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Ares Management has closed its buy of Energy Investors Funds, an energy infrastructure-focused asset manager. No financial terms were disclosed.
LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Ares Management, L.P. (NYSE:ARES) announced today that it has completed its acquisition of Energy Investors Funds ("EIF"), a leading asset manager in the energy infrastructure industry with approximately $4 billion of assets under management across four commingled funds and related co-investment vehicles. The transaction closed on January 1, 2015, and is expected to be accretive to Ares.
"The EIF transaction provides Ares an entry into the large and growing energy infrastructure industry and attractive investment opportunities where we can leverage our existing core competencies to bring differentiated investment results," said Michael Arougheti, Co-Founder and President of Ares. "EIF represents exactly what we look for in pursuing accretive, strategically valuable acquisitions. The team brings an established track record of excellence in an investment strategy that is attractive for our collective fund investors and a deep expertise that we believe will benefit and further diversify Ares' existing strategies."
Ares' new energy infrastructure equity investment team focuses on generating long-term, stable cash-flowing investments in the power generation, transmission and midstream energy sector. Along with EIF's team of approximately 40 professionals, the transaction brings Ares a strong long-term investment track record and significant fee-paying assets under management of approximately $4 billion in an asset class that is well insulated from the volatility in the oil and gas industry.
"We are delighted to welcome EIF—a reputable team with tremendous experience in the energy infrastructure sector, having invested in more than 100 diversified investments with a combined asset value of over $15 billion, and one that we believe will be an excellent cultural fit with our collaborative investment teams at Ares," added Bennett Rosenthal, Co-Founder and Senior Partner of Ares and Co-Head of the Ares Private Equity Group. "We expect that the EIF team will greatly benefit from Ares' sourcing, market intelligence and relationship network advantages to enhance its already excellent investment performance. We believe that Ares investors will be attracted to the long term, contractual nature of the investments and potential risk-adjusted returns within the infrastructure sector, enabling us to grow our assets under management in the future."
As a result of this transaction, the Ares Private Equity Group has approximately $14 billion of assets under management, pro forma for the EIF transaction as of September 30, 2014, across U.S./Europe corporate private equity, China corporate private equity and U.S. energy infrastructure private equity.
"We are pleased to join the Ares platform and capitalize on the significant and growing investment opportunities as the nation replaces its aging energy infrastructure and builds new power and midstream assets to meet capacity needs over the coming decade," said Herbert Magid, a Managing Partner at EIF and now a Senior Partner in the Private Equity Group at Ares. "The benefits of the Ares platform are already apparent to us and we believe these advantages will enhance our performance and growth prospects."
Proskauer Rose LLP acted as legal advisor and Latham & Watkins LLP acted as regulatory advisor to Ares, and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP acted as legal advisor to EIF.
About Ares Management, L.P.
Ares is a leading global alternative asset manager with approximately $84 billion of assets under management and more than 15 offices in the United States, Europe and Asia as of September 30, 2014, pro forma for the EIF transaction. Since its inception in 1997, Ares has adhered to a disciplined investment philosophy that focuses on delivering strong risk-adjusted investment returns throughout market cycles. Ares believes each of its four distinct but complementary investment groups in Tradable Credit, Direct Lending, Private Equity and Real Estate is a market leader based on assets under management and investment performance. Ares was built upon the fundamental principle that each group benefits from being part of the greater whole.
About Energy Investors Funds
EIF was founded in 1987 as one of the first private equity fund managers focused on the independent power industry. EIF's investment strategy is to create diversified portfolios of energy infrastructure related assets across the power generation, transmission, and midstream sectors that are expected to provide superior risk-adjusted equity returns with current cash flow and capital appreciation. From its offices in Boston, New York, and San Francisco, EIF manages over $4 billion of AUM in four comingled private equity funds as well as related co-investment vehicles as of September 30, 2014.


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The winning new teen romp Superbad was written by Evan Goldberg and Judd Apatow's protégé Seth Rogen, and directed by The Daytrippers' Greg Mottola, but it still feels like the concluding film in Apatow's trilogy of raunchy, big-hearted, improvisation-heavy comedies about man-children torn between the pleasures of eternal adolescence and the relentless pull of adult responsibility. The stars and sensibility get younger with each successive film: The 40-Year-Old Virgin's middle-aged Steve Carell gave way to twentysomething Knocked Up star Rogen, and now teenagers Jonah Hill and Michael Cera step in as co-dependent buddies facing the end of high school and scary/exciting college careers pulling them in separate directions.
Like American Graffiti and Dazed And Confused, Superbad condenses all the cruelty, mixed emotions, angst, fun, and insanity of high-school life into a single night of kinetic mayhem. In the tradition of such end-of-class movies, Superbad chronicles Hill and Cera's epic misadventures in securing alcohol for a raucous party where they hope to finally score with their respective crushes. In a hilarious subplot, über-Poindexter/unwieldy third wheel Christopher Mintz-Plasse gets separated from Hill and Cera and spends the night tagging along with a pair of goofy, underachieving Super Troopers (Seth Rogen and Bill Hader) who immediately take to Mintz-Plasse because they never really stopped being goofy teenaged dorks themselves. The looming specter of college and its friendship-testing separation gives the film a bittersweet undertone that seldom gets in the way of big-ass laughs and infectious high spirits.
With Superbad, producer Apatow solidifies his position as the undisputed king of dick-joke movies with surprising emotional relevance. But the element of surprise is largely gone: After Virgin and Knocked Up, people have come to expect Apatow's productions to include a little pathos with the scatological tomfoolery. Superbad consequently sets itself apart through the quality and quantity of its manhood-themed humor. From a riotous flashback to Hill's monomaniacal early obsession with drawing male genitalia onward, this is the Citizen Kane of dick-joke movies. Superbad is a funny, boozy, ramshackle party, but it's more likely to leave audiences with a tingly afterglow than a pounding hangover.

subset: commoncrawl


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In response to Wednesday's post on our new palm trees, we received a comment from Terry, who asked why we keep many of the palms in wood crates. I checked with John Bowsher, director of special installations, who told me that the reason some of the palms are in boxes is because there are structures beneath—a basement, a loading dock, and in one case, a large storm drain—that don't allow proper soil depth for the palms to grow. The crates themselves are standard issue, but I learned from John that Robert Irwin actually appreciates their shape so much that he's having Cor-ten steel versions fabricated for the area around the Resnick Pavilion, which will open next year. Regular readers might recall that one of our conservators, John Hirx, happened to write at length about the material just a couple of weeks ago, as it's the same material Richard Serra uses in his sculptures. Twenty palms are slated to reside in the new crates. A model should arrive in the next few weeks and I'll share a picture of it with you if I can.
Allison Agsten
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Teacher Preparation Program
Education Coordinating Committee
The LCC Education Coordinating Committee is a collaboration between teacher preparation faculty and programs in the Liberal Studies Division (elementary and secondary education), the Department of Health and Human Service Careers (child development)) and the Office of Teacher Preparation.
Lansing Community College seeks to meet the growing need in our community and the nation for well-prepared and effective teachers.Our objective is to recruit and prepare a diverse group of students and to provide them with a comprehensive and pedagogically sound foundation for a career in education and for life-long learning. To that end, we endeavor to build and maintain partnerships with school districts, university teacher certification programs, and state education agencies to ensure that the experiences we provide our students reflect current research, standards, and practice.The outcomes of those experiences for our students shall be:
- A broad-based knowledge of the world
- An essential knowledge of multiple disciplines
- A foundational knowledge of the content areas to be taught
- An understanding of historical and current educational policies and issues
- Familiarity with key educational concepts and practices
- An understanding of student characteristics, diversity, and special needs
- Proficiency in problem solving and inquiry-based learning skills
- Ability to use various media and technology for information and instruction
- Requisite skills for successful continuation of academic preparation
- Flexibility and adaptability
- Caring and compassion
- Passion for teaching
- Respect for individual differences
Arts and Sciences Division
Arts and Sciences Bldg, Room 1117
Phone: (517) 483-1010
Additional contact information »


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March 3rd, 2011
My Take: The Bible really does condemn homosexuality
By Robert A. J. Gagnon, Special to CNN
Editor's Note: Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D., is associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics and (with Dan Via) Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views.
In her recent CNN Belief Blog post "The Bible's surprisingly mixed messages on sexuality," Jennifer Wright Knust claims that Christians can't appeal to the Bible to justify opposition to homosexual practice because the Bible provides no clear witness on the subject and is too flawed to serve as a moral guide.
As a scholar who has written books and articles on the Bible and homosexual practice, I can say that the reality is the opposite of her claim. It's shocking that in her editorial and even her book, "Unprotected Texts," Knust ignores a mountain of evidence against her positions.
It raises a serious question: does the Left read significant works that disagree with pro-gay interpretations of Scripture and choose to simply ignore them?
Owing to space limitations I will focus on her two key arguments: the ideal of gender-neutral humanity and slavery arguments.
Knust's lead argument is that sexual differentiation in Genesis, Jesus and Paul is nothing more than an "afterthought" because "God's original intention for humanity was androgyny."
It's true that Genesis presents the first human (Hebrew adam, from adamah, ground: "earthling") as originally sexually undifferentiated. But what Knust misses is that once something is "taken from" the human to form a woman, the human, now differentiated as a man, finds his sexual other half in that missing element, a woman.
That's why Genesis speaks of the woman as a "counterpart" or "complement," using a Hebrew expression neged, which means both "corresponding to" and "opposite." She is similar as regards humanity but different in terms of gender. If sexual relations are to be had, they are to be had with a sexual counterpart or complement.
Knust cites the apostle Paul's remark about "no 'male and female'" in Galatians. Yet Paul applies this dictum to establishing the equal worth of men and women before God, not to eliminating a male-female prerequisite for sex.
Applied to sexual relations, the phrase means "no sex," not "acceptance of homosexual practice," as is evident both from the consensus of the earliest interpreters of this phrase and from Jesus' own sayings about marriage in this age and the next.
All the earliest interpreters agreed that "no 'male and female,'" applied to sexual relations, meant "no sex."
That included Paul and the ascetic believers at Corinth in the mid-first century; and the church fathers and gnostics of the second to fourth centuries. Where they disagreed is over whether to postpone mandatory celibacy until the resurrection (the orthodox view) or to begin insisting on it now (the heretical view).
Jesus' view
According to Jesus, "when (people) rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels" (Mark 12:25). Sexual relations and differentiation had only penultimate significance. The unmediated access to God that resurrection bodies bring would make sex look dull by comparison.
At the same time Jesus regarded the male-female paradigm as essential if sexual relations were to be had in this present age.
In rejecting a revolving door of divorce-and-remarriage and, implicitly, polygamy Jesus cited Genesis: "From the beginning of creation, 'male and female he made them.' 'For this reason a man …will be joined to his woman and the two shall become one flesh'" (Mark 10:2-12; Matthew 19:3-12).
Jesus' point was that God's limiting of persons in a sexual union to two is evident in his creation of two (and only two) primary sexes: male and female, man and woman. The union of male and female completes the sexual spectrum, rendering a third partner both unnecessary and undesirable.
The sectarian Jewish group known as the Essenes similarly rejected polygamy on the grounds that God made us "male and female," two sexual complements designed for a union consisting only of two.
Knust insinuates that Jesus wouldn't have opposed homosexual relationships. Yet Jesus' interpretation of Genesis demonstrates that he regarded a male-female prerequisite for marriage as the foundation on which other sexual standards could be predicated, including monogamy. Obviously the foundation is more important than anything predicated on it.
Jesus developed a principle of interpretation that Knust ignores: God's "from the beginning" creation of "male and female" trumps some sexual behaviors permitted in the Old Testament. So there's nothing unorthodox about recognizing change in Scripture's sexual ethics. But note the direction of the change: toward less sexual license and greater conformity to the logic of the male-female requirement in Genesis. Knust is traveling in the opposite direction.
Knust's slavery analogy and avoidance of closer analogies
Knust argues that an appeal to the Bible for opposing homosexual practice is as morally unjustifiable as pre-Civil War appeals to the Bible for supporting slavery. The analogy is a bad one.
The best analogy will be the comparison that shares the most points of substantive correspondence with the item being compared. How much does the Bible's treatment of slavery resemble its treatment of homosexual practice? Very little.
Scripture shows no vested interest in preserving the institution of slavery but it does show a strong vested interest from Genesis to Revelation in preserving a male-female prerequisite. Unlike its treatment of the institution of slavery, Scripture treats a male-female prerequisite for sex as a pre-Fall structure.
The Bible accommodates to social systems where sometimes the only alternative to starvation is enslavement. But it clearly shows a critical edge by specifying mandatory release dates and the right of kinship buyback; requiring that Israelites not be treated as slaves; and reminding Israelites that God had redeemed them from slavery in Egypt.
Paul urged enslaved believers to use an opportunity for freedom to maximize service to God and encouraged a Christian master (Philemon) to free his slave (Onesimus).
How can changing up on the Bible's male-female prerequisite for sex be analogous to the church's revision of the slavery issue if the Bible encourages critique of slavery but discourages critique of a male-female paradigm for sex?
Much closer analogies to the Bible's rejection of homosexual practice are the Bible's rejection of incest and the New Testament's rejection of polyamory (polygamy).
Homosexual practice, incest, and polyamory are all (1) forms of sexual behavior (2) able to be conducted as adult-committed relationships but (3) strongly proscribed because (4) they violate creation structures or natural law.
Like same-sex intercourse, incest is sex between persons too much structurally alike, here as regards kinship rather than gender. Polyamory is a violation of the foundational "twoness" of the sexes.
The fact that Knust chooses a distant analogue (slavery) over more proximate analogues (incest, polyamory) shows that her analogical reasoning is driven more by ideological biases than by fair use of analogies.
Knust's other arguments are riddled with holes.
In claiming that David and Jonathan had a homosexual relationship she confuses kinship affection with erotic love. Her claim that "from the perspective of the New Testament" the Sodom story was about "the near rape of angels, not sex between men" makes an "either-or" out of Jude 7's "both-and."
Her canard that only a few Bible texts reject homosexual practice overlooks other relevant texts and the fact that infrequent mention is often a sign of significance. It is disturbing to read what passes nowadays for expert "liberal" reflections on what the Bible says about homosexual practice.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Robert A. J. Gagnon.
soundoff (4,272 Responses)
About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.


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Last month I wrote about some of the struggles faced by Palestinian kids, not least the fact that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,300 children since 2000 (90 Israeli children have been killed in that same time).
The problem with articles like mine, though, is that shocking statistics tend to elide the grinding daily struggles, the smaller things that shape a Palestinian child's life.
As mental health care activist Vicky Hosker wrote in +972 on Sunday:
Chronic uncertainty surrounds children living under occupation like amniotic fluid. Even if they aren't one of the 500-700 children who are arrested annually by the IDF, even if they haven't had their homes demolished or lived through bombing raids, they imbibe fear. They also inherit the anxieties and preoccupations of their parents, many of whom were born into this situation themselves and grew up with a similar sense of instability.
That uncertainty and anxiety expresses itself in virtually every area of life—education, for instance.
On Monday, UNICEF released a report about the impact of Israel's security barrier on the schooling of children in East Jerusalem:
[Karimeh Khatib] had been a teacher at the Comboni Convent pre-school centre in East Jerusalem for 20 years when, two years ago, her commute to school turned from a simple 10-minute walk to a daily trial involving escorting 4- and 5-year-olds through an Israeli-controlled checkpoint, with a bus ride at either end.
…Crossing the checkpoint on foot, Ms. Khatib has to take the children one-by-one through steel turnstiles, electronic detectors and iron bars, which scare several of the little girls. "There's usually some sort of problem at the checkpoint," said Ms. Khatib, 45. "I once got my arm stuck in the turnstile, and I'm always afraid this will happen to one of the children…"
It now takes Khatib an hour or more to get her charges through the barrier (if it's open—military authorities often close West Bank checkpoints), and once the toddlers get to school, they are literally surrounded by the concrete wall—25 feet high in most places, but "Israeli Security Forces recently entered the kindergarten to heighten the Barrier even more."
Within Gaza, Palestinians have freedom of movement, but that stops at the border. Neither goods nor people can get in or out of the Strip legally unless the Israeli military approves (the exception is a single pedestrian crossing into Egypt, which cannot handle commercial goods).
The UN reports that as a result of the blockade, more than 80% of Gazan families depend on humanitarian aid; Israeli human rights organization Gisha reports that even with the much-ballyhooed easing of the blockade since the Mavi Marmara incident, the amount of goods allowed into Gaza is still only about half of what it was before the blockade was imposed. Moreover, Israel doesn't allow construction materials in, calling such items (cement, gravel, steel) "dual use" (and thus potentially useful for building weapons).
What this means for education is two-fold: First and foremost, Gaza is in desperate need of schools but has no way to build new ones, or repair those damaged or destroyed in the various rounds of hostilities with Israel. Terrible crowding is endemic, and, as a result, many schools are forced to teach the Strip's half a million students in double or triple shifts.
And yet, an even more basic problem is the question of books. The Christian Science Monitor reported this week that it has become very difficult to obtain any kind of books in Gaza—not because they're banned, but because the sheer mechanics of the blockade make getting them in all-but impossible.
Educators in particular are feeling the pinch. Gazans now resort to bootlegging the books they need, or smuggling them through Gaza's extensive (and frequently bombed by Israel) system of tunnels. According to Awni Maqayyid, head of the central library at the Islamic University, "the education system would collapse" without the smugglers' help.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is full of big, awful, often bloody things. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised by the recent report in Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot that among children exposed to trauma, one in four Israelis suffer from PTSD, as do nearly three-quarters of Palestinians—the children of southern Israel struggling with the emotional fall-out of falling rockets; Palestinians like seven-year-old Yara, hiding in a closet for fear soldiers are going to arrest her for dropping candy wrappers.
But the conflict is also full of smaller, quieter, terrible little moments. Like just trying to get to school, just trying to get books.
As one Gazan said to The Christian Science Monitor:
If people are living in a stable situation, they will behave stable. But if their situation is unstable, that causes the attacks that you see in the streets, the recklessness and radicalization. Things here are not stable.
"The most critical impact of the siege," the man said, "is the psychological one."


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325.7 million people in the USA in 2016. – 42,249 (Henry Kaiser Statistics )died in 2016 from overdoses of opioid = Leaving 325,657,751million people. (REMEMBER: statistics vary from website to website. I am using, as a base, those numbers most websites reported.
A pittance.. Meaning no disrespect! Of course not, individually…those lives are precious to those whose friends and family have been lost.
Because of media coverage results of current actions to reduce deaths should be noted:
"Someone" is recommending opioid training on "how to prescribe"; a course doctors must take. I do not know cost, time involved, or if it will be mandatory.
The Surgeon General is recommending that more pens of Naloxone be produced and sold so that some of those who overdose might be saved. The average cost at a discount, almost $100.00. Often two or three pens are needed. Someone will see a big profit! Pharmacies? Sale of pens to medical facilities. Cost to citizens.
FYI: highest death rates are age group 45-64. Most illicit users range from 18 to mid-twenties.
Over a period of weeks I have found that the age group most affected are the elderly. Affected in the way that their ability to be prescribed the medication for the drugs REALLY needed, has been curtailed…A choice of pain medication / or sleeping aid such as Ambien.
Doctors are encouraged to promote exercise and behavioral treatments to help patients cope with pain. REALLY? One would have to have experienced a vast majority of "pain" throughout the body to really know if a behavior treatment would help. Of course, mind over matter does help, but are most people really mentally ready to manage chronic pain using that methodology?
Is there really a healthful choice for those will permanent pain from injuries? Sleep or pain relief?
Common Opioids bind to receptors in brain and spinal cord. They disrupt pain signals and activate reward areas of brain by releasing dopamine – which creates a feeling of euphoria (a high). Opioids such as morphine and codeine are derived from poppy plants. Heroine is an illegal drug synthesized from morphine. Most opioids are grown in Asia, Central and South America.
Hydrocodone and oxycodone are manufactured in labs with natural and synthetic ingredients.
Between 2007 and 2016 the most widely prescribed drug (hydrocodone ), was prescribed and 6.2 BILLION pills were distributed. In 2016, 5 BiLLION oxycodone tablets were prescribed. These were all in the USA….. 99.7 of the worlds hydrocodone was prescribed in the USA.
NY Times
"Most of the time, it's sold on the street as heroin, or drug traffickers use it to make cheap counterfeit prescription opioids. Fentanyls are showing up in cocaine as well, contributing to an increase in cocaine-related overdoses. Fentanyl was originally developed as an anesthetic for surgery. Carfentanil – a unit is 100 times stronger than fentanyl, and 10,000 as a unit of morphine. The most deadly of the fentanyl analogues Carfentanil, an elephant tranquilizer, 5,000 times stronger than heroin. An amount smaller than a few grains of salt can be a lethal dose." It already has commercial availability…
For anyone who would like to read a few names of what citizens have been given for various ailments and injuries, I copied a fairly comprehensive list and will post it soon.
The point of this post, I am not sure. I just found it extremely interesting that as citizens we were given the okay for many of these to curb pain. The government is concerned about "citizens" when I believe the citizens who are using these drugs "to death" are illegal in their usage-either bought on the street, shared with relatives, or stolen!
Granted, I have seen and met some fakers here in California, and there are many throughout the states, but the majority of people I've seen who use these drugs are in dire need of some help to manage his or her life.
It s just sickening to have those really in need managed so poorly – Many doctors are now pulling back on writing these prescriptions so they won't "get in trouble."
We can also blame "money people" on the fact cigarettes and alcohol are still legal.
Haven't even mentioned the huge problem with Adderall addiction, or the ridiculous use of Ritalin in children. – For God's sake, let them be children….
What is the answer? I don't know. It's certainly NOT taking pain meds or sleeping aids away from those who ACTUALLY manage lives with the help- the elderly, critical pain patients, and those will lifelong major pain afflictions; many of which are our combat soldiers – men and women!


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BEIRUT — The bravado sounded familiar. Like the leaders of other countries swept away by Arab Spring uprisings, Syrian President Bashar Assad vowed to never be forced into exile and to die in his homeland.
Assad dug in his heels even as world powers move to boost the opposition in Syria's civil war — the latest turn in a nearly 20-month-old crisis so overwhelming that even the Red Cross says it can no longer cope.
"I am not a puppet, I was not made by the West for me to go to the West or any other country," Assad said in an interview with Russia Today, which posted excerpts Thursday on its website. "I am Syrian, I am made in Syria, and I will live and die in Syria."
The rare interview — in which the 47-year-old president spoke in English with his words translated into Arabic — was posted online two days after British Prime Minister David Cameron suggested that Assad could be allowed safe passage out of Syria if that would guarantee an end to the civil war.
The full interview will be broadcast Friday, the TV station said. It was not clear when or where it took place. Assad was seen in a gray suit and tie, casually talking and also walking with RT's reporter outside a house.
Assad has made only a few appearances public since the revolt began in March 2011. Last month, state TV showed him praying on the floor of a Damascus mosque for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
As the two sides battle for the upper hand, civilians are bearing the brunt of the crisis.
Peter Maurer, the head of the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, said the civil war has been in a downward spiral for months.
"We can't cope with the worsening of the situation," Maurer said. "The seriousness of the crisis is deepening with every day and this trend has been uninterrupted since summer."
The Red Cross has improved its transportation and logistics, making it easier to bring in truckloads of food and medicine, but it has become overwhelmed by the dire need of hundreds of thousands of people struggling inside Syria, he said.
The daily death toll in the civil war has been averaging 100 or more recently, according to activists' accounts. The fighting pits rebels and troops, and the violence includes artillery shelling and regime airstrikes on rebel-held areas.
Assad's defiant vow to "live and die" in Syria echoed statements by Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Moammar Gadhafi of Libya — two Arab dictators who said they would never leave their homelands before popular revolts swept them from power.


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If you have taken it upon yourself to go for the bonus points in the HDX Dragon computer giveaway, this is the thread you want to submit your screenshots in. You only get one, so please be sure that you have done everything you wanted to do to earn bonus points, and put all your screenshots into that one post.
To get the full contest rules, as well on information on earning bonus points, head on over to the HP HDX giveaway rules post.


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ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- It's happened again. A teacher is accused of having sex with a student and, like many times before, cell phone calls and texting reportedly had a role in sexually abusing a minor.
The same cell phones that parents buy as safety devices for their children are the gadgets that pedophiles and predators use to prep kids for sexual encounters, experts and police say.
The latest case is out of Pennsylvania. Police say a 26-year-old P.E. teacher admitted to having sex with a 14-year-old student in the school's parking lot.
Detectives from the Moon Township Police Department said they found nude pictures of Beth Ann Chester on the teen's cell phone along with text messages.
Chester faces 14 charges, including three counts of sexual abuse of a child and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. Watch police describe how Chester explained the relationship »
Robert Del Greco, Chester's attorney, declined CNN's request for a comment. His client has a preliminary hearing on January 22.
Before cell phones, laptops and Sidekicks -- a BlackBerry-like device for the younger, hipper crowd -- someone might have noticed that a teacher was "grooming" a child, or being way too attentive, too often.
Not anymore.
Now, teachers have weeks, months and years to secretly undermine a child's parents and get a student to go along with sexual contact.
"The fact is a teacher can show absolutely zero outward signs of interest in a child, but because of technology, they can have an ongoing relationship and no one would know," said Ted Thompson, the executive director for the National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children.
Parents know chat rooms are dangerous. They warn their kids about the risk, but they give cell phones a nod.
A New York mom, who requested anonymity because her kids don't know about her surveillance, said she uses software to regularly check her children's e-mail and online activity on the home computer.
But she also gave her kids cell phones that have texting and photographic capability. Asked why she doesn't scrutinize the phone the same way she snoops on the computer, she said. "I hadn't really thought about it much."
Detective Joshua Shelton, who works in the crimes against women and children's unit in Fayette County, Georgia, says most parents are like that. He's investigating a case in which a teacher allegedly sent a message to a 14-year-old student's cell phone requesting a nude picture of her.
"Parents don't have the involvement that they should with these electronic devices," Shelton said. "Parents should consider cell phones that have Internet access like a window open into their house, because that's exactly what these people are using it as."
Start platonic, get physical
Betsy Ramsey has spent 20 years working with child and female victims and chairs the DeKalb County Domestic Violence Task Force in Georgia. Stalking of adults and grooming of kids almost always involve using electronic devices these days, she said.
"This is the way people communicate today, particularly young people," she said, "and sometimes, you have teachers who are not that much older, because they are just starting out, and they grew up with text messaging."
Often adults who have their eyes on a child invest time in making them comfortable, police said.
"They groom children," Shelton said. "A lot of the time, these kids mistake the grooming activity for friendship, which is exactly what it's designed to do -- to look like a platonic relationship, when all they are really doing is getting closer and closer to them socially so they can get closer and closer to them physically."
A recent case involves Kelsey Peterson, a 25-year-old Nebraska teacher accused of having sex with a 13-year-old former student. She faces federal charges for allegedly kidnapping the teen and taking him to Mexico to have sex.
An Associated Press reporter, Elliott Spagat, interviewed the boy while he was in Mexico and told CNN about it. The boy recounted being groomed, telling Spagat that Peterson "was his best friend. He was having problems with gangs ... and he said she would lend an ear whenever he needed it," Spagat said. Watch for the boy's side of how the relationship started »
Peterson's lawyer, James Martin Davis, said that's not what happened and there was no grooming or pursuit by his client.
Peterson has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, but Davis said, "I would plead her guilty to what she did, which was statutory rape, if they proved his age to me, but they haven't got a certified birth certificate." Davis says the boy and his family were here illegally and had numerous fake documents.
Davis says his client is not a "dirty old woman," and that the victim told him he was older and already had children. "The thing about these teacher-student cases is that these boys are not children. They are teenage males. There is no one more sexually aware than these teenage males," Davis said.
"I'm not saying it's right. It is a crime," Davis said. "But we are not dealing with children. I have 14- and 15-year-olds that are tried as adults when they are defendants, but we want to baby-fy them when it comes to these kinds of cases."
Peterson also faces charges in Lexington, Nebraska. The Lexington complaint against Peterson accuses her of child abuse, kidnapping, delinquency of a minor and two counts of sexual assault of a minor.
She has not been arraigned on the Lexington charges to enter a plea because authorities are working out which case to pursue, Davis said. "They are not going to double try her."
Love letters and vodka
One teacher spent four years building a friendship with a student, authorities said. Troy Mansfield was the third-grade teacher of the little victim with the blond ponytail, said Trooper Robert Norton, of the Pennsylvania State Police.
Mansfield sent her poems via e-mail, and the girl said she felt like she could confide in him. By the time she was in seventh grade, they were comfortable talking about sexual fantasies, and he'd sneak her away from school in his car for an hour of sex, Norton said.
Norton recalled that the child was a few minutes into testifying, when Mansfield needed a recess. "We arranged the e-mails in chronological order. She was on the stand reading hers, and I would read what he wrote to her," Norton said.
"We were about five or six e-mails into it, and his lawyer said that his client needed a recess, that he didn't feel well. He stepped outside of the courtroom, and just outside of the courtroom Troy Mansfield fainted. He pleaded guilty the next day."
Mansfield is serving up to 31 years in jail.
The wooing via text messages, cell phone calls and e-mail is so subtle, so affirming and so indulgent, that by the time a teacher makes inquiries involving nudity, a child probably isn't alarmed, Ramsey said.
"They will be supportive of behavior that the parent would not be supportive of, and the child gets an opportunity to do things that they cannot do at home," Ramsey said. "That is like a teenage dream."
A 14-year-old boy who had sex with 26-year-old Kelly Dalecki of Florida told police as much. Dalecki was a teacher at the same school where his mother taught, and she socialized with his parents.
According to police investigation notes, when the boy was 13, Dalecki gave him her cell phone number and an alias e-mail address. She bought and gave him Mike's Hard Lemonade, cranberry juice with vodka, condoms and marijuana, the documents state.
By the time she started e-mailing porn and illicit messages, he trusted her. "She would ask me if I was a virgin," the boy is quoted by police as saying. And she starting asking him about his interest in knowing about oral sex, police notes state.
The 14-year-old described what happened to him as consensual sexual intercourse, told cops he started to think, "How cool it was a woman her age wants me," and that, "Around me, she tried to act like a teenager, but around my parents, she acted like an adult," his statement to police reads.
Dalecki pleaded no contest to lewd and lascivious battery and was sentenced to 364 days in jail.
Thompson, of the National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children, said that if parents hope to protect their children, they cannot limit discussions to cover only invasive acts.
"If you think your kids are protected because they know that if they are touched in their private areas or if somebody undresses in front of them or attempts to perform a sexual act that that is the only bad thing, then they are not going to be prepared for the subtle, the grooming piece," Thompson said.
And there's something else Thompson recommends. Limit a cell phone's abilities. Allow it to make and accept calls to and from parents and 911 only.
"I know the societal pressure is for parents to get their kids the latest phone with all the gadgets that are out there," Thompson said, "but more important than complying with all the societal pressures is protecting your child." E-mail to a friend


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Daily Tip: How to use encrypted disk images with Dropbox to Protect your sensitive files
Has all the furor surrounding Dropbox lately made you wonder how you can better protect your private information? It's always a good rule of thumb to assume that any file you store using a service that has any internet connection at all is by its very nature not protected. (For a variety of reasons, legal or otherwise.) However, there's nothing to stop you from making your files as secure as possible, encrypting them before they ever hit Dropbox's servers. We'll show you how, after the break.
Part of Dropbox's own security document outlines the use of encryption before uploading files, and there are a variety of ways to do this. If you're on a Mac, one of the easiest is to simply use Disk Utility in the OS X Utilities folder to create a special mountable folder that you can lock up to your heart's content. In a few quick steps, you can be sure that your sensitive docs are protected long before they leave your LAN.
Note: iOS can't mount encrypted files so if you used this, you won't be able to open them on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Security is always at war with convenience and this tip is for when you've got to let the security Wookie win.
Step 1: Create A New Disk Image
Open Disk Utility (HD/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility) and choose New > Blank Disk Image from the drop down menu. Now you'll need to choose a few parameters for your disk image.
Step 2: Choosing Features, Creating the Image
Here's where it gets only slightly tricky. There's a bunch of stuff you can pick here for your disk image, but it really depends on how much space you have in your Dropbox and how tight you want your security. First, give your new disk image a name (I usually use the same one for the "Save As" field and the "Name" field).(opens in new tab)
Now, you need to choose how much storage you want to use. Even if you aren't going to fill it, Dropbox will see the new disk image as a single file, so if you only need 100 MB of storage, don't choose the 500 MB disk image size, because it'll be a lot of wasted space. Conversely, you can also choose a custom size if you need a lot more space.(opens in new tab)
Now, for the important part. If you're doing this at all, there's probably no reason for you to use anything less than 256-bit encryption, so go ahead and just pick that and make it easy on yourself.(opens in new tab)
Once you're done, you can pretty much leave the other things as they are. Of course you can tweak as much as you like, but it'll work fine with just those two settings. Click "Create" and Disk Utility will ask you for a password. Make it a good one and if you really want to be safe, you can uncheck the "Remember password in my keychain" box. This will force you to enter the password every time you need to access the image - so if you're only concerned about storing it safely on Dropbox and you feel your machine is safe enough, it's up to you how hardcore you want to get. If you leave it checked, your keychain should auto-unlock the image for you each time you open it. But remember, if you uncheck that box, and lose or forget the password, it's really gone, along with anything in that disk image. So be careful.(opens in new tab)
Now that you've assigned a password, the image will be created. When it's ready, it will auto-mount on the desktop and you can open it and begin adding files.(opens in new tab)
You can see available space in the bottom of your finder window.(opens in new tab)
When you're done dropping your sensitive docs in, simply eject the disk image and it will begin uploading to Dropbox. That's pretty much it! If you look in your Dropbox folder, you'll see a disk image, and when you double-click to launch, it'll prompt you for your password. Now you can rest a little easier, knowing that your documents are locked up long before they hit the web.
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Seth fights for the users. The CIO of Nickelfish, he helps build apps like Stringer by day and co-hosts the Iterate podcast by night. He's also a lover of classic video games, surfer for life.
Awesome Tip Seth !!! thanks
Great tip, I'll try it thanks
Great tutorial Seth!!!
Great tip Seth. Does anyone know of an alternative for windows users?
Install the freebie TrueCrypt on both your PC and your Mac and you will have an encrypted disk image that is cross platform. Keep in mind, though, that with any of these types of solutions (including the one presented in the original post) you should only have the disk mounted on one computer at a time.
why only one at a time? what could go wrong?
Good tutorial, but I suppose every time I change one file on the encrypted image the entire image gets uploaded again, correct?
Unless you create a sparsebundle. That is an image-file, which exists as a collection of smaller files (bands). So only the bands, that are changed, need to be reuploaded.
Additionally a spareimage can grow up to a predefined size and thus won't need all of the maximum space, if most of it is unused.
You can create a sparseimage in Disk Utility or in the Terminal.
In Terminal you can do everything in one line. Assuming, your Dropbox folder is in the standard location (~/Dropbox), the following one line command will create an image called Test.sparseimage in your Dropbox, that will grow up to a size of 500 MB, has the name MountedName when, well, mounted and will be mounted after it is created:
hdiutil create -volname MountedName -encryption -size 500m -fs HFS+J -attach ~/Dropbox/Test.sparsebundle
When you hit the return-key you will be prompted (twice) for the password. Don't worry, if you don't see anything while typing the password. That's standard behaviour.
And of course feel free to change "MountedName" as well as "Test".
Sorry to be "that person" but can you share where you got your desktop wallpaper form please?
great tip and thank you for explaining it so thoroughly that even your little sister could do it!
Or just use JungleDisk, this RackSpace based service and app will let you use client side encryption (a key only you know and not the service) that means you (and only you) can open the uploaded files from any device (PC, Mac, iPhone etc.), JD is different than DropBox because it gives you the option of using your own encryption key (in addition to the standard account password). Not free though.https://www.jungledisk.com/iphoneappbackupsharefilesmanagedataviewdocuments/default.aspx


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(CNSNews.com) - Operation Fast and Furious was a program carried out by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a division of the U.S. Justice Department.
In this operation, which began in the fall of 2009 and continued into early 2011, the federal government purposefully allowed known or suspected gun smugglers to purchase guns at federally licensed firearms dealers in Arizona. The government did not seek to abort these gun purchases, intercept the smugglers after the purchases, or recover the guns they had purchased.
In some cases, as the government expected they would, the smugglers delivered the guns to Mexican drug trafficking organizations.
The reported purpose of the operation was to track and uncover the entirety of the smuggling operations so they could be completely shutdown. However, two rifles sold to a smuggler in the course of Operation Fast and Furious in January 2010 ended up at the scene of the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.
The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R.-Calif.), and Sen. Charles Grassley (R.-Iowa), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, are currently investigating the operation.
Here is a timeline based on information the congressional investigation has so far uncovered.
Operation Fast and Furious Timeline:
September 2009 – Jan. 8, 2010: A Jan. 8, 2010 briefing paper from the ATF Phoenix Field Division Group VII says: "This investigation has currently identified more than 20 individual connected straw purchasers." It further says: "To date (September 2009 – present) this group has purchased in excess of 650 firearms (mainly AK-47 variants) for which they have paid cash totaling more than $350,000."
October 2009: The ATF's Phoenix Field Division establishes a gun trafficking group called Group VII. Group VII initially began using the strategy of "gunwalking," or allowing suspects to walk away with illegally purchased guns, according to a report by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the staff of Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"The purpose was to wait and watch, in hope that law enforcement could identify other members of a trafficking network and build a large, complex conspiracy case," the report says. It goes on to say: "Group VII initially began using the new gunwalking tactics in one of its investigations to further the Department's strategy. The case was soon renamed 'Operation Fast and Furious.'"
Nov. 25, 2009: The ATF began conducting surveillance of Jaime Avila as early as this date, according to the congressional report.
Early December 2009: "It should be noted that since early December, efforts to 'slow down' the pace of these firearms purchases have succeeded and will continue but not to the detriment of the larger goal of the investigation," the ATF briefing paper from Jan. 8, 2010 says. "It should also be noted that the pace of firearms procurement by this straw purchasing group from late September to early December 2009 defied the 'normal' pace of procurement by other firearms trafficking groups investigated by this and other field divisions. The 'blitz' was extremely out of the ordinary and created a situation where measures had to be enacted in order to slow this pace down in order to perfect a criminal case."
Jan. 4-Jan. 8, 2010: There were three recorded phone calls during this period "between the most prolific suspected straw-purchaser and the Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL)," according to the ATF briefing paper. "These conversations have been to schedule future purchases of AK-47 variant riffles. The anticipated purchase is about forty (40) rifles."
Jan. 5, 2010: ATF agents met with Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona Emory Hurley, the lead prosecutor in the matter, according to the briefing paper. The briefing paper says: "a determination was made that there was minimal evidence at this time to support any type of prosecution; therefore, additional firearms purchases should be monitored and additional evidence continued to be gathered."
Further, US Attorney for the District of Arizona Dennis Burke was briefed on this day. Burke "concurs with the assessment of his line prosecutors and fully supports the continuation of the investigation," the briefing paper says. The paper goes on to say that then head of the ATF Phoenix Field Division, Special Agent in Charge William Newell, "has repeatedly met with the USA Burke regarding the on-going status of this investigation and both are in full agreement with the current investigative strategy."
Jan. 8, 2010: The aforementioned briefing paper from the ATF Phoenix Field Division sheds further light on the operation:
--The paper makes clear: "Currently our strategy is to allow the transfer of firearms to continue to take place, albeit at a much slower pace, in order to further the investigation and allow for the identification of additional co-conspirators who would continue to operate and illegally traffic firearms to Mexican DTOs [Drug Trafficking Organizations]."
--The ATF worked with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Phoenix Ariz. "Surveillance operations are now being coordinated with information being obtained from the REDACTED. This is being coordinated out the of the Phoenix OCDETF Strike Force, of which Phoenix Group VII is a full-time member."
--"There have been five notable seizure events connected with this group, and approximately 53 firearms originally purchased by this group have been recovered. Three of these seizures have been in the Country of Mexico, one recovery in Douglas, AZ, and one recovery in Nogales, AZ. The U.S. recoveries were both believed to be destined for Mexico. It should be noted however that there has been one seizure in the Phoenix areas related to the ongoing DEA narcotics trafficking investigation."
--"The seizures referenced above were not from any member of the targeted group of straw purchasers identified in this investigation. Rather they were from Hispanic individuals (both male and female) whose association with our target group is currently unknown."
--"The ultimate goal is to secure [REDACTED] to identify and prosecute all co-conspirators of the DTO to include the 20 individual straw purchasers, the facilitators of the distribution cell centered here in Phoenix, the transportation cells taking firearms South, and ultimately to develop and provide prosecutable information to our Mexican law enforcement counterparts for actions."
Jan. 15, 2010: A joint strategy meeting was planned for this day, according to the Jan. 8, 2010 ATF document, with the representatives from the ATF, the DEA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Jan. 16, 2010: Jaime Avila purchased three Romarm 7.62 rifles from Lone Wolfe Trading Company near Glendale, Ariz. According to the report, he also bought guns illegally in April and June of 2010.
Jan. 26, 2010: Operation Fast and Furious receives funding from the Justice Department's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF)
March 10, 2010: A memo from Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny A. Breuer authorizes a wire tap application as part of Operation Fast and Furious. The memo on the authorization was sent to Paul M. O'Brien, director of the Office of Enforcement Operation for the Criminal Division and to Emory Hurley, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona and the lead prosecutor in the operation.
March 10, 2010: An internal e-mail from George T. Gillett Jr., assistant special agent in charge to supervisor Voth and others said that ATF Acting Director Melson and ATF Deputy Director Billy Hoover "are being briefed weekly on this investigation and the recent success with REDACTED so they are both keenly interested in case updates."
March 11, 2010: An e-mail from Voth to Gillett, with the subject line "Director's questions" said, "Here are anwers to what I understand the director's questions to be. More detail can be provided upon request. I thought it best to start brief. 1.) IP Addresses for Pole Cameras: REDACTED User ID: REDACTED password: REDACTED This must be monitored from a stand-alone computer as ATF Network bandwidth does not permit continuous monitoring." In a news release in June, Rep. Issa said, "With this information, Acting Director Melson was able to sit at his desk in Washington and himself watch a live feed of straw buyers entering the gun stores and purchasing dozens of AK-47 variants."
March 12, 2010: David Voth, the Phoenix Group VII supervisor, sent an e-mail addressing the divide between field agents who wanted to halt the operation and the chain of command who supported the operation.
"Whether you care or not people of rank and authority at HQ are paying close attention to this case and they also believe we (Phoenix Group VII) are doing what they envisioned the Southwest Border Groups doing," Voth's e-mail said. "It may sound cheesy, but we are 'The Tip of the ATF spear' when it comes to Southwest Border Firearms Trafficking. We need to resolve our issues at this meeting. I will be damned if this case is going to suffer due to petty arguing, rumors or other adolescent behavior. If you don't think this is fun you're in the wrong line of work--period."
The Voth e-mail continued: "This is the pinnacle of U.S. law enforcement techniques. After this, the tool box is empty. Maybe the Maricopa County Jail is hiring detention officers and you can get paid $30,000 (instead of $100,000) to serve lunch to inmates all day."
April 2, 2010: David Voth, the Phoenix Group VII supervisor, sent an e-mail to a redacted recipient that says: "Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during the month of March alone, to include numerous Barrett .50 caliber riffles. I believe we are righteous in our plan to dismantle this entire organization and to rush in to arrest any one person without taking in to account the entire scope of the conspiracy would be ill advised to the overall good of the mission."
April 12, 2010: An e-mail from Voth to Gillett says that the next day, the ATF Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations William McMahon will get a briefing on the operation.
Dec. 14, 2010: U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, 40, was murdered in Rio Rico, Ariz., by suspected operatives of a Mexican drug-smuggling organization. Police arrested four suspects in the murder.
Dec. 15, 2010: An e-mail exchange among ATF agents at 7:45 p.m. confirmed that the two of the weapons that Jaime Avila had purchased in January 2010 as part of Operation Fast and Furious were found at Terry's murder scene. The names on the e-mail were redacted.
"The two firearms recovered by ATF this afternoon near Rio Rico, Arizona, in conjunction with the shooting death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Terry were identified as 'Suspect Guns' in the Fast and Furious investigation [REDACTED]," the e-mail says. The e-mail stated the guns and serial numbers, and said: "I initiated an urgent firearms trace request on both of the firearms and then contacted the NTC to ensure the traces were conducted today."
December-January 2010: "According to Acting Director Melson, he became aware of this startling possibility [that guns were being smuggled into Mexico with the awareness of the ATF] only after the [December] murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and the[ January] indictments of the straw purchasers, which we now know were substantially delayed by the U.S. Attorney's Office and Main Justice," says a July 5, 2011 letter from Sen. Grassley and Rep. Issa to Attorney General Holder.
Jan. 8, 2011: U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is shot while meeting with constituents in Tucson. ATF agents were initially worried she might have been shot by a gun sold through Operation Fast and Furious. This turned out not to be the case. However, Pete Forcelli, a group supervisor with the ATF Phoenix Field Division who had warned about potential dangers of the program, told congressional investigators that after Terry was murdered many agents were on edge. "And then there was a sense like every other time, even with Ms. Giffords' shooting, there was a state of panic, like, oh, God, let's hope this is not a weapon from that case."
Jan. 19, 2011: Operation Fast and Furious results in the indictment of 20 straw purchasers, including Jaime Avila. That is the same number of straw purchasers that the ATF had identified as long as a year before this indictment. The Jan. 8, 2010 ATF briefing paper on the operation had said its goal was to prosecute "the 20 individual straw purchasers, the facilitators of the distribution cell centered here in Phoenix, the transportation cells taking firearms South." The indictment focused on the straw purchasers failing to provide accurate information on ATF Form 4473, which a purchaser must complete truthfully when buying a gun. According to the congressional report, the ATF had known that most of the indicted straw purchasers were in fact straw purchasers before Operation Fast and Furious began.
Jan. 25, 2011: Phoenix Special Agent in Charge William Newell held a press conference announcing the indictment of the 20 people as a result of Operation Fast and Furious. When asked if agents purposefully allowed weapons to enter Mexico, Newell says, "Hell, no."
Jan. 27, 2011: Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson that said: "Members of the Judiciary Committee have received numerous allegations that the ATF sanctioned the sale of hundreds of assault weapons to suspected straw purchasers, who then allegedly transported these weapons throughout the southwestern border area and into Mexico. According to these allegations, one of these individuals purchased three assault rifles with cash in Glendale, Arizona on January 16, 2010. Two of the weapons were then allegedly used in a firefight on December 14, 2010 against Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, killing CBP Agent Brian Terry."
Grassley requested that the ATF brief his staff on the matter.
Jan. 31, 2011: Grassley wrote a second letter to Melson that says whistleblowers were being targeted in the agency. "This is exactly the wrong sort of reaction for the ATF. Rather than focusing on retaliating against whistleblowers, the ATF's sole focus should be on findding and disclosing the truth as soon as possible."
The Grassley letter continued, "As you may be aware, obstructing a Congressional investigation is a crime. Additionally, denying or interfering with employees' rights to furnish information to Congress is also against the law. Federal officials who deny or interfere with employees' rights to furnish information to Congress are not entitled to have their salaries paid by taxpayers' dollars. Finally, ATF personnel have Constitutional rights to express their concerns to Congress under the First Amendment."
Feb. 1, 2011: In a story headlined, "Claims tie ATF sting to guns in shootout," The Arizona Republic reported on Grassley's pending investigation and on the whistleblower's allegations. Other media, such as The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times reported on this in the following days.
Feb. 4, 2011: Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote Grassley denying that the Justice Department knowingly "sanctioned" the sale of guns to people they believed were going to deliver them to Mexican drug cartels.
"At the outset, the allegation described in your January 27 letter--that ATF 'sanctioned' or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them to Mexico--is false," Weich wrote. "ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico."
Feb. 15, 2011: Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata is murdered in Mexico. The Associated Press later reported (on Feb. 28), based on an unnamed source, that the weapon used to kill Zapata "was shipped through Laredo with the possible knowledge of the ATF." The story continued that "the feds were already investigating the suspects when the gun was sent to Mexico." The matter was separate from Operation Fast and Furious, but was under the same umbrella as part of the larger Project Gunrunner.
Feb. 23, 2011: CBS Evening News airs its first piece on Operation Fast and Furious that includes interviews with ATF whistleblowers who say they warned supervisors of potential problems.
March 8, 2011: The Justice Department informed Sen. Grassley that the matter would be reviewed by the DOJ's Office of Inspector General. In a letter to Grassley, Assistant Attorney General Weich wrote, "We appreciated your continuing concern about this matter. We have referred your letters to and the attached documents to the Department's Office of Inspector General."
March 10, 2011: At a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) asked Holder about the matter.
"What is your view now on that particular program? And I know that you've asked for an IG study of it, but tell me if you think that that program should be continued. Is it the correct use of the Project Gunrunner subprogram, I guess? Because it--of course, it's a great concern."
Holder responded, "Well, first, I'd say that, you know, the mission of ATF and the mission to which they are dedicated is to stop the flow of guns into Mexico and to people who shouldn't have guns here in the United States. And that is the focus of ATF, and it is why ATF agents serve bravely in Mexico and in this country, and I think do a great job. It is true that there have been concerns expressed by ATF agents about the way in which this operation was conducted and I took those allegations, those concerns, very seriously, and asked the inspector general to try to get to the bottom of it. An investigation, an inquiry, is now under way.
"I've also made clear to people in the department that letting guns walk--I guess that's the term that the people use--that letting guns walk is not something that is acceptable. Guns are different than drug cases or cases where we're trying to follow where money goes. We cannot have a situation where guns are allowed to walk, and I've made that clear to the United States attorneys as well as the agents in charge in the various ATF offices."
March 11, 2011: The Contra Costa Times and other news organizations reported that the Mexican attorney general's office, known as the PGR, issued a statement that Mexican authorities were aware of the U.S. anti-gun operation that allowed smugglers to buy weapons under watch of U.S. agents, but that the Mexican government "had no knowledge of the existence of an operation that might include the transgression or controlled trafficking of arms to Mexican territory." The statement continued, "The government of Mexico has not given nor will it give its authorization, tacit or express, under any circumstance, for that to occur."
March 22, 2011: President Barack Obama was asked about Operation Fast and Furious on Univision, a Spanish language network.
"Well, first of all, I did not authorize it," Obama told Univision. "Eric Holder, the attorney general, did not authorize it. There may be a situation here in which a serious mistake was made. If that's the case, then we'll find-- find out and we'll hold somebody accountable."
March 2011: ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson says "he told the Office of Deputy Attorney General at the end of March that the Department needed to reexamine how it was responding to the request for information from Congress," according to a July 5 letter from Rep. Issa and Sen. Grassley to Attorney General Holder.
May 3, 2011: Holder testified to the House Judiciary Committee. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Holder had an exchange about Operation Fast and Furious. Under questioning from Issa, Holder said he was not sure of the exact date he first heard of the operation, but said it was "probably … over the last few weeks." Holder also could not say who authorized the operation.
Issa asked: "When did you first know about the program officially, I believe, called Fast and Furious? To the best of your knowledge, what date?"
Holder answered: "I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."
Issa followed: "Now that you've been briefed on it, the president has said on March 22 that you didn't authorize it. Did your deputy attorney general, James Cole, authorize it?"
Holder answered: "I'm sorry. That would be?"
Issa repeated: "The deputy attorney general, James Cole."
Holder again acted puzzled: "Did he -- I didn't hear. Did he?"
Issa completed the question: "Did the deputy attorney general authorize it?"
Holder finally gave a less than clear answer: "My guess would be no. Mr. Cole, I don't think, was in the—I--I think--I don't think he was in the department at the time that operation started."
Issa went on to ask: "How about the head of the Criminal Division, Lanny Breuer?"
Holder answered, "I'm not sure."
Issa followed; "Did he authorize it?"
Holder responded: "I'm not sure whether Mr. Breuer authorized it. I mean, you have to understand the way in which the department operates. Although there are--there are operations, this one has become--has gotten a great deal of publicity."
Issa later asked: "Do you stand by this program? In other words--and it's not a hypothetical, really--if you knew this program, knew about this program 90 days ago, 180 days ago, would you have allowed it to continue? And if not, then what are you going to do about the people who did know and allowed it to continue?"
Holder answered: "Well, what I have told people at the Department of Justice is that under no circumstances in any case that any investigation that we bring should guns be allowed to be distributed in an uncontrolled manner."
Issa followed: "So that would be cognizant with the March 9th letter from Deputy Attorney General James Cole in which he says that we should not design or conduct undercover operations which include guns crossing the border. If we have knowledge that guns are about to cross the border, we must take immediate action to stop the firearms from crossing the border, and so on. That's--that's your policy today."
Holder says: "That has--that is our policy. That has totally been the policy that I tried to impose."
Issa then asked: "And isn't Fast and Furious inconsistent with that policy?"
Holder answered: "Well, that's one of the questions that we'll have to see whether or not Fast and Furious was conducted in a way that's consistent with what Jim wrote there, what I have said today. And that's what the inspector general is, in fact, looking at."
June 16, 2011: Issa told CNSNews.com he believes Holder knew about the operation earlier than he testified.
"We believe he [Holder] was aware of it much earlier than he says in his testimony and questioning before the Judiciary Committee," Issa said. Issa later added: "Are we confident that Eric Holder knew it much earlier? No. Did he know it earlier than he testified? Absolutely."
June 15, 2011: The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in conjunction with the staff of Sen. Grassley, released a report on Operation Fast and Furious. On that day, the House oversight committee held a hearing on the matter. Four ATF agents testified about their opposition to the operation.
At the hearing, Chairman Issa questioned Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich about the letter he sent to Sen. Grassley on Feb. 4 in which Weich said it was "false" that the Justice Department had "knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them to Mexico."
"You made a statement in that letter that you signed on the 4th that said: 'ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico," said Issa. "Who prepared that line in your letter? You signed it, who prepared it? Was it you?"
"These letters are the product of the Justice Department," Weich responded.
"So your signature on that letter doesn't mean that you know it to be true, is that correct?" asked Issa.
"I take ultimate responsibility," said Weich.
"Okay," said Issa. "Isn't that statement false now with what you know?"
"Obviously, there have been allegations that call into serious question that particular sentence," said Weich.
"Weren't there documents that now have been provided and made public that let you know that that statement was false?" asked Issa.
"And that's why you're investigating and that's why we're investigating," said Weich.
Replied Issa: "I just take your agreement that those documents indicate that that statement that you signed that someone prepared for your signature were false?
"Congressman, I am not prepared to say that at this time," said Weich. "Everything that we say is true to the best of our knowledge at the time we say it. As more facts come out, obviously our understanding of the situation is enhanced."
June 27, 2011: White House Press Secretary Jay Carney could not provide the answer when CNSNews.com asked him for the exact date when President Obama first learned about Operation Fast and Furious. Carney responded, "I'll have to get back to you. I don't have an exact date for you." Carney also did not comment on whether the president believed Acting ATF Director Melson should resign from his position.
June 29, 2011: A reporter asked President Obama about the matter at a White House news conference. Obama responded, "As you know, my attorney general has made clear he certainly would not have ordered gun running to pass through into Mexico. The investigation is still pending. I'm not going to comment on the current investigation. I've made very clear my views that that would not be an appropriate step by the ATF, and we've got to find out how that happened. As soon as the investigation is complete, appropriate action will be taken."
July 4, 2011: Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson and speaks to congressional investigators from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Melson met with investigators with his personal attorney present—not Justice Department attorneys.
July 5, 2011: Chairman Issa and Sen. Grassley wrote a letter to Attorney General Holder about Melson's testimony. The letter says Melson "claimed that ATF's senior leadership would have preferred to be more cooperative with our inquiry much earlier in the process. However, he said that Justice Department officials directed them not to respond and took full control of replying to briefing and document requests from Congress. The result is that Congress only got the parts of the story that the (Justice) Department wanted us to hear. If his account is accurate, then ATF leadership appears to have been effectively muzzled while the DOJ sent over false denials and buried its head in the sand. That approach distorted the truth and obstructed our investigation. The Department's inability or unwillingness to be more forthcoming served to conceal critical information that we are now learning about the involvement of other agencies, including the DEA and the FBI."
The Issa-Grassley letter to Holder further says that contrary to earlier denials by the Justice Department, Melson acknowledged that ATF agents had in fact witnessed transfers of weapons from straw purchasers to third parties without following the guns any further. Melson also said that ATF agents carrying out Operation Fast and Furious had been placed under the direction of the Arizona U.S. Attorney's office.


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Facebook Deletes Official Alex Jones Page Over Gadsden Flag
Social networking giant has embarked on a move to ban Tea Party material as part of wider cybersecurity agenda for web censorship and political oppression
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, July 16, 2010
Facebook has sensationally banned the official Alex Jones Facebook page after a customer services representative admitted that all material containing images of the famous Gadsden flag was being deleted by the social networking giant.
While some fan pages remain up, the official Alex Jones Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/realalexjones has been terminated. Other Alex Jones pages run by Infowars readers have also been deleted, such as the page that was formerly at http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Real-Alex-Jones/.
If Facebook has embarked on a policy of banning political expression and images it deems offensive then the company should be more open about the fact. While Facebook didn't consider it necessary to delete a fan page dedicated to the British murderer Raoul Moat, it is now purging all material related to the Tea Party movement, states' rights and the Gadsden flag, which is a symbol of resistance against tyranny and was originally used by the United States Marine Corps.
It's unsurprising that Facebook has nailed its political colors to the mast in serving the establishment by targeting grass roots Facebook pages that display the Gadsden flag. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has denounced privacy as a 'social norm' of the past, an apt excuse given the fact that his website is little more than a vast intelligence database used by spy agencies to dig up information on people. Even more alarmingly, IM's from Zuckerberg's early Facebook days reveal his total disregard for privacy. In the IM's, Zuckerberg insults Facebook users as "dumb fucks" for trusting him with their private information.
The move to ban Tea Party-related material is just one example of the wider move to censor the Internet as part of the cybersecurity agenda.
During an appearance on CNN last month, Senator Joe Lieberman, the sponsor of a bill that would give President Obama the power to shut down parts of the Internet, admitted that cybersecurity was all about seizing the same policing power over the world wide web employed by the Communist Chinese government.
As we have documented, Chinese censorship of the Internet has nothing to do with security and is almost exclusively focused around covering up government atrocities and abuse by silencing whistle blowers and blocking the free flow of information. The system that Lieberman wants America to adopt is all about political oppression and preventing people from becoming organized and active in standing up against big government.
We are continuing to investigate Facebook's move to ban the official Alex Jones page and we encourage everyone to contact Facebook and let them know that you will boycott their services if the page is not re-instated.
On The Web: http://www.prisonplanet.com/facebook-deletes-official-alex-jones-page-over-gadsden-flag.html


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Shocker: Wichita State downs No. 1 Gonzaga
Salt Lake City, UT – Living up to its nickname, Wichita State pulled off the shocker of Saturday's third round of the NCAA Tournament.
Cleanthony Early and Ron Baker each scored 16 points and led a blistering outside shooting display that propelled the Shockers to a 76-70 ousting of top-seeded Gonzaga in a thrilling West Region matchup.
Both players combined for eight of Wichita State's season-high 14 makes from 3-point range, with Baker knocking down 4-of-6 tries and Early going 4-of-7 from beyond the arc. That marksmanship helped enable the ninth-seeded Shockers (28-8) to become the first Missouri Valley Conference member to reach the Sweet 16 since Northern Iowa delivered a similar upset in the 2010 Tournament, when the Panthers knocked off powerhouse Kansas as a nine seed in that year's second round.
"They never quit," Wichita State head coach Gregg Marshall said. "You know we got the big lead, Gonzaga makes a great run as a No. 1 team in the country would, and these guys dig down."
Fred Van Vleet contributed 13 points off the bench and Carl Hall had 10 points for Wichita State, which now heads to Los Angeles to await the winner of Sunday's game between Ole Miss and La Salle in Thursday's Regional semifinal.
Gonzaga (32-3) entered the contest with a No. 1 national ranking and a 15-game win streak, but fell in the round of 32 for the fourth consecutive year after struggling to a 35.6 percent shooting rate against Wichita State's tight defense.
"They deserve ton of credit," Gonzaga head coach Mark Few said. "It's the first time in a while someone made 50 percent on us, and to bang in 14 3s is pretty amazing."
West Coast Conference Player of the Year Kelly Olynyk finished with a game- high 26 points, but made good on only 8-of-22 field goal attempts. Elias Harris, Gonzaga's second-leading scorer, was just 2-of-8 from the floor in a disappointing 12-point effort.
Gonzaga trailed by as many as 13 points in the first half and was down the entire second until back-to-back treys from Kevin Pangos and Mike Hart gave the Bulldogs a 43-41 edge with 13:36 left to play. The baskets ignited a stretch of 12 straight Gonzaga points culminating in Pangos' steal and layup that put the favorites up by eight with just under 12 minutes remaining.
Baker answered with a 3-pointer off a media timeout, however, and Early buried one just over two minutes later as part of 7-2 flurry that brought Wichita State within 51-48 just past the midway stage of the second half.
The Bulldogs were able to keep the Shockers at bay due to sharp outside shooting from Pangos, who drained two triples over a 1 1/2-minute span to provide his team with a 61-54 advantage with 5:32 to go. Early and Baker each struck again from long distance, though, and Hall hit a short jumper to cap an 8-0 sequence that put Wichita State back ahead with 3:29 left.
Harris then made two free throws to allow Gonzaga to regain the lead, but the Shockers responded with a pivotal 10-2 burst that put the game away. Baker and Van Vleet both sank 3-pointers during that ran as well, and the latter calmly hit a pair from the line with 39 seconds left for a 72-65 score that was too much for the Bulldogs to overcome.
Wichita State broke open a close contest early on by ripping off 13 straight points over a stretch of three-plus minutes. Perimeter shooting fueled that tear as well, with treys from Malcolm Armstead and Early jump-starting the push and Tekele Cotton adding one of his own that staked the Shockers to a 23-12 lead with 7:42 left in the half.
Baker connected from long distance 43 seconds later, following an Olynyk free throw, putting Wichita State up by a 26-13 count.
Gonzaga later closed within 34-31 by virtue of five straight points from Olynyk late in the frame, but Jake White tipped in a Van Vleet missed jumper at the buzzer to send the Shockers into the locker room up by five.
Game Notes
Gonzaga became the just the fifth team entering the NCAA Tournament with a NO. 1 overall ranking to lose in the Round of 32 since 1985, joining Oklahoma (1990), North Carolina (1994), Stanford (2004) and Kansas (2010) ... Wichita State outscored the Bulldogs by a 34-7 margin in bench points, with Early and Van Vleet accounting for 29 of those ... The Shockers advanced to the Sweet 16 for the fifth time in program history and first since 2006, when they lost to George Mason in the Regional semifinals ... Wichita State made 12 shots from 3-point range twice previously this season ... Shockers head coach Gregg Marshall lost to Gonzaga in the 2005 NCAA Tournament while he was the head coach at Winthrop.


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New Rules Aim For More Passenger-Friendly Skies
Anyone who flies on an airplane should like some new government regulations that took effect Tuesday. Passengers who get involuntarily bumped will be entitled to more compensation, and airlines face stiffer penalties for long tarmac delays on international flights.
The new rules are aimed at making flying more convenient and hassle-free, according to the Department of Transportation. Secretary Ray LaHood says the new passenger protections will "help ensure that air travelers receive the respect they deserve before, during and after their flight."
Kate Hanni, president of FlyersRights.org, which pushed for the new regulations, gives the government credit for implementing them.
"This Department of Transportation, I really have to hand it to them," she says. "It's the first time in history this DOT has taken on airline passenger issues, and [it] really is doing a very good job."
The new regulations include requiring airlines to refund baggage fees if a traveler's luggage is lost.
And if a passenger is involuntarily bumped from an oversold flight, the airline will have to pay him up to $1,300, depending on the length of the flight; the top penalty now is $800.
An existing rule penalizing domestic carriers for keeping passengers onboard during a tarmac delay of three hours or more will now apply to flights at smaller airports. And foreign carriers at U.S. airports will be allowed no more than a four-hour tarmac delay before facing fines.
Airlines: Competition Fuels Friendlier Skies
The airline industry, however, says it is competitive pressures in the marketplace that are making airlines more passenger-friendly rather than federal rules.
"The airline industry is a tremendously competitive industry, and customer service is an important way for airlines to differentiate themselves from the competition," says Steve Lott, a vice president of the Air Transport Association. "So it's this competitive nature of the industry and this customer choice that drive a lot of the customer service improvements — not necessarily regulations."
Consumer groups say even more steps are needed to protect airline passengers. For one thing, says Brandon Macsata of the Association for Airline Passenger Rights, airlines should be required to refund baggage fees for delayed luggage, not just lost bags.
"Let's say your bag shows up four days late. They do not have to refund you for it," he says. "If you purchase something — which in this case you're purchasing your bag to be taken from Point A to Point B, and it shows up not with you, in your person — then we simply feel that these fees should be refunded."
Another set of rules was delayed until next year at the request of the industry, which said it needed more time for implementation. Among them: requiring all taxes and fees to be included in advertised fares, and allowing passengers to hold a reservation for up to 24 hours without making a payment. Those rules will take effect in January.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Kansas City, MO is a city with many different kinds of entertainments. One of the most popular forms of entertainment in the area would be sports of all different kinds. Passionate fans of amateur and professional sporting teams have been coming to Kansas City, MO for years. Many hotels in the area specialize in accommodating the multitude of visitors, tourists and attendees of athletic events. Many hotels that are conveniently located in downtown Kansas City, MO place extra special emphasis on giving a very comfortable stay to the many guests attending nearby sporting events.
Visitors and locals alike will sometimes find that hotels located so closely to the area sports complexes will be unusually rich in amenities and luxuries. A professional staff will ensure the smoothest transition from traveler to guest. The extras are considered the norm at many of the top-of-the-line hotels in downtown Kansas City. There are often discounts offered for frequent guests or for those who attend the same sporting events time after time. When a visitor is looking into which hotel to stay in, it is always a good idea for the potential guest to ask about discounted rates. Asking friends and family is also a good way to find a hotel.
A good way to find the best hotel is to search on the internet. Every guest has different ideas on what matters for their hotel stay and downtown Kansas City, MO has many different options. If proximity is important, most hotels will have a mileage chart to the nearest sports complex, or to the closest restaurant or shopping centers. If price is a factor, there are calculation devices to help figure out the total cost of the stay at the hotel. Amenities are usually listed in detail, to give an idea of the kind of atmosphere in a specific hotel.
Visitors should plan to make their reservations as early as possible, since bookings tend to fill up well in advance of local events. Confirmation numbers should be kept for the record, to ensure that reservations will be honored, and if the hotel will be full, ask the hotel staff about traffic in the downtown Kansas City area for the day of the event. On-line reviews of each hotel can be very helpful in determining potential problem areas and avoiding pitfalls that can take place during a very busy season.


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Hey: Don't forget to take the garbage out.
And just in case today isn't your trash day, there's an easy way you can keep reminding yourself without Macworld's help: India-based Caramel Cloud has released Notificant for iPhone. The app, which works hand-in-hand with the Notificant Web service and the $5 companion Mac App Store app, focuses on making sure you don't forget to do the things you want to do.
When you tap new entries into Notificant on your iPhone, you can choose whether to get reminded on your phone, on your Mac(s), via e-mail, or some combination thereof. Since the sync works in all directions, you can also create new reminders with the Mac app that will harass you on your iPhone at the appropriate time.
Tapping in a new reminder is as simple as you'd expect. You tap the Plus (+) icon and immediately start typing the text for your notification. Next, you tap to set the reminder time. The app smartly prevents you from adding a reminder in the past, which which is helpful for most of us, though it does make the app a terrible choice for time travelers. Finally, you choose where you'd like to receive your reminder—and then you can forget all about it. At least, until Notificant sounds a reminder for you 45 minutes later. You can review archived reminders and edit upcoming ones, too.
I've previously used the free Pester app for similar one-off reminders, but it's Mac-only; Notificant's Web-based cross-device syncing seems like a clear advantage. Of course, you could always rely on iCal (on the Mac) and Calendar (on the iPhone), and sync your reminders via MobileMe, Google Calendar, or another means. But then you'll suffer the calendar alert cacophony when all your devices try to remind you about something at the same time since, unlike Notificant, that approach offers no means of specifying which devices should sound which alerts. Notificant's reminder entry screen also offers less friction than creating even a simple iCal event.
Notificant costs $3 and requires iOS 4.0 or later.
Disclaimer: Caramel Cloud CEO Aayush Arya is an occasional Macworld contributor. He is, unsurprisingly, good at remembering to turn in his freelance assignments on time.


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MOSCOW, JAN. 19, 2014— -- Russian President Vladimir Putin defended his country's controversial new anti-gay law, saying it aims to protect children and does not discriminate against anyone.
"It seems to me that the law that we have adopted does not hurt anyone," he said during an interview with a small group of reporters in Sochi Friday, including ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos, the only U.S. reporter.
"Moreover, individuals of non-traditional orientation cannot feel like second-rate humans in this country because they are not discriminated against in any way."
Full 'This Week' Interview Transcript: Russian President Vladimir Putin
But that didn't prevent a gay Russian protester from being detained Saturday for unfurling a rainbow flag during the Olympic torch relay as it passed through his hometown of Voronezh, 560 miles north of Sochi, where the games will begin Feb. 7, The Associated Press reported.
Photos uploaded by his friends show Pavel Lebedev pulling out the flag and then being detained by Olympic security personnel, who wrestle him to the snow as they wait for police to arrive. Lebedev, reached by The Associated Press on the phone, said he was still in the police station and undergoing questioning.
The Russian law, passed last year, outlaws what it describes as "propaganda" of "non-traditional sexual relations" around minors. Critics and gay rights advocates say, however, that the law potentially makes any public display of homosexuality, or even displaying gay pride symbols like a rainbow pin, illegal.
In the wide-ranging interview, his first with a U.S. television network since returning to the Kremlin in 2012, Putin rejected that characterization, noting that Soviet-era laws making homosexuality illegal were struck down years ago.
"It has nothing to do with persecuting people for their non-traditional orientation," Putin said Friday. "My personal position is that society must keep children safe."
READ: Five Things to Know About Vladimir Putin
His comments come amid fears that fans and athletes at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi could be prosecuted for violating the law. Russia has provided assurances to the International Olympic Committee that the law will not apply during the games, yet senior Russian officials have sent mixed signals.
In his interview, Putin suggested they will not be prosecuted during the games.
"I couldn't care less about their sexual orientation. We will welcome all athletes and all visitors to the Olympics," he said. "None of our guests will have any problems."
Putin blasted those calling for a boycott of the Sochi Olympics because of the law and rejected Western criticism of the law, saying "the Russian people have their own cultural code, their own tradition. We don't interfere, don't stick our noses in their life and we ask that our traditions and culture are treated with the same respect."
Putin said he would be willing to meet with the U.S. delegation, which includes gay athletes like tennis legend Billie Jean King, figure skating star Brian Boitano and hockey player Caitlin Cahow.
King recently told ABC News' Amy Robach that she has a direct message for President Putin.
"Please change this law. Just be inclusive -- champion everyone, don't -- have groups where you don't treat them the same ," she said.
King said the Sochi Olympics should be seen as an opportunity for gay athletes.
"For me, personally, if I were still young enough to be going to the Olympics to perform, this would give me such high incentive. I'd be crazed. I'd be like, 'Let's go,'" she said.Though few have been prosecuted under the law since it was enacted last year, gay rights activists say it has made an already difficult situation for Russia's gays even more perilous.
"The propaganda laws are almost the least of it. It's a huge concerted campaign that's unleashed by the Kremlin. It's a campaign of hate and violence," Masha Gessen, a Russian-American journalist who recently fled to New York for fear of Russia's mounting threats on homosexuals.
"Basically, it's a law that enshrines second-class citizenship," Gessen said.
During his interview Friday, Putin also addressed some of the other controversies surrounding the Sochi Olympics, namely that massive corruption was to blame for its $51 billion price tag, making it by far the most expensive Olympics ever.
"Given the scale and, let's be honest about it, given the lack of experience of construction on such a vast scale in this country, in today's Russia, of course setbacks were inevitable," he said.
Putin rejected claims that up to a third of the Olympic budget was stolen or inflated due to corruption.
"If anyone has specific information about 'signs of corruption' in regard to the implementation of the Sochi Olympics project, we ask for objective data to be given to us," he told Stephanopoulos. "So far, I do not see any serious signs of corruption at this time."
Just under three weeks before the Opening Ceremony, the Olympic city still a giant construction site, but Putin said he was confident that all Olympic projects will be completed on time.
"Everything has been done. Things need to be cleaned up," he said. "All the facilities are ready."
He said he hopes foreigners attending the Games, and those watching on television, will see a new Russia.
"Take an unbiased, fresh look at it," he said. "I'm positive that it will produce, should produce a positive, good result and will facilitate Russia's relationship-building with its partners around the world."
Putin told Stephanopoulos that Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who received asylum in Russia, is free to attend the Sochi Olympics if he wants to.
"Everybody is invited," he said. "Mr. Snowden is subject to the treatment of provisional asylum here in Russia. He has a right to travel freely across the country, he has no special limitation, he can just buy a ticket and come here."
Asked whether Snowden could stay as long as he wants, Putin replied: "Yes, sure, definitely."
Putin told Stephanopoulos that he hoped the Olympics would help bridge the divide between the United States and Russia.
"Between major countries there certainly always are some common ground and points of tension," he said.
"With respect to athletes I'd recommend and advise them not to think about the political differences," Putin said, adding with a smile: "Politics should not interfere with sports. And sports should impact politics."
The Asssociated Press contributed to this story.
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About this Business
With over 85 years of cinema experience, ODEON Cinemas is a leading international cinema operator in Europe. It operates 2,221 screens at 240 sites across Europe as a whole, including 120 sites across the UK and Republic of Ireland. From black-and-white classics to state-of-the-art 3D experiences, the British chain has grown alongside the filmmaking industry, bringing blockbusters and the latest releases to the big screen. ODEON strives to ensure that the cinema experience is one to remember with comfy seating, fully-stocked snack bars, and tempting popcorn counters.