15]

Unsurprisingly, work on Nosebleed was put on hold after 9/11 and the movie has never been made. [16]

COMEDY MOVIE WOULD HAVE INCLUDED 'A BIG WORLD TRADE CENTER SCENE WITH TERRORISTS'
Another movie was, like Nosebleed, notable because--as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel described--its plot featured "New York, the World Trade Center, and terrorists." [17] Till Death Do Us Part would have been a comedy starring the well-known actors Billy Crystal and Michael Douglas. Its storyline, according to Newsday, was "about two fathers, soon to be related by their children's marriage," who have to take on "a terrorist bent on creating havoc in New York City." The movie would have included "a significant scene that was to take place at the Windows on the World restaurant" at the top of the North Tower. [18] It featured "a big World Trade Center scene with terrorists," according to Crystal, who added, "Funny, but the whole story was about that." [19]

Till Death Do Us Part was being made by Warner Brothers and Franchise Pictures, and was written in 2000 by Nat Mauldin, whose previous work included writing Dr. Dolittle, the 1998 comedy starring Eddie Murphy. [20] Filming was set to begin on November 17, 2001. [21] The movie was put on hold after September 11, but it was subsequently rewritten and was released in May 2003, renamed The In-Laws and with Crystal no longer starring in it. [22]

NBC PLANNED A DRAMA SERIES ABOUT AL-QAEDA ATTACKS IN NEW YORK
A big-budget television drama was being developed at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which, like these movies, centered on terrorism in New York. NBC was working on a five-hour miniseries, called Terror, about a series of al-Qaeda attacks in the city. The show would have been a crossover between the network's three Law & Order series (the original show, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent) and was going to be broadcast in May 2002. [23]

Terror would have followed an Osama bin Laden devotee who goes from an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan to New York. There, he detonates explosives in the subway under Times Square, killing over 1,000 New Yorkers. [24] Investigators then discover a terrorist release of anthrax, and the storyline would subsequently include the threat of a release of smallpox. [25]

Dick Wolf, the creator of Law & Order, put forward the idea for the show. When he was asked, early in 2001, if he had any suggestions for a miniseries, Wolf answered, "Terrorism in New York City." This, according to Los Angeles magazine, was a story he had "long wanted to do." When Wolf told Neal Baer, one of Law & Order's executive producers, about the miniseries, Baer said the show should specifically be about bioterrorism.

By June 2001, Wolf had written a 40-page outline for Terror. [26] By August, Wolf and his colleagues were "deeply involved in the story," according to Baer. [27] Filming was set to begin on September 24, less than two weeks after 9/11. [28]

On September 11, before the attacks took place in New York, Baer and some of his colleagues were at a facility only a couple of miles from the World Trade Center doing "preproduction planning" for the show. [29] Terror was canceled a week later, in light of the 9/11 attacks. [30]

WRITER AND MILITARY OFFICIALS CONSIDERED 9/11-STYLE SCENARIO FOR SERIES ABOUT TERRORIST ATTACK IN THE U.S.
Other movies and television shows being produced at the time of the 9/11 attacks stand out because their storylines featured terrorist events that resembled specific aspects of 9/11: an aircraft hijacking, a plane crash, and an attack in the U.S. that leads to a wider conflict, like the actual "war on terror."

One of these was a TV miniseries called World War III, which would have been about "how an act of terrorism on United States soil expanded into global conflict," according to the Dallas Observer. Bryce Zabel, a longtime television writer and producer, who was elected as chairman of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in August 2001, was working on this show. He was scheduled to meet with executives at the cable channel USA Network on September 13, 2001, to present the details of his miniseries to them.

Zabel consulted the U.S. military while working on the storyline for World War III and apparently considered scenarios resembling the 9/11 attacks. He has recalled: "My partner and I had worked carefully with the Air Force and some Pentagon war planners to figure out the possible scenarios by which such a conflict [i.e. a world war] could come into being. The irony is that we had sort of rejected something as radical as what just happened [on September 11] as being a little too much."

Zabel has not said what kind of terrorist attack he eventually decided to incorporate into his storyline. But he noted a similarity between what his show envisioned and what happened on September 11, saying the 9/11 attacks meant that "the cautionary tale we hoped to tell in fiction ended up becoming a cautionary tale told on the evening news." [31]

Zabel's miniseries was canceled in response to the 9/11 attacks. But, possibly referring to the similarity between its storyline and the "global war on terrorism" that began after 9/11, Zabel said, two weeks after September 11, that World War III would have "reflected exactly what's going on in the world right now." [32]

PLANNED MOVIE FEATURED CYBER-TERRORISTS CAUSING A JUMBO JET TO CRASH IN NEW YORK
One movie that was in the pipeline on September 11, called WW3.com, would have involved cyber-terrorists causing a Boeing 767--the type of plane that hit the Twin Towers--to crash just a few miles from the World Trade Center.

Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox had been working on WW3.com since 1998. The movie, according to Variety, would have featured "a high-concept, special effects-laden storyline involving cyber-terrorists who have declared war on the United States." [33] It was written by David Marconi, who previously wrote Enemy of the State, a 1998 thriller starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman.

Marconi said his screenplay for WW3.com was "incredibly prescient about the events of September 11." He described the storyline as "a blueprint for disaster." Notably, the movie's climax would have featured a Boeing 767 crashing into a Simon and Garfunkel concert in New York's Central Park.

Marconi was assisted by experts from the National Security Agency (NSA) while he was working on the screenplay. He has recalled that these experts were "more than helpful in laying out situations not dissimilar from what happened at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon" on September 11. On the day of 9/11, one of them even phoned Marconi and said to him: "Turn on the TV. It's happening." Marconi has not said whether the scenario of a 767 crashing into Central Park was suggested to him by someone at the NSA. [34]

In August 2000, it was reported that WW3.com would be produced by Luc Besson, the well-known French film writer, director, and producer. [35] The film was shelved after 9/11, but the script was rewritten and made into the fourth Die Hard movie, Live Free or Die Hard, which was released in 2007. [36]

'TOP-SECRET' MOVIE FEATURED A PLANE HIJACKING
20th Century Fox also worked on Deadline, a movie that would have involved an aircraft hijacking. Few details are known about this film. It was, according to the Los Angeles Times, "in top-secret development" before September 11. All that has been reported of its storyline is that it featured terrorists hijacking a commercial aircraft.

Deadline was reportedly being produced by James Cameron, the renowned director of movies such as Titanic and The Terminator. It was written by brothers Peter and David Griffiths, who also wrote Collateral Damage, a movie about terrorism starring Arnold Schwarzenegger that was released in 2002. [37]

Deadline was put on hold after 9/11. [38] It was revived in 2008, with the new name Nagasaki Deadline. At that time, Variety reported that the storyline "centered on an emotionally damaged FBI agent who must decipher historic events in a desperate race to avert a terrorist plot." It is unclear if this was the original storyline of the movie or if the plot was changed after September 11. [39] Five years later, the movie has still not been made.

TV MOVIE WOULD HAVE FOLLOWED THE INVESTIGATION OF A PLANE CRASH POSSIBLY CAUSED BY BIN LADEN
One production is notable because, although it did not feature a terrorist attack, its storyline centered on the investigation of a plane crash, just as the 9/11 attacks led to the investigations of plane crashes. Furthermore, Osama bin Laden would have been mentioned in it.

Fall From the Sky was to have been a TV movie for CBS. Although being made for television rather than cinema, it had a large budget, of $7.2 million. [40] It was written by Nicholas Meyer--who previously wrote several of the Star Trek movies--and Brian Rehak, and would have starred Forest Whitaker, the award-winning actor of such movies as Bird and The Last King of Scotland.

Fall From the Sky would have told the story of the crash of a new type of passenger aircraft in which hundreds of people die, and the investigation that follows. Whitaker was to have played the National Transportation Safety Board official who leads the investigation. [41]

The storyline, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, looked at "the meticulous process of gathering scientific evidence after the tragedy." [42] It also "dealt a lot with the [Federal Aviation Administration] and issues of concealment," Whitaker said. [43] The TV movie, according to Meyer, would show "the political pressures brought to bear on the investigation." [44]

Furthermore, the storyline included investigators examining the theory that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the crash. [45] According to Meyer, it would transpire that terrorists were not to blame.

Filming was scheduled to begin in Winnipeg, Canada, around the start of October 2001 and the TV movie was in preproduction in September that year. [46] However, CBS canceled Fall From the Sky shortly after 9/11. [47]

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY
The fact that these movies and television shows were in production at the time of the 9/11 attacks, at the very least, disproves official claims that no one could have predicted what happened on September 11. What we know of the storylines of these productions shows that some scriptwriters, and people working for government agencies who assisted them, did indeed envision scenarios resembling the 9/11 attacks. The storylines are also evidence that some individuals may have had foreknowledge of the attacks--a possibility that should certainly be investigated.

It is also plausible that these movies and TV shows served a more disturbing purpose. Might, for example, rogue individuals working for U.S. government agencies have used a particular film or television show as a cover, to help them prepare the 9/11 attacks?

When considering this possibility, it is worth noting that there has been a long history of collaboration between government agencies and the entertainment industry. Former CIA officer Robert Baer described this relationship, saying, "All these people that run [film] studios, they go to Washington, they hang around with senators, they hang around with CIA directors, and everybody's on board." [48]

Furthermore, government agencies have, for many years, employed entertainment liaison officers to influence the image of them portrayed in the media. The FBI set up an office in the 1930s to improve its image in movies, radio programs, and television shows. The Department of Defense established a similar office in 1947.

The CIA was the last major government agency to establish a formal relationship with the movie industry. It set up a basic entertainment program in the early 1990s and employed its first entertainment liaison officer in 1996. Other agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service, similarly have motion picture and television offices or employ official assistants to the media. [49]

The CIA and the military have cooperated on numerous Hollywood productions. The Pentagon provided its "full cooperation" for movies such as Top Gun (1986), True Lies (1994), Air Force One (1997), Transformers (2007), and Iron Man (2008). [50] And the CIA helped shape such movies as Enemy of the State (1998), Bad Company (2002), The Sum of All Fears (2002), and The Recruit (2003). [51]

THE CIA'S 'VERY ACTIVE' NETWORK IN HOLLYWOOD
Although it only employed its first liaison to the entertainment industry in 1996, the CIA has been working with Hollywood since the 1950s. [52] Jerry Naylor, a country singer and veteran of the entertainment business, revealed that he was first recruited by the agency in 1968, and subsequently "used his international fame as cover to work as a secret agent for the CIA" on more than 100 occasions. Naylor believes other celebrities must have similarly been employed by the agency. "I think using celebrities from Los Angeles and Hollywood for covert operations is probably something that the CIA liked to do," he said. "I doubt I was the only one." [53]

Furthermore, retired CIA intelligence officer Antonio Mendez (who was played by Ben Affleck in the movie Argo) wrote that when he was head of the agency's disguise section, between 1974 and 1979, he "engaged the services of many consultants in the entertainment industry." These included makeup artist John Chambers, who won an honorary Academy Award for his work on the 1968 movie Planet of the Apes. [54]

John Rizzo, a senior CIA lawyer, stated in 2007 that the CIA has "a very active" network of people in Hollywood, helping "in whatever way they can to give back." [55]

WHAT PURPOSE MIGHT 9/11-STYLE TV SHOWS AND MOVIES HAVE SERVED?
It is also worth noting that movies had, long before 2001, been used as a cover for covert operations, so if this tactic was utilized by those who planned 9/11, it would not have been the first time a movie served such a purpose. For example, from 1978 to 1982, Jerry Naylor worked on the research and production of a movie called The Bounty Hunter, which, Naylor has claimed, was a cover for monitoring terrorists in the Lebanon. [56]

A better known example of the tactic was the subject of the Oscar-winning movie Argo. On that occasion, the CIA helped rescue six American embassy workers who were trapped in Iran during the 1979 to 1981 hostage crisis by disguising them as a Canadian film crew that was supposedly scouting the country for shooting locations.

The team running the operation set up a fake production company called Studio Six Productions, with offices in a suite on the old Columbia Studio lot in Hollywood. The company soon announced its first supposed production--a science-fiction movie called Argo--and arranged for full-page adverts in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter to publicize it. Using the cover of the Hollywood production company and the movie, the CIA was then able to get the six embassy workers out of Iran.

Studio Six Productions appeared so convincing that by the time it closed, several weeks after the rescue, it had received 26 scripts, one of which was from Steven Spielberg. The Hollywood community only learned about the deception behind the company and its planned movie 17 years later, when the CIA decided to go public with the story. [57]

WERE 9/11-STYLE MOVIES AND TV SHOWS USED AS A COVER?
Seeing how movies had previously been successfully used as a cover for covert operations, we can imagine how films and television shows with plots resembling the events of September 11 might have served as a cover for some of the preparations for the 9/11 attacks. For example, a person working on one of these productions could have used their position to obtain information that would otherwise have been unavailable to them and might have been beneficial for planning 9/11.

Jackie Chan has revealed how his involvement in the movie Nosebleed, about a terrorist plot to blow up the Twin Towers, enabled him to learn about the World Trade Center buildings. "We had visited the location before September 11," he said. "The producer. My manager. We had dinner upstairs. We were getting all kinds of information. I was going to play a window washer, so they were telling me things like how many windows the building had.'' [58] In his preparation for the movie, according to the Orlando Sentinel, Chan learned the "secrets" of the Twin Towers, such as "how air pressure was regulated with doors that might be useful as gags in one of his trademark fights," and "which sides of the buildings one could work on to avoid the wind." [59]

Considering the opportunities the movie thus provided, might Nosebleed have been used by someone who, while working on the film, was secretly involved in planning 9/11 and using their work on the movie as a cover, in order to find out information about the Twin Towers? This person might, for example, have been able to learn about security at the World Trade Center and the layout of the towers, which would have been useful information for anyone who wanted to plant explosives, so as to cause the buildings to collapse on September 11.

Since the movie Till Death Do Us Part, like Nosebleed, would have featured "New York, the World Trade Center, and terrorists," it seems plausible that a person involved in its production could similarly have used their position to obtain information about the WTC.

A production like the TV movie Fall From the Sky could have provided different opportunities for a person who was secretly helping to plan the 9/11 attacks. Since Fall From the Sky would have been about a National Transportation Safety Board official and the investigation of a plane crash, a person working on it might have been able to obtain information that would be useful for covering up the truth of what happened on September 11 in the aftermath of the attacks.

They might have learned what kinds of investigations would follow the plane crashes on September 11 and how the National Transportation Safety Board would respond. Such information could have helped the group planning 9/11 determine how to obstruct the investigations that would follow the attacks.

PRODUCTION TEAM LEARNED 'A LOT OF THINGS MOST PEOPLE DIDN'T KNOW'
The experiences of those who worked on NBC's miniseries Terror, about a series of al-Qaeda attacks in New York, illustrate the many opportunities a television show or movie about terrorism could create for someone who wanted to gather information on the subject.

Those working on Terror did a lot of research, particularly on bioterrorism, for the miniseries. They talked to "top law enforcement people on the state, federal, and local levels" about the subject, according to Dick Wolf. [60] Neil Baer talked to experts at the Rand Corporation think tank and hired a consultant from Stanford University in California. [61]

Those involved with the miniseries also consulted experts at the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Georgia. At one point, Baer said, the FBI talked to them, because their "accumulation of so much information raised a red flag." Baer said that as a result of their research, "We knew a lot of things most people didn't know, because we spoke with so many experts all over the country." [62]

It is worth noting, however, that it would surely only require a small number of complicit individuals for a movie or television series to be used to help with planning the 9/11 attacks. In her book The CIA in Hollywood, Tricia Jenkins noted that when the CIA wants to influence a particular production, its involvement with that production is "shadowy and difficult to trace, especially since its interactions often take place only between two well-placed individuals, either in person or over the phone." [63]

If a movie or TV show was serving as a cover for those planning the 9/11 attacks, most people involved with it would therefore, presumably, have been unaware that they were being used by individuals with murderous intentions, and would have just thought they were working on a normal production.

9/11-STYLE MOVIES AND TV SHOWS NEED FURTHER INVESTIGATION
The fact that numerous movies and television dramas with storylines resembling the events of September 11 were in production at the time of the 9/11 attacks is surely something that requires closer examination, especially in light of the history of cooperation between government agencies and the entertainment industry. And yet, after receiving some attention in the aftermath of the attacks, these productions have been largely forgotten.

There are numerous questions that could be considered as part of a new investigation of 9/11. For example, which individuals came up with the scenarios resembling aspects of the 9/11 attacks for the storylines of these movies and TV shows? Some of the writers have said that scenarios similar to what happened on September 11 were suggested to them by employees of the NSA and the military. So who were those employees and what exactly did they suggest?

Investigators could presumably discover more details of the plots of the TV shows and movies, and obtain copies of the scripts. And it would surely be worth researching whether other productions with storylines resembling the 9/11 attacks were being worked on in September 2001.

Inquiries may well reveal a different story behind the terrorist attacks of September 11 than the official account we were led to believe.

NOTES
[1] David Gates, "Living a New Normal." Newsweek, October 7, 2001.
[2] Some news reports after September 11 claimed that the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building was the terrorists' target in Nosebleed. However, these claims were likely incorrect, as all reports before September 11 stated that the World Trade Center was the target.
[3] Benedict Carver and Chris Petrikin, "NL Wins Chan by a 'Nose.'" Variety, February 7, 1999; Michael Fleming, "Financier Gets Friendly to Forge Shingle." Variety, October 3, 2000; Jeff Jensen and Benjamin Svetkey, "Script Check." Entertainment Weekly, September 24, 2001.
[4] Benedict Carver and Chris Petrikin, "NL Wins Chan by a 'Nose'"; Jeff Jensen and Benjamin Svetkey, "Script Check."
[5] Jeff Jensen and Benjamin Svetkey, "Script Check"; J. Hoberman, "All as it Had Been." Village Voice, December 4, 2001.
[6] Charles Lyons, "MGM Has Chan Plan." Variety, May 24, 2001.
[7] "May 26: In Brief and Casting News." The Guardian, May 26, 2000.
[8] "Late Script Kept Chan From Tragedy." ABC News, September 19, 2001; "Jackie's Great Escape." Empire, September 19, 2001.
[9] Dustin Klass, "Chan Changes Suits for 'Tuxedo.'" Columbia Chronicle, September 23, 2002; Roger Moore, "Jackie Chan: Seeing is Believing." Orlando Sentinel, September 27, 2002.
[10] "The Last Elevator." Morning Edition, NPR, September 11, 2003.
[11] "Late Script Kept Chan From Tragedy."
[12] Dustin Klass, "Chan Changes Suits for 'Tuxedo.'"
[13] "Late Script Kept Chan From Tragedy"; "Jackie's Great Escape"; "Late Script Saved Chan From New York Attack." The Guardian, September 20, 2001.
[14] Roger Moore, "Jackie Chan: Seeing is Believing."
[15] Peter Keough, "Jackie Chan: State of the Art." Boston Phoenix, September 26, 2002.
[16] J. Hoberman, "All as it Had Been"; Elise Craig, "Unlucky Breaks: When Hollywood Gets Blindsided by Bad Timing." Wired, July 18, 2012.
[17] Duane Dudek, "Douglas: Escapism of Movies Still Has Value." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 27, 2001.
[18] Anita M. Busch and Beth Laski, "Hollywood Forced to do a Retake on Fall Films." Newsday, September 13, 2001.
[19] Karen Butler, "Billy Crystal's Little Monsters." UPI, November 1, 2001.
[20] Michael Fleming, "'In-Laws' Redo Brews; 'Nam Calls Mel." Variety, November 15, 2000; Zorianna Kit, "Fleming Eyes 'Death' Chair." Hollywood Reporter, January 11, 2002.
[21] Karen Butler, "Billy Crystal's Little Monsters."
[22] Lisa Schwarzbaum, "Movie Review: The In-Laws." Entertainment Weekly, May 30, 2003; "Overview: The In-Laws (2003)." New York Times, n.d.
[23] Bruce Fretts, "The 3rd Degree." Entertainment Weekly, September 7, 2001; Michael Fleming, "'Terror' Tactics at NBC." Variety, September 10, 2001.
[24] Diane K. Shah, "Brotherhood of the Wolf." Los Angeles, April 2002; Gary Levin, "Plot Ideas Ripped From the Headlines." USA Today, December 5, 2002.
[25] Michael Fleming, "'Terror' Tactics at NBC."
[26] Diane K. Shah, "Brotherhood of the Wolf."
[27] "Critical Issues in Writing About Bioterrorism." Hollywood, Health & Society, April 2, 2002.
[28] Gary Levin, "Plot Ideas Ripped From the Headlines."
[29] Todd Leopold, "Real Life Overwhelms Fiction for 'SVU' Producer." CNN, September 9, 2002.
[30] Michael Fleming, "Terrorism Projects Shelved; a Green Bana?" Variety, September 17, 2001.
[31] Robert Wilonsky, "Amused to Death." Dallas Observer, September 20, 2001; John Leland and Peter Marks, "New Look for Entertainment in a Terror-Conscious World." New York Times, September 24, 2001.
[32] David Everitt, "Pondering a New, Darker Mood for TV." Media Life, September 25, 2001.
[33] Chris Petrikin, "Fox Eyes 'WW3.com' as Tentpole for 1999." Variety, January 26, 1998.
[34] "Did Screenplay Foreshadow September 11?" Fox News, June 3, 2002.
[35] Dana Harris, "Fox, Besson Prepare for Battle." Variety, August 24, 2000.
[36] Andre Salles, "Batavians' Son Carving Career as Hollywood Script Writer." Aurora Beacon-News, June 8, 2007; Manohla Dargis, "Pick Your Poison: Fists or Fireballs." New York Times, June 27, 2007.
[37] Patrick Goldstein, "A Turn of Events, a Change in Plot." Los Angeles Times, September 25, 2001; "Terror Target Tinseltown Boosts Security, Patriotism." Washington Times, December 10, 2001; Kent Williams, "Scary Movies: Terrorism, Hollywood-Style." Baltimore City Paper, January 2, 2002.
[38] J. Hoberman, "All as it Had Been."
[39] Dave McNary, "Martin Campbell to Direct 'Deadline.'" Variety, November 11, 2008.
[40] "Film Cancellation a 'Good Call.'" Winnipeg Free Press, March 22, 2002.
[41] "Entertainment Briefs." Chicago Sun-Times, August 20, 2001; Army Archerd, "Cooke Joins 'Freedom's Journey.'" Variety, September 19, 2001.
[42] "Entertainment Briefs."
[43] "Film Cancellation a 'Good Call.'"
[44] Army Archerd, "Gotham Events Should Shine." Variety, September 24, 2001.
[45] Duncan Campbell, "Film Chiefs Search for Softer Subjects." The Observer, September 30, 2001.
[46] Army Archerd, "Cooke Joins 'Freedom's Journey'"; "Film Cancellation a 'Good Call.'"
[47] Army Archerd, "Gotham Events Should Shine."
[48] Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham, "An Offer They Couldn't Refuse." The Guardian, November 14, 2008.
[49] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film and Television. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2012, p. 1.
[50] Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham, "Lights, Camera ... Covert Action: The Deep Politics of Hollywood." Global Research, January 21, 2009.
[51] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, p. 1.
[52] "The History of the CIA in Hollywood Movies." The World, PRI, January 11, 2013.
[53] Simon Tomlinson, "Revealed: U.S. Country Star Jerry Naylor Who Replaced Buddy Holly in the Crickets Was a Secret CIA Agent Who Spied for America on 100 Missions." Daily Mail, April 24, 2013.
[54] Antonio J. Mendez, "A Classic Case of Deception." Studies in Intelligence, Winter 1999?2000, p. 4; Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, p. 9.
[55] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, p. 94.
[56] Simon Tomlinson, "Revealed: U.S. Country Star Jerry Naylor Who Replaced Buddy Holly in the Crickets Was a Secret CIA Agent Who Spied for America on 100 Missions."
[57] Antonio J. Mendez, "A Classic Case of Deception," pp. 1-16; Joshuah Bearman, "How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans From Tehran." Wired, April 24, 2007; Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, pp. 9-10, 96.
[58] Robert Denerstein, "Training Gives Chan Natural Kick." Rocky Mountain News, September 28, 2002.
[59] Roger Moore, "Jackie Chan: Seeing is Believing."
[60] Michael Fleming, "'Terror' Tactics at NBC."
[61] Diane K. Shah, "Brotherhood of the Wolf."
[62] "Critical Issues in Writing About Bioterrorism."
[63] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, p. 69.

Source: http://911blogger.com/news/2013-05-16/hollywood-and-911-movies-and-tv-dramas-resembling-terrorist-attacks-were-being-produced-september-2001

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