—

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak says investigators now know that the missing Malaysian airliner’s communications were deliberately disabled and that it turned back from its flight to Beijing and flew across Malaysia.

Najib also said Saturday that authorities are now trying to trace the airplane across two possible “corridors” — a northern corridor from the border of Kazakstan and Turkmenistan through to northern Thailand, and a southern corridor from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

He says that expanded search area is based on the latest available satellite data.

“Clearly the search for MH370 has entered a new phase,” he said. “We hope this new information brings us one step closer to finding the plane.”

—

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Meanwhile, Malaysia’s head of investigations is denying that there is conclusive evidence of hijacking as an unidentified Malaysian government official has suggested.

“It is not conclusive. I’m heading the investigation and nobody is saying that. It’s not true. We are looking at the possibility, we’re looking at all possibilities. We’re doing every profile of the passengers and crew but there is no firm evidence or leads so far,” Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said, according to the Telegraph.

–

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (TheBlaze/AP) — A Malaysian government official involved in the investigation into the missing Malaysia Airlines jet is claiming it is now “conclusive” that the plane was hijacked.

A man looks out from a viewing gallery as a Malaysia Airlines aircraft sits on the tarmac at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Sunday, March 9, 2014. (AP Photo/Lai Seng Sin)

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said investigators have concluded that one of the pilots or someone else with flying experience deliberately hijacked the missing jet.

The official says no motive has been established, and it is not yet clear where the plane was taken. The official said that hijacking was no longer a theory — “It is conclusive.”

The Boeing 777′s communication with the ground was severed under one hour into a flight March 8 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Malaysian officials have said radar data suggest it may have turned back and crossed back over the Malaysian peninsula westward, after setting out toward the Chinese capital.

He said evidence that led to the conclusion were signs that the plane’s communications were switched off deliberately, data about the flight path and indications the plane was steered in a way to avoid detection by radar.

The Boeing 777′s communication with the ground was severed just under one hour into a flight March 8 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Malaysian officials previously have said radar data suggest it may have turned back toward and crossed over the Malaysian peninsula after setting out on a northeastern path toward the Chinese capital.

While other theories are still being examined, the U.S. official said key evidence suggesting human intervention is that contact with the Boeing 777′s transponder stopped about a dozen minutes before a messaging system on the jet quit. Such a gap would be unlikely in the case of an in-flight catastrophe.

Earlier on Friday, the Associated Press reported that “piracy and pilot suicide” were two of the main theories being investigated by officials.

The latest evidence suggests the plane didn’t experience a catastrophic incident over the South China sea, such as an explosion, was it was first suspected. Since then, theories have run amok.

This story has been updated.

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But 7th-grade teacher Samantha Nuber saw something unusual outside Smith during the U.S. pledge, the Texas pledge, and the moment silence on a recent morning. So Nuber got the attention of her partner teacher Garrett Hartman and had him take a look, too.

Hartman was so moved by what he saw that he had to take a photograph — and since it was first posted on Facebook, the image has touched a viral nerve.

Clayton Allen, Jr. (Image source: Facebook)

The man seen standing on the grass is Clayton Allen, Jr., a 21-year-old graduate and now groundskeeper for the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District in the Houston area, of which Smith Middle School is a member.

When Allen heard the pledges and the moment of silence on the morning the photo was taken, he dropped his equipment and joined the teachers and students.

“It was phenomenal,” Hartman told KPRC-TV in Houston. “It was an instant impact kind of thing. Goosebump moment.”

After taking the photograph, Hartman said he and Nuber went outside to meet Allen.

“It made me feel like Superman to be honest with you,” Allen told KPRC of his chat with the teachers. “It made me feel good on the inside.”

Allen said he recited the Pledge of Allegiance because he feels “blessed every day.”

“I’m so thankful for the day and the country that I’m in,” he added.

TheBlaze spoke Thursday to Susan Higgins, principal of Smith Middle School, who said there’s been a noticeable effect among teachers and students since Allen’s patriotic gesture was shared.

Higgins said one of her assistant principals told her that as Higgins recited the pledge over the school’s public-address system Thursday morning, a couple of students who were in the hallway stopped walking and put their hands over their hearts and recited the pledge as well.

In addition, Higgins told TheBlaze that Republican State Rep. Dan Branch — who she said sponsored a bill giving students the chance to recite both pledges and have a moment of silence — made a trip to Smith on Thursday and awarded Allen with a certificate and glass-encased American flag.

The buzz over the simple photo reached Fox and Friends Wednesday with host Elizabeth Hasselbeck interviewing Hartman and Allen.

Image source: Fox and Friends

“To find out that he was 21,” Hartman said of Allen, “that really brought home the moment…”

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Credit: Johannes Stoetter/BNPS

Did you get it?

The picture is actually of a woman in body paint posing in such a way that she looks exactly like a parrot. We know — it’s really impressive. It may take a while for some to finally see the woman in the photo, but she’s there.

The art was dreamed up by former world champion body painter Johannes Stoetter, according to the Daily Mail.

“The 35-year-old artist, who lives in Italy, spent four weeks painstakingly planning how he could transform the female model into a parrot,” the report states. “He took four hours to paint the woman’s body using special breathable paint – adding intricate detail, dark shading and even a bright green eye.”

He spent yet another hour positioning the paint-covered model on a tree trunk before he started snapping photos.

See more pictures, including some of the prep work, here.

This story has been updated.

(H/T: Gizmodo)

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“It looks like Brooks was trying to throw an alley-oop to a wide-open man in the post,” Business Insider’s Tony Manfred writes. “But the ball slipped out of his hands, hit off the side of the backboard, and took a crazy bounce directly into the hands of Austin Chatman, who drained a three-pointer.”

Watch the video here:

(H/T: For the Win)

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–

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Piracy and pilot suicide are among the scenarios under study as investigators grow increasingly certain the missing Malaysia Airlines jet changed course and headed west after its last radio contact with air traffic controllers.

The latest evidence suggests the plane didn’t experience a catastrophic incident over the South China Sea as was initially suspected. Some experts theorize that one of the pilots, or someone else with flying experience, hijacked the plane or committed suicide by plunging the jet into the sea.

Adding to the speculation that someone was flying the jet, The New York Times on Friday quoted sources familiar with the investigation as saying that the plane experienced significant changes in altitude after it lost contact with ground control, and altered its course more than once.

Ground staff work on a Malaysia Airlines plane at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Wednesday, March 12, 2014. The missing Malaysian jetliner may have attempted to turn back before it vanished from radar, but there is no evidence it reached the Strait of Malacca, Malaysia’s air force chief said Wednesday, denying reported remarks he said otherwise. The statement suggested continued confusion over where the Boeing 777 might have ended up, more than four days after it disappeared en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board. (AP Photo/Lai Seng Sin)

A U.S. official told The Associated Press earlier that investigators are examining the possibility of “human intervention” in the plane’s disappearance, adding it may have been “an act of piracy.” The official, who wasn’t authorized to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was possible the plane may have landed somewhere. The official later said there was no solid information on who might have been involved.

While other theories are still being examined, the official said key evidence suggesting human intervention is that contact with the Boeing 777′s transponder stopped about a dozen minutes before a messaging system on the jet quit. Such a gap would be unlikely in the case of an in-flight catastrophe.

A Malaysian official, who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to brief the media, said only a skilled aviator could navigate the plane the way it was flown after its last confirmed location over the South China Sea. The official said it had been established with a “more than 50 percent” degree of certainty that military radar had picked up the missing plane after it dropped off civilian radar.

Malaysia’s acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said the country had yet to determine what happened to the plane after it ceased communicating with ground control about 40 minutes into the flight to Beijing on March 8 with 239 people aboard.

He said investigators were still trying to establish that military radar records of a blip moving west across the Malay Peninsula into the Strait of Malacca showed Flight MH370.

ZHUJI, CHINA – MARCH 10: (CHINA OUT) Students from an international school in east China city Zhuji pray for the passengers onboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 by lighting candles on March 10, 2014 in Zhuji, China. Malaysia Airline flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and carrying 239 onboard was reported missing after the crew failed to check in as scheduled while flying over waters between Malaysia and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images

“I will be the most happiest person if we can actually confirm that it is the MH370, then we can move all (search) assets from the South China Sea to the Strait of Malacca,” he told reporters. Until then, he said, the international search effort would continue expanding east and west from the plane’s last confirmed location.

Though some investigators are now convinced that “human intervention” caused the disappearance, U.S. officials told the White House at a briefing Friday that they have “run all the traps” and come up with no good information on who might been involved, according to an official familiar with the meeting. The meeting was attended by State and Defense Department officials, the CIA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, among others.

“I don’t think there is any consensus on a theory,” the official said. “They’re not hearing anything in their surveillance that would indicate that this is part of a plot.”

Another U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said investigators looking for the plane have run out of clues except for a type of satellite data that has never been used before to find a missing plane, and is very inexact.

The data consists of attempts by an Inmarsat satellite to identify a broad area where the plane might be in case a messaging system aboard the plane should need to connect with the satellite, said the official. The official compared the location attempts, called a “handshake,” to someone driving around with their cellphone not in use. As the phone from passes from the range of one cellphone tower to another, the towers note that the phone is in range in case messages need to be sent.

In the case of the Malaysian plane, there were successful attempts by the satellite to roughly locate the Boeing 777 about once an hour over four to five hours, the official said. “This is all brand new to us,” the official said. “We’ve never had to use satellite handshaking as the best possible source of information.”

The handshake does not transmit any data on the plane’s altitude, airspeed or other information that might help in locating it, the official said. Instead, searchers are trying to use the handshakes to triangulate the general area of where the plane last was known to have been at the last satellite check, the official said.

“It is telling us the airplane was continuing to operate,” the official said, plus enough information on location so that the satellite will know how many degrees to turn to adjust its antenna to pick up any messages from the plane.

The official confirmed prior reports that following the loss of contact with the plane’s transponder, the plane turned west. A transponder emits signals that are picked up by radar providing a unique identifier for each plane along with altitude. Malaysian military radar continued to pick up the plane as a whole “paintskin” – a radar blip that has no unique identifier – until it traveled beyond the reach of radar, which is about 320 kilometers (200 miles) offshore, the official said.

file

The New York Times, quoting American officials and others familiar with the investigation, said radar signals recorded by the Malaysian military appear to show the airliner climbing to 45,000 feet (about 13,700 meters), higher than a Boeing 777′s approved limit, soon after it disappeared from civilian radar, and making a sharp turn to the west. The radar track then shows the plane descending unevenly to an altitude of 23,000 feet (7,000 meters), below normal cruising levels, before rising again and flying northwest over the Strait of Malacca toward the Indian Ocean, the Times reported.

Scores of aircraft and ships from 12 countries are involved in the search, which reaches into the eastern stretches of the South China Sea and on the western side of the Malay Peninsula, northwest into the Andaman Sea and the Indian Ocean.

India said it was using heat sensors on flights over hundreds of Andaman Sea islands Friday and would expand the search for the missing jet farther west into the Bay of Bengal, more than 1,600 kilometers (about 1,000 miles) to the west of the plane’s last known position.

A team of five U.S. officials with air traffic control and radar expertise – three from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and two from the Federal Aviation Administration – has been in Kuala Lumpur since Monday to assist with the investigation.

White House spokesman Jay Carney sidestepped questions Friday about the possibility of human intervention in the plane disappearance, saying only that U.S. officials were assisting in the investigation.

Malaysia has faced accusations it isn’t sharing all its information or suspicions about the plane’s final movements. It insists it is being open, and says it would be irresponsible to narrow the focus of the search until there is undeniable evidence of the plane’s flight path.

At this point, there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of the two pilots, though Malaysian police have said they are looking at their psychological background, their family life and connections.

Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, have both been described as respectable, community-minded men.

Mike Glynn, a committee member of the Australian and International Pilots Association, said he considers pilot suicide to be the most likely explanation for the disappearance, as was suspected in a SilkAir crash during a flight from Singapore to Jakarta in 1997 and an EgyptAir flight in 1999.

“A pilot rather than a hijacker is more likely to be able to switch off the communications equipment,” Glynn said. “The last thing that I, as a pilot, want is suspicion to fall on the crew, but it’s happened twice before.”

–

Lowy reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Ashok Sharma in New Delhi, Jim Gomez in Kuala Lumpur, and Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report.

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One of the suspects was hit and pronounced dead at the scene, while the other fled. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office said there were at least two suspects, but they are working to determine if there could have been more.

Officers responded to the shooting at around 12:45 p.m. Friday in North Harris County.

The resident told investigators that he was still sleeping when he heard noise coming from the front door and decided to see what it was. When he did, the two suspects busted into his apartment. He then opened fire.

“According to investigators, a man has shown up a nearby hospital with a gunshot wound and they are now trying to determine if he was involved in this home invasion,” KPRC-TV reports.

Neighbor Tasha Hopkins told KVUE-TV that “no one deserves to get killed,” but “if you do wrong, there’s a price to pay for it.”

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Phillip Coy Parker, 34, and Samantha Ashley Hatfield, 29, of Silver Springs, Fla., were arrested Thursday for stealing electricity from power lines.

This couple had been stealing electricity using jumper cables for up to eight months. (Images: Marion County Sheriff’s Office)

Marion County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a tip and found “jumper cables clamped to the overhead electric power lines and the other end of the cables connected to the inside of the electric box,” according to the arrest report.

Hatfield told investigators that they had been “without power for a year.”

Photo credit: Shutterstock

“We would hook it up occasionally to take a hot shower,” Parker told detectives.

Deputies noted that the couple said the illegal hookup first happened about eight months ago. If this is the case, Ocala City Electric Company representatives said the estimated loss is about $1,274. The couple faces criminal theft charges.

(H/T: WKMG-TV)

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Photo credit: Shutterstock

The study led by Phil McAleer at the University of Glasgow found that personality judgements are   made in a split-second by the listener, but it’s not clear yet just how accurate those snap judgements can be.

Judging a person’s personality based on visual clues has already been studied, as has evaluating personality after listening to longer periods of speech, but this study used short sound snippets of 64 people saying “hello.” More than 300 participants who listened to the clips were asked to describe what they perceived out of 10 personality traits, which included trustworthiness, likability, aggressiveness and dominance, measuring them on a scale from one to nine.

“We tested whether personality ratings, for both male and female voices, would be consistent across listeners, and if so, would they be appropriately summarized by a two-dimensional ‘social voice space,’ similar to previous findings in face perception. Furthermore, given the lack of understanding of the underlying acoustics of such spaces, eight acoustical measures, summarizing voice production, were tested for a relationship to any resultant summary spaces,” McAleer et al. wrote.

The study found listeners’ ratings of perceived personality traits were in fact very similar to each other.

“Listeners show high agreement when deriving first impressions of novel speakers,” McAleer at al. wrote. “Furthermore, first impression of vocal attractiveness in male voices relates to perceived strength, whilst in females, vocal attractiveness relates to perceived warmth and trustworthiness.”

Though McAleer told New Scientist it was surprising just how consistent ratings were among listeners, he thinks there might be an evolutionary reason as to why personality could be judged by a short clip of someone’s voice.

“There’s this evolutionary ‘approach/avoidance’ idea — you want to quickly know if you can trust a person so you can approach them or run away and that would be redundant if it took too long to figure it out,” McAleer said.

From a use standpoint, the authors believe the study provides an empirical basis for judging personality by the sound of a person’s voice.

“In establishing the acoustics that drive certain percepts, people and algorithms may be instructed on the necessary alterations to obtain a desired projection: this has endless application in fields as diverse as business, computing, engineering and advertising,” they explained.

More specifically, McAleer gave New Scientist examples that Margaret Thatcher and England’s Queen Elizabeth II were rumored to have trained their voices to sound more dominant.

He also noted that such analysis could be used because ”you don’t want a really untrustworthy voice running your call center.”

The study findings were published in the journal PLOS One.

Featured image via Shutterstock.

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The former Kellogg Co. executive delivered his keynote speech on immigration at the Ripon Society’s 4th Annual Symposium on Leadership at Mount Vernon on March 7. His speech was published today on YouTube.

In it, he warned that some Republicans go too far when they seek a ban on immigration and don’t realize the benefits of actually supporting a comprehensive bill to bring more immigrants into the country legally.

He also warned that businesses will fail to grow due to the lack of available workers, adding that opening the immigration channel would help the Republican Party garner more votes.

Gutierrez said Republicans need “to be a little more engaged in the topic beyond just how we feel about the 11 million undocumented, it is so much bigger than that and we’ve got to get over that at resolving the problem in a way — in a Republican way.”

He said the Senate bill’s “quota of 112,000 agricultural workers” was not enough, reminding attendees that leaders in the agriculture industry say they need roughly  ”700,000 to about 1 million” more workers per year. And it didn’t end with agriculture. He criticized the Senate bill for only allowing 15,000 construction workers in the country every year, adding that “15,000 workers” are needed in Miami alone.

“Where are we going to get the rest? We are giving businesses a choice,” Gutierrez said. “You hire illegally, you shut down, or you just don’t grow. It’s just not right. I think we can do better for our businesses. Being in favor of immigration — legal immigration — is good policy. It’s also good politics.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in the construction industry was 12.8 percent this February. Further, the National Association of Home Builders,  said immigrants currently in the construction industry came to the United States mainly during the “housing boom years, from 2000 to 2005, when labor shortages across construction trades were widespread.”

The group noted that “immigrants that arrived from 2006 to 2011, when construction job vacancies became limited, account for about 245,000 construction workers, or around 11 percent of the construction labor force – a 57 percent decline compared to 2000-2005,” the NAHB states.

But Gutierrez said Republicans lost the Hispanic vote and “we’re losing the immigrant vote, not because immigrants don’t like our policies… The problem is that they perceive that we don’t like them.”

According to many Republicans, the Gang-of-Eight bill failed to address border security and would set a precedent, opening a gateway for more illegal immigration in the future. This past year, House members began to take a piecemeal approach to the legislation. The approach is still a concern for opponents of immigration reform who fear that passing any bill to the Senate at this point in time will lead to a comprehensive package after it leaves the House.

TheBlaze previously reported on the number of House bills already being considered and the concerns among many House members that proponents of comprehensive reform would sneak through legislation through closed-door conference in the Senate.

Follow Sara A. Carter (@SaraCarterDC) on Twitter.

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Journalist Michael Luo (Image source: New York Times)

Luo spoke to students at The King’s College, a Christian school in New York City, Thursday night about his decade-long career at the Times, perceived anti-evangelical bias and his struggle to balance journalistic ethics with open discussion about his biblical worldview.

The reporter joked about how some conservative evangelicals meet him with intense skepticism after they find out he works for the Times.

“I’ve got to say the most overt hostility I’ve ever encountered as a reporter for the New York Times, more than Baghdad, more than presidential campaigns, more than taking on the gun lobby, was when I went to the Values Voters Summit in 2008,” he said.

The annual event attracts social conservatives and, according to Luo, he was met with “sneering” and negativity from some of the participants he approached after they learned he was a Times reporter.

In sharing the reaction he received from skeptical Christians who became a bit more comfortable and loosened up when he told them he was a churchgoer, Luo said he hoped to shed light on the perception many conservatives have that “the Times is dominated by secular elites who are hostile to faith.”

Luo acknowledged that many of the students and faculty in the room at the King’s College event likely wondered whether this perception was accurate, specifically when it comes to Christianity and evangelicalism.

“The Times is like a lot of other elite cultural institutions filled with cosmopolitan urban types, highly educated people who went to top colleges whose cultural sensibilities are probably more shaped by the Upper West Side and Park Slope, Brooklyn than, you know, the Bible Belt,” Luo explained. “So it’s certainly not the easiest place to say you’re a Christian.”

The reporter shared earlier, though, that there are other Christians at the Times who may not be as vocal as he’s been about their faith (he quipped that some have even sworn him to secrecy when it comes to their theological views). That said, Luo hosted a recent breakfast during which Christians at the newspaper gathered to honor their faith.

Despite his relative openness, Luo shared that he, too, has struggled with wondering how much he should tout his Christian worldview if he truly wishes to remain objective in his reporting.

As for the Times’ coverage of Christians, Luo said that there are times that the newspaper makes mistakes, specifically when it comes to stereotyping.

Watch the speech below:

“While the paper does place the highest premium on reporting the news free from bias, do we screw up our coverage of Christians sometimes? Of course we do,” he said.

But Luo explained that it isn’t overt bias that leads to errors or misrepresentations. He argued that reporters, many times, have worldviews that differ from the evangelical community, noting that ignorance can sometimes be at the root of “misleading characterizations.”

“When we screw up it’s not because of some sort of overt prejudice. The problem usually is you can’t know what you don’t know,” he continued. “So a lot of reporters at the New York Times don’t know any evangelicals or very, very, very few. Many, maybe they’ve set foot in church, but it was probably a long time ago for a lot of them.”

AP

He continued, “So they might not know that evangelical is a theological orientation not necessarily a political one. That there’s a difference between fundamentalism and evangelicalism. That many evangelicals don’t believe the earth was created in six, 24-hour days, that not all evangelicals believe in the rapture. So ignorance can obviously lead to inaccurate and misleading characterizations. And yes, it can lead to bias sometimes seeping through in the way Christians are depicted.”

Luo said he has become a resident expert of sorts when it comes to evangelicals, as reporters will often come to him with questions and to make clarifications. He heralded the newspaper’s attempts to be objective and to work diligently toward accuracy.

As for his own journey, Luo said he often wrestles with questions about what his responsibility is as a Christian at the Times, as he continually seeks to balance his career with his personal faith.

This story has been updated.

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The decision announced Friday begins a long-planned transition affecting the stewardship of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. That’s a not-for-profit agency launched in 1998 by the U.S. Commerce Department to govern the system that assigns website addresses and directs Internet traffic.

Although other countries have had a say in how the Internet is run, the U.S. government retained veto power over ICANN.

The Commerce Department hopes to end its ICANN oversight by the time its contract expires in September 2015.

Proposals for a new ICANN stewardship will be accepted beginning next week at a conference in Singapore.

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Sure, a significant number of people now have smartphones and could pull one up digitally in a matter of seconds, but there’s something about old-fashioned paper products that makes the U.S. Constitution shine.

If you were in this predicament and near artist Thibault Brevet’s new creation, dubbed “CONSTI2GO,” you would be in luck. Brevet hacked a receipt printer to churn out all 4,543 words in less than 10 seconds.

CONSTI2GO (Photo credit: Thibault-Brevet)

Each time the button is pushed, a Constitution is printed.

Watch this video of the machine in action:

According to The Verge, the modified printer debuted at South By South West in Austin, Texas, this week.

The work was commissioned by Jeff Goldenson for LABRARY.bike

(H/T: Popular Science)

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Image source: NBC via WSPD-AM

DeGeneres posted and read aloud Eckert’s hand-scrawled “Dear Soldier” note in front of her studio audience who were frequently touched by details of Eckert’s pay-it-forward actions.

Image source: NBC via WSPD-AM

The host even got in on the acts of kindness, presenting Eckert with a the LEGO Movie Videogame he mentioned he wanted and a package for a free visit to the Legoland amusement park in southern California.

DeGeneres also presented Shutterfly’s $20,000 check toward Snowball Express, an organization that helps children whose parents died during military service, and told Dailey that he and his wife were headed to Oahu, Hawaii, for six nights in a four-star hotel courtesy of Expedia.

Image source: NBC via WSPD-AM

In addition, Highland Capital Management announced a $1 million challenge grant for Snowball Express, noting that it will match up to $1 million donated to the charity until Memorial Day, reported WSPD-AM in Toledo, Ohio.

Myles found a $20 bill laying in an Ohio Cracker Barrel parking lot; and instead of pocketing the money, he wrote a heartfelt note to a solider he spotted entering the restaurant who reminded him of his father who was killed in Iraq.

“Dear Soldier — my dad was a soldier. He’s in heaven now,” the note said. “I found this 20 dollars in the parking lot when we got here. We like to pay it forward in my family. It’s your lucky day! Thank you for your service. Myles Eckert, a gold star kid.”

Myles’ mother Tiffany was a guest on WSPD radio the morning of the “Ellen” show and had this to say:

Here’s the clip of Eckert and Dailey’s appearance on the “Ellen” show:

(H/T: WSPD-AM)

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However, Johnson’s dream of a pond quickly turned into a nightmare when the federal government stepped in and threatened him with civil and criminal penalties, including a potential $75,000-a-day fine.

In an interview with FoxNews.com, Johnson defiantly proclaimed: “I have not paid them a dime, nor will I.”

“I will go bankrupt if I have to fighting it. My wife and I built [the pond] together. We put our blood, sweat and tears into it. It was our dream,” he added.

Credit: Andy Johnson/Facebook

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims Johnson violated the Clean Water Act by “building a dam on a creek without a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers,” according to the FoxNews.com report. The federal agency also says material from his pond is leaking into other waterways.

However, Johnson says his man-made pond, intended to attract wildlife, is exempt from regulations included in the Clean Water Act. Further, he claims he purposely followed state rules when he built the pond in 2012, citing an April 4 letter from the Wyoming State Engineer’s Office.

The agency reportedly informed him that his “permit is in good standing and is entitled to be exercised exactly as permitted.”

The husband and father plans to battle the EPA because, for him, it’s about more than the pond.

“It’s about a person’s rights. I have three little kids. I am not going to roll over and let [the government] tell me what I can do on my land,” he said. “I followed the rules.”

Though some U.S. lawmakers, including Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and David Vitter (R-La.), have called on the EPA to withdraw the compliance order, the EPA doesn’t seem to be backing down.

“Fairness and due process require the EPA base its compliance order on more than an assumption,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the agency. “Instead of treating Mr. Johnson as guilty until he proves his innocence by demonstrating his entitlement to the Clean Water Act section 404 (f)(1)(C) stock pond exemption, EPA should make its case that a dam was built and that the Section 404 exemption does not apply.”

“If Johnson doesn’t comply — and he hasn’t so far — he’s subject to $37,500 per day in civil penalties as well as another $37,500 per day in fines for statutory violations,” FoxNews.com reports.

Read the full report here.

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The banks, which include Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in the U.S., are among the world’s largest.

The FDIC says it is seeking to recover losses suffered from the rate manipulation by 10 U.S. banks that failed during the financial crisis and were taken over by the agency. The civil lawsuit was filed Friday in federal court in Manhattan.

The headquarters of JP Morgan Chase on Park Avenue December 12, 2013 in New York. JP Morgan Chase and federal authorities are close to a USD $2 billion settlement over the bank’s ties to financier Bernard L. Madooff that involve penalties and deffered criminal prosecution. AFP PHOTO/Stan HONDA

The banks rigged the London interbank offered rate, or LIBOR, from August 2007 to at least mid-2011, the FDIC alleged. The LIBOR affects trillions of dollars in contracts around the world, including mortgages, bonds and consumer loans. A British banking trade group sets the LIBOR every morning after the 16 international banks submit estimates of what it costs them to borrow. The FDIC also sued that trade group, the British Bankers’ Association.

By submitting false estimates of their borrowing costs used to calculate LIBOR, the 16 banks “fraudulently and collusively suppressed (the LIBOR rate), and they did so to their advantage,” the FDIC said in the suit.

Citigroup spokeswoman Danielle Romero-Apsilos, Bank of America spokesman Lawrence Grayson and JPMorgan spokesman Brian Marchiony declined to comment.

Four of the banks – Britain’s Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, Switzerland’s biggest bank UBS and Rabobank of the Netherlands – have previously paid a total of about $3.6 billion to settle U.S. and European regulators’ charges of rigging the LIBOR. The banks signed agreements with the U.S. Justice Department that allow them to avoid criminal prosecution if they meet certain conditions.

The process of setting the LIBOR came under scrutiny after Barclays admitted in June 2012 that it had submitted false information to keep the rate low.

A number of U.S. cities and municipal agencies also have filed suits against banks that set the LIBOR rate. They are seeking damages for losses suffered as a result of an artificially low rate. Local governments hold bonds and other investments whose value is pegged to LIBOR.

In addition, government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have brought similar suits against many of the banks.

Under a change announced last July, the London-based company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Euronext, will take over supervising the setting of LIBOR from the British Bankers’ Association. The changeover is scheduled to be completed by early next year.

The FDIC asserted in its suit that the banks’ misconduct in setting LIBOR caused “substantial losses” to the 10 U.S. banks that failed. The amount wasn’t specified. The agency is seeking both economic and punitive damages, to be determined by the court.

The other banks named in the suit are Switzerland’s Credit Suisse, Germany’s Deutsche Bank and Portigon, British banks HSBC and Lloyds, France’s Societe Generale, Japan’s Norinchukin Bank and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, and Royal Bank of Canada.

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Getty Images.

Mai Nhu Nguyen, 47, reportedly took bribes of approximately $1,000 and $2,200 from at least two immigrants since 2011.

But that’s not even the weird part. The weird part is where she’s accused of accepting 200 egg rolls from another applicant.

She was indicted Wednesday on three counts of “solicitation of a bribe by a public official,” the New York Post reported.

Each count is punishable by up to 15 years in federal prison.

“Nguyen worked as an officer for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Santa Ana where she reviewed immigrants’ applications for benefits,” the Post adds. “Nguyen was arrested June 6 and released on a $20,000 bond.”

She worked at that office for eight years.

The disgraced former immigration officer is scheduled to be arraigned July 1.

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Lord Voldemort, Harry Potter’s enemy in J.K. Rowling’s series, is one of many villains who has a “mor” sound in his name. (Image source: Warner Brothers via Wikimedia)

The root “mor.”

And these shady characters and locations associated with impending doom aren’t alone, linguist James Harbeck pointed out that in the King Arthur there lived a traitor named Mordred. Sherlock Homles enemy is Professor Moriarty. The list goes on.

“So what’s the deal with ‘mor’? Is there something to the syllable that suits it for melancholy, darkness, and villainy?” Harbeck wrote.

And why don’t some names like Morgan or Maurice carry the same weight?

“For starters, the Latin ‘mor’ root (as in moribund and mortal and French words such as morte) refers to death; there is an old Germanic root mora for darkness, which shows up in words such as murky; our modern word murder comes from an Old English word morth for the same; and, of course, a morgue is a place where dead bodies are kept,” the linguist wrote in a piece appearing in The Week. “That’s enough to give a familiar ring. And every evil name that has ‘mor’ in it adds to the weight of the association, especially when they’re famous evil names.”

Harbeck went on to wonder if the frequency of “mor” has less to do with its etymological origins but whether it’s just an association that has been adopted.

“Words that start with ‘gl’ often have to do with light (glow, gleam, glimmer, glitter, glisten, etc.) even though they are not all related historically; similarly, words that start with ‘sn’ often relate to the nose (snoot, sniffle, snot, snore, sneeze, etc.),” he wrote. “It doesn’t mean that all words with those letters have the meaning in common, but there is a common thread among a notable set of them.”

Harbeck delved into what he thinks are the roots of several famous villians with a “mor” sound. For more on the specifics, check out his full post, analyzing why so many might have come to “mor” in their names.

(H/T: io9)

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In her speech, which earned thunderous applause from the audience, she presented the simplicity and common sense nature of the pro-gun argument in a way only a kid can.

“I am not a ‘gang banger or domestic terrorist’ as a certain vocal supporter of this bill claimed two weeks ago in the Star Ledger,” Roberts said. “This bill, if it becomes law, will severely impact me and a million other gun owners.”

(Facebook)

The 9-year-old girl explained that she is a 4th-grade honor roll student and competitive shooter in multiple styles with numerous local, state and national sponsors.

“I have worked and trained very hard to get to the level I am at and if A2006 becomes law, I will be forced to choose between giving up on a very great and promising future in a sport that I love or asking my dad to move to another state. I will not be giving up my sport.”

She said many of the firearms she hopes to use in the next level of her young competitive shooting career will be made “illegal” if the proposed gun control bill, known as A2006, becomes law.

“Everyone is upset about bad people doing bad things to others, but punishing the people who didn’t do anything wrong is not the way to stop bad people,” she added. “If it wasn’t against the law, I would’ve brought one of my competition guns with me today to show you it won’t do anything unless someone touches it.”

“I ask you please keep the promise you made when you were elected by protecting people’s rights and vote no on A2006,” she concluded.

The crowd erupted in applause at the end of her speech. Watch the amazing video below:

Bill A2006 was introduced on Jan. 16 and recently had its second reading before an Assembly Committee. According to Legiscan.com, the bill’s progress is at 25 percent.

The proposed law exempts firearms with .22 caliber tubular magazines.

(H/T: SaveJersey.com, Fox Nation)

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President Barack Obama waves as he boards Air Force One, Tuesday, March 11, 2014, at Andrews Air Force Base. Obama is traveling to New York for a pair of fundraisers for the Democrats. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

The “numbers are juiced up,” said Jessica Vaughn, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors strict enforcement.

“The kind of enforcement actions the activists are complaining about are arresting people and separating families,” Vaughn told TheBlaze. “The complaints were about things rarely happening. The administration can turn around and use this as an excuse to suppress enforcement. He has asked for a review, which probably means further suppression. It’s a phony crisis used to make a policy change.”

President Barack Obama has touted the administration’s record of high deportations compared to previous administrations. Meanwhile, activists for illegal immigrants have ridiculed the president as the “deporter-in-chief.”

After Obama met with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Thursday, The White House announced, “he has asked Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson to do an inventory of the department’s current practices to see how it can conduct enforcement more humanely within the confines of the law.”

The boast about immigration is questionable on two fronts. First, the administration’s claim relies on the strictest legal definition of deportation that factors in only a portion of undocumented immigrants sent home every year. Second, the administration in 2009 changed the metric for measuring even that legal definition. For this, it’s important to understand Homeland Security’s distinction between “removals” and “returns.”

“Most people think of deportation is sending someone out of the country,” Vaughn said. “If you count the number of people sent out of the country, it’s not even close to a record. It’s the lowest since the 1970s.”

On June 11, 2013, Obama said, “We focused our enforcement efforts on criminals who are here illegally and who are endangering our communities.  And today, deportation of criminals is at its highest level ever.”

He has been heckled about deportations at various events.

And much of the media has adopted the talking point. The New York Times reported in December, “Since taking office, President Obama has deported more than 1.9 million foreigners, immigration officials announced last week, a record for an American president.”

The Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, published by the Department of Homeland Security shows that removals were up to 419,384 in 2012, the last year of Obama’s first term from the 359,795 removals in 2008, the final year of the Bush administration. However, returns were down significantly to 229,968 in 2012 from 811,263 in 2008 (See Table 39).

Removals are the “compulsory and confirmed movement of an inadmissible alien out of the United States based on an order of removal,” according to DHS. “An alien who is removed has administrative or criminal consequences placed on subsequent reentry owing to the fact of removal.”

The DHS defines returns as “the confirmed movement of an inadmissible or deportable alien out of the United States not based on an order of removal.”

Returns were generally how the public measured deportations under previous administrations.

Total deportations – returns and removals—under Obama were 3.2 million in its first term, or an average of 800,000 per year, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. The Bush administration returned and removed 10.3 million over two terms, or an average of 1.3 million per year. The Clinton administration sent back 12.3 million over eight years, averaging about 1.5 million per year.

But even achieving those numbers took a change in the metrics for the Obama administration.

What’s different about the Obama administration’s metric from previous administrations is that the increased number of removals factors in all apprehensions of people trying to illegally cross the border. More than half of those counted as removals were captured at the border by U.S. Border Patrol and handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Vaughn explained. Previous administrations only counted deportations as the removal or return of illegal immigrants already in the interior of the country. This doesn’t fit the narrative of people being pulled from their families, Vaughn said.

Removals, which are based on specific orders, have been on an either steady increase or nominal decline since 1970, when the number was at 17,469. In 1997 removals leaped to 114,432, about double what they were the previous year. There was generally a steady increase each year after that.

Returns dropped significantly in the mid-1950s and early 1960s, but in 1963 began increasing at a rapid rate reaching 303,348 in 1970, up from 52,796 in 1960. While removals in the 1970s peaked at 38,000 in 1976, returns never dropped below 300,000, and peaked at 975,515 in 1978. During the 1980s, returns peaked at 1.5 million in 1986, but dropped slightly thereafter, but removals never reached higher than 34,427 during the decade.

In the 1990s, there were more than 1 million returns every year. Removals peaked at 183,114 in 1999.

In the first six years of the Bush administration, returns only dropped below 1 million once – to 945,294 in 2003. Returns were more than 800,000 and removals were more than 300,000 in 2007 and 2008. However, after Obama’s first year of 2009 returns dropped below 600,000 and declined by more than 100,000 each year after.

Source: Department of Homeland Security

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“How about this theory: The jet is flying along and you have a total electronic failure but the engines keep working,” he began. “We’ve been told that the airplane kept sending data somehow, pinging a satellite even after it was lost from radar. There have been so many confusing reports on whether or not the data that was pinging was coming from the engines or not.”

Limbaugh continued: “But what happened if, and my guess is as good as any, you’ve got an airplane flying along, you have a total electronics failure but it continues to be airworthy, the engines are working. I don’t know if this is possible, given an electronic ignition and all that, let’s say it is. So then the crew says we’ve got to get back home we have got to get back to Kuala Lumpur, we can’t fly with no electronics-it’s dark, night time, they fly over a bunch of unfriendly countries and they cant identify themselves and they’re not identified, there are no lights on-there has been a total electronics failure.”

“What if some hostile country flew up there and shot it down and then discovered their mistake and nobody wants to admit that’s what happened?” he pondered.

The theory, as Limbaugh himself admits, is nothing more than a guess. In fact, theories seem to be all there are relating to the missing plane as people itch to know what really happened.

Listen via the Daily Rushbo here:

(H/T: Fox Nation)

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And the parody seemingly received a stamp of approval by Bass himself, who tweeted from his verified Twitter account: “lololol! Love this!”

Bass was on the receiving end of quite a few jokes earlier this week after promoting “healthcare.org,” instead of the correct and occasionally functional website, “healthcare.gov.”

Bass later corrected himself:

(Photo: Twitter/@LanceBass)

“Maybe the fierceness of his formerly frosted locks will cause Americans to forget how screwed we all are when the president finally implements Obamacare,” Loesch speculated, introducing her guest. “Maybe Bass was there to distract the country from HHS’ quiet maneuver to extend the deadline for the personal mandate out to 2016…”

That’s when “Bass” (Crowder) appeared in the “Oval Office,” saying he’s been counseling the Obama administration on healthcare.

“That ain’t no lie!” he dramatically sang at the end of his explanation, referencing the hit “Bye Bye Bye.”

Shortly after promoting “healthgov.care” and “govhealth.care,” boasting that he has “total clearance” to the White House, “Bass” was approached by a menacing Secret Service agent who thought otherwise.

“Promise me you won’t touch the face!” he pleaded before running away.

Watch the complete segment — which also includes some inspired dancing — below:

Complimentary Clip from TheBlaze TV

The real Lance Bass responded to the video shortly after it was posted, making it clear there were no hard feelings.

Here is the complete Twitter thread:

(Photo: Twitter/@scrowder)

The full episode of “Dana,” along with many other live streaming shows and thousands of hours of on-demand content, is available on just about any digital device. Get it all with a FREE TRIAL.

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The video, assembled by Uniformedia, contains dozens of human encounters with planes, trains, and automobiles — even mother nature. Some of the clips were also included in a similar compilation published by TheBlaze in February.

Image: YouTube

So many of these could have ended tragically, but apparently did not.

Image: YouTube

In most cases, the clips show the lucky people walking away from their “brush with death.”

Image: YouTube

You can watch all of the encounters in this compilation — just be prepared to hear some very strong language with each crash, skid or near miss:

(H/T: Uniformedia)

Follow Mike Opelka on Twitter – @Stuntbrain

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“I’m not lying about Obamacare,” Julie Boonstra wrote in an op-ed in the Detroit News Thursday, responding to nearly a month of criticism she’s been seeing regarding the facts of an ad she was involved in that cut down the Affordable Care Act.

“If I do not receive my medication, I will die,” Boonstra said in the ad produced by the right-leaning organization Americans for Prosperity last month. “I believed the president. I believed I could keep my health insurance plan. I feel lied too.”

Boonstra was diagnosed with leukemia five years ago and was given a 20 percent chance of survival.

The 49-year-old from Dexter, Mich., said at the time she could no longer afford the care she needed as a result of Obamacare.

Though AFP released this video in February, Boonstra’s story garnered wider attention after the Detroit News Monday reported that she could actually save about $1,000 under her new plan that meets Affordable Care Act requirements:

Boonstra’s old plan cost $1,100 a month in premiums or $13,200 a year, she previously told The News. That didn’t include money she spent on co-pays, prescription drugs and other out-of-pocket expenses.

By contrast, the [Michigan Blue Cross Premier Gold] plan premium costs $571 a month or $6,852 for the year. Since out-of-pocket costs are capped at $5,100 for in-network doctors and hospitals, including deductibles, the maximum Boonstra would pay this year for all of her cancer treatment is $11,952.

[…]

She said she still fears her costs will be unaffordable because she could be hit with large out-of-pocket bills in the early months when she wouldn’t have the money to pay. She also said her out-of-pocket maximum could be higher than advertised because there’s one prescription that was previously covered by her old plan that isn’t and she now buys with a separate prescription discount card.

Blue Cross spokesman Andy Hetzel told the News that all prescriptions Boonstra needs are in fact covered by the plan. As for reaching her maximum in a short period of time, something Boonstra said she couldn’t afford to happen, Hetzel told the newspaper while that could occur, it’s unlikely.

When the facts surrounding Boonstra’s claims were questioned after this initial ad, AFP released another one, in which Boonstra changed what she said from the plan being “unaffordable” to that it “didn’t work for me.”

Following the revelations made by the Detroit News, many other publications have come out to blast Boonstra and AFP for the allegedly misleading ad.

Rick Ungar, a Forbes contributor writing on politics and policy from the left, wrote that he thinks Boonstra simply didn’t do her homework as to the details on her plan.

“As for AFP, one would think they would be considerably more careful in picking the ‘horror stories’ they chose to tell. One might also want to consider what it means when this is the best anti-Obamacare groups can come up with when attempting to undermine the future of this law,” Ungar continued.

The Washington Post labeled Boonstra’s story with three Pinocchios, its rating system for fact checking.

On Thursday, Boonstra penned a familiar story in her Detroit News op-ed. Her experience was shared by many last year: insurance plan gets cancelled, followed by the frustration of trying to navigate Obamacare options with a defunct website. Eventually, she settled on the private plan she now has.

“I recently told my story in Michigan with the help of a group called Americans for Prosperity. Now people are attacking me and calling me a liar. Some believe that I can afford the insurance because the annual premiums will be lower,” Boonstra wrote. “Those people choose to ignore the problems inherent with high out-of-pocket limits and prescriptions that aren’t covered for a person like me.

“My new plan could mean wildly fluctuating and front-loaded costs in the first few months of the year. I chose my old plan — the one that Obamacare canceled — specifically so I could budget for the same monthly costs with certainty.”

After the initial ad ran, Rep. Gary Peters (D., Mich.), who is seeking to move to a Michigan state Senate seat, sent a letter to the station manager advising them to require AFP to back up its claims to comply with the FCC’s regulations protecting against the spread of misinformation. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) criticized it as well.

“I can’t say that every one of the Koch brothers’ ads are a lie, but I’ll say this … the vast, vast majority of them are,” Reid said.

This was one of the reasons the Glenn Beck Radio Program’s Pat Gray last week called Reid the “worst living human being on the planet.”

As for Boonstra, who called out these congressmen in her piece, she wrote that she “never asked for this. Obamacare has turned my life into a nightmare.

“That’s why I’m speaking out for the 225,000 Michiganians who also lost their insurance plans thanks to Obamacare. Like them, I want a plan that works for me,” she continued. “Instead, Obamacare has denied me my choice of coverage, President Barack Obama has betrayed my trust, Harry Reid called me a liar, and Gary Peters has tried to silence me.”

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Not only did Aravena’s bike break in half upon impact, she can be seen doing a complete front flip over her handlebars before making a painful-looking fall that either fractured or broke her leg, according to various reports.

Here are a few screen shots of the crash, via ninemsn:

(Photo: Screen Shot/ninemsn)

(Photo: Screen shot/ninemsn)

(Photo: Screen shot/ninemsn)

(Photo: Screen shot/ninemsn)

Aravena is said to have successfully undergone surgery, though the extent of her injuries is still unconfirmed.

Deadspin has more on why the gate was not removed:

The starting horn sounded and both teams of cyclists exploded out of their respective starting gates, only for the officials to call a false start. That’s when disaster happened.

Both teams took off around the track, but three of the four competitors heard the false start. Chilean cyclist Irene Aravena, however, didn’t, and kept her position on the inside lane. A gang of race officials at the bottom of the track had one job: pull the starting gate off of the track after cyclists take off.

But since it was a false start, Deadspin adds, it seems the race officials decided to wave a red flag instead of actually removing the gate. Aravena clearly didn’t notice, or didn’t have time to adjust her path.

Watch full video of the crash, below:

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The assailant who was killed approached a couple on the street, brandishing a gun and demanding the pair walk to a building undergoing renovation, police said.

Once the gunman, 26, led the couple into the yard outside the building, WWL-TV in New Orleans reported, he began sexually assaulting the woman, police said.

But the woman’s male companion got hold of the gunman’s weapon and opened fire around 9:30 p.m., police said.

The man who shot the assailant was not identified, police said, adding that detectives interviewed him and the woman and made no arrests. The case will be turned over to prosecutors for review, police said, adding that they recovered the gun and are trying to learn where it came from.

“This is crazy,” one area resident Diane Green told the Times-Picayune. “We consider this the quiet side.”

Featured image: WWL-TV

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And the crisis seems to be heading in that direction.

Ukrainian seamen stand guard on the Ukrainian navy ship Slavutich at harbor of Sevastopol, Ukraine, Monday, March 3, 2014. (AP/Andrew Lubimov)

On Friday, more Russian troops and armored vehicles were seen offloading from ships in the Crimean harbor, reporters in the area said. The day before, Russia had already massed more than 8,000 troops and armored vehicles along three regions of Ukraine’s eastern border conducting war games. The move alarmed interim Ukraine President Oleksander Turchynov, who announced he had called up 60,000 of his nation’s national guard  in preparation for a possible “full-scale” Russian invasion.

What happens before Sundays’s referendum vote on Crimea seceding from Ukraine is anybody’s guess, said a U.S. official with knowledge of the ongoing crisis.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the nature of their work, said the situation is being closely monitored and “no one’s ruling out the possibility of additional Russian military aggression.”

William Wilson, a former chief economist for Ernst and Young, LLP, and now a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, warned that a full-scale invasion by Russia in the region would lead to “catastrophe” for Europe and affect the entire global market place.

“Those who don’t believe Russia’s actions won’t effect the rest of the world are very mistaken,” Wilson told TheBlaze, who returned last month from two years in Moscow.

“I think the Crimea story is over, that’s done” he said. “The question is will [Russian President Vladimir Putin] go any further and I think if he invades over the eastern front of  [Ukraine] then you’ll get the Europeans involved, then you’re looking at possibly a catastrophic situation.”

Further, if the West fails to act decisively, ethnic tensions in Ukraine could begin to boil and Russia could use it as a pretense to invade the western half of the country and “the West would have no choice but to impose massive sanctions and that would impact the entire global economy,” said Wilson.

One possible scenario includes Putin’s threats to shut off Russian gas supplies from Europe, despite the fact that Russia is already on the verge of a recession. Ukraine is one of the main transit routes for the nation’s gas and Russia can create a potential crisis across European markets, some which rely heavily on the product.

It wouldn’t matter so much that it will also cause Russia to spiral further into economic chaos because Putin is gauging on future gains, not present losses, said another U.S. official familiar with the crisis.

Failure by the West to strongly impose limits on Putin now will only embolden anti-American leaders in countries like Iran, North Korea, Syria, China and even those in the Western hemisphere to take the opportunity to act against Western interests.

“We’re losing our hard power and soft power … we’re not admired around the world the way we used to be,” Wilson said. “The nuclear genie is out of the bottle, there’s no stopping North Korea from firing its rockets and continuing its program. And now the clerics in Iran see what’s happening in Ukraine and say if you have a nuclear weapon you don’t get invaded — you may get sanctions against Iran right now but you don’t get invaded.”

On Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent her most ominous warning to Russia yet, telling German lawmakers that there will be “massive” political and economic consequences for Russia if it fails to enter into “negotiations that achieve results”

She added that the only way out of the crisis is through diplomacy and assured them that “the use of the military is no option,” adding that the European Union and other Western nations would soon freeze bank accounts and implement travel restrictions if Russia refused to enter such negotiations that “aren’t just a play for time,” according to the Associated Press.

But threats from the West to sanction the financial assets of Russian oligarchs may not be as effective a tool as some analysts may have suggested, Wilson said.

“Make no doubt that the Kremlin holds all the power in the country now, not the oligarchs — even though the oligarchs have the money — there’s a very important quid-pro-quo between the oligarch’s and Kremlin. Putin basically said, I’ll let you keep your money and return you never delve in politics and if you do I’ll take your money away and put you in jail,” he explained. “Russians view Obama as extremely weak. They didn’t like [George W.] Bush but they respected him, they knew he would use force … they have no respect for Obama and they view him as an extremely weak leader, almost laughable.” Therefore, any sanctions on Russia need to deal a severe blow to Putin.

That makes for a very dangerous combination as Ukraine prepares its limited forces against the mammoth nation. Currently, there are 130,000 Ukrainian soldiers and their military equipment is aging. They are no longer the powerful nation they used to be when Ukraine had the third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. Ukraine’s decision to sign the Budapest memorandum with the United States and Russia in 1994 mandating them to dismantle all their nuclear armaments has now left them vulnerable to Russia’s 845,000-strong military. Russia has violated the treaty by invading.

Since Russia has violated the Budapest memorandum, it is being suggested that the U.S. no longer honor the Montreaux Convention of 1936 signed by Turkey, Great Britain and the former Soviet Union, among others, and recognized by the United States, a former Defense official with knowledge of the region told TheBlaze. This would leave Russia “extremely vulnerable and Putin would feel it his gut,” the official said.

The treaty exempts Black Sea nations, including Russia, from military restrictions imposed by Turkey in the Bosporus Straits, which lead into the Black Sea. The treaty also contains the same provisions regarding the Dardanelles Strait leading into the Aegean Sea. If the treaty is broken then the straits used by Russia to move their military and oil tankers freely in the Black Sea “could go under NATO control and Russia wouldn’t want this at all,” the official said.

Men in military fatigues pass by the statue of a jet fighter close to the Belbek air base, Sevastopol’s military airport, on March 14, 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 14 told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the upcoming referendum in Crimea on the Ukrainian peninsula’s future was in line with international law. On March 4, Russian forces surrounding the Belbek air base fired warning shots at Ukrainian servicemen trying to approach. (AFP PHOTO / DANIEL LEAL OLIVAS AFP/AFP/Getty Images)

Kevin Freeman, a financial analyst with expertise in economic warfare, agreed that sanctions need to have teeth.  Freeman was commissioned by the Pentagon as a contractor to research the 2008 financial crash, saying in his 2009 report that it was partly the result of economic terrorism by hostile nations or individuals. He told TheBlaze that the “real risk if we go after [Russia] with economic weapons is they come back after us” — potentially creating an economic World War III scenario.

“There’s nobody there looking over Russia’s shoulder like we have with North Korea. We have the Chinese saying, ‘don’t do that. That’ll mess with the world,” said Freeman, referring to China’s influence over North Korea. “Who looks over Russia’s shoulder?”

Even as Moscow saber rattles, European and U.S. leaders need to develop strong ties to Ukraine by promising large economic aide packages “under the assumption that economic restructuring will be done” and that the interim government needs to plan for future elections quickly, Wilson said.

“I think if you do all those things simultaneously you’ll create a lot of legitimacy and it would be very bold then for Putin to invade the rest of the Ukraine,” he said. “But the West is moving too slow.”

Freeman said the Defense Department played out similar economic war game scenarios.

“If Russia and China team up in an economic war, they’d get hurt, but they win,” he said. “We lose, and the Russians are well aware of it.”

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Here’s what a regular lower receiver used for building an AR-15 looks like (Image source: KSWB-TV)

Dimitri Karras, a former United States Marine and the CEO of Ares Armor in National City, Calif., said agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are not investigating his business, KSWB-TV reported.

Rather, he explained, they are investigating his customers.

Karras said ATF agents threatened to close him down if he didn’t comply with their demands to turn over the names of roughly 5,000 customers who purchased a specific 80 percent lower receiver used for building an AR-15 rifle.

The part is used as the base of the rifle.

It is legal in the state of California to build an AR-15 that has no serial number, but only if the base meets the ATF’s exact specifications, KSWB-TV notes.

And here’s Karras’ problem: His store was selling a receiver the ATF claims is illegal.

Instead of metal, Ares Armor carried a certain brand of receiver that is made from plastic. It also has markings on it to show gun owners exactly where to drill.

The ATF is not happy.

Ares Armor was one of several stores to receive a letter from federal agents demanding they turn over the non-compliant product and the names of the customers who bought them.

“They said either give us these 5,000 names or we are coming in and taking pretty much anything – which is a huge privacy concern and something we are not willing to do,” Karras told KSWB-TV.

Karras explained he has no problem turning over his inventory to the ATF. In fact, his lawyer has already told ATF agents they can come by any time to pick up the receivers.

Karras’ issue is the demand to turn over the names of his customers.

“They were going to search all of our facilities and confiscate our computer and pretty much shut our business down,” he said.  “The government invades our privacy on a daily basis and everyone thinks it’s okay. This is one of those situations where hopefully the governmental institutions will come in say, ‘This is protected and no you’re not taking it from them.’”

Knowing what was coming, Karras got ahead of the ATF and filed a temporary restraining order against them. This means that the ATF can’t confiscate any of the Karras’ property.

The ATF has a window of opportunity to respond to Karras. If the two don’t reach an agreement soon, they will both meet in court for a preliminary hearing on March 20.

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Pastor Touré Roberts, founder of One Church International, a nondenominational house of worship in Los Angeles, Calif., told TheBlaze Thursday that he’s seeing Hollywood insiders change the way they work and interact in the industry as a result of budding relationships with God — and that Jesus could soon become a more positive and predominant theme in entertainment circles.

Pastor Touré Roberts is reaching young Hollywood (Image source: One Church International)

And Roberts should know. He’s attracted an array of famed singers, actors and media professionals to his pews, giving him a unique view on the struggles and rewards that come along with an often cut-throat industry.

The pastor told TheBlaze that he had no idea that the tiny church he started in South Los Angeles back in 2002 would end up becoming a major theological hub for Hollywood elite — especially considering that One Church, which has grown to more than 3,000 members, attracted only 30 congregants in its first two years.

After experiencing minimal growth, Roberts said he felt “divinely inspired” to move the house of worship to North Hollywood, where the church quickly caught the attention of young performers and artists.

The influx of actors, singers and Hollywood staffers profoundly changed the pastor’s outlook on entertainment industry.

“I really developed a love for artists,” he said. “I had never seen so many people from all around the world coming to [one specific] area to pursue their dreams.”

While that particular facet of the industry was inspiring, Roberts said that he also learned about the downside of the entertainment realm — and the fact that “the industry was beating [performers] down and devaluing them and seducing them.”

The preacher described disdain for the way that he saw actors and singers being used and manipulated by Hollywood elite, and said one of the biggest challenges in ministering to that community was “getting people to come outside of a ‘me mentality’ or an ‘I mentality.’”

“Everyone wants to be someone. They want to be famous. They want glory in a sense,” Roberts explained. “I’m generalizing, but it’s true, really having to break down the pursuit of fame.”

The pastor, who believes it’s okay for people to crave success, said that there’s a difference between realizing personal aspirations and truly “being significant.” Teaching this sentiment, though, can be an uphill battle in an industry that encourages narcissism as a professional asset.

Despite the challenges, Roberts said he has seen a transformation, with artists and executives making Bible-based decisions surrounding how they conduct themselves at work. While he didn’t name names, he shared some of the transformational stories.

Some singers, for example, had embraced “salacious” and “seductive” themes, but upon reflection and time at One Church, these same individuals instead started chasing songs with meanings about love and relationships. While they by no means embraced gospel music, the performers began embracing a more positive turn.

He also spoke about a television executive who successfully challenged her boss to temper some “dark” content being placed on the network. And then there’s a well-known actor who he says spoke out about the negative portrayal of a Christian character in a script he read.

Image source: @ToureRoberts’ Twitter account

Rather than being combative, Roberts said the actor explained that there might be a better way to present the character, who appeared only briefly in the script.

In the end, by approaching the situation in a loving way, Roberts said the actor not only convinced the writers to change the script, but that they also wrote the individual into the show to serve as a positive representation of a Christian character.

“I’ve seen people’s art change as a result of coming to the church, understanding that gifts that God has given to them,” Roberts said. “I think the most rewarding thing is to see someone in their artistic expression change because God has changed their life.”

While there’s still much for Christians to balk about in Hollywood, Roberts believes that believers in the industry are increasingly speaking up.

“Hollywood overall is very trendy — and we know that that can be positive or negative depending on what the trend is,” he said. “I am seeing a real trend toward God … our church is 85 percent industry. There’s a lot of support for Christians in Hollywood now.”

Roberts said he’s hopeful about Tinseltown’s theological future. He believes there’s an old Hollywood regime that might be dying off and a new one ready to come in with a fresh perspective — which could lead to more Christian and Bible-based themes in TV and movies.

The pastor’s new book “Purpose Awakening” challenges all individuals — not just those working in Hollywood — to live their lives with meaning, he said.

“The way someone can be content living their live without [purpose] blows me away. Their life really, really is a good idea. It’s a brilliant idea,” Roberts added.

He hopes readers learn that God has strategically created each and every individual.

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Featured image via @ToureRoberts’ Twitter account

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These salty seafarers realized tying evenly spaced knots on a piece of rope and attaching it to a wedge-shaped plank of wood (weighted on one end so it would float perpendicular to the water and increase drag) would give them a measuring stick they could pull alongside the ship.

This photo is dubbed “Old Salts” and I guarantee they knew how to tie some lines. (U.S. Navy)

Unfortunately the knots-on- a-line technique is only as accurate as the sailor tying them. (Shutterstock)

Daven Hiskey explains on his site, Today I Found Out:

The wood would (then) be tossed into the water and the line let out while a sailor used a sand-glass to time the number of knots let out in the given timespan.

As for the interval and the time-span, this varied somewhat in the beginning, but for reference, one mid-eighteenth century version (attested in A Voyage to South America by Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa) had the knots at 1/120th of a mile with a 30-second timer.

Of course, hand-tied knots on a rope aren’t as accurate as our current navigational standards, which are all based on the nautical mile (today equaling 1.852 kilometers). One knot then equals one nautical mile per hour. In landlubber terms, this is about 1.15 miles per hour or 1.852 kilometers per hour, according to Hiskey.

To picture it even more clearly, grab the closest globe or map. Oh wait — no one has those anymore? Right, so pull up a map on your computer. Look for the latitude and longitude lines; assuming the Earth is a perfect sphere (we know it isn’t, but it’s close enough) today’s nautical miles are exactly 1/60th a degree of latitude or longitude – or one minute of arc around the globe.

That means if you were sailing along at one knot, it would take you roughly 60 hours to go 1 degree of longitude or latitude. And then your next step should be to buy a faster boat.

Oh, and since my Navy friends will likely make a fuss if I don’t point this out; especially if you are around military sailors — it’s a ship, not a boat. And a line, not a rope.

Today’s midshipman may learn how to tie some ropes, but they definitely learn how to use GPS (Image via USNA).

(H/T: Gizmodo)

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The miniature adult, with the help of his parents, created a YouTube video in January that is getting picked up by local and national media outlets called “Kids News.” He stars as the “anchor-kid.”

The Huffington Post wrote that Savage should be “hired by a network STAT” and the team at Good Morning America said he “could very well be sitting in their shoes one day.”

Four-year-old Vincent Savage speaks on “Kids News.” (Image source: YouTube)

In the clip, Savage, dressed sharply in a tie and vest, discusses the popularity of certain dinosaurs and what “grown ups” are currently “freaking out” about.

“A survey out of Chicago reports that the Tyrannosaurus Rex is the most popular dinosaur from kids 4-12,” Savage says knowledgeably. “Probably because he preferred cheeseburgers over broccoli.”

After discussing “The Lego Movie,” Savage adds: “Adults across the country are freaking out because [of] this huge winter storm. They call it the polar vortex. Kids call it the ‘no school, do what I want, play video games awesome fun time.’”

Watch the complete clip, below:

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The Restore Military Religious Freedom Coalition, a group dedicated to “defending the religious freedoms of members of [the] Armed Forces and Veterans,” officially responded Thursday to the ongoing furor over the removal of a scripture message from a cadet’s bedroom door.

With the unnamed cadet’s fellow students responding to the scrubbing by placing verses from the Bible and the Koran on their own whiteboards, members of the coalition are now speaking out, claiming that the removal is a grave violation of religious liberty.

Bible and Koranic verses are reportedly being posted on cadets’ doors at the Air Force Academy in Colorado (Image credit: Military Religious Freedom Foundation)

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, vice president of the Family Research Council, a coalition member, said in a statement that cadets should be free to post their religious views outside their doors — space that is considered usable for both work and personal purposes.

“This reflects that the cadets understand the Constitution and have a greater faith in the Constitution than their leaders,” Boykin said of the posting of verses. “They are freely exercising their constitutional rights that they will be defending upon graduation.”

Gary McCaleb, another coalition member who serves as chief solicitor and executive vice president for strategy implementation at Alliance Defending Freedom, added that “suppressing religion is wrong whether it is done behind an Iron Curtain or in a dorm hallway.”

He said that religious discrimination has no place in the Air Force.

The latest response to the situation comes after Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, told TheBlaze Wednesday that there is a “revolt” underway at the academy over the removal of the cadet’s Bible verse.

Weinstein told TheBlaze that 29 cadets and four faculty and staff members — 26 of whom he described as Catholic or Protestant — disagreed with the verse’s presence and reached out to his organization after the verse was posted on the whiteboard.

Weinstein said he then contacted the Air Force Academy with concerns and the verse was subsequently removed — but he noted that additional cadets had begun to post verses of their own. The academy then officially responded to the initial Bible verse removal on Wednesday evening.

Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Michelle D. Johnson said in a statement to TheBlaze that she was “pleased” with the way cadets at the academy have “raised and discussed a recent concern” over the issue, going on to offer the school’s account of what unfolded.

Rather than an attack on religious adherence, Johnson explained that the initial verse was removed after considering the cadet’s leadership role at the academy. She also indicated that the move was voluntarily made by the cadet following discussion over the issue.

“The scripture was below the cadet’s name on a white board and could cause subordinates to doubt the leader’s religious impartiality,” Johnson said. “With the mentorship of the active duty commanding officer as part of the discussion, the cadet squadron commander raised this potential perception and the cadet voluntarily elected to erase the scripture.”

Image credit: Military Religious Freedom Foundation

Johnson’s statement did not address how other cadets who have posted scripture in solidarity and support will be handled, though it appears the Restore Military Religious Freedom Coalition is planning to assist any student who faces possible retribution.

TheBlaze is awaiting reply from the coalition to learn whether any cadets have taken advantage of the offer for assistance.

The coalition launched a website last year to offer support to military personnel who feel their First Amendment rights have been trampled. See a list of its 24 member organizations here.

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Featured image via Shutterstock.com

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While performing her song “Swine,” the singer was joined by someone named Millie Brown. Brown is an artist of sorts who specializes in painting with…vomit. That’s right, she ingests colored liquid and then sticks her fingers down her throat and literally vomits all over a canvas. On Thursday, Brown did just that — except there was no canvas: She vomited a green liquid onto Lada Gaga.

Image source: YouTube

Image source: YouTube

We’re not making this up.

See for yourself below, if you can stomach it (we’ve decided to only embed the relevant portion, as the video of the full performance may be too shocking).

*CONTENT WARNING FOR GRAPHIC AND RACY IMAGES*

Even TMZ, the celebrity gossip site, thought it was too much.

“Lady Gaga’s antics are sometimes inducing, but this is ridiculous,” the staff wrote, going on to call it “sick…literally.”

And there’s even more irony: Gaga revealed during an interview with ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel that she was wearing a coffee filter dress to cover herself up because she felt fat. That as she was having someone stick their hands down their throat and vomit on her.

Did her performance go too far?

(H/T: Daily Mail)

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Marcia Radosevich made the gesture and infamous exclamation as part of her response to the powers of Wellington village staff members during the monthly Planning, Zoning & Adjustment Board meeting March 5.

Her gesture was directed at Tim Stillings, the village’s planning and development services director, regarding a proposal that would let village staff consider projects without committee approval and review, the Palm Beach Post reported.

“Who gets to make that decision? You?” Radosevich asked.

“Yes,” Stillings answered, after which Radosevich thrust her right arm into the air at a distinct 45-degree angle and said “Heil Hitler.”

Image source: WPBF-TV

There was audible shock from several in attendance at the meeting, including Stillings, who said, “Wow…wow…that might be a bit over the top, I think.”

Radosevich can be heard in the footage trying to smooth things over, saying “If I offended you, I apologize,” but the damage apparently has been done.

According to WPTV-TV in West Palm Beach, emails have been pouring in to village leaders calling for Radosevich’s removal. The village council is reportedly placing the issue on the agenda for its next meeting, scheduled for March 25.

But Councilman Matt Willhite, who appointed Radosevich in 2012, said the council doesn’t have the power to remove her.

“We don’t have the ability to kick people off [citizen advisory boards],” Willhite told the Post, adding that Radosevich could only be removed from the board if “she was to resign on her own.”

While Radosevich has not responded to requests for comment from several news outlets, Willhite said she expressed remorse to him about the incident.

“I think she was very upset with the runaround she felt she was getting and the answers she wasn’t getting,” Willhite told the Post. “I’m guessing emotions got ahead of her, and she did something inappropriate — she knows that, I know that, we all know that.”

Rabbi Norman Klein of Temple Beth Torah in Wellington told WPTV the incident “calls into question [Radosevich's] ability to lead. Hitler wasn’t a joke, he was a terrible tragedy for the human race and particularly Jewish people and you don’t play around with those terms.”

Village Attorney Laurie Cohen, who participated in the meeting, told the Post that Radosevich’s statement and gesture were “really inappropriate.”

Executive Director of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce Michela Perillo-Green told WPBF-TV in West Palm Beach that she sent a letter to the chamber board asking that Radosevich’s tenure be revoked, a first in the decade Perillo-Green has been executive director.

“It is my intent to send a very clear message to our Membership, to the Village, and to our friends and family of the Jewish faith,” Perillo-Green reportedly wrote, “that we do not tolerate this type of horrifying behavior.”

Radosevich’s term ends in May, the Post said.

Here’s footage of the full incident:

Featured image via WPBF-TV

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Jason Greenslate said he’s “thankful” that taxpayers have subsidized his lifestyle, allowing him to pursue his “dream” of being in a band. (Image source: Fox News)

Jason Greenslate, 29, gained notoriety last August when he was captured on camera using food stamps to buy lobster.

Greenslate went on Fox News Thursday and said he hasn’t worked in a year because he believes practicing with his band is his real job.

Fox host Sean Hannity noted that Greenslate’s lifestyle, which also includes a Cadillac Escalade and strip clubs, is all done on someone else’s dime.

Hannity asked the surfer where he thinks the money comes from to pay for his food stamps and health care.

“Government; taxes; us; the people,” Greenslate said.

“Not you, because you’re not paying taxes,” the host responded.

Hannity noted that Californians are taxed at an enormous rate, nearly 60 cents of every dollar going toward the government, adding that Greenslate doesn’t seem to be very grateful for his subsidized lifestyle.

“You’re taking their money and you just don’t seem to care,” he said.

“Who says I don’t care?” Greenslate asked, saying he was “thankful.”

“I want to thank the United States of America, and the situation — the way things are set up,” Greenslate said, adding that he’ll pay back the taxpayers when his band makes the big time.

Hannity went for broke: “If I could get you a job that would pay you $80,000 a year driving a truck in North Dakota, would you take it?”

Greenslate paused for a moment to think about it: “No.”

–

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Take, for example, how he’s learned to use a video game controller.

Jacob Roberts was severely injured in an accident involving a lawn mower several years ago. He has taught himself to overcome obstacles in many ways since. (Image source: WKMG-TV)

Newer controllers are almost impossible to play with using just one hand. So how does litlteJacob brings the joystick up to his face, moving it around with his chin. It’s something he taught himself after several surgeries to recover from the accident, and he can beat his sister at games using this method.

He uses his chin to control a video game controller’s joystick. (Image source: WKMG-TV)

Jacob lost his hand below the wrist, so in therapy he demonstrated how they make him move it “up and down, up and down.” The hope is that he will someday get a prosthetic.

“Is there ever a time when you don’t want to go to the hospital?” WKMG-TV reporter Jamie Seh asked.

“Every time,” Jacob replied without hesitation.

But he has a positive outlook and does it anyway because “I know it’s not going to last long and I won’t get hurt.”

Watch WKMG-TV’s report:

His parents choke up thinking back on the tragic accident that happened nearly four years ago.

His mother started to cry at the memory.

“I heard the most horrendous sound I have ever heard in my entire life and that was my husband’s scream,” she told the news station.

To come to where he is now after the May 24, 2010, accident, Jacob spent 35 days in intensive care and had eight surgeries at the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando.

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Thanks to sophomore forward Amir Coffey, the No. 1-seeded Hopkins High School Royals in Minnesota will go on to the state semifinals, defeating Shakopee High School.

Image source: YouTube

Coffey took the more than half-court shot just in time, the buzzer ringing while the ball was still in the air making its way to the basket for a nothing-but-net swoosh.

Watch the moment:

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the game-ending shot wasn’t the only stunner in the game. In addition to the near-upset, in the first two overtimes no points were made by either team. Then there was the lead-up to Coffey’s shot:

There was some action in the fourth overtime. Hopkins turned the ball over in the final seconds, giving Shakopee a chance for a final shot, but Hopkins’ John Warren intercepted a pass, giving the Royals the ball and two seconds to make a miracle happen.

Enter Coffey, miracle worker.

“I thought it was too far to the right,” Coffey said afterward, according to the Star Tribune. “But it went in. That was a great feeling.”

Celebrating after the winning shot. (Image source: YouTube)

According to WCCO-TV, the Royals use a tactic that allowed them to keep possession of the ball for several minutes on end with the Shakopee team not breaking out its zone defense.

“Even if it’s four minutes, if you have the ball and you’re guaranteed the last shot no matter what, you’re going to hold it for four minutes,” Hopkins coach Ken Novak Jr. told WCCO.

When they finally got the last shot, Coffey took it.

“It was in slow motion,” Hopkins point guard Kamail Chambers told the Twin Cities Pioneer Press. “When it was halfway, I remember thinking, it has a chance. When it did go in, I asked myself, ‘Did that really go in?’ It was a great shot at a great time.”

This story has been updated.

(H/T: Reddit)

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But apparently Mark Zuckerberg can do a little more. He called the president directly.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg reached out to President Barack Obama Thursday night to express his concerns over alleged government spying tactics that would impact Facebook’s public image. The two met in person during a town hall meeting at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., April 20, 2011. (AP/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

The White House confirmed that Zuckerberg and Obama spoke Thursday night, discussing “recent reports in the press about alleged activities by the U.S. intelligence community,” according to Wired.

“I’ve called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future, Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Facebook. “Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform.”

Zuckerberg’s frustrations likely reached a tipping point when it was recently reported that the National Security Agency was masquerading as a Facebook server in order to infect targeted computers.

“I’ve been so confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behavior of the U.S. government. When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we’re protecting you against criminals, not our own government,” Zuckerberg said.

The NSA has flatly denied the alleged tactics, and released another statement on Thursday rebuffing claims of Internet impersonation. (Photo credit: Shutterstock)

“The U.S. government should be the champion for the Internet, not a threat. They need to be much more transparent about what they’re doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst.”

The NSA released a statement Thursday rebuffing the reports of alleged impersonation tactics, saying claims that the NSA infected million of computers around the world with malware and that the NSA mirrored U.S. social media sites for an information advantage are inaccurate, according to Reuters.

(H/T: Wired)

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David Wright headed the Office of Research Integrity at the Department of Health and Human Services. (Image source: ORI)

David Wright headed the Office of Research Integrity for two years and wrote in his letter dated Feb. 25 that his time with the agency left him “offended as an American taxpayer.”

The job was apparently not only unsatisfying, it was downright offensive, Wright said in the letter, which was first obtained by ScienceInsider.

It was “the very worst job I have ever had,” he said.

The Office of Research Integrity is responsible for reviewing possible misconduct in agency research projects.

The letter details frustrating experiences Wright had to deal with, including the agency’s refusal to give him $35 to convert cassette tapes to CD and the agency’s refusal to let him fill a vacancy in the office (he was informed by his secretary that there was a secret priority list of candidates).

The letter, which was addressed to Assistant Secretary for Health Howard Koh, goes on to accuse top agency officials of caring more about their personal advancement than about doing their jobs well.

“Since I’ve been here I’ve been advised by my superiors that I had ‘to make my bosses look good.’ I’ve been admonished: ‘Dave, you are a visionary leader but what we need here are team players,’” the letter reads. “Recently, I was advised that if I wanted to be happy in government service, I had to ‘lower my expectations.’ The one thing no one in OASH [Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health] leadership has said to me in two years is ‘how can we help ORI better serve the research community?’ Not once.”

Wright went on to note that Koh himself once described the office as operating in an “intensely political environment.”

Here’s the full text of the letter:

HHS officials have yet to publicly announce Wright’s exit, ScienceInsider reported.

His resignation was first reported last week by Retraction Watch. He will remain a federal employee until at least March 27, the letter indicates.

After his time is up, he said, he plans to publish a more full account of his experiences with the department.

(H/T: Washington Post)

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That’s the question the Pew Research Center set out to answer when it commissioned a study in 40 countries, finding that clear majorities in 22 of those nations think it is necessary to believe in God in order to have good values.

This belief is nearly universal in Africa and the Middle East, regions in which faith is often ingrained in culture. Interestingly, there is only one country surveyed in the Middle East in which majorities did not embrace this notion — Israel.

“At least three-quarters in all six countries surveyed in Africa say that faith in God is essential to morality. In the Middle East, roughly seven-in-ten or more agree in Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, the Palestinian territories, Tunisia and Lebanon,” according to Pew’s research. “Across the two regions, only in Israel does a majority think it is not necessary to believe in God to be an upright person.”

See the data below:

Image source: Pew Research Center (data for countries with a * comes from 2011; all other national data was collected in 2013)

In many nations, though, only small minorities believe that it is necessary to believe in God in order to be a moral person.

Consider China, where only 14 percent of respondents said that it is necessary to embrace the almighty to be moral; 75 percent believe that the connection is not necessary. In France, the proportions are similar, with 15 percent answering affirmatively and 85 percent embracing the notion that a belief in a higher power isn’t required for one to live a moral life.

But in America, a majority of Americans (53 percent) do believe that embracing God is essential to being a good person, with 46 percent standing in disagreement. In 2007, these proportions were 57 percent and 41 percent, respectively.

While there may be an assumption fewer Americans believe that belief in God is essential to personal morality, it should be noted that only 47 percent of the nation believed that a higher power and morality were tied together when the question was asked back in 2002.

The U.S. stands apart from other wealthy nations as having a majority that still believes that morality is predicated upon belief in a higher power, as wealthier nations tend to not see as deeply a tie between the two paradigms.

Pew derived this data from surveys conducted among 40,080 individuals in 40 countries between 2011 and 2013. The survey methods can be found here and full results are here.

(H/T: Huffington Post)

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“We are both seniors, sick with no money. We cannot pay for vet bills, or to put him to sleep. He has never been away from us in all those years, he cannot function without us, please put him to sleep,” the note left last week at the Baldwin Park Animal Shelter with the more than 13-year-old dachshund from his owners said.

This dachshund was left at a California animal shelter by its elderly owners who thought they had no other option to care for it anymore. A local nonprofit though discovered the dog’s ailments were treatable and sought to reunite him with his owners. (Image source: Leave No Paws Behind/Facebook)

But the shelter knew this didn’t have to be the end for the dog that would be named “Harley” for the time being. Someone at the shelter called Leave No Paws Behind, a nonprofit based in California that focuses on “seniors and pets with special needs.”

“That snapped my heart in two when I read the letter,” Toby Wisneski, CEO and founder of Leave No Paws Behind, told KCBS-TV.

The next few days were a whirlwind, getting Harley the help he needed and eventually leading to an effort to find his owners.

“His skin is a mess and he tested positive for non contagious demodex mange, he does have some bloody stools HOWEVER Doc believes it is all treatable!” Leave No Paws Behind wrote on its Facebook page after first receiving Harley.

The dog was named Harley for a short time, but after the owners were identified, we learned his name was Otto. (Image source: Leave No Paws Behind/Facebook)

By Friday, Harley was “doing great” after starting to receive treatments and the nonprofit was being flooded with calls to adopt him. But the Leave No Paws Behind wanted to reunite him with his original owners.

“I do not believe that all humans who surrender their loving companions are bad people. What I have come to realize is that some, and there are a few, fall on hard and difficult times, loss of jobs, senior and elderly folks who are sick and need help, loss of homes etc etc. I also believe that they are not aware that there is help out there for their beloved pets and we are hoping to be able to get that message to them,” the organization said on Facebook.

“If Harley’s humans come forward, we will speak with them, do our standard home check AND if we find that they are indeed loving, kind and genuinely care for sweet Harley, which we do believe, and the only issue is help with medical care and basic needs for him, yes, we will reunite them!” the post continued.

Over the next several days, news of Harley spread but there was still no word from his owners. The organization got their big break with a lead on Wednesday.

The owners were found and Harley, it was learned, is actually named Otto — Otto Wolfgang Maximus to be exact.

“We just are living week to week,” one of Otto’s owners, who asked to remain anonymous, told KTLA-TV, expressing their grief at leaving the dog. “We can’t even go to the hospital to get our treatment.

“We thought he was dead, but he lives,” the owner continued. “He’s being well taken care of and, boy, we’re just so extremely grateful.”

Watch the news station’s report:

Otto and his pet parents will be officially reunited on March 28.

(H/T: Yahoo)

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That data, the outlet says, shows the plane headed west using routes usually reserved for flights to Europe or the Middle East, and followed known navigational waypoints.

Lt. Col Bambang Sudewo, commander of the 5th Air Squadron “Black Mermaids” examines a map following a search operation for the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that was conducted over the Strait of Malacca, at Suwondo air base in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Friday, March 14, 2014. The jetliner vanished nearly a week ago with 239 people aboard. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)

From the report:

This indicates that it was either being flown by the pilots or someone with knowledge of those waypoints, the sources said.

The last plot on the military radar’s tracking suggested the plane was flying toward India’s Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said.

Waypoints are geographic locations, worked out by calculating longitude and latitude, that help pilots navigate along established air corridors.

A third source familiar with the investigation said inquiries were focusing increasingly on the theory that someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately diverted the flight.

“What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the cards,” a source told Reuters.

And now the search is expanding.

India said Friday it was expanding its search for the missing Malaysian jetliner to seas west of the Andaman Islands as the international hunt shifted toward the Indian Ocean amid signs that the jet may have flown on for hours after last contact.

A U.S. official told The Associated Press that the Malaysia Airlines plane sent signals to a satellite for four hours after the aircraft went missing early last Saturday, raising the possibility the jet carrying 239 people could have flown far from the current search areas.

Potentially, this vastly expands the area the lost jet might be. It also complicates an international search effort that has turned up no trace of the plane nearly a week after it vanished above the Gulf of Thailand between Malaysia and Vietnam in one of aviation history’s most puzzling mysteries.

Much of the early search has focused east of Malaysia in the South China Sea, where the aircraft last communicated with air traffic base stations about an hour after departing on a flight to Beijing.

A similar-sized search is also being conducted in the Strait of Malacca, west of Malaysia, because of military radar sightings that might indicate the plane turned in that direction after its last contact, passing back over the Malay Peninsula and heading westward.

The White House said the U.S. may be drawn into a new phase of the search in the vast Indian Ocean. The U.S. Navy 7th Fleet said it is moving one of its ships, the USS Kidd, into the Strait of Malacca.

Six Indian navy and coast guard ships plus reconnaissance planes have searched eastern parts of Andaman seas over the past three days, and were expanding their search to areas west of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands chain Friday, said V.S.R. Murty, an Indian Coast Guard inspector.

Read the full Reuters report.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Image source: ShutterStock.com

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a church-state separatist group, sent a letter to Birmingham Police Chief A.C. Roper this week, complaining over his involvement in a Christian ministry called Prayer Force United — and taking aim at sectarian prayers that the group claims are a part of staff meetings and events.

“We understand that you are ‘a licensed and ordained minister serving at Faith Chapel Christian Center in Birmingham,’ and that you are violating the Constitution by mixing your official government duties with your religious zeal,” read the letter, written by Freedom From Religion Foundation attorney Andrew Seidel.

At the heart of the matter is the group’s claim that Roper leads monthly prayer walks throughout Birmingham in an effort to lower crime.

According to the Prayer Force United website, these events are conducted “in coordination” with Roper. The prayer walks, which take place in different parts of the city each month, include churches and neighbors who appeal to God to crack down on crime.

Seidel charged in his letter that this collaboration between Roper and the faith community is unconstitutional, stating that it is illegal for the police chief to use his office to “advance, promote or endorse one religion over another, or religion over nonreligion.”

The letter claims that prayer is not effective in stopping violence and that studies show that societies with less prayer actually have a lower rate of violence.

“The walks themselves may lower crime simply by having crowds on the streets escorted by police cars with flashing lights, but that is not because of the power of prayer — it is the power of people,” Seidel wrote.

But Roper told AL.com that prayer walks are only one of the many components his department uses to try and cut back on crime and pledged to continuing being inclusive and supporting interfaith events, as he says the department has done in the past.

“Obviously, it’s no secret that I support the prayer walks and many other faith-based community events as one tool in our overall crime-fighting strategy,” Roper said. “We have built strong partnerships with various groups, and I believe they have done a wonderful job committing their assets and assisting us in addressing various issues that affect crime.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation assembled a video with clips of Roper speaking about faith:

Roper added that he believes each individual’s personal beliefs should be both “respected and protected.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s letter concluded by asking the police chief to discontinue using his official title to promote Christianity and to cease his official relationship with Prayer Force United.

Additionally, the group asked that Roper reach out in writing to show that he has decided to uphold is “oath to protect the Constitution, not trample it underfoot.”

–

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Image source: Official music video via Vevo

“I’ve been a lifelong fan,” Hillcoat told the Guardian, adding that he was inspired by the Man in Black’s voice, which “has a truth to it at all times.”

Among the huge collection of images in the dark-tinged Americana video are the ruins of Cash’s burned-down Nashville lake house as well as Nickajack cave in Tennessee where Cash said he crawled into one day, planning to die in the darkness, only to experience a spiritual epiphany that led him out. (The video begins at the cave’s entrance and ends with an exit into the light.)

Image source: Official music video via Vevo

It’s taken so long for “Out Among the Stars” to release because it was shelved by Columbia shortly after it was recorded — “He was loved by America, and then found himself suddenly cast aside,” Hillcoat told the Guardian, reflecting Cash’s professional downturn in the 1980s before the huge revival he experienced in the 1990s until his death.

She used to love me with a love that wouldn’t die
Looking at her now I can’t believe I said good-bye
It would only take a minute to turn back the clock
She used to love me a lot

Image source: Official music video via Vevo

“If I recall correctly Cash was one of the first major public figures to openly talk about drug addiction, his inner demons and his problems with women and relationships,” Hillcoat told the Guardian. “America loved him because he spoke for the common man.”

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The driver struck multiple pedestrians around 12:30 a.m. on a block filled with concertgoers, then sped down the street, hitting and killing a man from the Netherlands on a bicycle and an Austin woman on a moped, Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said. The driver eventually crashed into a parked van and tried to flee on foot before police used a stun gun to subdue him.

Rashad Charjuan Owens, 21, will face two counts of capital murder and 23 counts of aggravated assault with a vehicle, Austin police said Thursday afternoon in a statement. Formal charges are still pending. The statement did not provide a city of residence.

Rashad Owens (Bell County Sheriff’s Dept. for a 2012 arrest.)

Police said the incident started when an officer on a drunken-driving patrol tried to stop a vehicle. Acevedo indicated the suspect was drunk, but drunken driving was not among the charges police said Owens would face. Acevedo said investigators have obtained blood samples and were testing them.

Public records obtained by The Associated Press show that Owens had a previous conviction in Alaska for drunken driving and one in Texas for criminal trespassing.

Acevedo said he believed Owens was so intent on evading the police that he willfully drove into the crowd.

“The bottom line is, when somebody’s acting intentionally, and this is a person that was trying to get away, it’s very difficult to stop,” Acevedo said, adding later: “It’s clear for me from his actions, from what I’ve seen, that this is an individual who showed no regard for the human beings that he plowed through in his attempt to get away.”

Acevedo said the crash transformed Red River Street – which is on the northeast edge of an Austin entertainment district that’s packed at all hours of the day and night during South By Southwest – into “basically a very long crime scene.”

Crime scene tape near the scene Thursday March 13, 2014, of the tragic accident when Rashad Charjuan Owens, 22, of Killeen, drove a vehicle past barricades and into a crowd of people at Red River and Ninth Streets in downtown Austin, Texas. The crash killed two people and injured 23 more. (AP Photo/Austin American-Statesman, Laura Skelding)

The crash was loud enough to shake the living room of Kirk Visser’s condo, two stories up.

“I knew I had heard metal on a body,” said the 47-year-old, who stepped out on his balcony to see people screaming and running in all directions.

Hours later, a pool of blood and bits of broken taillight were still in a crosswalk at the scene, with a trail of crimson droplets leading to the sidewalk. Still, concertgoers streamed in for another day of festivities, and by early afternoon, bass boomed through the area as bands played scheduled concerts nearby.

Now in its 27th year, South By Southwest has grown from a small showcase for up-and-coming bands to an international extravaganza, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors and top music and Hollywood stars. Acevedo said the festival had never experienced a similar deadly incident before.

Roland Swenson, the festival’s managing director, said events would continue “through this tragic time.”

“I think it would probably cause more problems for everyone to show up and be turned away from a show than to just move ahead,” Swenson said.

Three people were in critical condition Thursday afternoon, up from two earlier in the day.

“We are going to do our best for them, but these are some of the worst injuries that we see and not everybody with these kinds of injuries is going to survive,” said Dr. Christopher Ziebell, the emergency department director at the University Medical Center-Brackenridge, about three blocks from where the crash occurred and where most of the victims were taken.

Massive Music, a company with offices in Amsterdam, New York and London, said employee Steven Craenmehr, 35, died suddenly in Austin. Additional information wasn’t available.

The Travis County medical examiner identified the other person who died as 27-year-old Jamie Ranae West of Austin. West was on the moped that was struck. Her husband, Evan West, was among those hospitalized.

The names of the other injured people were not released.

Public records obtained by the AP show that, as a 19-year-old, Owens was charged and pleaded guilty to driving under the influence in Fairbanks, Alaska, in October 2011. He also was charged with leaving the scene of an accident, but that charge was dismissed.

He also was charged in Alaska with criminal mischief related to a May 2012 incident. Court records show a warrant was issued for him in October 2012 after he failed to appear in court and the case remains open.

Records also show that in September 2010, Owens was arrested in Texas by the Killeen Independent School District police for criminal trespassing. He pleaded guilty and was convicted in October 2010.

Police said the latest incident started when an officer on a drunken-driving patrol tried to stop the driver at a gas station a few blocks away. The car took off, weaving between parked cars, and racing the wrong way down a one-way street.

The driver rammed through police barriers – three wooden pieces held up by metal poles – forcing an attending police officer to dive out of the way near The Mohawk nightclub, where the bands X and TEEN had just wrapped up and rapper Tyler the Creator was scheduled to perform at 1 a.m.

Next door, Ted Evans, 29, watched singer-songwriter Kurt Vile on the outdoor stage at Cheer Up Charlie’s nightclub when the New York City resident said he heard what he thought was a gunshot.

“There was blood on the ground. I saw some people who had blood on their hands,” said Evans, who said police canceled shows at both clubs shortly after the incident.

The driver continued down the street, hitting a bicyclist, two people on a moped and a taxi before striking a van.

One bouquet of flowers sat by a telephone pole in front of The Mohawk on Thursday afternoon. Daytime concerts there and next door were canceled, but Thursday evening’s slate of bands was to go on as scheduled.

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Make no mistake, “software substitution” is a fancy way of saying software automation — as in “bots” and whatnot. Many of the jobs that could be eliminated are lower skill occupations.

“Software substitution, whether it’s for drivers or waiters or nurses … it’s progressing,” Gates said. “Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set. … 20 years from now, labor demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower. I don’t think people have that in their mental model.”

Philanthropist Bill Gates, co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, speaks about agriculture at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on March 13, 2014. AFP PHOTO / Jim WATSON

The billionaire also provided some common sense ways to get out ahead of the coming problem.

Firstly, he said, the tax codes need to be updated to encourage companies to hire employees. He suggested possibly doing away with income and payroll taxes entirely.

As he has before, Gates also warned against raising the national minimum wage out of fear that it will prevent employers from hiring new workers. Many of the workers that would be impacted by future “software substitution” would be those making minimum wage, he argued.

“When people say we should raise the minimum wage. I worry about what that does to job creation … potentially damping demand in the part of the labor spectrum that I’m most worried about,” Gates said.

(H/T: Business Insider)

Watch our discussion about this story:

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WKMG-TV reported the cross-dressing man, who remains at large, at first threw a drink when the women wouldn’t let him hitch a ride Tuesday, but the incident became more violent later.

Corsica Cleveland drove away, but she was stopped at a traffic light where the man caught up with them. This time, he threw rocks that broke the car’s glass.

Image source: WKMG-TV

“Nobody was cut, but we had like glass in our hair and in our clothes,” Cleveland told WESH-TV, which noted that a 5-year-old was in the car as well. “We were scared. We were in fear for our lives. We were scared because he could have had a gun or something because he had a purse.”

Watch footage that was taken by another driver during the attack:

Orlando police are searching for the man, according to WESH.

Connie Smith, an Orlando resident, who was shown the footage by WKMG, told the news station it’s also something to consider that people watched this attack happen and did nothing about it.

“We’re standing by and we’re watching these things happen and we’re video taping these things happening and then we’re saying ‘what can we do?’ You know, you could put that camera down,” Smith said.

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Sam Gill and Troy Rawlings are already working with the FBI and are now urging federal prosecutors with the Department of Justice to open an investigation. So far, the DOJ has declined to do so.

WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 11: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) answers questions following a weekly policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on March 11, 2014 in Washington, DC. Reid commented on allegations made by Sen. Dianne Feinstein regarding the CIA and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Win McNamee/Getty Images

“The Utah officials say the evidence relates to suspect campaign contributions and other financial transactions,” ABC News reports.

Gill, a Democrat and district attorney in Salt Lake County, said there could be an “innocent explanation” or a “sinister explanation” behind the evidence. The only way to get to the bottom of it is to fully investigate, he said.

Rawlins, the district attorney in Davis County, argued the “most appropriate entity to review those type of things, if they would, would be the Department of Justice.”

He said the DOJ has a responsibility to “look at allegations of conduct or misconduct involving federal officials.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah pauses while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Committee annual conference in National Harbor, Md., Thursday, March 6, 2014. Thursday marks the first day of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, which brings together prospective presidential candidates, conservative opinion leaders and tea party activists from coast to coast.(AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

More from the ABC News report:

When they began, their effort was narrowly focused on allegations of corruption facing the newly elected Utah Attorney General, John Swallow. Swallow has denied the allegations against him, but resigned his state post in November, less than a year after being elected.

[…]

The investigation, with the assistance of the FBI team, has continued to focus largely on state players. But the two local prosecutors said they may be forced to consider expanding it to include federal players if the Department of Justice remains on the sideline.

“If somebody commits crimes and there’s a nexus to the state of Utah and we can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, it doesn’t matter who they are,” Rawlings said. “Even a U.S. senator. And no, we’re not afraid of that. That’s our job.”

Information about the investigation is limited because the probe is still ongoing. As the Washington Times notes, the case hinges on a few key questions:

• whether both or either politician sought or received money or other benefits from donors and/or fund-raisers in connection with doing political favors or taking official actions;

• whether Mr. Lee provided accurate information when he bought, then sold a Utah home for a big loss to a campaign contributor and federal contractor, leaving his mortgage bank to absorb large losses.

Further, some of the allegations seem to rely on claims made by one of the key players who worked at a St. George, Utah, bank that handled transitions made by one of the world’s largest online poker companies to process hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds.

“Johnson claims he was instructed by online poker figures to hide illegal contributions to the campaigns of Reid and Lee in 2010 by finding ‘straw donors’ who were reimbursed from poker accounts in the bank for money they supposedly contributed,” the report states.

Johnson is awaiting trial in Utah on 86 Internet fraud charges. He is accused of cheating people out of millions of dollars.

Adam Jentleson, a spokesperson for Sen. Reid called the claims by the district attorneys a “publicity stunt.” He said Reid “has never been contacted in regards to this investigation” and called Johnson “a desperate individual who’s been indicted on over 80 counts.”

A spokesman for Sen. Lee also said no one from the prosecutor’s office or the FBI has contacted the Utah senator.

ABC Entertainment News | ABC Business News

Read the full ABC News report here.

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(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

In a meeting with Latino lawmakers, Obama said he was deeply concerned about the pain that families feel when they are separated because of a broken U.S. immigration system. He told the lawmakers he’s asking Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to perform an inventory of current practices “to see how it can conduct enforcement more humanely within the confines of the law,” the White House said in a statement.

The announcement comes as immigrant rights activists, frustrated by the lack of progress in Congress, have been pressuring Obama to halt all deportations. Obama had said he doesn’t have the power to take that step unilaterally, although he has previously moved to ease deportations for some children brought into the U.S. illegally.

The Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill last June with strong bipartisan support that would create a pathway for citizenship for the 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally, tighten border security and establish new visa and enforcement programs. The measure has languished in the House despite calls from Republican Party leaders, business groups, religious organizations and labor for lawmakers to act.

Taking part in the meeting Thursday were Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas, who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., a prominent immigration advocate, and House Democratic Caucus Xavier Becerra of California also joined Obama in the Oval Office.

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