(CBS News) WASHINGTON - The Secret Service sex scandal is getting wider.

The dispute over payment to a prostitute in Cartagena, Colombia, by a Secret Service agent has triggered new charges of hard partying and impropriety by agents around the globe.

Two weeks after the incident in Cartagena, the Secret Service is working to quickly wrap up that portion of the scandal, but there are reports of unprofessional behavior and rule-breaking by agents in four countries, going back 12 years.

On Capitol Hill, there are growing demands for an outside agency to take over the probe.

Clayton Osbon, the JetBlue captain who experienced a mid-air meltdown on March 27, has plans to plead insanity in a Texas court, according to reports.

In a motion filed Wednesday, Osbon's attorneys alerted federal prosecutors that Osbon will state he was insane at the time of his meltdown, the Amarillo Globe News reports.

On March 28, Osbon was charged with interference with a flight crew or attendants, an offense that could lead to 20 years in prison.

Here is a copy of the letter sent by a "Zimmerman family member" to the NAACP. The letter seeks to remind members of the NAACP of George Zimmerman's involvement in seeking justice for a homeless black man beaten by the son of a Sanford police officer.

Here is a transcript of George Zimmerman's call to 911 on the evening that he shot Trayvon Martin to death.

A new 47-page document, quietly dumped online by the city of Sanford, details some of the phone calls George Zimmerman made to emergency dispatchers in Seminole County, Florida. Zimmerman, a self-styled neighborhood watch captain in his Orlando suburb, shot 17-year-old African American Trayvon Martin dead last month after reporting him to police as a suspicious person prowling the area. The newly released police calls paint Zimmerman as a man obsessed with law and order, with the minutiae of suburban life, and with black males.

Every year, millions of Americans scramble to file their income taxes before the filing deadline — ordinarily April 15.

But procrastinators get a reprieve this year: The 2012 deadline falls on Tuesday, April 17.

This year, April 15 falls on a Sunday. One might expect that would make Monday, April 16, the 2012 filing deadline.

But not so this year. Monday is the District of Columbia's Emancipation Day — a local holiday unfamiliar to most Americans.

Internal Revenue Service spokesman Eric Smith says, by law, District of Columbia holidays are treated like federal holidays when it comes to tax deadlines.

(Reuters) - Americans are deeply divided by race over the killing of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, with 91 percent of African-Americans saying he was unjustly killed, while just 35 percent of whites thought so, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Thursday.

The special prosecutor investigating the death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin announced Wednesday evening that George Zimmerman, who told police he shot Martin in self defense, has been charged with second-degree murder.

Zimmerman will plead not guilty to the charges, according to his attorneys. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.

Zimmerman, who has been in hiding for weeks, is in police custody. Special prosecutor Angela Corey said during a news conference in Jacksonville, Fla., that she would not reveal where Zimmerman was out of concern for his safety. "He is within the custody of law enforcement officers in the state of Florida," Corey said.

The murder charge indicates prosecutors plan to prove Zimmerman shot Martin with malice, though without premeditation. A manslaughter charge would have required prosecutors to prove only that Zimmerman acted unlawfully and with criminal negligence in shooting the teen.

"The difference between murder and manslaughter is your mental state," said Mark Geragos, a Los Angeles defense attorney, who is not connected to the case. "To elevate it to murder, you have to have the element of malice."

In Florida, a grand jury must be convened before issuing first-degree murder charges. On Monday, Corey announced that she would not convene a grand jury, which had been scheduled for Tuesday, in the Martin case.

George Zimmerman's attorneys said in a press conference Tuesday afternoon that they will no longer be representing him. The attorneys claim that Zimmerman repeatedly rebuffed their legal advice, and that they have now lost contact with him.

"As of now we are withdrawing as counsel for Mr. Zimmerman," Craig Sonner, one of his attorneys, told reporters outside the Seminole County Courthhouse in Sanford, Fla. "We've lost contact with him. Up to this point, we've had contact with him everyday. He's gone on his own. I'm not sure what he's doing or who he's talking to, but at this point we're withdrawing as counsel. If he wants us to come back as counsel, he will contact us."

Sonner said that he had never met Zimmerman face to face, and that their conversations have all taken place via telephone.

Update [4:59pm ET]: This story will be updated as new events unfold

Zimmerman's attorneys announced they have stepped down and are no longer representing him
Say they have "lost contact" with Zimmerman and are withdrawing as counsel
Attorneys say they still believe former client is innocent and acted in self-defense

"It's no so much that we are resigning. It's that we cannot continue to represent him until he comes forward," said attorney Craig Sonner.

"He's got to reach out to us," added co-counsel Hal Uhrig.

Zimmerman's former attorneys say their client has not returned their phone calls since Sunday.

For us, a rather shocking moment occurs around 11:45 on this tape.

At that point, without comment from Sharpton, new videotape of Zimmerman appears. It offers a very large close-up of the back of his head as he arrives at the Sanford police station on the night of the killing.

This close-up isn’t grainy. And wow! In this close-up image, the back of Zimmerman’s head seems to be completely pristine. There isn’t the slightest sign of any blemish or injury.

There isn’t a stub of a hair out of place. There is no sign of any injury. To judge from this new close-up view, Zimmerman didn’t suffer the slightest wound or abrasion on the night of the killing—just exactly as we libs have been told. (See the second comment to Drum, above.)

Does that close-up represent an accurate picture of Zimmerman’s head on the night of the killing? We have no idea. But this close-up photo is impossible to reconcile with two earlier close-up shots, including one close-up which was aired by MSNBC on March 29. That close-up seemed to show an obvious goose-egg on the back of Zimmerman’s head, crowned with an obvious abrasion.

Later, ABC produced another close-up of Zimmerman’s head. This close-up was grainer, and more distant, than the image aired by MSNBC. But it seemed to show two abrasions on the back of Zimmerman’s head.

Which of these three close-up views is not like the others? In fact, none of these images seems like the either one of others! But last night’s close-up completely contrasts with the close-up this same cable channel showed on March 29.

On March 29, Zimmerman had an obvious wound on the back of his head. Last evening, his head was pristine. (For a link to that earlier close-up, with viewing instruictions, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 4/4/12.)
http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2012/04/disappearing-trick-msnbcs-apparent.html

Question: What exactly does it mean when news orgs tell us that we’re looking at “enhanced” photos? We don’t know, but as non-experts, we would say this: One of the close-ups shown by MSNBC simply has to be doctored.

“Doctored.” Not enhanced.

American scientists have drawn up plans for a new generation of nuclear-powered drones capable of flying over remote regions of the world for months on end without refuelling.

The blueprints for the new drones, which have been developed by Sandia National Laboratories – the US government's principal nuclear research and development agency – and defence contractor Northrop Grumman, were designed to increase flying time "from days to months" while making more power available for operating equipment, according to a project summary published by Sandia.

"It's pretty terrifying prospect," said Chris Coles of Drone Wars UK, which campaigns against the increasing use of drones for both military and civilian purposes. "Drones are much less safe than other aircraft and tend to crash a lot. There is a major push by this industry to increase the use of drones and both the public and government are struggling to keep up with the implications."

Since the Trayvon Martin story has received national attention, Sanford, Fla. has gone from a virtually unknown city to the center of the spotlight. Now, a group of neo-Nazis are patrolling the area, saying they are "prepared" for violence in case a race riot ensues, the Miami New Times reports.

The Detroit-based group said they are not advocating violence, but instead are responding to white residents' fear of a race riot.

"Whenever there is one of these racially charged events, Al Sharpton goes wherever blacks need him," Commander Jeff Schoep of the National Socialist Movement told the news outlet. "We do similar things. We are a white civil rights organization."

It's often said that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. But you can add "rehashing of the O.J. Simpson case" to that list -- at least for the last 18 years.

So it should come as no surprise that a new book has been published about the 1994 murders of Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman.

In 1995, a California jury acquitted O.J. Simpson of the killings. A civil lawsuit, later filed by the victims' families, resulted in a 1997 judgment finding Simpson liable for the deaths and ordering him to pay $33.5 million in damages.

The latest installment in the Simpson library is not another "If I Did It," in which the former gridiron great speculated on how he might have killed his former wife. Instead, the new book points the finger of guilt away from Simpson and lays the blame on his son, Jason Simpson.

Last week, a video was released showing George Zimmerman at the Sanford Police Department the night he shot and killed Trayvon Martin. It originally appeared as though the neighborhood watch volunteer showed no signs of the violent confrontation he told police took place between himself and the teen that night, but ABC news has enhanced the video showing signs of injury on Zimmerman's head.

ABC's Matt Gutman said the network re-digitized the video to reveal what appears to be "a pair of gashes or welts" on the back of Zimmerman's head. This discovery is more consistent with Zimmerman's account of what happened the night of Feb. 26. According to a police report first described by the Orlando Sentinel, Zimmerman told investigators that Martin jumped him from behind, punched him in the nose and pounded his head into a sidewalk.

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NICK R. MARTIN MARCH 31, 2012, 9:23 AM 46464 1626
The killing of unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman has reopened old racial wounds and ignited calls for justice from across the nation.

But as often happens when a local case captures national attention, the hard facts of the killing seem to have been drowned out amid the rumors, shouts and political rhetoric.

The debate has its place, no doubt. But to try to more clearly present what actually happened on the night of Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla., TPM has put together a guide to the events that reportedly took place before, during and immediately after the killing.

George Zimmerman was fired from his job as an under-the-table security guard for “being too aggressive,” a former co-worker told the Daily News.

Zimmerman, at the center of a firestorm for shooting an unarmed black teenager a month ago, worked for two different agencies providing security to illegal house parties between 2001 and 2005, the former co-worker said.

“Usually he was just a cool guy. He liked to drink and hang with the women like the rest of us,” he said. “But it was like Jekyll and Hyde. When the dude snapped, he snapped.”

The source said Zimmerman, who made between $50 and $100 a night, was let go in 2005.

Three days of Supreme Court arguments over the health-care law demonstrated for all to see that conservative justices are prepared to act as an alternative legislature, diving deeply into policy details as if they were members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Senator, excuse me, Justice Samuel Alito quoted Congressional Budget Office figures on Tuesday to talk about the insurance costs of the young. On Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts sounded like the House whip in discussing whether parts of the law could stand if other parts fell. He noted that without various provisions, Congress "wouldn't have been able to put together, cobble together, the votes to get it through." Tell me again, was this a courtroom or a lobbyist's office?

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It fell to the court's liberals — the so-called "judicial activists," remember? — to remind their conservative brethren that legislative power is supposed to rest in our government's elected branches.

The Herald reported that when campus security confronted Martin with the jewelry, he told them that a friend had given it to him, but he wouldn't give a name. The report said the jewelry was confiscated and a photo of it was sent to Miami-Dade Police burglary detectives. Miami-Dade school officials declined Tuesday to confirm the report when contacted by The Associated Press, citing federal privacy laws regarding students.

Miami-Dade Police confirmed that it had been asked by school police to help identify the property taken from Martin's backpack. It notified school police that the jewelry did not match any that had been reported stolen.

An eyewitness provides details about what was heard and seen before and after George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin.

Recently divulged information about Trayvon Martin's checkered academic history has added a new dimension to the very public discussion about the deceased teenager's month-old shooting.

As it turns out, Martin was suspended a number of times from Krop Senior High School in Miami Gardens for infractions ranging from tardiness and truancy up to possession of marijuana and a screwdriver that the school's security staff described as a "burglary tool."

The troubling incidents date back to October 2011, when Martin was allegedly caught with a horde of women's jewelry and the aforementioned screwdriver, according the Miami Herald. According to a report issued by Trayvon's school district, on October 21, security camera footage showed Trayvon Martin and two other students writing "W.T.F." on a hallway locker. A security guard saw the footage, detained Trayvon and searched his bag for the offending marker. In the process of the search, the guard uncovered 12 pieces of women's jewelry, a watch and the screwdriver.

...

The Martin family's attorney confirmed that Trayvon had been suspended for graffiti, but insisted that the the family knew nothing about the jewelry or alleged "burglary tool" mentioned in the school district's report. Both the Martin family and their attorney suggested that the report about Trayvon's disciplinary history was disingenuous and may even have been intended to "demonize" the deceased youth.

It may be impossible to overstate the importance of bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs to American music. A pioneering banjo player who helped create modern country music, his sound is instantly recognizable and as intrinsically wrapped in the tapestry of the genre as Johnny Cash's baritone or Hank Williams' heartbreak.

Scruggs died Wednesday morning at age 88 of natural causes. The legacy he helped build with bandleader Bill Monroe, guitarist Lester Flatt and the rest of the Blue Grass Boys was evident all around Nashville, where he died in an area hospital. His string-bending, mind-blowing way of picking helped transform a regional sound into a national passion.

"It's not just bluegrass, it's American music," bluegrass fan turned country star Dierks Bentley said. "There's 17- or 18-year-old kids turning on today's country music and hearing that banjo and they have no idea where that came from. That sound has probably always been there for them and they don't realize someone invented that three-finger roll style of playing. You hear it everywhere."

Country music has transcended its regional roots, become a billion-dollar music and tourist enterprise, and evolved far beyond the classic sound Monroe and The Blue Grass Boys blasted out over the radio on The Grand Ole Opry on Dec. 8, 1945. Though he would eventually influence American culture in wide-ranging ways, Scruggs had no way of knowing this as he nervously prepared for his first show with Monroe. The 21-year-old wasn't sure how his new picking style would go over.

"I'd heard The Grand Ole Opry and there was tremendous excitement for me just to be on The Grand Ole Opry," Scruggs recalled during a 2010 interview at Ryman Auditorium, where that "big bang" moment occurred. "I just didn't know if or how well I'd be accepted because there'd never been anybody to play banjo like me here. There was Stringbean and Grandpa Jones. Most of them were comedians."

There was nothing jokey about the way Scruggs attacked his "fancy five-string banjo," as Opry announcer George D. Hayes called it. In a performance broadcast to much of the country but unfortunately lost to history, he scorched the earth and instantly changed country music. With Monroe on mandolin and Flatt on guitar, the pace was a real jolt to attendees and radio listeners far away, and in some ways the speed and volume he laid down predicted the power of electric music.

Tut Taylor, a friend of the Scruggs family who heard that first performance on the radio in his Georgia home, called it an unbelievably raucous moment "a lot like some of the rock `n' roll things they had, you know. But this was a new sound. It was a pretty sound and a welcome sound."

Scruggs' use of three fingers — in place of the limited clawhammer style once prevalent — elevated the banjo from a part of the rhythm section — or even a comedian's prop — to a lead instrument that was as versatile as the guitar and far more flashy.

Country great Porter Wagoner probably summed up Scruggs' importance best of all: "I always felt like Earl was to the five-string banjo what Babe Ruth was to baseball. He is the best there ever was, and the best there ever will be."

His string-bending and lead runs became known worldwide as "the Scruggs picking style" and the versatility it allowed has helped popularize the banjo beyond the traditional bluegrass and country forms. Today the banjo can be found in almost any genre, largely due to the way he freed its players to experiment and find new space.

That was exactly what Ralph Stanley had in mind when he first heard Scruggs lay it down. A legendary banjo player in his own right, Stanley said in an interview last year that he was inspired by Scruggs when he first heard him over the radio after returning home from military service in Germany.

"I wasn't doing any playing," Stanley said. "When I got discharged I began listening to Bill and Earl was with him. I already had a banjo at that time, but of course I wanted to do the three-finger roll. I knew Earl was the best, but I didn't want to sound like him. I wanted to do that style, but I wanted to sound the way I felt and that's what I tried to do."

Dave Rawlings, a Nashville singer-songwriter and producer, says Scruggs remains every bit as influential and fresh seven decades later. He said it's impossible to imagine nearly every guitar player mimicking Jimi Hendrix, but with Scruggs and the banjo, that's the reality.

"The breadth and clarity of the instrument was increased so much," he said. "He invented a style that now probably 75 percent of the people that play the banjo in the world play Scruggs-style banjo. And that's a staggering thing to do, to play an instrument and change what everyone is doing."

News of Scruggs' passing quickly spread around the music world and over Twitter. Bentley and bluegrassers like Sam Bush and Jon Randall Stewart celebrated him at the Tin Pan South gathering of songwriters in Nashville and Eddie Stubbs dedicated the night to him on WSM, the home of the Grand Ole Opry. On the Internet, actor and accomplished banjo player Steve Martin called Scruggs, with whom he collaborated in 2001 on "Earl Scruggs and Friends," "the most important banjo player who ever lived." Hank Williams Jr. sent prayers to the Scruggs family and Charlie Daniels tweeted, "He meant a lot to me. Nobody will ever play a five string banjo like Earl."

Neil Portnow, president and CEO of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences said in a statement the four-time Grammy winner and lifetime achievement award recipient "leaves an indelible legacy that will be remembered for generations to come."

Flowers were to be placed on his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday.

Scruggs earned that star when he and Flatt weaved themselves into the fabric of American culture in the 1950s and `60s.

Flatt and Scruggs teamed as a bluegrass act after leaving Monroe from the late 1940s until breaking up in 1969 in a dispute over whether their music should experiment or stick to tradition. Flatt died in 1979.

They were best known for their 1949 recording "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," played in the 1967 movie "Bonnie and Clyde," and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" from "The Beverly Hillbillies," the popular TV series that debuted in 1962. Jerry Scoggins did the singing. For many viewers, the endlessly hummable theme song was their first introduction to country music.

Flatt and Scruggs' popularity grew, and they even became a focal point of the folk music revival on college campuses. Scruggs' wife, Louise, was their manager and was credited with cannily guiding their career as well as boosting interest in country music.

Later, as rock `n' roll threatened country music's popularity, Flatt and Scruggs became symbols of traditional country music.

In the 1982 interview, Scruggs said "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Beverly Hillbillies" broadened the scope of bluegrass and country music "more than anything I can put my finger on. Both were hits in so many countries."

After the breakup with Flatt, Scruggs used three of his sons in The Earl Scruggs Revue. The group played on bills with rock acts such as Steppenwolf and James Taylor. Sometimes they played festivals before 40,000 people.

Scruggs will always be remembered for his willingness to innovate, but he wasn't always accepted for it. In "The Big Book of Bluegrass," Scruggs discussed the breakup with Flatt and how his need to experiment drove a rift between them. Later in 1985, he and Flatt were inducted together in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

"It wasn't a bad feeling toward each other as much as it was that I felt I was depriving myself of something," Scruggs said. "By that, I mean that I love bluegrass music, and I still like to play it, but I do like to mix in some other music for my own personal satisfaction, because if I don't, I can get a little bogged down and a little depressed."

In 2005, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" was selected for the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry of works of unusual merit. The following year, the 1972 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," on which Scruggs was one of many famous guest performers, joined the list, too.

Scruggs had been fairly active in the 2000s, returning to a limited touring schedule after frail health in the 1990s. In 1996, Scruggs suffered a heart attack in the recovery room of a hospital shortly after hip-replacement surgery. He also was hospitalized late last year, but seemed in good health during a few appearances with his sons in 2010 and 2011, though he had given up the banjo for the guitar by then.

Scruggs' funeral arrangements are incomplete. He's survived by two sons, Gary and Randy. Louise, his wife of 57 years, died in 2006. He often talked of her, recounting how their eyes had met while she watched him perform at the Ryman, and friends noted a sense of melancholy in Scruggs over his final years.

Bentley attended Scruggs' birthday party in January and had a chance to pick one more song in a circle with the legend. He even snapped a picture with his 3-year-old daughter, something he says he'll cherish forever.

"I think Earl was ready to go see Louise," Bentley said. "I think he was ready to go. But we're lucky. We've got a lifetime of his music that's recorded to listen to and he's in a better place."

___

Associated Press writer Joe Edwards contributed to this report.

The Florida special prosecutor investigating the Trayvon Martin shooting is bringing in independent voice analysis experts to enhance 911 tapes to learn more about the actions of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed the teen.

Angela B. Corey, who was appointed by Gov. Rick Scott (R) to investigate the shooting, said the experts will examine two potentially crucial aspects of the eight calls made to 911: a racial epithet Zimmerman might have muttered while talking to a dispatcher minutes before shooting the unarmed 17-year-old on Feb. 26, and the screams in the background of calls that residents made to police during the incident.

Screaming "They're going to take us down!" a JetBlue pilot stormed through his plane rambling about a bomb and threats from Iraq Tuesday until passengers on the Las Vegas-bound flight tackled him to the ground just outside the cockpit, passengers said.

The captain of JetBlue Airways Flight 191 from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport was taken to a hospital after suffering a "medical situation" on board that forced the co-pilot to take over the plane and land it in Amarillo, Texas, the airline said.

The unidentified pilot seemed disoriented, jittery and constantly sipped water when he first marched through the cabin, then began to rant about threats linked to Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan after crew members tried to calm him down in the back, passengers said.

"They're going to take us down. They're taking us down. They're going to take us down. Say the Lord's prayer. Say the Lord's prayer," the captain screamed, according to passenger Tony Antolino.

Josh Redick, who was sitting near the middle of the plane, said the captain seemed "irate" and was "spouting off about Afghanistan and souls and al-Qaida."

The outburst came weeks after an American Airlines flight attendant was taken off a plane for rambling about 9/11 and her fears the plane would crash. An aviation expert remembered only two or three cases in 40 years where a pilot had become mentally incapacitated during a flight.

Gabriel Schonzeit, who was sitting in the third row, said the captain said there could be a bomb on board the flight.

"He started screaming about al-Qaida and possibly a bomb on the plane and Iraq and Iran and about how we were all going down," Schonzeit told the Amarillo Globe-News.

The captain was tackled by several passengers after he tried to re-enter the cockpit, which had been locked by the co-pilot, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.

Antolino, a security executive who said he sat in the 10th row, said he and three others pinned down the captain as he ran for the cockpit door and sat on him for about 20 minutes until the plane landed at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport at 10 a.m.

"A group of us just jumped up instinctually and grabbed him and put him to the ground," Antolino said after arriving in Las Vegas later Tuesday. "Clearly he had an emotional or mental type of breakdown."

An off-duty airline captain who was a passenger on the flight entered the flight deck before landing in Amarillo and took over the duties of the ill captain, the airline said in a statement.

The captain was taken to a local medical facility after the plane landed, the airline said without elaborating.

Shane Helton, 39, of Quinlan, Okla., said he saw emergency and security personnel coming on and off the plane as it sat on the tarmac in Amarillo.

"They pulled one guy out on a stretcher and put him in an ambulance," said Helton, who went to the airport with his fiancee to see one of her sons off as he joined the Navy.

Authorities interviewed each of the passengers once they had landed and left the plane, said 22-year-old passenger Grant Heppes, of New York City.

"I had no idea it was an employee until it really started happening," Heppes said. "I just assumed it was a passenger who flipped out."

The FBI was coordinating an investigation with the airport police, Amarillo police, the FAA and the Transportation Safety Administration, said agency spokeswoman Lydia Maese in Dallas. She declined to comment on arrests.

The flight left New York around 7 a.m. and was in the air for 3 1/2 hours before landing in Texas. The passengers boarded another plane for Las Vegas several hours later. That plane arrived in Las Vegas about two hours later.

John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and former airline pilot, said incidents in which pilots become mentally incapacitated during a flight are "pretty rare." He said he could only recall two or three other examples in the more than 40 years he has been following commercial aviation.

Airlines and the FAA strongly encourage pilots to assert themselves if they think safety is being jeopardized, even if it means contradicting a captain's orders, Cox said. Aviation safety experts have studied several cases where first officers deferred to more experienced captains with tragic results.

Unruly pilots and crew have disrupted flights in the past.

Earlier this month, an American Airlines flight attendant took over the public-address system on a flight bound for Chicago and spoke for 15 minutes about Sept. 11 and the safety of their plane, saying "I'm not responsible for this plane crashing," several passengers said.

Passengers wrestled the flight attendant into a seat while the plane was grounded at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport; the flight attendant was hospitalized.

In 2008, an Air Canada co-pilot was forcibly removed from a Toronto-to-London flight, restrained and sedated after having a mental breakdown on a flight. A flight attendant with flying experience helped the pilot safely make an emergency landing in Ireland, and none of the 146 passengers and nine crew members on board was injured.

In August 2010, JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater pulled the emergency chute on a flight from Pittsburgh after it landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport. He went on the public-address system, swore at a passenger, grabbed a beer and slid down the tarmac.

He was sentenced to probation, counseling and substance abuse treatment for attempted criminal mischief.

The FAA is likely to review the unidentified captain's medical certificate — essentially a seal of approval that the pilot is healthy. All pilots working for scheduled airlines must have a first-class medical certificate. The certificates must be renewed every six months to a year, depending on the pilot's age.

To receive the certificate, the pilot must receive a physical examination by an FAA-designated medical examiner that includes questions about pilot's psychological condition. Pilots are required to disclose all physical and psychological conditions and medications.

___

Blaney reported from Lubbock, Texas. Associated Press writers Samantha Bomkamp in New York and Joan Lowy in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

Another hot topic at today’s transit committee meeting was passenger fatalities. New York City subway trains hit 147 riders in 2011, up from 128 people hit the year before. Those accidents produced 51 deaths last year. There have been 21 deaths in the subway already this year.

MTA president Tom Prendergast said a possible response to the problem would be to wall in subway platforms. He said the authority is thanking about adding glass walls with sliding doors that open when a train is in the station, similar to AirTrain platforms.

“The primary reason is safety, ” he said. “The second is environmental control and the third is to have a better means of getting the train into the station, doing the loading and unloading, and getting the train out of the station.”

Prendergast said “environmental control” meant the ability to cool or warm glass-enclosed platforms. He claimed that in other countries, subway systems with enclosed platforms see increased efficiency in boarding, which saves time. “The entire functioning of the Lexington Avenue line depends on smooth boarding at Grand Central Terminal,” he said. “Cutting down or eliminating platform accidents would help us greatly.”

The NY MTA chief did not say how much the upgrade would cost or how it would be funded, only that he assumes it would be “costly.”

With a single punch, Trayvon Martin decked the Neighborhood Watch volunteer who eventually shot and killed the unarmed 17-year-old, then Trayvon climbed on top of George Zimmerman and slammed his head into the sidewalk, leaving him bloody and battered, law-enforcement authorities told the Orlando Sentinel.

That is the account Zimmerman gave police, and much of it has been corroborated by witnesses, authorities say. There have been no reports that a witness saw the initial punch Zimmerman told police about.

Zimmerman has not spoken publicly about what happened Feb. 26. But that night, and in later meetings, he described and re-enacted for police what he says took place.

In his version of events, Zimmerman had turned around and was walking back to his SUV when Trayvon approached him from behind, the two exchanged words and then Trayvon punched him in the nose, sending him to the ground, and began beating him.

Friends of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed an unarmed teen in Florida last month, have come forward to say the 28-year-old acted in self-defense and is not a racist.

Joe Oliver, who said he has known Zimmerman for a decade, said his friend "couldn't stop crying" for days after he fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, on Feb. 26.

Oliver, who appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Sunday alongside Zimmerman's lawyer, Craig Sonner, said Zimmerman initially thought the incident would "blow over," but is now in hiding and fears for his life.

"Someone... put a $10,000 bounty out on his head," Oliver told ABC News, referring to the sum the New Black Panther Party has offered for Zimmerman's "capture."

"I'd like to know what makes that person any better than the person they think George is."

Who is George Zimmerman, and why did he shoot Trayvon Martin?

George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watch captain who shot unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, wanted to be a police officer and mentored an African-American boy. Is he a vigilante or, as one neighbor said, 'a good dude'?

MARCH 21--Two shipments of marijuana destined for the New York City offices of a major book publisher were intercepted this month by federal agents after postal workers detected a “suspicious odor” emanating from the Express Mail parcels, according to court records.

The packages, containing a total of more than 11 pounds of pot, were bound for St. Martin’s Press, which is headquatered in the landmark Flatiron Building on lower Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

The pot parcels, mailed from San Diego, never made it out of California, however. A post office employee contacted postal inspectors after alerting to the distinctive scent of the two packages. According to mailing labels, the boxes were purportedly sent by “ABT Books,” a San Diego firm that listed a return address that investigators determined to be fictitious.

While disavowing any sense of celebration, some gay-rights leaders commended the outcome as a vindication of hate crimes legislation.

"We do believe this verdict sends the important message that a `kids will be kids' defense is no excuse to bully another student," said Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality.

In other quarters, there was dismay at the use of New Jersey's hate crimes law in the case, and at the verdict that could saddle 20-year-old Ravi with a prison sentence of 10 years or more despite a dearth of evidence that he hated gays.

"It illustrates why hate crime laws are not a good idea," said James Jacobs, a law professor at New York University. "They were passed to be admired and not to be used."

A longtime gay rights activist in New York, Bill Dobbs, also was troubled by the case.

"As hate crime prosecutions mount, the problems with these laws are becoming more obvious ... how they compromise cherished constitutional principles," Dobbs said. "Now a person gets tried not just for misdeeds, but for who they are, what they believe, what their character is."

Hate crime laws have been an American institution for decades, and are on the books in 45 states. Generally, they provide enhanced penalties for crimes committed out of racial, ethnic or religious basis, while the laws in about 30 states, including New Jersey, also cover offenses based on sexual orientation.

Paul Waldman, in the final installment of his epic series about guns and the NRA (nickel summary: the gun lobby isn't as influential as you think), provides us with a surprising chart. For the last 30 years, it turns out, gun ownership has dropped steadily. Today, only about 30% of households own a gun. Most of this is due to demographics. Apparently there was a big spurt in gun ownership in the generation born between 1920 and 1960, and then the spurt went away. Cohorts born in later years all own guns at substantially lower levels.

At this moment, it looks as though the law of eminent domain takings is in a quiet phase, as the Supreme Court has not recently taken any major case that examines the foundations of the field. One apparently settled area of takings jurisprudence deals with rent control, where the Court provides only scant protection to landlords who claim that their property has been taken when states and local governments pass local laws that restrict their right to evict tenants at the expiration of their leases. For example, a recent challenge to New York’s rent control law received a polite dust-off in the Second Circuit in Harmon v. Kimmel.[1] The head of New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board declined to answer Harmon’s petition for certiorari in the United States Supreme Court. Much to everyone’s surprise, the Supreme Court requested an answer from the New York City defendants, which is now scheduled to be filed by March 5, 2012.[2] Perhaps this surprising development is attributable in part to the extensive and sympathetic coverage that Harmon’s plight has received in the press.[3]

Whether the Supreme Court grants certiorari or not, this case highlights the simple proposition that most important doctrinal decisions are made with reference to cases that have simple and recurrent fact patterns that raise major questions of principle. There are two key subtexts of the rent control cases. First, how do the Supreme Court’s takings decisions deal with divided interests in land? Second, how does the Court deal with the now-unquestioned distinction between physical and regulatory takings? This brief article addresses both of these ever-timely issues.

The racial undertones that permeate the discussion of Whitney Houston’s death are trading on the stereotype that most drug abusers are black -- which simply isn't true.
February 24, 2012 |

Since Whitney Houston's death from circumstances still undetermined, the media attention on drug abuse, alcohol and addiction has exploded. Houston, whose career spanned three decades during which she garnered numerous awards and is still the only artist to score seven consecutive Billboard number one hits, reportedly had a history of drug and alcohol problems that news commentators have highlighted in their reporting about the continued impact of legal and illegal drugs. But the way some commentators have discussed Houston's death has exposed the extent to which racial stereotypes still color national discourse.

The airline says the pilot was making a “fun announcement” that the mother of an air traffic controller was on the plane, but a spokeswoman for the airline told Newsday that some mistook the phrase “mom on board” for “bomb on board.”

Flight attendants tried to explain that nothing was wrong, but after the plane landed in Long Island, two passengers were disgruntled enough to complain to security officials.

WASHINGTON — Fake hero Xavier Alvarez lied to his fellow Californians.

He never rescued an American ambassador. He was never a Marine. Most definitely, contrary to what he told a Southern California audience, Alvarez was never awarded the Medal of Honor.

He lied, until he was caught. Now, the Supreme Court must decide whether the First Amendment protects Alvarez and other wannabes from prosecution. The consequences could stretch well beyond what lawmakers and veterans call stolen valor.

Working at the Drug Policy Alliance for the last twelve years I have read and heard countless stories of people having their lives ruined because of our country's cruel war on drugs. Last weekend, the nationally syndicated show This American Life highlighted a story that is so insane, you don't know whether to laugh or puke.

Last year in three high schools in Florida, several undercover police officers posed as students. The undercover cops went to classes, became Facebook friends and flirted with the other students. One 18-year-old honor student named Justin fell in love with an attractive 25-year-old undercover cop after spending weeks sharing stories about their lives, texting and flirting with each other.

One day she asked Justin if he smoked pot. Even though he didn't smoke marijuana, the love-struck teen promised to help find some for her. Every couple of days she would text him asking if he had the marijuana. Finally, Justin was able to get it to her. She tried to give him $25 for the marijuana and he said he didn't want the money -- he got it for her as a present.

A short while later, the police did a big sweep and arrest 31 students -- including Justin. Almost all were charged with selling a small amount of marijuana to the undercover cops. Now Justin has a felony hanging over his head.

The difficulty and uncertainty in predicting natural gas resources was underscored last week when the Energy Information Administration released a report containing sharply lower estimates.

The agency estimated that there are 482 trillion cubic feet of shale gas in the United States, down from the 2011 estimate of 827 trillion cubic feet — a drop of more than 40 percent. The report also said the Marcellus region, a rock formation under parts of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, contained 141 trillion cubic feet of gas. That represents a 66 percent drop from the 410 trillion cubic feet estimate offered in the agency’s last report.

The Energy Information Administration said the sharp downward revisions to its estimates were informed by more data. “Drilling in the Marcellus accelerated rapidly in 2010 and 2011, so that there is far more information available today than a year ago,” its report said. Jonathan Cogan, a spokesman for the agency, added that Pennsylvania had made far more data available than in previous years.

The estimates are important because they underpin policy decisions on energy subsidies and exports. Market analysts look to these estimates in making investment decisions. Historically, they have varied widely based on assumptions about the future of technology, coming regulations on drilling and the long-term price of gas.

In private discussions, some federal energy officials have raised questions about the way oil and gas companies may be inflating estimates of the amount of recoverable gas.

Last summer, the New York attorney general and the Securities and Exchange Commission sent subpoenas to several companies to see whether they were accurately portraying the amount of recoverable gas to investors. The offices declined to comment about the subpoenas.

The video below is entitled "Man Arrested for Wearing Occupy Jacket at Supreme Court" (h/t Virginia Wilber) and the title seems accurate.  Although we don't have a good view of the jacket, the officer clearly refers to it (and asks the wearer to remove it); the officer also states that the prohibition is not based on an ordinance, but on the U.S. Code. 

Inspired by last month’s similar vote by the Los Angeles City Council, today the New York City Council approved a resolution calling for a Constitutional amendment to establish that only living persons -- not corporations -- are endowed with constitutional rights and to overturn the Supreme Court created doctrine that campaign spending is equivalent to free speech.

“We believe that corporations should not share the same rights as people, that unlimited and unreported corporate donations meant to sway the electoral process should not be considered freedom of speech, and that the government should regulate the raising and spending of money by corporations intended to influence elections,” stated a release issued by the Progressive Caucus of the New York City Council. “We cannot allow corporate money to manipulate our democracy.”

A South Carolina man has been arrested for carrying two loaded weapons into a city subway station, police say.

The NYPD says a police officer stopped the suspect after seeing him go into in Manhattan subway station Sunday night without paying. The officer then noticed a handgun in the man's waistband.

Police recovered a loaded Smith & Wesson .45-caliber handgun and a loaded Intratec Luger Tec-9 machine gun. Police say the machine gun was found inside a bag the man was carrying.

Delores Gillespie was on her way home from buying groceries when she stepped out of the elevator at 203 Underhill Ave. in Prospect Heights and was met by a gloved psycho clutching a barbecue lighter, a bottle and a jug of combustible fluid.

A woman burned to death in the elevator of her Brooklyn apartment building Saturday after a man ambushed her, sprayed her with liquid and set her afire with a Molotov cocktail, police said.

The unidentified man was waiting for 64-year-old Doris Gillespie, when the elevator doors opened to her floor of the Prospect Heights building. The man sprayed her with an accelerant and set her on fire, New York City police spokesman Paul Browne said.

"It was apparent he knew she was on the elevator," he said.

No arrests had been made as of early Sunday, and police were still searching for the suspect.

The brutal attack happened shortly after 4 p.m., lasted about a minute and was recorded by two video cameras, including one inside the small elevator.

Brown said the video showed the elevator doors opening to the fifth floor where Gillespie's apartment was located and the assailant stepping in and spraying her.

Gillespie, who had grocery bags in her arms, turned about 180 degrees and then crouched in an attempted to protect herself, he said. But the man sprayed her directly in the face and continued to spray her "sort of methodically" over her head and parts of her body as the bags draped off her arms. She turned around and retreated to the back of the elevator.

At some point, Browne said, the suspect then pulled out a barbeque-style lighter, used it to ignite a rag in a bottle and then waited for a few seconds before using the flames to set her afire, causing smoke to fill the elevator.

The man backed out as she fell to the floor of the elevator, Browne said, and seemed to pause before tossing the bottle inside the elevator and onto her.

Browne would not comment on the motive in the killing, but said the suspect knew his victim.

Investigators believe the suspect fled down the stairs of the building, he said.

Police released still images of the man Saturday night, showing him in a black jacket, wearing what appear to be surgical gloves and with a white dust mask perched atop his head like a pair of sunglasses. He is holding what appears to be a canister with a nozzle and spraying as he steps into the elevator.

Neighbors reported a fire in the building, unaware that the woman was burning to death in the elevator.

Residents were evacuated from the six-story building for hours Saturday night.

Cancer weakened but did not soften Christopher Hitchens. He did not repent or forgive or ask for pity. As if granted diplomatic immunity, his mind's eye looked plainly upon the attack and counterattack of disease and treatments that robbed him of his hair, his stamina, his speaking voice and eventually his life.

"I love the imagery of struggle," he wrote about his illness in an August 2010 essay in Vanity Fair. "I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient."

Hitchens, a Washington, D.C.-based author, essayist and polemicist who waged verbal and occasional physical battle on behalf of causes left and right, died Thursday night at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of his esophageal cancer, according to a statement from Vanity Fair magazine. He was 62.

"There will never be another like Christopher. A man of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was at the bar," said Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. "Those who read him felt they knew him, and those who knew him were profoundly fortunate souls."

He had enjoyed his drink (enough to "to kill or stun the average mule") and cigarettes, until he announced in June 2010 that he was being treated for cancer of the esophagus.

He was a most engaged, prolific and public intellectual who wrote numerous books, was a frequent television commentator and a contributor to Vanity Fair, Slate and other publications. He became a popular author in 2007 thanks to "God Is Not Great," a manifesto for atheists.

"Christopher Hitchens was everything a great essayist should be: infuriating, brilliant, highly provocative and yet intensely serious," said Britain's Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. "I worked as an intern for him years ago. My job was to fact check his articles. Since he had a photographic memory and an encyclopedic mind, it was the easiest job I've ever done."

Long after his diagnosis, his columns and essays appeared regularly, savaging the royal family, reveling in the death of Osama bin Laden or pondering the letters of poet Philip Larkin. He was intolerant of nonsense, including about his own health. In a piece that appeared in the January 2012 issue of Vanity Fair, he dismissed the old saying that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

"So far, I have decided to take whatever my disease can throw at me, and to stay combative even while taking the measure of my inevitable decline. I repeat, this is no more than what a healthy person has to do in slower motion," he wrote. "It is our common fate. In either case, though, one can dispense with facile maxims that don't live up to their apparent billing."

Eloquent and intemperate, bawdy and urbane, Hitchens was an acknowledged contrarian and contradiction — half-Christian, half-Jewish and fully nonbelieving; a native of England who settled in America; a former Trotskyite who backed the Iraq war and supported George W. Bush. But his passions remained constant and targets of his youth, from Henry Kissinger to Mother Teresa, remained hated.

He was a militant humanist who believed in pluralism and racial justice and freedom of speech, big cities and fine art, and the willingness to stand the consequences. He was smacked in the rear by then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and beaten up in Beirut. He once submitted to waterboarding to prove that it was indeed torture.

Hitchens was a committed sensualist who abstained from clean living as if it were just another kind of church. In 2005, he recalled a trip to Aspen, Colo., and a brief encounter after stepping off a ski lift.

"I was met by immaculate specimens of young American womanhood, holding silver trays and flashing perfect dentition," he wrote. "What would I like? I thought a gin and tonic would meet the case. `Sir, that would be inappropriate.' In what respect? `At this altitude gin would be very much more toxic than at ground level.' In that case, I said, make it a double."

An emphatic ally and inspired foe, he stood by friends in trouble ("Satanic Verses" novelist Salman Rushdie) and against enemies in power (Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini). His heroes included George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Gore Vidal (pre-Sept. 11). Among those on the Hitchens list of shame: Michael Moore; Saddam Hussein; Kim Jong Il; Sarah Palin; Gore Vidal (post Sept. 11); and Prince Charles.

"We have known for a long time that Prince Charles' empty sails are so rigged as to be swelled by any passing waft or breeze of crankiness and cant," Hitchens wrote in Slate in 2010 after the heir to the British throne gave a speech criticizing Galileo for the scientist's focus on "the material aspect of reality."

"He fell for the fake anthropologist Laurens van der Post. He was bowled over by the charms of homeopathic medicine. He has been believably reported as saying that plants do better if you talk to them in a soothing and encouraging way. But this latest departure promotes him from an advocate of harmless nonsense to positively sinister nonsense."

Hitchens was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1949. His father, Eric, was a "purse-lipped" Navy veteran known as "The Commander"; his mother, Yvonne, a romantic who later killed herself during an extramarital rendezvous in Greece. Young Christopher would have rather read a book. He was "a mere weed and weakling and kick-bag" who discovered that "words could function as weapons" and so stockpiled them.

In college, Oxford, he made such longtime friends as authors Martin Amis and Ian McEwan, and claimed to be nearby when visiting Rhodes scholar Bill Clinton did or did not inhale marijuana. Radicalized by the 1960s, Hitchens was often arrested at political rallies, was kicked out of Britain's Labour Party over his opposition to the Vietnam War and became a correspondent for the radical magazine International Socialism. His reputation broadened in the 1970s through his writings for the New Statesman.

Wavy-haired and brooding and aflame with wit and righteous anger, he was a star of the left on paper and on camera, a popular television guest and a columnist for one of the world's oldest liberal publications, The Nation. In friendlier times, Vidal was quoted as citing Hitchens as a worthy heir to his satirical throne.

But Hitchens never could simply nod his head. He feuded with fellow Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn, broke with Vidal and angered freedom of choice supporters by stating that the child's life begins at conception. An essay for Vanity Fair was titled "Why Women Aren't Funny," and Hitchens wasn't kidding.

He had long been unhappy with the left's reluctance to confront enemies or friends. He would note his strong disappointment that Arthur Miller and other leading liberals shied from making public appearances on behalf of Rushdie after the Ayatollah Khomeini called for his death. He advocated intervention in Bosnia and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Rushdie posted on his Twitter page early Friday: "Goodbye, my beloved friend. A great voice falls silent. A great heart stops."

No Democrat angered him more than Clinton, whose presidency led to the bitter end of Hitchens' friendship with White House aide Sidney Blumenthal and other Clinton backers. As Hitchens wrote in his memoir, he found Clinton "hateful in his behavior to women, pathological as a liar, and deeply suspect when it came to money in politics."

He wrote the anti-Clinton book, "No One Left to Lie To," at a time when most liberals were supporting the president as he faced impeachment over his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Hitchens also loathed Hillary Rodham Clinton and switched his affiliation from independent to Democrat in 2008 just so he could vote against her in the presidential primary.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, completed his exit. He fought with Vidal, Noam Chomsky and others who either suggested that U.S. foreign policy had helped cause the tragedy or that the Bush administration had advanced knowledge. He supported the Iraq war, quit The Nation, backed Bush for re-election in 2004 and repeatedly chastised those whom he believed worried unduly about the feelings of Muslims.

"It's not enough that faith claims to be the solution to all problems," he wrote in Slate in 2009 after a Danish newspaper apologized for publishing cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that led Muslim organizations to threaten legal action. "It is now demanded that such a preposterous claim be made immune from any inquiry, any critique, and any ridicule."

His essays were compiled in such books as "For the Sake of Argument" and "Prepared for the Worst." He also wrote short biographies/appreciations of Paine and Thomas Jefferson, a tribute to Orwell and "Letters to a Young Contrarian (Art of Mentoring)," in which he advised that "only an open conflict of ideas and principles can produce any clarity." A collection of essays, "Arguably," came out in September 2011 and he was planning a "book-length meditation on malady and mortality." He appeared in a 2010 documentary about the topical singer Phil Ochs.

Survived by his second wife, author Carol Blue, and by his three children (Alexander, Sophia and Antonia), Hitchens had quotable ideas about posterity, clarified years ago when he saw himself referred to as "the late" Christopher Hitchens in print. For the May 2010 issue of Vanity Fair, before his illness, Hitchens submitted answers for the Proust Questionnaire, a probing and personal survey for which the famous have revealed everything from their favorite color to their greatest fear.

His vision of earthly bliss: "To be vindicated in my own lifetime."

His ideal way to die: "Fully conscious, and either fighting or reciting (or fooling around)."

The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.

He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn't be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.

"She told him, `No, I'm paying for it,'" recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis. "He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn't, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears."

At Kmart stores across the country, Santa is getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers' layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn't afford, especially toys and children's clothes set aside by impoverished parents.

Before she left the store Tuesday evening, the Indianapolis woman in her mid-40s had paid the layaway orders for as many as 50 people. On the way out, she handed out $50 bills and paid for two carts of toys for a woman in line at the cash register.

"She was doing it in the memory of her husband who had just died, and she said she wasn't going to be able to spend it and wanted to make people happy with it," Deppe said. The woman did not identify herself and only asked people to "remember Ben," an apparent reference to her husband.

Deppe, who said she's worked in retail for 40 years, had never seen anything like it.

"It was like an angel fell out of the sky and appeared in our store," she said.

Most of the donors have done their giving secretly.

Dona Bremser, an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell her that someone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son.

"I was speechless," Bremser said. "It made me believe in Christmas again."

Dozens of other customers have received similar calls in Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana and Montana.

The benefactors generally ask to help families who are squirreling away items for young children. They often pay a portion of the balance, usually all but a few dollars or cents so the layaway order stays in the store's system.

The phenomenon seems to have begun in Michigan before spreading, Kmart executives said.

"It is honestly being driven by people wanting to do a good deed at this time of the year," said Salima Yala, Kmart's division vice president for layaway.

The good Samaritans seem to be visiting mainly Kmart stores, though a Wal-Mart spokesman said a few of his stores in Joplin, Mo., and Chicago have also seen some layaway accounts paid off.

Kmart representatives say they did nothing to instigate the secret Santas or spread word of the generosity. But it's happening as the company struggles to compete with chains such as Wal-Mart and Target.

Kmart may be the focus of layaway generosity, Yala said, because it is one of the few large discount stores that has offered layaway year-round for about four decades. Under the program, customers can make purchases but let the store hold onto their merchandise as they pay it off slowly over several weeks.

The sad memories of layaways lost prompted at least one good Samaritan to pay off the accounts of five people at an Omaha Kmart, said Karl Graff, the store's assistant manager.

"She told me that when she was younger, her mom used to set up things on layaway at Kmart, but they rarely were able to pay them off because they just didn't have the money for it," Graff said.

He called a woman who had been helped, "and she broke down in tears on the phone with me. She wasn't sure she was going to be able to pay off their layaway and was afraid their kids weren't going to have anything for Christmas."

"You know, 50 bucks may not sound like a lot, but I tell you what, at the right time, it may as well be a million dollars for some people," Graff said.

Graff's store alone has seen about a dozen layaway accounts paid off in the last 10 days, with the donors paying $50 to $250 on each account.

"To be honest, in retail, it's easy to get cynical about the holidays, because you're kind of grinding it out when everybody else is having family time," Graff said. "It's really encouraging to see this side of Christmas again."

Lori Stearnes of Omaha also benefited from the generosity of a stranger who paid all but $58 of her $250 layaway bill for toys for her four youngest grandchildren.

Stearnes said she and her husband live paycheck to paycheck, but she plans to use the money she was saving for the toys to help pay for someone else's layaway.

In Missoula, Mont., a man spent more than $1,200 to pay down the balances of six customers whose layaway orders were about to be returned to a Kmart store's inventory because of late payments.

Store employees reached one beneficiary on her cellphone at Seattle Children's Hospital, where her son was being treated for an undisclosed illness.

"She was yelling at the nurses, `We're going to have Christmas after all!'" store manager Josine Murrin said.

A Kmart in Plainfield Township, Mich., called Roberta Carter last week to let her know a man had paid all but 40 cents of her $60 layaway.

Carter, a mother of eight from Grand Rapids, Mich., said she cried upon hearing the news. She and her family have been struggling as she seeks a full-time job.

"My kids will have clothes for Christmas," she said.

Angie Torres, a stay-at-home mother of four children under the age of 8, was in the Indianapolis Kmart on Tuesday to make a payment on her layaway bill when she learned the woman next to her was paying off her account.

"I started to cry. I couldn't believe it," said Torres, who doubted she would have been able to pay off the balance. "I was in disbelief. I hugged her and gave her a kiss."

___

Associated Press writers Michael J. Crumb in Des Moines, Iowa; Matt Volz, in Helena, Mont.; and Jeff Karoub in Detroit contributed to this report.

The suspect, Jose Pimentel, according to several people briefed on the case, would seek help from a neighbor in Upper Manhattan as well as a confidential informer. That informer provided companionship and a staging area so Mr. Pimentel, a Muslim convert, could build three pipe bombs while the Intelligence Division of the New York Police Department built its case.

But it was the informer’s role, and that of his police handlers, that have now been cited as among the reasons the F.B.I., which had its own parallel investigation of Mr. Pimentel, did not pursue the case, which was announced on Sunday night in a news conference at City Hall. Terrorism cases are generally handled by federal authorities.

There was concern that the informer might have played too active a role in helping Mr. Pimentel, said several people who were briefed on the case, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity, either because of the tense relations between the Intelligence Division and the F.B.I. or because the case was continuing.

According to Oakland Mayor Jean, 18 cities coordinated police crack downs on Occupy protests.

Wonkette reports that Homeland Security likely organized the crack downs:

NEW YORK (AP) — The National Lawyers Guild says it has obtained a court order that allows Occupy Wall St. protesters to return with tents to a New York City park.

The guild says the injunction prevents the city from enforcing park rules on Occupy Wall Street protesters.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city knew about the court order but has not seen it. He says the city plans to go court immediately.

Zuccotti Park was cleared overnight so that crews could clean it. Bloomberg says that was done “to reduce the risk of confrontation.”

He says the city had planned to allow the protesters back in the park after it was cleaned. Under the city’s plans, protesters would not be allowed to use tents, sleeping bags, or tarps and would have to follow all park rules.

So what’s the affect of today’s youth culture? Not just the hipsters, but the Millennial Generation as a whole, people born between the late ’70s and the mid-’90s, more or less — of whom the hipsters are a lot more representative than most of them care to admit. The thing that strikes me most about them is how nice they are: polite, pleasant, moderate, earnest, friendly. Rock ’n’ rollers once were snarling rebels or chest-beating egomaniacs. Now the presentation is low-key, self-deprecating, post-ironic, eco-friendly. When Vampire Weekend appeared on “The Colbert Report” last year to plug their album “Contra,” the host asked them, in view of the title, what they were against. “Closed-mindedness,” they said.

According to one of my students at Yale, where I taught English in the last decade, a colleague of mine would tell his students that they belonged to a “post-emotional” generation. No anger, no edge, no ego.

What is this about? A rejection of culture-war strife? A principled desire to live more lightly on the planet? A matter of how they were raised — everybody’s special and everybody’s point of view is valid and everybody’s feelings should be taken care of?

Perhaps a bit of each, but mainly, I think, something else. The millennial affect is the affect of the salesman.

The Iraq veteran seriously wounded Tuesday night at “Occupy Oakland” sustained...brain damage and has been rendered unable to speak... 

Scott Olsen, 24, was said to be otherwise lucid and able to communicate...by writing notes, but his ability to spell is also damaged...

Olsen is believed to have been struck in the forehead by a police projectile...

The blow was so severe that doctors were forced to place Olsen in a medically-induced coma to help fight swelling on his brain.

FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:

"America must manage its decline."

That's the title of a sobering piece in the Financial Times.

The article explores what the U.S. must do to come to terms with its changing role in the world. If the U.S. and its leaders could actually acknowledge that our global power is in decline today, it would be easier to figure out what comes next.

But politics being what it is, big surprise that no one is being honest here. Instead, it's practically unacceptable to suggest that there may be no "coming back" for the United States of America. And that is the cold, hard truth: There may very well be no coming back.

For now, the U.S. is still the world's largest economy and the top military and diplomatic power. But - a time when China will become the largest economy doesn't seem all that far away.

This article suggests that's why now is the time for America to have a "rational debate about what 'relative decline' means." Decline may not necessarily mean the end of prosperity, but it likely means making choices and alliances.

Turns out, those who refuse to even talk about decline may actually speed up the whole process. By not addressing our changing position in the world, we won't be dealing with other issues that need attention now: Things like deficits and educational reform.

Lastly, the Financial Times article says managing decline has as much to do with psychology as with politics or economics.

Listen, because this is interesting:

Britain had an easier go of it at the end of World War II because it was essentially handing over superpower status to the U.S., a country with a shared heritage. But this could be a much more difficult task for the U.S. if we have to eventually hand over power to China.

Here’s my question to you: Is America in denial about its decline?

Visit The Cafferty File

Conservatives are continuing their counter-protest against the so-called "47 percent." Specifically, that's the share of recession-era households that pay no federal income taxes. Most of them pay payroll taxes and other federal taxes (not to mention state taxes), but Republicans have chosen to depict them as the free-riding half of the country.

The fact of the matter, though, is that those other taxes constitute a huge chunk of federal revenues. Check out the charts below. Over the 58 years preceding the Lesser Depression, the share of federal revenues that came from individual income taxes has remained fairly stable, fluctuating between 40 and 50 percent, and peaking just before George W. Bush slashed rates in 2001.

The rest has come from corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, and various other taxes. To a surprising extent, the story of the last six decades is one of a shrinking burden on big business, and a growing burden on workers -- the bulk of the "47 percent". Since 1950, regressive payroll taxes have grown to comprise over one-third of federal revenues -- they used to comprise about one-tenth. For corporate income taxes, it's just the opposite -- what used to provide the Treasury over a quarter of its revenue now provides just over 10 percent.

Poor Tony Bologna. Ever since video surfaced showing those two nogoodnik protesters got their pretty eyes in the way of his pepper spray, he's been widely reviled by a misinformed public. After being formally reprimanded for the incident, losing ten vacation days, and getting ridiculed by The Daily Show, Bologna is now trying to set the record straight. He's not some fascist who goes around inflicting agonizing pain on innocent young women; he's got the "best intentions." And he tells veteran crime reporter Murray Weiss he's been "tortured" since the incident.

"I did not intend to spray the women," the 30-year veteran says via DNAinfo's sources, adding that he "acted with the best intentions" when he blasted the women in the eyes without provocation and in violation of NYPD guidelines. Bologna says he was “shell-shocked” when the video went viral, but if he could turn back the clock he "would do things the same way." Though we imagine he might give the person who videotaped this a nice spicy spritz, too.

Since the Occupy Wall Street protest began on September 17, New York security consultant Thomas Ryan has been waging a campaign to infiltrate and discredit the movement. 

Ryan says he's done contract work for the U.S. Army and he brags on his blog that he leads "a team called Black Cell, a team of the most-highly trained and capable physical, threat and cyber security professionals in the world." 

Ryan has leaked thousands of September17discuss emails to conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who is now using them to try to smear Occupy Wall Street as an anarchist conspiracy to disrupt global markets.

What may much more alarming to Occupy Wall Street organizers is that while Ryan was monitoring September17discuss, he was forwarding interesting email threads to contacts at the NYPD and FBI, including FBI Special Agent Jordan T. Loyd, a member of the FBI's New York-based cyber security team. Read more;

Kudzu — the "plant that ate the South" — has finally met a pest that's just as voracious. Trouble is, the so-called "kudzu bug" is also fond of another East Asian transplant that we happen to like, and that is big money for American farmers.

Soybeans.

"When this insect is feeding on kudzu, it's beneficial," Clemson University entomologist Jeremy Greene says as he stands in a field swarming with the brown, pea-sized critters. "When it's feeding on soybeans, it's a pest."

Like kudzu, which was introduced to the South from Japan in the late 19th century as a fodder and a way to stem erosion on the region's worn-out farmlands, this insect is native to the Far East. And like the invasive vine, which "Deliverance" author James Dickey famously deemed "a vegetable form of cancer," the kudzu bug is running rampant.

Megacopta cribraria, as this member of the stinkbug family is known in scientific circles, was first identified near Atlanta in late October 2009. Since then, it has spread to most of Georgia and North Carolina, all of South Carolina, and several counties in Alabama.

And it shows no signs of stopping.

Kudzu and soybeans are both legumes. The bug — also known as the bean plataspid — breeds and feeds in the kudzu patches until soybean planting time, then crosses over to continue the moveable feast, says Tracie Jenkins, a plant geneticist at the University of Georgia.

On a recent sunny day, Greene and doctoral student Nick Seiter visited the 10-acre test field at Clemson's Edisto Research & Education Center in Blackville, about 42 miles east of Augusta, Ga.

Starting in the middle of the field, Seiter walks down a row, sweeping a canvas net back and forth through the bean plants as he goes. Bugs cling to his pants and shirt, dotting his face like moles.

"I feel like I'm wearing a bee beard over here," he says. "It tickles."

At row's end, Seiter pushes his hand up through the net. Bugs cascade over the edge and pool on the sandy soil at his feet.

The writhing pile makes a fizzing sound like a freshly opened soda.

"Wow. It's a couple of inches thick," Greene says. "That's just shy of a standard sample that we use to evaluate soybean insects ... and we're looking at a couple of thousand bugs, easy."

The bugs secrete a caustic substance that smells like a cross between a commercial cleanser and an industrial lubricant. Greene says it's unclear whether this is a defensive device, a way of locating each other in a field, or serves some other purpose.

Whatever it's for, the secretions are potent enough to etch the bottoms of the plastic tubs he uses to ship samples to colleagues — and to stain the skin on Seiter's blistered right palm a pale orange that can't be washed off.

"Self tanner," he quips.

These insects are what entomologists call "true bugs," meaning they have needle-like mouth parts that they use to suck on the plant. So rather than feeding on the pods or leaves, as corn ear worms and common stinkbugs do, kudzu bugs attack the stems and leaf petioles, literally draining the life out of the soybeans.

"It's reducing the ability of the plant to produce or to send photosynthate ... the food that the plant makes from the sun, to the fruit, to the seed," says Greene. "So we're going to have ... a reduced number of pods per plant, reduced number of seed per pod, and reduced seed size as well — all the above," he says. "It's not showy in terms of the damage that it does to the plant ... but it's going to cause yield loss."

University of Georgia researchers have recorded losses as high as 23 percent in untreated fields.

"If you add up all our insect damage put together of different pests on soybeans, it probably would total maybe in an average year maybe a 5 percent yield loss," says North Carolina State University pest specialist Jack Bacheler, who has been warily watching the bug's spread through his state. "And sometimes, with agricultural crops like soybeans, 20 bushels an acre at $10 to $13 could be the difference between profit and loss."

One thing that concerns Bacheler and others is the bug's hardiness.

Jenkins says they may be able to respond to temperature and other environmental changes by turning a gene or genes on or off, making them particularly adaptable. They've been found on the windows of Atlanta skyscrapers, from the mountains to the coast.

"And these are pretty resilient little suckers," she says. "They can get on your car, and you can be going 60, 70, 80 miles an hour down the road, and then you stop, and they're still there. And they're alive. So they can take a pretty good lot of abuse."

Studies of climate data in the bug's native land are not encouraging.

"I think it's going to be able to dwell anywhere in the United States that we grow soybeans," says Greene. "So that should be concerning for some of the states that produce millions of acres of soybeans."

That seems to be where they're headed.

In 2010, Georgia produced 6.8 million bushels of soybeans, South Carolina 10.5 million and North Carolina more than 40 million, according to the American Soybean Association. Jenkins says there have been unconfirmed sightings in Tennessee, which produced 44 million bushels of soybeans last year.

From there, it's just a hop, skip and a jump to states like Illinois and Iowa, where production is measured in the hundreds of millions of bushels.

"They're moving north and west," Jenkins says. "And I think they'll keep going."

Especially without an effective way to control them, says Bacheler.

"Its opportunities to spread seem to be unlimited right now," he says.

Researchers are experimenting with a tiny Asian wasp that lays its eggs inside the kudzu bug eggs. So far, the wasp doesn't seem to have any effect on native insects, Greene says.

Jenkins is trying to pinpoint the country of origin by studying the DNA of a bacterium, or endosymbiont, that lives in the bug's gut. She is comparing DNA from the U.S. bugs with samples sent to her from India, Japan and China.

The samples she's analyzed from the various states have all so far been traced back to the same maternal line — meaning this infestation could have begun with a single gravid or egg-bearing female that hitched a ride here on a plant or in someone's luggage.

Jenkins is hoping a weapon might emerge from her DNA analysis.

"If there's a gene that's allowing it to adapt really well, if it has the insect gene, then I might be able to pull that out and use it against it," she says.

For now, farmers are having to rely on chemicals. So far, the results have been mixed, at best.

Insecticides that work on other stinkbugs have shown promise. But a couple of days after an application, the fields are re-infested.

"We basically spray, we get kill on what we touch with the spray, and then we get decent activity for a couple of days," says Greene. "And then it's pretty much gone."

"The problem with this insect is its sheer numbers," says Bacheler. "It's not that this thing can't be controlled. But it's probably going to be costly to do so."

Greene says the bug is still too new for experts to have come up with the most effective spraying regimen. He hopes data from this season's tests will help solve the problem.

Farmers like Jack Richardson here in Blackville are counting on it.

He has been farming for about 30 years and has about 200 acres of soybeans under cultivation. He buys some of his chemicals from a dealer in Georgia, but a year's more experience hasn't imparted any special wisdom.

"He says, `If you get too nervous, spray `em,'" says Richardson, standing waist-deep in a field speckled with bugs. "Well, I've sprayed `em twice, and it doesn't seem to kill `em."

Rumbling across the field in his sprayer, Richardson stares at the bugs clinging to the windshield and sighs.

"We don't need any new pests," he says. "We've got enough now."

___

Allen G. Breed is a Raleigh, N.C.-based national writer for The Associated Press. He can be reached at features(at)ap

(Reuters) - American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials.

The Occupy Wall Street movement may have just received an unexpected surprise – United States Army and Marine troops are reportedly on their way to various protest locations to support the movement and to protect the protesters.

Army serviceman  Ward  Reilly  posted the following on Facebook, “I’m heading up there tonight in my dress blues. So far, 15 of my fellow marine buddies are meeting me there, also in Uniform.

I want to send the following message to Wall St and Congress:

I didn’t fight for Wall St. I fought for America. Now it’s Congress’ turn.

My true hope, though, is that we Veterans can act as first line of defense between the police and theprotester. If they want to get to some protesters so they can mace them, they will have to get through the @!$%#ing Marine Corps first. Let’s see a cop mace a bunch of decorated war vets.

I apologize now for typos and errors. Typing this on iPhone whilst heading to NYC. We can organize once we’re there. That’s what we do best.If you see someone in uniform, gather together.

There has always been a disconnect between what the perceptions are of the 'tea party' mentality ( the perceptions - that they are racists and religious nuts who want to protect their racial privilege and their religious dominance) and the image the 'tea party' people, and those who sympathize with them to some degree or another, have of themselves and their beliefs.

Until we understand the disconnect we cannot move the arguments forward.

The 'tea party'ists are against government expansion, and much government spending. That is, by far it seems to me, their main theme.

Undoubtedly, they believe the government is wasteful, repetitive, and corrupt , but I believe the objection to government is BASED on something more than objection to bureuacratic inefficiency.

The tea partyists, the traditionalists, the conservatives, if you will, object to people being given something for nothing. Entitlements- welfare, foodstamps, free health care for the poor (subsidized by higher insurance rates on the non poor), even extended unemployment benefits, are resented by the right as an affront to the traditional American values of hard work ethic and self-reliance. There are those who think the greatness of America has been seriously eroded by the intrusion of the 'nanny state'.

This mindset explains why most Americans don't get upset too much about corporate corruption, excess, and even crime. The corporations are 'successful' , they are 'achievers' , go getters, not whiners.  Traditionalists admire business people because businesspeople represent societal stability and provide an aspirational example for others to strive toward. This 'conservative' mindset overlooks the corruption and cheating imbedded in contemporary business ethic because the ethic embodies 'success'. Corruption and cheating in, say, food stamps, is on the other hand 'horrible' because it represents the conduct of those who have failed otherwise in life ( why else would you need food stamps ?).

It's not about racism, it's not about religion. It's about people believing that the other side is lazy, incompetent, and ideologically (aka socialism) losers.  "Why should I pay more taxes to give money to people who lay on the couch watching tv all day"?

Until this gridlock of perception is addressed , the tea party mentality cannot be integrated into the liberal mentality to create a movement that can topple the corporate dominance of this economy, government and society.

In a statement, media watchdog Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting said: “Showcasing viewpoints not often heard on commercial media is precisely the point of public broadcasting. But few of the shows distributed by PBS aspire to that goal, as FAIR’s numerous studies of public broadcasting have shown (Extra!, 11/10). Moyers’ return is good news for viewers seeking diverse and dissenting viewpoints. PBS’ failure to find a suitable time slot for such a show demonstrates once more that the network’s understanding of its mission is sharply at odds with the founding vision of an independent, critical public broadcasting system.”

Bill Moyers says he is returning to public television in January, but he won’t be found on the PBS lineup.
His new hourlong weekly show, called “Moyers & Company,” will focus on one-on-one interviews with people not often heard on television, “thinkers who can help us understand the chaos of this time,” Mr. Moyers said in a telephone interview. “We’re going to be concerned with the state of democracy and the state of affairs, but we will leave the daily and weekly story to others and try to do the back story.”

The program will be based at WNET in New York City and distributed free to public television stations by American Public Television, an alternative distributor to PBS. Stations will be able to broadcast it at whatever time they choose. In a letter to public television executives announcing the new program, Mr. Moyers, who is 77, said that WNET was looking at showing the program on Sundays at 6 p.m.

The cop, who smelled of boozed, asked for directions to the No. 1 train and demanded she show him the way, police said.

When she balked, he put his arm around her, opened his jacket to display his 9mm handgun and led her away, sources said.

"You're coming with me," the assailant told the woman, according to Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, the NYPD's top spokesman.

"She knew he had a gun. She saw it on his hip and later in his hand."

Several blocks later, he forced her into a courtyard of a building on Park Terrace West in Inwood and raped her, police said.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Transit officials blocked cellphone reception in San Francisco train stations for three hours to disrupt planned demonstrations over a police shooting.

Officials with the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, better known as BART, said Friday that they turned off electricity to cellular towers in four stations from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday. The move was made after BART learned that protesters planned to use mobile devices to coordinate a demonstration on train platforms.

The tactic drew comparisons to those used by the former president of Egypt to squelch protests demanding an end to his authoritarian rule. Authorities there cut Internet and cellphone services in the country for days earlier this year.

The avalanche of mass-lawsuits in the United States that target BitTorrent users has reached a new milestone. Since last year, more than 200,000 people have been sued for allegedly sharing copyrighted material online, and this number continues to expand at a rapid pace. Added up, the potential profit from the so-called pay-up-or-else scheme runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.” – Napoleon

The so-called “Budget Control Act” that President Obama signed into law today to increase the federal debt ceiling and reduce the federal budget deficit marks the second time the Obama administration has capitulated on tax policy to the most extreme elements in Congress.[emphasis added]
And:
Citizens for Tax Justice has long pointed out that the United States is one of the least taxed countries in the developed world. We have demonstrated that the tax cuts enacted under the previous administration added $2.5 trillion to our national debt and disproportionately benefitted the richest five percent of Americans. Despite insisting that he would never extend these tax cuts for the rich, President Obama did exactly that at the end of last year when he signed into law a deal that extended all the Bush tax cuts for two years and which was heavily tilted towards the richest Americans.[emphasis added]
But, this post is about something more dangerous. The president, and a large segment of our elected leadership and the dutiful transcribers of press releases (formerly referred to as "journalists") have repeatedly misled the public--and continue to do so. Which brings me to the perhaps boring but deadly reality of the "budget baseline".

Chess master? Or pawn?

I think we know the answer, at least about this encounter. Pawn, and captured pawn at that.

The Republicans, with control of only one house of Congress, succeeded on virtually every point that mattered to them, especially to their most intransigent members. The Democrats, in control of the presidency and the other, "senior" house, succeeded on nothing that should have mattered to them, starting with implicitly legitimizing the conversion of the debt-ceiling vote into a hostage-taking exercise -- and ending with embracing a "compromise" that in the short term depresses hopes for dealing with our one genuine economic emergency, the unemployment crisis, and that in the long-run is likely to be as bad for our political system as for our economic prospects.

Al Jazeera English has finally found a place in New York City, but it's only a sublet.The news network began leasing space on Monday from WRNN, a privately-owned broadcast operation that provides news for its own channel RNN-TV and Verizon's FiOS 1 News operations.Al Jazeera hit the airwaves on WRNN's RISE, a cable channel available on Time Warner Cable systems Ch. 92. It will soon be available on Verizon FiOS, Ch. 466. Officials estimate Al Jazeera English will be available in upwards of 2 million homes in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, Westchester and much of New Jersey.

hortly after eleven o’clock on the night of May 1st, two MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters lifted off from Jalalabad Air Field, in eastern Afghanistan, and embarked on a covert mission into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden. Inside the aircraft were twenty-three Navy SEALs from Team Six, which is officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU. A Pakistani-American translator, whom I will call Ahmed, and a dog named Cairo—a Belgian Malinois—were also aboard. It was a moonless evening, and the helicopters’ pilots, wearing night-vision goggles, flew without lights over mountains that straddle the border with Pakistan. Radio communications were kept to a minimum, and an eerie calm settled inside the aircraft.

"I saw this little man come to me. He come naked," the 5-foot-10 woman told ABC News. She told Newsweek that she exclaimed to him, "Oh, my God. I'm so sorry." She claimed he responded, "You don't have to be sorry," as he reached for her breasts. "You're beautiful," she said he told her as he steered her toward the bathroom. She said she told him to stop: "I don't want to lose my job." He answered, "You're not going to lose your job," according to the account she delivered to her media interviewers. But just hours after the attack, she told a hospital counselor that Strauss-Kahn -- then a French presidential hopeful -- did not speak, The New York Times reported on July 5.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office had used the software to validate its finding that Ms. Anthony had searched for information about chloroform 84 times, a conclusion that Mr. Bradley says turned out to be wrong. Mr. Bradley said he immediately alerted a prosecutor, Linda Drane Burdick, and Sgt. Kevin Stenger of the Sheriff’s Office in late June through e-mail and by telephone to tell them of his new findings. Mr. Bradley said he conducted a second analysis after discovering discrepancies that were never brought to his attention by prosecutors or the police.

Mr. Bradley’s findings were not presented to the jury and the record was never corrected, he said. Prosecutors are required to reveal all information that is exculpatory to the defense.

It's the morning rush in the Times Square subway station, a routine convergence of humanity and mass transit that makes New York City hum. Mixing seamlessly with subway riders are New York Police Department officers with heavy body armor and high-powered rifles, commanders in blue NYPD polo shirts carrying smart phone-size radiation detectors and a panting police dog named Sabu.

"This is the new normal," Inspector Scott Shanley of the NYPD's Counterterrorism Division says. "The only people who sometimes get raised up are tourists."

Since terrorists brought down the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, subways have been bombed in terror attacks across the world, including in Madrid, London and this spring in Minsk, Belarus. The possibility that New York's sprawling, porous and famously gritty subway system could be next has become a constant worry — leading to a new normal of suspicious package alerts, bomb-sniffing dogs, cameras trained on commuters and passengers listening to the missive, "if you see something, say something."

The campaigns encouraging residents to report suspicious activity strike Manhattan writer Anne Nelson, 57, as Orwellian.

"New York is about expression and life and vibrancy," she said, walking through Times Square. "It's not about living in an atmosphere of fear."

But authorities here believe a serious attack on the 24-hour subway system with more than 400 stations, would potentially cripple the city in ways worse than the Sept. 11 attack — a concern shared by U.S. cities and countries reliant on mass transit and viewed as enemies by terrorists.

The human toll — going back to Aum Shinrikyo cult's 1995 nerve gas attack that killed 12 people and injured thousands in Tokyo's subways — has already been devastating. In Madrid, Islamic militants set off 10 backpack bombs on the commuter rail network in 2004, killing 191 people and wounding more than 1,800; in London, another suicide bomb strike killed 52 commuters and injured 700 in the city's deadliest attack since World War II; and earlier this year in Minsk, a remote-controlled bomb killed 12 people and wounded 200 in the city's main subway station.

In New York, no one has pulled off an attack, but there have been plenty of scares.

Last year, a homegrown al-Qaida operative, Najibullah Zazi, pleaded guilty to plotting a suicide bomb attack timed for rush hour to cause the most bloodshed. The former airport shuttle driver told a judge his plan was "to conduct a martyrdom operation on the subway lines in Manhattan." The NYPD also foiled a 2004 plot to bomb Manhattan's Herald Square subway station. And there were reports in that al-Qaida considered a cyanide attack on the subway system in 2003.

New York's subway system, the largest in the country, has more than 465 far-flung stations, most with multiple entrances, and 800 miles of track that would stretch to Chicago if laid end to end. Last year, it carried 5.2 million riders on the average weekday — more than double the number of travelers who pass through U.S. airports each day.

"It's really a potentially very vulnerable environment — one that you can't totally protect," said William Bratton, a security firm executive who's headed New York and Los Angeles' police departments and was chief of the New York City transit police. "That's the reality of it. ... It's a unique challenge."

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said the NYPD tries to meet that challenge by going to "extraordinary lengths" in the subways "to make our presence seen and felt in different ways, giving would-be terrorists and common criminals cause to think twice."

Pre-9/11, covering that ground meant mostly fighting conventional crime — from robberies and assaults to fare beating and drug possession.

Post, the department has asked its 2,500 uniformed and plainclothes transit officers to fight terror as well.

Officers have been given training in how to spot terror suspects casing the subways. They've also been instructed to be on the alert for people walking in a stiff manner, sweating heavily and talking to themselves — signs of a potential suicide bomber.

The counterterror arsenal includes more than 30 bomb-sniffing dogs; silent alarms and motion detectors to prevent tampering with ventilation systems to make a chemical or biological attack more lethal; and a vast system of security cameras wired with live feeds from Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal and Herald Square.

More new normal: Random bag checks — once challenged in court as a civil rights violation — are done tens of thousands of times each year in the subways with barely any complaints. The department uses high-tech detection devices to screen riders for peroxides or nitrates common in homemade explosives, sometimes with the help of agents on loan from the Transportation Safety Administration.

The bag searches are part of life in Boston and in Washington, D.C., where a Virginia man admitted this year to joining what he thought was an al-Qaida plot to bomb Washington's Metrorail system. The "see something, say something" campaign" started in New York is now a mantra aboard Amtrak.

New York's strategy also includes regular tunnel inspections and roving teams of officers who go onto subway cars asking passengers to beware of suspicious packages. The officers can calm commuters, discourage would-be attacks or disrupt plots already set in motion, police say.

Police rely on counterterrorism drills to stay sharp. One exercise involves having an undercover officer with a mock device, stashed in a backpack and emitting gamma rays, slip into the subway to test the ability to detect and neutralize real radioactive threats.

Above ground, the department has dispatched detectives to Moscow, Madrid, London and Mumbai, India, to see what lessons can be learned from overseas terror attacks.

London's transit system has long been affected by the threat of bombs — there are no garbage bins on the subway or in train stations, for example, a legacy of the years when London was an IRA target.

After the 2005 attack, emergency services were criticized for lapses in their response — confusion, a shortage of first aid supplies and radios that did not work underground.

Police have since been issued digital radios capable of operating throughout the subway system; and some members of the British Transport Police officers now patrol the transit network with guns. Most British police do not carry firearms.

Home Secretary Theresa May, the government official responsible for MI5, said earlier this year that "a considerable number of improvements" had been put in place since 2005 but declined to give details for security reasons.

In Spain, the national rail company Renfe said security measures on that network have in fact been beefed up since the massacre. But it refused to give details, calling the issue confidential and sensitive.

Another state-owned company, Adif, which manages Spain's long-distance train stations, said it has assigned more guards at train stations and broadened use of closed-circuit security cameras.

The heightened security in subways has become second nature in New York.

But after walking through Grand Central Terminal last week, 54-year-old consultant Robin Gant said the threat of terrorism still weighs on her 10 years after the Sept. 11 attacks. But she wondered about how one can fairly point out who's a threat.

"I look at people and who's to judge? You just never know who might be the one," she said. "No matter how safe you feel, you're always on yellow alert."

___

Associated Press writers Karen Zraick in New York, Jill Lawless in London and Daniel Woolls in Madrid contributed to this report.

Despite being slapped with a libel suit by Dominique Strauss-Kahn's accuser for being called a "hooker," the New York Post's rumor mill continues to churn with the revelations that Strauss-Kahn was at the Sofitel with "his secret 'girlfriend.'" According to the paper's "sources," Strauss-Kahn's mistress is married, "works in the Big Apple banking world," and the two have been together "for some time." She was allegedly seen on surveillance footage with her beau at 1:30 a.m. as they were boarding an elevator up to his suite. She then "left some time later," well before the time of the alleged sexual assault.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn's accuser wasn't just a girl working at a hotel -- she was a working girl. The Sofitel housekeeper who claims the former IMF boss sexually assaulted her in his room was doing double duty as a prostitute, collecting cash on the side from male guests, The Post has learned.

As the defense team in the Casey Anthony murder trial presents a muddled case of fits and starts, punctuated by several slap-downs of lead defense attorney Jose Baez, a more compelling, never-before-told story about the defendant is unfolding thousands of miles away from the Orlando courtroom.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Tracy Conroy, of Sacramento, California, is speaking out for the first time about her experience with Casey Anthony in the days immediately following news that her daughter, Caylee, was missing. 

WASHINGTON (AP) - For the first time, minorities make up a majority of babies in the U.S., part of a sweeping race change and growing age divide between mostly white, older Americans and predominantly minority youths that could reshape government policies.

Preliminary census estimates also show the share of African-American households headed by women - made up of mostly single mothers - now exceeds African-American households with married couples, a sign of declining U.S. marriages overall but also continuing challenges for black youths without involved fathers.

On Monday, we brought you the story of two women who were given summonses in Brooklyn over the weekend for eating doughnuts unaccompanied by a minor in a Bed-Stuy playground. And as our tipster noted then, they weren't the only ones ticketed by the police on Saturday—another couple who also chose to enjoy their doughnuts in the park met the same unsympathetic arm of the law. And while the 79th Precinct isn't commenting on the story, it seems increasingly likely that this is a case of officers looking to fill quotas.

SAY WHAAAT?Mayor Bloomberg had folks questioning what planet he was on Monday when he declared "there aren't very many panhandlers left" in city subways.Bloomberg got irritated when the question of panhandlers came up in a press conference.He cut off the questioner, saying, "There aren't very many panhandlers left, in all fairness to the MTA. Come on."

Two NYPD cops are being eyed in the Long Island serial slayings after investigators learned they got into trouble for hiring prostitutes while working for the department, according to sources familiar with the probe. One cop was forced out of the job in the 1990s when his supervisors learned he spent time pursuing hookers and paying street walkers and down-and-out women for sex while he was supposed to be on patrol. An internal investigation led to his resigning under pressure, one source said.

If the mission to neutralize Osama bin Laden were a blockbuster movie, the screen would have almost certainly faded to black as soon as the accused terrorist’s death was announced. No doubt, the credits would roll to Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and then the big “The End” would appear.

Alas, real life is not one of Hollywood’s many Pentagon-sponsored flicks—and as hard as President Obama tried to portray last week’s events as proof “that America can do whatever we set our mind to,” the mission and its cloudy aftermath have raised troubling questions about the “whatever” part. Among the most important of those queries are:

Filmmakers Michael Moore and Ken Burns will be among a group of regular contributors to the next incarnation of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, the network announced Wednesday.

Rounding out the roster is Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, comedian Richard Lewis, and Nicole Lamoureux, the executive director of the National Association of Free Clinics.

This mockup Facebook news feed is a hoot.

The Obama administration deftly shaped the media coverage of its prized kill by detailing a picture-perfect, morally unambiguous special forces operation, which culminated in the death of Osama bin Laden. Most of the details of that narrative have now unravelled, but the conventional wisdom that the tale established remains. As Glenn Greenwald put it, that's par for the course: “the narrative is set forever by first-day government falsehoods uncritically amplified by establishment media outlets, which endure no matter how definitively they are disproven in subsequent days.”

REDUCING the budget deficit and stopping the explosion of our national debt will require more tax revenue as well as reduced government spending. But the need for more revenue needn’t mean higher tax rates. As the bipartisan fiscal commission appointed by President Obama stressed last year, tax revenues can be increased substantially by limiting the deductions, credits and exclusions that are essentially government spending by another name.

See the medicines and other supplies from inside the Osama Bin Laden kill zone.

He was our kind of guy until he wasn’t, an ally during the Cold War until he no longer served our purposes. The problem with Osama bin Laden was not that he was a fanatical holy warrior; we liked his kind just fine as long as the infidels he targeted were not us but Russians and the secular Afghans in power in Kabul whom the Soviets backed. But when bin Laden turned against us, he morphed into a figure of evil incarnate, and now three decades after we first decided to use him and other imported Muslim zealots for our Cold War purposes, we feel cleansed by his death of any responsibility for his carnage.

Does George W. Bush deserve any credit for the killing of Osama Bin Laden? A number of former Bush administration officials are making the case that he does, pointing to U.S. officials who say that some of the initial intelligence that eventually led to Sunday’s mission was obtained as a result of Bush's national security policies instituted after Sept. 11, 2001.

White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan painted a stunning picture Monday of Osama Bin Laden’s final moments alive: the al-Qaida leader was armed and possibly firing at oncoming U.S. forces while using his own wife as a human shield. The problem with that specific telling of the story, however, is that the White House is now saying, quietly, that that is not what happened.

The flag-waving, horn-honking crowd that converged at the White House Sunday night was brimming with unrestrained joy, unmitigated patriotism and a sense of unlimited possibility—which meant Osama bin Laden had suffered not only death but defeat as well.

...

I kept hearing that theme of turning a page. In a sense, we had been prisoners of bin Laden. Now we’re free.

Conventional wisdom and the laws and constitutions of many states have long held that the pensions being earned by current government workers are untouchable. But as the fiscal crisis has lingered, officials in strapped states from California to Illinois have begun to take a second look, to see whether there might be loopholes allowing them to cut the pension benefits of current employees. Now the move in Detroit — made possible, lawyers said, because Michigan’s constitutional protections are weaker — could spur other places to try to follow suit. “These things do tend to be herd-oriented,” said Sylvester J. Schieber, an economist and consultant who studies pensions.

In an e-mailed statement Thursday, Mr. Moyers said, "It was tempting to think once again of creating a forum for voices, viewpoints, and ideas rarely heard in mainstream television, and my colleagues and I were excited about the prospect." He said that thanks to the Carnegie Corporation and other financial supporters, his company had been assured of two years of financing.

But, he added, "PBS has informed us there is no time slot available in which the series could be designated for simultaneous common carriage across the country. After discussions with my underwriters we have decided to pursue other options and projects."

After a pregnant Indiana woman tried to kill herself—and lost her newborn—the state threw her in prison. Jennifer Block reports on Bei Bei Shuai's strange saga, and why women can't be held criminally liable for their pregnancy.
Bei Bei Shuai was so depressed last Christmas, she chose a punishing way to die: rat poison. When her friends swooped in and saved her life, the Chinese restaurant owner's story might have ended happily, except for one detail about Shuai's condition: she was 33 weeks pregnant.

President Barack Obama found out years ago he had an Irish ancestor who fled the potato famine in 1850. He can now claim 28 living relatives who also descended from that Irishman, including a Vietnam veteran, a school nurse and a displeased Arizona Republican.

The president's newly identified relatives are revealed in a study released to The Associated Press by Ancestry.com, whose genealogists also traced descendants of 23 other Irish passengers on the ship that brought Falmouth Kearney, Obama's great-great-great-grandfather, to the United States when he was 19.

The survey allowed genealogists to further trace branches in Obama's family tree and others who arrived on the ship, known as the Marmion, on March 20, 1850.

According to the survey, the passengers' descendants live in Canada, Syria and throughout the United States. Among Obama's newly identified relatives is 83-year-old Dorma Lee Reese, of Tucson, Ariz.

"I'm not a Democrat, so I can't say I clapped," said Reese, a retired brain-imaging technologist. "I don't appreciate what he's done by any means, but I do appreciate that he holds that office."

Kearney arrived with his brother-in-law William and his wife, Margaret Cleary. They were destined for Ohio, where Kearney's relative had left property in his name. Kearney married, had 10 children and later settled in Indiana, where he worked as a farmer.

Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, was a descendant of one of Kearney's daughters, Mary Ann Kearney, and Jacob William Dunham. The White House didn't immediately return a message Wednesday seeking comment on the president's Irish heritage.

When the 903-ton Marmion arrived after a 3,000-mile voyage to New York Harbor from Liverpool, England, carrying 289 passengers, it was following a well-worn route used by masses of Irish immigrants.

Among the carpenters, bricklayers and shoemakers arriving that day was Kearney, listed in records only as a laborer.

Like many of the passengers, he was fleeing a country ravaged by a potato blight that destroyed families and livelihoods and left the country starving. From the 1840s to the end of the 1850s, about 1.7 million Irish immigrants came to the United States.

On the day of the Marmion's arrival, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that the St. Patrick's Society in Brooklyn had held its first annual banquet; a toast was made to the passengers' homeland, referring to it by its ages-old nickname: "Though gloomy shadows hang o'er thee now ... as darkness is densest, even just before day, So thy gloom, truest Erin, may soon pass away."

By 1860, the city had the largest Irish population in the world outside Ireland. Nearly 37 million Americans claimed Irish ancestry in 2009, according to census estimates.

Ancestry.com revealed Obama's Irish roots and his connection to Kearney in 2007, but it is uncovering its new findings this week following months of work as part of a larger project on Irish heritage.

"We had this idea of trying to look at a micro-study of how Irish immigrants have impacted the United States," said Anastasia Harman, the lead family historian for Ancestry.com.

Other distant Obama relatives include Roma Joy Palmer, 66, of Mulvane, Kan., who is retired from the insurance business, and Dean Dillard, 63, a Vietnam War veteran and retired community college professor who lives in Chanute, Kan.

"I really don't like to claim a relationship to Obama. He is not my favorite president," said Palmer, a Republican. "I don't have anything against him personally. But I don't think we have the same agenda."

Dillard, though, said he took pride in his family "being related to a president of the United States," even though he is a registered Republican, did not vote for Obama and opposes his politics.

Sandra West, 65, of Hereford, Ariz., also was identified by Ancestry.com but had already discovered years ago that she was distantly related to Obama when she investigated the Dunhams of Kansas.

"I figured there had to be a connection somewhere," she said.

West, who works as a nurse at Palominas Elementary School, said that it had become a running joke and that the principal had suggested requesting a tour of the White House. But West figured the president already had enough going on.

"I don't think he would want to pay much attention to me," she said. "I'm sort of a peon down the road. I'm nobody special."

___

Online:

http://www.Ancestry.com/Irishrecords

President Obama signed an executive order Monday that will create a formal system of indefinite detention for those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who continue to pose a significant threat to national security. The administration also said it will start new military commission trials for detainees there.

Arianna Huffington scoffed at a group of unpaid Huffington Post contributors that announced on Wednesday they would stop contributing content to the site, weeks after its $315 million sale to AOL was announced.

Huffington, speaking alongside AOL chief Tim Armstrong at PaidContent's 2011 Conference in New York on Thursday, dismissed the notion that all bloggers should be paid, given the wide platform HuffPo gives them.

As many as 80,000 people marched to the Wisconsin state Capitol in Madison on Saturday as part of an ongoing protest against newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker's attempt to not just badger the state's public employee unions, but to break them.

It's the original guide to "everything illegal," from pot loaf and hash cookies to tear gas, dynamite, and TNT. There are frank tips on demolition, surveillance, sabotage, and the gorier parts of hand-to-hand combat, including how to behead a man with piano wire and make a knife "slip off the rib cage and penetrate the heart." In the introduction, the then-teenage author makes clear his wish that the book be of more than just theoretical use. "I hold a sincere hope that it may stir some stagnant brain cells into action," he wrote.
William Powell, author of The Anarchist Cookbook, succeeded all too well. His slim, 160-page volume democratized the nuts and bolts of terror. Published in 1971, it would sell more than 2 million copies worldwide and influence dozens of malcontents, mischief makers, and killers.

Shawna Forde, the anti-immigrant zealot who killed a 9-year-old girl and her father, was sentenced to death by a Tucson jury today. Terry Greene Sterling on Forde's abusive past—and the wingnuts who call her a martyr.
For three days, a female Minuteman-turned-killer sat stonily in a Tucson courtroom as her lawyers fought to save her life by portraying her as an impulsive, detached, foolish narcissist who could not overcome her abuse-ridden childhood. They argued that Shawna Forde's early years had been so traumatic that she should not be put to death for masterminding a 2009 home invasion in which 9-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father Raul were slaughtered on the Arizona border. 

Any business owner who uses largely unpaid labor, with a handful of underpaid, nonunion employees, to build a company that is sold for a few hundred million dollars, no matter how he or she is introduced to you on the television screen, is not a liberal or a progressive. Those who take advantage of workers, whatever their outward ideological veneer, to make profits of that magnitude are charter members of the exploitative class. Dust off your Karl Marx. They are the enemies of working men and women. And they are also, in this case, sucking the lifeblood out of a trade I care deeply about. It was bad enough that Huffington used her site for flagrant self-promotion, although the cult of the self has reached such dizzying proportions in American society that such behavior is almost expected. But there is an even sadder irony that this was carried out in the name of journalism.

Why would anyone want to sell a centerpiece of capitalism like the New York Stock Exchange? Because despite its fame and its fabled floor, it's a lousy way to make money.

A German company will acquire the Big Board in a deal that creates the world's largest exchange operator but does not stop the decades-long evolution of stock trading from shouting floor brokers to the cold, quiet hum of computers.

The deal announced Tuesday values the New York exchange's old parent company, NYSE Euronext, at $10 billion. The NYSE and Euronext, which owns exchanges in several European capitals, merged in 2007.

There was no immediate word on what changes might come to the corner of Wall and Broad streets, the Corinthian-columned building synonymous with global finance, including what the new company would be named.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., called for NYSE to be first in the exchange's new name. The German company, Deutsche Boerse, will control 60 percent of the new company's board of directors.

The exchange's importance in the complex web of the stock market is already largely symbolic.

Most trading now takes place on computers that can match thousands of orders a second. On some days, the floor of the exchange is one of the loneliest places you could find yourself in a city of 8 million people. The floor of Deutsche Boerse's exchange in Frankfurt has even fewer live traders. It now stands empty except for a small group milling in front of computer screens.

Just like selling shoes or airline tickets, the profitability of providing a venue for the exchange of stocks is a victim of technology. Facilitating the trading of actual stocks makes up a small and decreasing part of NYSE Euronext's revenue. The exchange makes more money from selling complex financial contracts, market data to companies like Google and Yahoo that offer stock quotes, and the fees companies pay to be listed on the exchange.

Overall, NYSE Euronext's profit last quarter was $135 million, down more than 20 percent from a year earlier. Its stock has lost 44 percent of its value in the past three years.

The New York exchange dates to 1792, when 24 brokers and merchants gathered to trade stocks under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street. Ten years from now, it's not hard to imagine the floor of the NYSE, and its familiar perch where executives ring the closing bell, as nothing more than a high-priced venue for weddings and business receptions.

By merging with Deutsche Boerse, NYSE Euronext hopes at least to hold off less lustrous rivals that have undercut its fees and move further from the low-margin stock trading business. NYSE Euronext makes only three-hundredths of a penny for every order of 100 stocks, says Richard Repetto, an analyst at Sandler O'Neill in New York.

"In the U.S. and Europe, regulatory rules have allowed anyone to launch a trading platform and compete with the NYSE," he says. "You have all these competitors who are fighting over the price, and the result is that it's become a commodity."

Daily trading volumes show just how far "Wall Street" has grown beyond Wall Street. The average number of shares traded each day on the NYSE floor has fallen by a third over the past three years. Many orders are instead routed through one of more than a dozen computerized exchanges scattered across the nation, each competing for transactions by offering faster execution.

In this system, the fact that a company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange has little relevance because its shares trade on digital exchanges housed in, say, a warehouse in New Jersey or an office park in Kansas City. Large investment firms may also trade shares on private "dark pools" that allow big mutual funds to buy or sell stock without affecting its price or alerting others to the size of their order.

"The exchange business is really a computer business these days," says Charles Jones, a professor at Columbia Business School and a former visiting economist at the New York Stock Exchange. "You can really save money on the I.T. side by having a common platform. This merger is really about the cost side of things."

The new combined company will have a bigger footprint in the more lucrative market for derivatives and futures contracts, the exotic financial instruments that allow an investor to buy the option to purchase something at a fixed price in the future. Hedge funds and other sophisticated investors buy futures contracts to place bets on commodities like oil prices or to provide a form of insurance in case an investment doesn't work out.

Futures contracts sell less frequently than stocks, making the market for them less competitive. Fees charged on these transactions are less likely to fall victim to competition because each exchange owns its clearinghouse. Clearinghouses settle each trader's account each day and ensure that all contracts are fulfilled, an essential part of the market structure that is difficult for a rival to undercut.

Deutsche Boerse is a large part of the European futures business. The acquisition, which will leave investors in the German company with a 60 percent ownership stake in the new entity, will give the company ownership of stock exchanges in Lisbon, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, New York and Frankfurt.

The parent companies of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Nasdaq are down 40 percent and 33 percent after dividends, respectively, over the last three years. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is up 6 percent over the same time, including dividends.

The acquisition comes at a time when other stock exchanges are combining. Last week, the London Stock Exchange and the parent company of the Toronto Stock Exchange announced a $2.9 billion merger.

Stock trading by way of individual brokers is becoming a relic in many ways. Many hedge funds and institutions now trade using sophisticated computer programs that are thought to make up about 70 percent of each day's total volume. Known as high-frequency trading, these programs allow institutions to own a stock for less than 60 seconds at a time and sometimes without a human operator knowing what the computer has bought.

The NYSE, meanwhile, has lost some of its luster. Fewer private companies undertake the rigorous process of getting their shares listed on the Big Board. Institutions, private equity firms and venture capitalists in Silicon Valley have taken over from public shareholders as financiers. Facebook, for instance, is now thought to be worth more than $50 billion. The company's shares trade on private exchanges.

Investors who own companies that are listed on the NYSE probably won't notice changes from the acquisition. The exchange will still be bound by U.S. securities laws and, to a certain extent, tradition. Companies and celebrities will probably still clamor to ring the opening bell on the floor of the exchange, if for nothing else than the media exposure.

The acquisition still needs approval from American and European regulators. The deal will likely go through in the U.S. because NYSE Euronext is not merging with another American company like Nasdaq OMX Group, a combination that could run afoul of antitrust laws, analysts say.

Experts say German ownership of the New York Stock Exchange is something that will not matter to most lay investors.

"The question is should we be angry that foreigners are buying our stock exchange? The answer is not really," said Roy Smith, a professor at New York University and a former partner at Goldman Sachs. "Financial markets are fully globalized and that's a good thing because that makes them more efficient."

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has not yet been given details of the Jan. 8 shootings in Tucson, Ariz., that wounded her and 12 others and killed six people, including a staff member, according to her chief of staff.

Pia Carusone said Wednesday on CBS's "The Early Show" that the Arizona congresswoman, who can carry on simple conversations, knows there was a traumatic event but has not been told about the severity of the wounds to others. That will happen in time when she's "at a higher level of communication," Carusone said.

"Doctors have said it's not really fair, as you can imagine, to tell someone something so tragic and someone that might not have the ability to ask the detailed questions that someone will have when they hear this news," she said.

Jared Loughner is charged in federal court with killing a federal judge and Giffords aide Gabriel Zimmerman and attempting to kill Giffords and two other staffers, Pamela Simon and Ron Barber.

Giffords was shot in the head and is undergoing intensive rehabilitation at TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston.

Words in her vocabulary are returning and she is saying new words every day, Carusone said. Giffords can also sense when conversations turn serious and recognizes visitors, she said.

"Short phrases, simple thoughts. There's no doubt that she understands what's happening around her. She laughs at the appropriate times," Carusone said.

"She's just working really hard and progressing. It's paying off. And every day there's new progress that you see. So, you know, we feel very hopeful at her recovery."

Giffords' husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, has said he expects his wife to be well enough to be at Cape Canaveral, Fla., for his planned launch of the space shuttle Endeavour in April, although her doctor said it's too early to say.