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– After a confrontation between locals and federal officials this week, the US has ended a Nevada cattle roundup early, CNN reports. "We have made a decision to conclude the cattle gather because of our serious concern about the safety of employees and members of the public," said Neil Kornze, director of the Bureau of Land Management, who was confirmed just this week. Some 400 cattle were gathered in the weeklong roundup; officials had planned to gather 900, the AP reports. Officials prompted local protests when they began gathering cattle that were illegally grazing on federal land some 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, CNN notes. The animals belonged to rancher Cliven Bundy, who has allowed the illegal grazing for two decades. At issue is a 1993 law that altered grazing rules in order to protect an endangered tortoise. Bundy now owes the government $1 million in grazing fees, officials say. Bundy counters that according to the Constitution, Nevada should be in charge of such fees, rather than the federal government. A videotaped protest on Wednesday resulted in officials saying they were assaulted while protesters said they were thrown on the ground and tasered.

Federal land managers abruptly ended a roundup of cattle on public land in southern Nevada from a rancher who has refused to recognize their authority, citing a "serious concern" for the safety of employees and the public.

 Bureau of Land Management chief Neil Kornze made the announcement Saturday morning at the same time militia members and others gathered near the roundup site to protest the removal of hundreds of Cliven Bundy's cattle.

 Some 400 cows were gathered during the roundup that began a week ago, short of the BLM's goal of 900 cows that it says were trespassing on public land.

 Bundy didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

 Gov. Brian Sandoval, who had complained about the BLM's handling of the roundup, issued a statement praising the agency for its willingness to listen to the state's concerns. ||||| Story highlights Authorities end cattle roundup, return livestock for safety reasons

 Troopers reopen northbound Interstate 15 about 80 miles outside Las Vegas

 "Tensions are still near the boiling point," Sen. Heller says

 Some supporters of rancher were armed, authorities say

 A tense, weeklong showdown appeared to end Saturday between the federal government and supporters of a Nevada cattle rancher battling the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over grazing rights on federal land.

 The BLM stopped rounding up rancher Cliven Bundy's cattle and returned about 300 head of cattle to the open range to avoid the potential for violence, according to the BLM and CNN affiliate KSNV.

 The Old West-style controversy -- centering on a family that has been ranching in Nevada since the 1800s -- drew armed militia groups from across the country to the cattleman's side this week, especially after a YouTube video captured a tussle teetering on violence between rangers and protesters.

 The BLM said Bundy owed about $1 million in back fees because his cattle grazed on federal land.

 On Saturday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the BLM's cattle gate, according to CNN affiliate KLAS. Some of them were armed.

 "Due to escalating tensions, the cattle have been released from the enclosures in order to avoid violence and help restore order," the BLM said in a prepared statement.

 Also Saturday, supporters of Bundy, some of them armed, forced a temporary shutdown of northbound lanes of Interstate 15 near his ranch, the Nevada Highway Patrol said.

 "Based on information about conditions on the ground, and in consultation with law enforcement, we have made a decision to conclude the cattle gather because of our serious concern about the safety of employees and members of the public," said BLM director Neil Kornze.

 The highway was reopened early Saturday afternoon after protesters moved to the side of the road and stopping blocking it. But traffic was backed up for three miles in both directions, Trooper Loy Hixson told CNN. He said nobody in the crowd threatened violence.

 It was unclear whether Bundy and the BLM had come to an agreement on how to end the long-running conflict.

 U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nevada, appealed for calm Saturday and told out-of-state supporters to return home.

 "The dispute is over, the BLM is leaving, but emotions and tensions are still near the boiling point, and we desperately need a peaceful conclusion to this conflict," Heller said in a statement. "I urge all the people involved to please return to your homes and allow the BLM officers to collect their equipment and depart without interference.

 "We are very close to a calm, peaceful resolution but it only takes the action of one individual to stir things up again and bring us back to the brink of violence and no one wants to see that happen," Heller said.

 The growing protest came amid the BLM's decision to put an early end to a roundup of Bundy's cattle, which the feds claim have been illegally grazing on federal land for 20 years.

 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Photos: Showdown in Nevada – Rancher Cliven Bundy, right, leaves the podium with bodyguards after a news conference near his ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada, on Thursday, April 24. Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management have been locked in a dispute for a couple of decades over grazing rights on public lands. Hide Caption 1 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Photos: Showdown in Nevada – Chris Shelton of Las Vegas interacts with his 1-week-old son as his mother Shelley Shelton holds his rifle during a Bundy family "Patriot Party" near Bunkerville, Nevada, on April 18. Hide Caption 2 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Photos: Showdown in Nevada – Bundy family members and supporters of rancher Cliven Bundy set up for a "Patriot Party" on April 18. The family organized the party to thank people who supported Cliven Bundy in his dispute with the Bureau of Land Management. Hide Caption 3 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – Cattle rancher Cliven Bundy talks to his supporters Friday, April 11, in Bunkerville, Nevada. They had been protesting the federal government's roundup of Bundy's cattle, which led to an Old West-style showdown last week. The government says Bundy's livestock has been illegally grazing on U.S. lands for 20 years. Bundy says his family's cattle has grazed on the land since the 1800s. Hide Caption 4 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – Brand Thornton carries a rifle at a protest site in Bunkerville on April 11. The controversy drew armed militia groups from across the country to Bundy's side. The Bureau of Land Management stopped rounding up Bundy's cattle on Saturday, April 12, and it says it returned about 300 head of cattle to the open range to avoid the potential for violence. Hide Caption 5 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – People gather at a protest area along State Route 170, near the cattle roundup on April 11. Hide Caption 6 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – A sign announces the closure of public land during the cattle roundup. Hide Caption 7 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – Krissy Thornton, right, and Burgundy Hall protest the cattle roundup on Wednesday, April 9. Hide Caption 8 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – Thornton, right, looks at a wound on Bundy's son Ammon on April 9. Bundy family members and dozens of supporters angrily confronted a group of rangers holding Tasers and barking dogs on Wednesday. Bundy family members say they were thrown to the ground or jolted with a Taser. Federal officials say a police dog was kicked and officers were assaulted. Hide Caption 9 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – The U.S. government was rounding up cattle that it says have been grazing illegally on public lands for more than 20 years, according to the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. The Bureau of Land Management said Cliven Bundy owed about $1 million in back fees. Hide Caption 10 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – Cliven Bundy, left, and his son Dave talk to a reporter in Las Vegas on Monday, April 7. Bundy's dispute with the government began two decades ago, when the Bureau of Land Management changed grazing rules for the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area to protect an endangered desert tortoise, KLAS reported. Bundy refused to abide by the changes and stopped paying his grazing fees to the federal bureau, which he contends is infringing on state rights. Hide Caption 11 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – People help erect a pole so that they could hang a banner April 7 in support of Bundy. One banner at the protest side stated: "Has the West been won? Or has the fight just begun!" Hide Caption 12 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – Rancher Derrel Spencer speaks during a rally in support of Bundy on April 7. Hide Caption 13 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – Chris Miller holds his hand over his heart during a rally in support of Bundy on April 7. Hide Caption 14 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – Bundy's son Arden works at his father's ranch on Saturday, April 5. Hide Caption 15 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – Cliven Bundy, right, and Clance Cox stand at the Bundy ranch on April 5. Hide Caption 16 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – Bundy walks by a free speech area set up by the Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday, April 1. Hide Caption 17 of 18 18 photos: Photos: Showdown in Nevada Showdown in Nevada – Federal rangers block a road near Bunkerville, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, on April 1. Hide Caption 18 of 18

 JUST WATCHED Feds and cattle ranchers face off Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Feds and cattle ranchers face off 02:08

 Earlier Saturday, Kornze said that contracted wranglers and U.S. rangers apparently made enough progress in rounding up cattle that belonged to Bundy, who is challenging federal authority in a valley that his family settled in the Wild West era.

 The roundup occurred near the scenic Virgin River at Bunkerville, where Bundy's ranch is located.

 "After one week, we have made progress in enforcing two recent court orders to remove the trespass cattle from public lands that belong to all Americans," Kornze said in a statement.

 He was referring to how two different federal judges ordered the removal of Bundy's cattle.

 Bundy's dispute with the government began around 1993 when the bureau changed grazing rules for the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area to protect an endangered desert tortoise, CNN affiliate KLAS reported.

 Bundy, who's in his 60s, cites the Constitution in asserting that the state of Nevada holds sovereignty over the charging of grazing fees and, if he owes such a fee, he would pay it only to the local government -- not to the feds.

 Bundy also contends his family has been ranching in the Virgin Valley on the Nevada range since 1877 -- long before the BLM even existed and before the tortoise was declared endangered.

 Bundy has said he owns 500 of the more than 900 cattle that federal officials had been planning to confiscate for illegal grazing, according to local media accounts, with each head worth about $1,000.

 The rancher couldn't be immediately reached for comment Saturday after the feds shut down the roundup.

 On Wednesday, a scuffle between protesters and federal rangers was videotaped.

 Bundy family members and their supporters confronted the rangers and angrily told them to leave Nevada. Fearing that the cattle were being killed in the roundup, they also demanded to know why a backhoe and dump truck was being used, but federal officials later said the equipment was used to restore the range.

 For their part, federal rangers held Tasers and barking dogs on leashes during the faceoff.

 Federal officials say a police dog was kicked and officers were assaulted. Bundy family members say they were thrown to the ground or jolted with a Taser.

 In the end, the rangers got into their white SUVs and drove away, a YouTube video of the incident showed.

 The incident is under federal investigation.

 Gov. Brian Sandoval said Saturday of the BLM decision: "The safety of all individuals involved in this matter has been my highest priority. Given the circumstances, today's outcome is the best we could have hoped for. I appreciate that the Department of the Interior and the BLM were willing to listen to the concerns of the people of Nevada."

 Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Douglas C. Gillespie issued a press release late Saturday night saying he mediated the agreement between the Bundy familiy and BLM.

 "I want to stress to all of you that as the sheriff of Clark County I cannot interfere with the Federal government when it is operating on Federal land," Gillespie said. "And because this is BLM property, it is in their jurisdiction. But when a group of protesters threaten civil unrest or violence in this county -- it is my job to step in and ensure the safety of citizens." |||||


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– The man Texas Monthly once dubbed "the nation's most motivated motivational speaker" is dead at age 86. Zig Ziglar, author of more than two dozen books, died in the Dallas suburb of Plano, reports AP. Ziglar rose to national fame with his first book, See You at the Top, and became a fixture on the lecture circuit and at corporate retreats for decades with his folksy advice. The Washington Post lists some of his mantras: “If you’re going to have to swallow a frog, you don’t want to have to look at that sucker too long!” “The more you gripe about your problems, the more problems you have to gripe about!” “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help other people get what they want!” A friend, former FedEx chief Fred Smith, is quoted in the Texas Monthly profile mentioned earlier: “I’ve asked myself many times how Zig can say the same things people have been hearing all their lives, and instead of getting yawns he gets a tremendous response."

Zig Ziglar speaks during one of his "Success Rallies" in the nation’s capital in June 1978. (Harry Naltchayan/The Washington Post)

 In Zig Ziglar’s world, the morning alarm rang on the “opportunity clock.” And “if you aren’t on fire” when you get to work, “then your wood is wet.” And you have to remember that “money’s not the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen.” And there will be setbacks, but “failure is an event, not a person.”

 Mr. Ziglar, a motivational speaker whose “Success Rallies,” “Born to Win” seminars, more than 25 self-help books and countless audiotapes attracted millions of devoted followers with homespun advice on career advancement and moral uplift, died Nov. 28 at a hospital in the Dallas suburb of Plano. He was 86.

 He had pneumonia, said his executive assistant, Laurie Magers.

 Rising by one’s bootstraps through the “power of positive thinking” has long been a compelling narrative in American lore. Few messengers of prosperity have been able to sustain a relentlessly upbeat and lucrative career for as long as Zig Ziglar.

 Zig Ziglar! A human exclamation point! The world’s most popular motivational speaker, as he was often described, was always excited because “you never judge a day by the weather!”

 He was a presence at corporate retreats and conferences for firms such as IBM and J.C. Penney. For the general public, some people paid $49 to hear him live or $1,595 to buy his complete written and audio package. He won over crowds with his faith-filled proverbs and earnest metaphors about setting goals and facing down adversity.

 “If you’re going to have to swallow a frog,” he said in his Southern drawl, “you don’t want to have to look at that sucker too long!”

 Or: “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help other people get what they want!”

 Or: “Have you ever noticed that people who are the problem never realize it? They’re in denial. They think denial is a river in Egypt!”

 Or: “The more you gripe about your problems, the more problems you have to gripe about!”

 What his words lacked in depth, they made up for in conviction.

 “I’ve asked myself many times how Zig can say the same things people have been hearing all their lives, and instead of getting yawns he gets a tremendous response,” his friend Fred Smith, the former FedEx chief executive, told Texas Monthly in 1999.

 “I think he’s a little like Billy Graham, who has never really departed from the same sermon he was giving back in his 20s yet who’s never lost any effectiveness,” Smith said. “After all these years, Zig still devotes every day to living this life he talks about, to applying some eternal truths about character, commitment, hard work and self-determination.”

 For his most fervent admirers, Mr. Ziglar was an inspiring leader who every morning leapt out of bed to the opportunity clock, bussed his wife (“Hey, Sugar Baby”), and willed himself into a positive mindset by seldom lingering on crime stories and celebrity gossip while scanning his morning newspaper.

 Texas Monthly described Mr. Ziglar’s love of comic strips, stories about sports teams that win and human interest tales that touched on the miraculous. He clipped them out and stored them in a file cabinet brimming with anecdotes about people who overcame disabilities and poverty and made it to state championships and the executive suite.

 “Isn’t it amazing,” he told Texas Monthly, “how we are designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness?”

 Advancement in all its forms appealed to Hilary Hinton Ziglar, who was the 10th of 12 children born in rural Coffee County, Ala., on Nov. 6, 1926. He was raised by his widowed mother in Yazoo City, Miss.

 He described his mother as the foremost influence on his life, a strict and devout woman whose mental storehouse of adages (“The person who won’t stand for something will fall for anything”) remained a cornerstone of Mr. Ziglar’s speeches and writings.

 After Navy service at the end in World War II, he was married in 1946 to Jean Abernathy. He attended the University of South Carolina, but he was a middling student and left to work as a door-to-door cookware salesman.

 As he was promoted through the ranks of the company, Mr. Ziglar became drawn to the power of self-help speakers and their ability to influence others. He began giving talks at church and Rotary Club meetings, often reprising his mother’s advice and relating his own experiences of smiling through setbacks and grief.

 He settled in the Dallas area by the late 1960s, initially for a job training workers at a direct-sales company. The business soon folded, but the demand for Mr. Ziglar’s speaking had intensified. He launched a business called the Zigmanship Institute, now simply known as Ziglar Inc.

 His first book, “Biscuits, Fleas, and Pump Handles,” published in 1974 and later retitled “See You at the Top,” urged readers to re-evaluate their lives with a “checkup from the neck up” and to quit their “stinkin’ thinkin.’ ”

 Mr. Ziglar spoke often of his religious awakening in 1972 and invoked his faith in book titles such as “Confessions of a Happy Christian” (1978) and “Confessions of a Grieving Christian” (1998), which he wrote after the death of his eldest daughter, Suzan Witmeyer, from pulmonary fibrosis in 1995.

 His other books included “Courtship After Marriage” (1990) and “Staying Up, Up, Up in a Down, Down World” (2000). He wrote a memoir in 2002.

 Mr. Ziglar, who sometimes earned tens of thousands of dollars per speech and other times waived his fee, kept up a rigorous touring schedule until retiring in 2010.

 Besides his wife, of Plano, survivors include three children, Cindy Ziglar Oates of Southlake, Tex., motivational author Julie Ziglar Norman of Alvord, Tex., and Tom Ziglar, who is now chief executive of Plano-based Ziglar Inc.; seven grandchildren; 12 great-grandchildren; and a great-great-grandson.

 Mr. Ziglar adapted his maxims to every aspect of his life, not least the golf course. Every day, he sought to break 70 but never did.

 “Yesterday ended last night,” he liked to tell himself. “Today is a brand-new day. And it’s yours.” ||||| How Many of You Have Heard of Zig Ziglar Before—Or Is This Your First Time-uh?

 Twenty-five years after See You at the Top, the nation’s most motivated motivational speaker is still a huge draw, filling arenas and pulling in $50,000 per speech. Norman Vincent Peale, eat your heart out.

 tim says: Great article capturing the essence of Mr. Ziglar and how he continues to influence people-and, yes, I’m proud to say I’m one of them. (May 20th, 2009 at 10:53am) Add your comment »

 ZIG ZIGLAR, AMERICA’S MERCHANT OF HOPE, still wakes up every day before dawn, almost always before his “opportunity clock,” as he refers to his alarm clock, starts to ring. He leans over and kisses his wife, Jean, and makes sure to tell her the very same thing he has told her every morning of their 52-year marriage. “Hey, Sugar Baby,” he says in his molasses-sweet drawl. “I sure do love you.” He rises. He studies his Bible. He then opens a datebook that he calls his “personal performance planner,” where he jots down all the positive things he hopes to accomplish that day. “Associate with uplifting people,” he’ll write in a section titled “My Daily Priority List.” “Spend time with family.” “Let’s make this a day worth remembering!”

 At 72, he simply refuses to think negative thoughts. He will not allow himself even to consider failure or uncertainty. When he picks up the Dallas Morning News at the breakfast table of his sprawling home in the North Dallas suburb of Plano, he does not dwell on any article that details human depravity, and he never looks at the celebrity gossip on page two. Instead he reads his favorite comic strips out loud to Sugar Baby and turns to the sports section. (Of course, he reads only about teams that win.) Then he searches for human interest stories about people who have done good things with their lives. He likes reading about the paralyzed high school football coach who could only move his mouth and blink his eyes but who coached his team to a state championship; the man born without arms who was named one of the Top Ten Outstanding Young Americans; the 37-year-old taxi driver with a fifth-grade education who decided to memorize the dictionary while waiting for customers and ended up owning the taxi company.

 “Boy, oh, boy,” he says to Sugar Baby when he comes across such stories. “Isn’t it just amazing that we can go where we want to go, do what we want to do, and be who we want to be?”

 When he sees a story that he likes, he clips it out with a pair of scissors. Then he takes it upstairs to his office, where he places it in one of his many files. He has an “Inspirational Story” file that holds articles about people who credit God for their success. He has a “Motivational Story” file for encouraging stories of a more secular nature. There is a file labeled “Humor,” one labeled “Quotes,” and another labeled “Success.” Sometimes he spends the entire morning in his office just leafing through magazines like Reader’s Digest or poring over biographies of people who did magnificent things with their lives. He reads that Thomas Edison’s teacher called him a dunce, that Albert Einstein flunked courses in math, that Walt Disney went broke seven times. Out come the scissors. He reads that 52 percent of all Fortune 500 CEOs grew up poor. Out come the scissors again. “Isn’t it amazing,” he likes to say to Sugar Baby when he comes back downstairs for lunch, “how we are designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness?”

 It is hard to believe that he really exists. When you meet him, you think he must be putting us all on. It has to be an act—the perfect unctuous movie role for someone like Bill Murray. Even his name seems to be straight out of a comedy writer’s imagination. Zig Ziglar! The stainless-steel-cookware salesman turned world-famous motivational speaker and best-selling author! A white-haired man with an ear-to-ear grin who walks through airports dispensing hugs and telling strangers, “Boy, oh, boy, this is a marvelous day!” A man who often answers the phone by singing, “Oh, good morning to you, good morning to you!” A devout Southern Baptist who doesn’t smoke or drink or utter a single profane word!

 But for Zig Ziglar, being upbeat is serious business. After lunch he returns to his office and presses the record button on his tape recorder. It is time for him to dictate, to fashion the sentences that will help ordinary Americans overcome any obstacle put before them in their pursuit of health, wealth, and happiness. “With no hope, there is no action!” he says. His enunciation is so precise and Southern that he often adds an “uh” at the end of his sentences. “The story of life,” he says, “repeatedly assures you that if you will use what you have, you will be given more to use-uh.”

 He speaks for several minutes, then turns off the tape recorder. He smiles. It is time to play golf—and this is the day that he is going to break 70. Every day that he goes to the golf course, he tells himself that he is going to break 70. It doesn’t matter that he has never broken 70 in his life. As he likes to say, “Yesterday ended last night. Today is a brand-new day.”

 TO HIS YOUNGER COMPETITORS IN the world of motivational speaking and writing—handsome gurus like Tony Robbins, the designer-clad “Peak Performance Coach” who consults with the rich and famous and prowls the stage at his seminars with a high-tech microphone headset attached to his large head—Zig Ziglar must be a laughable anachronism, a creaky throwback to the simpler world of Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale. These days media-savvy self-help stars seem to pop up with great fanfare every fifteen minutes. There are medical doctors who specialize in “inner peace” healing, charismatic CEOs who reveal the secret to making your first million, psychiatrists who help you to find renewed personal power in your dreams, therapists who put you in touch with your inner child, and personal trainers who teach you to lose weight and follow your bliss at the same time. According to one study, nearly two thousand self-help books arrive on shelves each year, and the publishing industry is always on the lookout for the next sensation: Call it “Chicken Soup for the Bookseller’s Soul.”

 Ziglar, by comparison, is a dinosaur. His speeches consist of corny one-liners (“Happiness is not a when or a where, but a here and a now-uh!”), obvious advice (“When you associate with winners, your chance of winning goes up!”), banal sayings (“If you aren’t on fire, then your wood is wet”), and a seemingly endless series of real-life anecdotes about people who were once considered failures but turned themselves into successes. At least once during every speech he gets down on one knee like an old-time tent revivalist, points at the audience, and tells them the time has come to change their lives. (“You don’t have to be great to start,” he says, “but you have to start to be great-uh!”) Then, like a vaudevillian, he pulls out an ancient chrome water pump and begins to pump the handle up and down to illustrate that “in the game of life, before you get anything out, you must put something in!”

 Even offstage and on the page, he’s filled to the gills with positivity. In his first book, See You at the Top, which was published 25 years ago this month, he exhorts readers to give themselves “a check up from the neck up,” to end “negative thinking, negative action, and negative reaction,” and to eliminate both their “stinkin’ thinkin’” and their “hardening of the attitudes.” “My friends,” he wrote, “whether you are in Decision Valley or on Hesitation Hill, let me urge you to fasten your seat belt, because you are on a trip to the top.” Although See You at the Top runs nearly four hundred pages, covering just about everything that could possibly be said about how to believe in yourself, Ziglar is so convinced people need more information about the subject that he has produced a three-hundred-page sequel called, appropriately enough, Over the Top, in which readers are told to—that’s right—believe in themselves!

 Pages: 1 2 3 next » ||||| Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, who wrote more than 30 books and focused on positivity and leading a balanced life, died Wednesday in Texas. He was 86.

 This undated photo provided by Ziglar, Inc., shows renowned motivational speaker Zig Ziglar. Ziglar, an author of more than 30 books known for a focus on living a balanced life, died Wedesday, Nov. 28,... (Associated Press)

 This undated photo provided by Prestonwood shows renowned motivational speaker Zig Ziglar. Ziglar, an author of more than 30 books known for a focus on living a balanced life, died Wedesday, Nov. 28,... (Associated Press)

 Ziglar, who had been suffering from pneumonia, died at a hospital in the Dallas suburb of Plano, said his personal assistant, Jay Hellwig.

 With an aim at helping people achieve success in their careers and personal lives, in addition to a focus on Christianity, Ziglar was a prolific speaker who appeared at events alongside world leaders including several U.S. presidents and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

 "Mr. Ziglar was the same guy behind the closed doors as he was preparing for his presentations to thousands of people that he was when we were sitting at the kitchen table and he was reading the newspaper," Hellwig said.

 Prestonwood Baptist Church Pastor Jack Graham, Ziglar's friend and pastor, said Ziglar "truly was filled with faith."

 "He was positive. He was hopeful. You just never heard negativity from Zig Ziglar," Graham said. "It wasn't just something he did on a platform. This is who was. This is how he lived his life. And he helped so many people."

 "He was a leader of leaders and a mentor of mentors and all that you can say," he added.

 Ziglar started his fulltime career in motivational speaking when he was in his 40s. His first book was "See You at the Top."

 "He got saved at the age of 42, which means that he accepted Jesus Christ as his savior," Hellwig said. "Ever since that day is what he said was the turning point of his life. The last 41 years of his life he lived fully with that as his mission."

 "He also had the uncanny ability to make everyone he ran into feel like they were his friend," Hellwig said.

 Ziglar was a World War II veteran who grew up in Yazoo City, Miss., and then went to work in sales for a series of companies, where his interest in motivational speaking grew, according to his Plano-based company's website. Hellwig said Ziglar moved to Dallas in the late 1960s.

 Ziglar's company, which features more than a dozen speakers advocating the "Ziglar Way," offers motivation and performance training.

 His book, "Confessions of a Grieving Christian," was written after the 1995 death of his oldest daughter, Suzan Ziglar Witmeyer, at the age of 46.

 After a 2007 fall down a flight of stairs left him with a brain injury, Ziglar, along with another daughter, Julie Ziglar Norman, wrote "Embrace the Struggle," a book that described how his life changed after the injury.

 In addition to his daughter, Ziglar is survived by his wife Jean, with whom he celebrated 66 years of marriage on Monday; his son, Tom Ziglar; and daughter Cindy Ziglar Oates.

 A memorial service is set for Saturday at Prestonwood Baptist Church. |||||


Article:

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. (AP) — A Florida woman trying to get pregnant via artificial insemination called police because she feared the thermos she was using to store sperm and dry ice might explode.

 Felicia Nevins sought the Pasco County Sheriff's Office help after she forgot to remove a rubber O-ring from the container.

 The next thing Nevins knew, the incident was all over social media. That's because the sheriff's office posted details on Facebook.

 Nevins told the Tampa Bay Times (https://tinyurl.com/n39d942 ) she was upset because the post was not removed Friday. Nevins was not identified by name but she said she was mortified that enough information was posted for her to be identified.

 The sheriff's office defended its action, saying it was important to provide the type of safety information contained in the post. ||||| NEW PORT RICHEY — Felicia Nevins and her husband have been trying to conceive a child for three years now. They decided to try artificial insemination — something she had yet to tell her own family about.

 But now, she said, everyone knows — thanks to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.

 "I didn't want any of this," she said.

 The Sheriff's Office wrote on its official Facebook about a recent mishap she had while trying to store sperm in a thermos with dry ice. By forgetting to remove a rubber O-ring, the container could have exploded.

 Nevins said she called the Sheriff's Office non-emergency line for help at 6 p.m. Wednesday. A deputy and firefighters arrived, she said, took the thermos away and safely opened it. They were kind, she said, and left without telling her nosy neighbors what happened.

 "The officer told them it was a private matter," Nevins said, "and he treated it as a private matter."

 The Sheriff's Office, she complained, did not. The agency on Thursday posted a short explanation of what happened on its Facebook page using a stock photo of a woman with a disgusted expression.

 The post didn't use Nevins' name, but she said there were enough details — her age, location and time of the incident — for reporters and curious citizens to figure out who she was by searching public records.

 That night, a TV news crew appeared on her doorstep with a camera. She spoke to them, but declined to identify herself. She said she spoke to the Tampa Bay Times on the record Friday because her name is "already out there."

 The sheriff's Facebook post was shared more than 200 times by Friday. The Pasco County Sheriff's Office has said it's all part of its social media strategy.

 "We attempt to show every day what our officers see in calls and we are a very open agency about the types of calls we see each day," Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco said in a statement. "This was a very unique call faced by our officers as well as Pasco fire fighters ... make no mistake, this was a potentially dangerous situation ... we are grateful that no damage was done."

 The Sheriff's Office later released this statement: "As unusual as this situation was, it was important to provide this type of safety information contained in the post. We always encourage everyone to contact us if they find themselves in a position where they need help.

 "In these types of situations, we never publicly release names or identifying information. Unfortunately, this information was obtained through a public records request of our reports and was published by the media."

 Nevins, 26, said she was upset the post was not removed Friday. A sheriff's spokeswoman said the agency doesn't delete comments on social media.

 The comments on this Facebook post were, as usual, unkind. Some wrote that if Nevins can't follow directions, she shouldn't have a baby. Others made fun of what happened and accused her of wanting money from the county. Others were demeaning.

 Many also sided with her, and wrote that the post should be removed.

 "All I'm trying to do is become a mother and I'm being berated for it," Nevins said.

 Social media has become another tool for law enforcement to announce news and seek information about crimes. The Pasco County Sheriff's Office is the most prolific bay area law enforcement agency on social media, often posting body camera footage of deputies arresting people and even nightly warning for folks to lock their doors after 9 p.m.

 The Pasco agency has just over 87,000 followers on Facebook — more than the followers of the Pinellas and Hillsborough Sheriff's Offices combined. But Pasco's social media presence has come with controversy.

 In November, some accused the agency of crossing the line when it posted a photo to Facebook and Twitter of a man in handcuffs, weeping, as deputies held his head back by grabbing his dreadlocks. The post was entitled: "SAD CRIMINAL OF THE DAY."

 READ MORE: As its social media grows, Pasco Sheriff's Office posts photo of man crying after his arrest

 The Pasco County Sheriff's Office has gained 10,000 followers since then.

 Nevins said the agency could have used social media to warn people about the dangers of dry ice without including details of her personal life — which also resulted in medical information being disclosed. Now she said she feels ashamed and embarrassed.

 "I don't see the comedy in it," she said.

 All she can do about is unfollow the Pasco County Sheriff's Office on Facebook: "I'm not going to support a Sheriff's Office that thinks it's okay to belittle their community."

 Contact Sara DiNatale at [email protected] Follow @sara_dinatale. |||||
What is a summary?

– A Florida woman trying to get pregnant via artificial insemination called police because she feared the thermos she was using to store sperm and dry ice might explode. Felicia Nevins sought the Pasco County Sheriff's Office's help after she forgot to remove a rubber O-ring from the container, the AP reports—and the next thing Nevins knew, the incident was all over social media. That's because the sheriff's office posted details on Facebook. Per the Tampa Bay Times, the 26-year-old called the cops Wednesday evening, and a deputy and firefighters showed up. They took the thermos and managed to get it open without incident, and Nevins said she appreciated that they didn't reveal the purpose of their visit to her curious neighbors. However, the sheriff's office posted a description of the house call on Facebook, along with a stock photo of a woman looking repulsed. Nevins says that even though she wasn't identified by name, there was enough information about her, including her age and location, for people to put two and two together after sifting through public records. Nevins, who has been trying to conceive a child with her husband for three years, told the Times she was upset because the post had not been removed as of Friday (it's still up as of Monday morning). "I didn't want any of this," she notes. The sheriff's office defended its decision, saying it was important to provide the type of safety information in the post. "Make no mistake, this was a potentially dangerous situation," a statement by Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco noted.


Summarize this article:

(CNN) Members of the British Royal Air Force are sending a message to ISIS in a storied way -- scrawled on the outside of a bomb.

 "Love From Manchester ❤," it reads, in all caps.

 The photo of the message began circulating on social media on Thursday. It's unclear when or where the image was created or if the bomb was ever dropped -- but in an email to CNN an RAF spokesperson confirmed the photo is "genuine."

 The RAF has taken part in airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria.

 Messages written on bombs are a sort of tradition amongst air crews.

 Read More ||||| An image has surfaced of a bomb with the words “Love from Manchester” written on it, confirmed to be genuine by the Ministry of Defence (although, perhaps because of how outrageous the sentiment seems, it was originally dismissed by many as “fake news”.)

 After the appalling tragedy in my hometown of Manchester on Monday night, the photograph sickens me. It utterly disrespects the people of my wonderful city by slapping our name on a missile, an instrument for causing death and destruction, mere days after a terrible loss of life occurred where we live.

 The people of Manchester have pulled together in a time of crisis, showing incredible strength in supporting one another, regardless of religion, ethnicity or background. Manchester is grieving. We want healing, not more violence and horror.

 The words written on the bomb are an unpleasant example of everything that’s wrong with our current approach to foreign policy and our penchant for funding chaotic conflicts that further destabilise countries and create the conditions ideal for extremism to flourish. It is the very embodiment of “an eye for an eye”, which we all know leaves the whole world blind.

 Speaking in central London today, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has given voice to something many of us have been privately thinking. The wars that our Government has fought and supported abroad are linked to terrorist incidents at home in Britain. They are not the sole cause, but they are part of the story.

 Corbyn's speech on terrorism

 As headlines across the media scream “Corbyn says UK policy caused Manchester attack!”, it’s definitely worth reading his full speech instead. He doesn’t blame our foreign policy for causing these things to happen, perpetrated as they are by violent and unforgivable individuals, but rather addresses the fact that the “war on terror” isn’t working because it isn’t keeping us safe in Britain. What happened at the Manchester Arena this week is proof enough of that.

 He said: “The responsibility of government is to minimise that chance [of a terrorist attack], to ensure the police have the resources they need, that our foreign policy reduces rather than increases the threat to this country, and that at home we never surrender the freedoms we have won, and that terrorists are so determined to take away.”

 UK foreign policy does not give those who commit acts of terrorism and barbarism an excuse for doing so, but it’s important that we are brave enough to recognise that something is not working in terms of our approach to military involvement abroad.

 In the 2010 Chilcot enquiry, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the Director General of M15 from 2002 to 2007, confirmed unequivocally that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to a “substantial” increase in the threat of terrorism in Britain. Our involvement in the Iraq war had a direct impact on the number of threats, and forced the security service to request that their budget be doubled.

 As an employee of a humanitarian aid charity working in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Palestine, I see the effects of missiles like the one in the photograph every day. I know that Isis holds civilian areas under siege, denying innocent families food, water and basic medical care. These besieged locations are the most difficult to work in, as it’s hard to access those who desperately need aid.

 When foreign bombs target Isis-held areas, they often cause a massive loss of life for frightened families who are just trying to survive in a shocking humanitarian situation. No one with any compassion or humanity could take pleasure or satisfaction in seeing children in other countries with their arms and legs blown off, or parents with their little ones dead in their arms, white with dust from collapsed buildings. These are the images that my office receives from conflict zones, many of which have some form of UK and US involvement.

 Killing and maiming people abroad will not bring back the Manchester victims. It won’t help the city or the devastated families of those who died to heal or find comfort. It won’t punish the man who committed the atrocity. It’s not guaranteed even to punish those involved in Isis.

 Keep your bombs; don’t drop them in my name, and not in the name of Manchester. |||||

– A photo circulating online in the wake of the Manchester attack has sparked controversy, and the British Royal Air Force has confirmed it's indeed a real pic, CNN reports. The image, which started proliferating on Thursday, shows what appears to be a bomb with a written message on it apparently meant for ISIS: "Love from Manchester," it reads in neat black marker, a small heart directly underneath. While some may have initially thought the image was fake news, the RAF confirmed to CNN in an email that it was "genuine," though CNN notes no one has said where or when the message was created, or whether that bomb was ever dropped in Iraq or Syria, where the RAF helps out with airstrikes. "I'm sure they heard this loud and clear," writes Sarah Palin on Twitter. But not everyone is cheering the explosive message. "What does this achieve?" one commenter posted on Twitter, while in an op-ed in the Independent, Manchester native Harriet Williamson says she's "sickened" by the RAF response and that "killing and maiming people abroad" doesn't bring back those lost in her hometown. "No one with any compassion or humanity could take pleasure or satisfaction in seeing children in other countries with their arms and legs blown off, or parents with their little ones dead in their arms, white with dust from collapsed buildings," she writes. "It won't punish the man who committed the atrocity. It's not guaranteed even to punish those involved in ISIS." Her full column here.


Summarize this article:

Deyan Georgiev / EyeEm / Getty

 A blood test can detect whether plaques of beta-amyloid are building up in a person’s brain – a sign that they may develop Alzheimer’s disease.

 People with Alzheimer’s disease tend to have sticky clumps of beta-amyloid in their brains, although the part these plaques play in the condition is unclear. Until now, the only way to monitor plaque build-up in a person’s brain has been through expensive PET-scans, or by performing an invasive spinal tap procedure.

 Now a team has developed a simple blood test that may make it possible for family doctors to screen for Alzheimer’s risk during health check-ups. “This kind of test could be used to screen many thousands of patients to identify those at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, and to start treatments before memory loss and brain damage,” says Randall Bateman, of Washington University in St Louis, who unveiled the test at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in London today.

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 When will we cure Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s? Learn more at New Scientist Live in London

 Bateman says the test could be used in a similar way to annual checks on cholesterol. The test works by measuring the relative amounts of different forms of beta-amyloid, a sign of whether plaques are likely to be building in a person’s brain. They developed the test by comparing ratios of beta-amyloid types in 41 people’s blood with PET scans showing how much beta-amyloid had aggregated in their brains.

 Early detection

 The hunt for a drug that can effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease continues, but in the meantime, evidence is growing that healthy lifestyle interventions – such as exercise and healthy diet – can reduce the risk of developing the disease by as much as 30 per cent. In theory, the blood test could reassure some people that they are not at risk of developing the condition, while identifying others who might benefit from further tests and lifestyle changes.

 Amyloid plaques start developing 15 to 20 years before the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease start to show, and testing positive wouldn’t mean that a person is definitely going to develop the condition.

 “I’m very positive about the test, but would like to see it validated,” says Dean Hartley of the Alzheimer’s Association. “It was a very small sample, and they’re trying to confirm it in an additional 180 people.”

 “But in time, if we can get a blood test, it will take us further, just as cholesterol tests did in the cardiovascular field,” says Hartley. ||||| A significant portion of people with mild cognitive impairment or dementia who are taking medication for Alzheimer’s may not actually have the disease, according to interim results of a major study underway to see how PET scans could change the nature of Alzheimer’s diagnosis and treatment.

 The findings, presented Wednesday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in London, come from a four-year study launched in 2016 that is testing over 18,000 Medicare beneficiaries with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia to see if their brains contain the amyloid plaques that are one of the two hallmarks of the disease.

 So far, the results have been dramatic. Among 4,000 people tested so far in the Imaging Dementia-Evidence for Amyloid Scanning (IDEAS) study, researchers from the Memory and Aging Center at the University of California at San Francisco found that just 54.3 percent of MCI patients and 70.5 percent of dementia patients had the plaques.

 A positive test for amyloid does not mean someone has Alzheimer’s, though its presence precedes the disease and increases the risk of progression. But a negative test definitively means a person does not have it.

 The findings could change the way doctors treat people in these hard-to-diagnose groups and save money being spent on inappropriate medication.

 (National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering)

 “If someone had a putative diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, they might be on an Alzheimer’s drug like Aricept or Namenda,” said James Hendrix, the Alzheimer Association’s director of global science initiatives who co-presented the findings. “What if they had a PET scan and it showed that they didn’t have amyloid in their brain? Their physician would take them off that drug and look for something else.”

 For decades, diagnosing Alzheimer’s has been a guessing game, based on looking at a person’s symptoms rather than testing for definitive evidence of the brain disorder. A firm diagnosis was not possible until an autopsy was performed.

 Now, a spinal tap or PET scan can detect the telltale amyloid deposits, and researchers are trying to develop a simple blood test that would do so. PET imaging can quantify the amount of amyloid and also show where it is in a person’s brain.

 But spinal taps are invasive, and PET scans cost $3,000 to $4,000 and are typically not covered by insurance. In 2013 the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) declined to cover the tests, citing insufficient evidence that they would make a difference for patients with a disease for which there is no cure and limited treatment available.

 But CMS agreed to fund the bulk of the $100 million IDEAS study by reimbursing participants for their PET scans, and researchers hope positive results will persuade them to cover it in the future.

 Over 400 physicians enrolled their patients in the study, and they initially filled out forms describing how they would care for them based on their clinical symptoms. After seeing the PET imaging results, they changed their care plans for two-thirds of the patients in the study.

 “We thought we would be able to see about a 30 percent change, but we’re getting a 66 percent change, so it’s huge,” Hendrix said. “We see high percentages of people who are on a drug and didn’t need to be on those drugs.”

 (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)

 Also on Wednesday, the Alzheimer’s Association announced the launch of a $20 million two-year clinical trial to see if lifestyle changes can prevent cognitive decline.

 Modeled after a larger 2014 study in Finland that showed positive results, the U.S. POINTER study will work with 2,500 older adults at risk for cognitive decline. It will test whether two years of intervention that includes physical exercise, nutritional counseling, social and cognitive stimulation, and improved self-management will help cognitive function in participants 60 to 79 years old.

 Similar studies are also underway in Singapore and Australia.

 Research has shown that each of these factors contributes to cognitive health, but researchers believe that, as with heart disease, combating Alzheimer’s is likely to require a multipronged, or “cocktail” approach combining drugs and lifestyle changes. ||||| In this photo taken July 12, 2017, Cynthia Guzman plays dominoes at her home in Napa, Calif. Guzman underwent a special kind of PET scan that can detect a hallmark of Alzheimer’s and learned she didn’t... (Associated Press)

 WASHINGTON (AP) — Does it really take an expensive brain scan to diagnose Alzheimer's? Not everybody needs one but new research suggests that for a surprising number of patients whose memory problems are hard to pin down, PET scans may lead to changes in treatment.

 The findings, reported Wednesday, mark a first peek at a huge study under way to help determine if Medicare should start paying for specialized PET scans that find a hallmark of Alzheimer's — a sticky plaque called amyloid.

 Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, and classic symptoms plus memory tests often are enough for a reliable diagnosis. But unusual symptoms could mark another form of dementia that, while there are no cures, could require different symptom care. And on the other end of the spectrum, it's hard to tell if mild memory loss might be an early Alzheimer's signal, a more treatable condition such as depression, or even age-related decline.

 "We're not accurate enough," said Dr. Gil Rabinovici of the University of California, San Francisco, who is leading the new research.

 "Patients know there's something wrong. Often they can sense in their gut that it's not normal aging," he added. Without a clear-cut test, "doctors are very reluctant to make the diagnosis in many cases."

 Until a few years ago, amyloid build-up could only be seen during autopsies. Older types of PET scans show what region of the brain appears most affected, of limited help.

 Yet it's not clear how best to use the new amyloid-detecting scans, which can cost up to $6,000. They can rule out Alzheimer's if there's little amyloid. But cognitively healthy seniors can harbor amyloid, too, and Medicare won't pay for the new scans outside of a few research studies.

 One of those is the IDEAS study, which is testing the impact of amyloid-detecting PET scans in more than 18,000 Medicare beneficiaries. To enroll, patients either must have atypical dementia with an unclear cause — or have particularly puzzling "mild cognitive impairment," or MCI, early memory problems that raise the risk of later developing dementia. Researchers check if doctors' initially recorded treatment plans — medications, counseling or additional testing — were altered by patients' PET results.

 That happened in about two-thirds of the cases, according to preliminary findings from nearly 4,000 patients who were the first to enroll.

 Most changes involved medications that can temporarily ease Alzheimer's symptoms, said Rabinovici, who presented the findings at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in London. The PET scans found 70 percent of the dementia patients indeed had amyloid build-up, pointing out those who might benefit from those drugs and those who won't.

 More intriguing, just 54 percent of the MCI patients had amyloid build-up, putting them at higher risk for later Alzheimer's. For the rest, "Alzheimer's disease was effectively ruled out, so it's something else," Rabinovici said.

 The early findings don't prove PETs affect health outcomes.

 But the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services helped plan the research and insisted on this midpoint check to be sure the study should continue, said Maria Carrillo, the Alzheimer's Association's chief medical officer. Researchers also will compare the 18,000 study participants with Medicare records of similar patients who didn't get PET scans, seeking final evidence of benefit.

 "To get that right diagnosis, that's really important," said Cynthia Guzman of Napa, California, whose initial Alzheimer's diagnosis was ruled out in an earlier PET scan study.

 Guzman had unusual fluctuating memory problems. Some days she functioned normally. Others, she'd stop her car at a stop sign without knowing how she got there or where she was going. Eventually, tremors and hallucinations led specialists to conclude she has Lewy body dementia. Knowing, Guzman said, has allowed her to avoid a list of common medications that could worsen her symptoms.

 While any treatment changes today may be modest, researchers are hunting drugs that eventually might at least slow Alzheimer's rather than just treat symptoms, more impetus for a precise diagnosis.

 "We all hope for a day when this will be critically important," said Dr. Richard Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging, who wasn't involved with the IDEAS study.

 For now, in addition to people who qualify for the IDEAS study, the Alzheimer's Association and Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging say:

 —Unusually young dementia patients, younger than 65, also might be candidates for a PET scan.

 —The scans shouldn't be used as a screening tool for people without symptoms or who worry they're at risk.

 —Nor are they for people who can be diagnosed by standard means, or to determine disease severity. |||||

– Diagnosing Alzheimer's is a guessing game—and many doctors are guessing wrong, according to early results from a new study presented Wednesday in London. The Washington Post reports doctors tested 4,000 Medicare patients with mild cognitive impairment or dementia and discovered many of them definitively do not have Alzheimer's. Using PET scans, the study revealed only 54.3% of mild cognitive impairment patients and 70.5% of dementia patients had brains containing amyloid plaques. These plaques can be a sign of Alzheimer's. The patients who had them may or may not have Alzheimer's; the remaining percentage definitely don't have the disease. "To get that right diagnosis, that's really important," one woman, whose Alzheimer's diagnosis was ruled out by a PET scan, tells the AP. The findings show many people are potentially taking unnecessary Alzheimer's medication, and doctors may want to change their treatment to something cheaper or more effective. Unfortunately, the only ways to test for amyloid plaques while a patient is alive are expensive PET scans, which aren't usually covered by insurance, or invasive spinal taps. Or are they? Another study presented at the same London conference revealed a new blood test that could potentially reveal the plaques, New Scientist reports. The tests are easy and cheap enough that doctors could administer them to patients during regular checkups. Since plaques start showing up 15 to 20 years before Alzheimer's symptoms, patients could use the results to change certain lifestyle habits to decrease their risk. (This startup buys young blood, injects it into older people.)


Summarize this article:

In a Tuesday press release, authorities announced missing Georgia teen Aubrey Carroll is “safe, healthy and unharmed” after returning home to his mother Monday.

 Lt. Michael Morris, Aubrey Carroll, and Sheriff Darrell Dix, from left to right, during their meeting on April 17, 2018. Spalding County Sheriff's Office

 “Hey, my name is Aubrey Carroll. It’s nice to see y’all,” Aubrey says in a video, posted on the Spalding County Sheriff’s Facebook page. Aubrey, 17, was last seen on May 24, 2016 at Spalding High School in Griffin, Georgia.

 “I’d like to tell y’all -- thank y’all so much for all your prayers and looking out for my mama. I appreciate y’all so much,” Aubrey continues. “I’m all right. I’m OK. I’ve been smiling, and y’all should do the same.”

 Captain Dwayne Jones told Dateline that investigators from the Spalding County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO), FBI and the Griffin Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office met with Aubrey’s parents on April 10, 2018 to brief them about the progress of the investigation.

 “[We] showed them pictures of Aubrey and shared with them a Facebook page that he had launched under an assumed identity,” Sheriff Darrell Dix said in a Tuesday press release by the SCSO. “We also found out that over the time since Aubrey left he had no less than five (5) personal contacts with law enforcement agencies ranging from Alabama to Arizona under his assumed identity.”

 The release said authorities had learned through the investigation that Aubrey had travelled extensively on the west coast and in the midwest, becoming “a part of a group of people who live by bartering, operating with cash only, and travelling from state to state.”

 “They basically looked like a group of people from the Woodstock era in their clothing and life style,” Sheriff Dix said.

 Sheriff Dix said law enforcement and Aubrey’s parents mutually decided not to reach out to the teen until he had another encounter with law enforcement for fear that Aubrey would disappear again. Since he is now 17 years old, and no longer a juvenile, there was no lawful way to force him to come back to Georgia.

 Aubrey Caroll Spalding County Sheriff's Office

 “He had a support group that he was with and all indications were that he was happy and was thriving,” the release says. “He did not appear to be in any danger.”

 Following that meeting, though, the release says that one of Aubrey’s family members decided to reach out to him anyway.

 “One of those family members went out on a limb and sent Aubrey a message and Aubrey responded. That family member explained what was happening and was able to convince Aubrey to call his mother,” Sheriff Dix said. “Aubrey called his mother and told her that he was ready to come home; however there were certain conditions that he wanted in place such as who he would talk to and where he would go when he got home.”

 Aubrey’s mom contacted authorities Monday night to say Aubrey was safe and with her. Lt. Mike Morris and Sheriff Dix met with Aubrey the next morning to talk about his disappearance.

 “He told us that he left on his own, and had not been abducted, hurt, abused, exploited, or harmed in any way,” Sheriff Dix said in the release. “We sat for quite a bit of time with him and listened to his story. His tale was absolutely amazing. He has seen and done things that make your jaw drop.”

 In June 2017, about one year after Aubrey’s disappearance, Dateline spoke to Aubrey’s father, Michael Carroll, who recalled taking his son to the bus stop for school on the morning of May 24, 2016.

 “I dropped him off that morning and everything seemed fine,” Michael told Dateline.

 When Aubrey’s stepmother Leah went to pick him up from the bus stop that afternoon, however, he wasn’t there. After attempting to contact some of Aubrey’s friends on social media, Michael reported him missing.

 Investigators from the Spalding County Sheriff’s office told Dateline that had Aubrey left school that afternoon with his friend David Rutledge. The next morning he reportedly showed up at his friend Camron McCree’s house, but was not allowed to stay there. In June of 2017, Aubrey’s family told Dateline that Camron’s mother had said she asked Aubrey to leave when she learned his parents were looking for him.

 He then reportedly asked friends for a ride to the nearest Flying J Truck Stop. Investigators say he was in contact with friends in Gary, Georgia on May 26th, but no one had seen or heard from him since.

 When Aubrey first disappeared, his father and investigators believed that he would likely return on his own. But when time passed and Darrell Dix took over as Spalding County Sheriff in January 2017, Aubrey’s family contacted him about the case. Aubrey was even listed on the FBI’s missing persons site and was believed to be endangered.

 “We decided to go back to the beginning and re-interview the witnesses, re-investigate any clues and completely rebuild the case,” Sheriff Dix told Dateline in June of 2017.

 A new investigator, Todd Hendrix, was also assigned to the case. While investigators told Dateline they had no reason to suspect foul play, the Sheriff’s Department offered a $5,000 reward for anyone who could put them in contact with Aubrey.

 “Initially, we believed he ran away,” Sheriff Dix said. “But then we don’t know what happened.”

 Now, authorities and family members are just glad to know Aubrey is safe.

 “How the story ended doesn’t matter, who gets credit doesn’t matter,” Sheriff Dix said. “Aubrey’s family, supported by friends and the tenacity of the investigators working on this case saw this through to the end. What matters is that he is safe, healthy and unharmed.”

 Aubrey Carroll was previously featured in Dateline's Cold Case Spotlight series. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| SPALDING COUNTY, Ga. — A teen missing from a south metro community has been found nearly two years later.

 On Tuesday, the Spalding County Sheriff's Office announced on Facebook that 17-year-old Aubrey Carroll has been found.

 "Missing person Aubrey Jayce Carroll...Alive and well. Case Closed," the sheriff posted on Facebook, along with a photo of the smiling teen.According to the sheriff's office, Carroll was 15-years-old when he went missing. 11Alive's sister-station in Macon WMAZ said the teen was reported missing after he didn't return home from Spalding County High School on May 26, 2016.

 After more nearly two years of searching, though, he was found.

 In a video shared by the Spalding County Sheriff's Office, Carroll can be seen waving, saying "I'm alright, I'm OK."

 "I'd like to thank y'all so much for all your prayers and looking out for my mama," he said. "I appreciate y'all so much."

 In a press release from the Spalding County Sheriff's Office, the discovery of Carroll was a joint effort with the FBI and Texas Rangers.

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 Sheriff Darrell Dix stated after a recent brief with Carroll's parents, officials showed them a Facebook page that Carroll had launched under an assumed identity.

 Dix told Carroll's parents that since the teen left, he had no less than five personal contacts with law enforcement agencies that ranged from Alabama to Arizona.

 "He traveled extensively on the west coast and midwest. During this time, he became a part of a group of people who live by bartering, operating with cash only, and traveling from state to state," Sheriff Dix said in the statement. "They basically looked like a group of people from the Woodstock era in their clothing and lifestyle.”

 Sheriff Dix stated that a family member was able to get Carroll in contact with his mother so he could ultimately return home to Georgia.

 "These messages occurred over several days, and we allowed Aubrey to pick a location where he felt safe. Last night I received a call that Aubrey was with his mom and was safe. He agreed to meet with me and Lt. Mike Morris so we could question him about why and how he disappeared, and basic questions about his wellbeing and safety," Dix continued in the statement.

 Sheriff Dix said Carroll's story is "absolutely amazing" but ultimately "how the story ended doesn't matter" and "who gets credit doesn't matter."

 Dix finished saying both Carroll and his mother wanted to send a message to those who are missing a loved one.

 "Keep praying, keep looking, and keep your faith," Dix wrote. "Miracles happen."

 Meanwhile, in the Facebook Live, Carroll expressed that he is happy to be home.

 "I've been smiling, and y'all should do the same," he said. |||||

– A Georgia teen who failed to return home from school nearly two years ago has resurfaced in the state with a new look. Aubrey Jayce Carroll, who turned 17 in January, appeared alongside Spalding Sheriff Darrell Dix in a video posted to Facebook Tuesday, sporting long hair and a beard, reports the Macon Telegraph. Though the formerly well-groomed teen didn't detail where he's been since leaving his Griffin home in May 2016, Dix says Aubrey "traveled extensively on the West Coast and Midwest" after joining a group of people who barter and use only cash. "They basically looked like a group of people from the Woodstock era in their clothing and lifestyle," Dix notes in a press release, per 11Alive, adding Aubrey encountered police, including in Alabama and Alaska, at least five times during his travels. Just last year, Dix said Aubrey's family was "tortured by the lack of information" about the missing teen. That changed last Tuesday, when authorities met with his parents and showed them a Facebook page Aubrey was using under a different name, reports NBC News. The group decided not to contact the teen for fear he'd go dark again (due to his age, he couldn't be forced to return home), opting to wait until he had another encounter with police. But one relative "went out on a limb" and messaged him anyway and apparently convinced Aubrey to contact his mother. He told her he was ready to come home so long as certain conditions were met regarding who he saw and where he went. Though much of his time away remains a mystery, Dix says Aubrey's "tale was absolutely amazing. He has seen and done things that make your jaw drop." (Another missing Georgia teen was found using Snapchat.)


Here is a news article: A jawbone unearthed in Romania of a man who lived about 40,000 years ago is shown in this handout photo provided by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany June 21, 2015.

 WASHINGTON You may not know it, but you probably have some Neanderthal in you. For people around the world, except sub-Saharan Africans, about 1 to 3 percent of their DNA comes from Neanderthals, our close cousins who disappeared roughly 39,000 years ago.

 Scientists said on Monday a jawbone unearthed in Romania, of a man who lived about 40,000 years ago, boasts the most Neanderthal ancestry ever seen in a member of our species.

 The finding that also indicates that interbreeding with Neanderthals occurred much more recently than previously known.

 "We show that one of the very first modern humans that is known from Europe had a Neanderthal ancestor just four to six generations back in his family tree," said geneticist Svante Pääbo of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

 "He carries more Neanderthal DNA than any other present-day or ancient modern human seen to date."

 Harvard Medical School geneticist David Reich said 6 to 9 percent of this individual's genome derived from a Neanderthal ancestor.

 The study, published in the journal Nature, indicates that our species interbred with Neanderthals in Europe as well, not just in the Middle East as previously thought, Pääbo said.

 Previous research suggested this interbreeding occurred 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, before our species, arising in Africa, trekked into Europe, Asia and beyond.

 "Modern humans arrive in Europe after 43,000 years ago, and Neanderthals went extinct by 39,000 years ago," Reich said.

 The scientists said a Neanderthal was among the individual's ancestors as recently as perhaps 100 to 150 years.

 Reich said genetic analysis showed the individual, a hunter-gatherer, was from a "pioneer population" that entered Europe but did not contribute much or anything at all genetically to later Europeans.

 "This is interesting because it means that Europe has not been continuously occupied by the same lineages ever since the first waves of migration of modern humans into Europe," Reich said.

 The robust, large-browed Neanderthals prospered across Europe and Asia from about 350,000 years ago till shortly after 40,000 years ago, disappearing in the period after Homo sapiens arrived.

 Despite an outdated reputation as our dimwitted cousins, scientists say Neanderthals were highly intelligent, as shown by their complex hunting methods, likely use of spoken language and symbolic objects, and sophisticated use of fire.

 The lower jawbone was found in 2002 in Oase Cave in southwestern Romania. Previous attempts to extract DNA were unsuccessful but recent technological advances facilitated the new findings.

 (Editing by Bernadette Baum) ||||| The jawbone of a human who lived between 42,000 and 37,000 years ago showed some Neanderthal features.

 One of the earliest modern humans in Europe had a surprisingly recent Neanderthal ancestor, revealing the two species likely interbred there, according to a new study.

 The Neanderthal relative was so close to the modern human on the family tree that it could have been the equivalent of a great-great-grandparent, the research suggests.

 The finding is revising scientists' understanding of when and where humans and Neanderthals interbred, as it suggests humans had sex with Neanderthals more recently than was previously known.

 The new analysis focuses on a jawbone from Oase 1, an early modern human found in Peștera cu Oase ("Cave with Bones") in southwestern Romania in 2002. Anatomically modern humans populated Europe between 45,000 and 35,000 years ago. Oase 1 lived sometime between 42,000 and 37,000 years ago, making him one of Europe's earliest modern humans. [See Photos of Humanity's Closest Relative]

 DNA extracted from the Oase 1 jawbone showed one of its human ancestors interbred with a Neanderthal. Credit: MPI f. Evolutionary Anthropology/Paabo

 The researchers chose to study Oase 1 because the jaw showed some Neanderthal characteristics. The skull of another early human, Oase 2, found nearby also appeared to have Neanderthal traits.

 The large spans of Neanderthal-like segments in Oase 1's genome indicate that one of his human ancestors interbred with a Neanderthal less than 200 years before he lived.

 "One of Oase 1's fourth- to sixth-degree relatives was a Neanderthal," study co-author Qiaomei Fu, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Medical School Department of Genetics, told Live Science.

 Evidence of interbreeding

 The new finding builds on work led by Svante Pääbo, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and Harvard University's David Reich, which, in 2010, resulted in the first Neanderthal genome ever sequenced. The landmark study answered the long-standing question of whether Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis interbred before humanity's closest relatives went extinct about 35,000 years ago. It showed that interbreeding likely did happen, with Neanderthals contributing roughly 1 to 4 percent of the genomes of all humans living today outside of sub-Saharan Africa.

 In the new analysis, an international team of researchers, including Pääbo and Reich, found that 6 to 9.4 percent of Oase 1's nuclear DNA (located inside a cell's nucleus) was derived from Neanderthals — a higher percentage than has been found in any other modern human genome sequenced so far.

 "The Oase 1 genome has several big Neanderthal-like segments, which is a quite lucky and unexpected thing," Fu said.

 The Neanderthal contribution to the Oase 1 genome is between 2.3- and 3.6-fold larger than the Neanderthal DNA found in the genomes of populations living today outside sub-Saharan Africa and those of four other early modern humans from Russia and Luxembourg whose genomes have been sequenced. One of those ancient humans is even older than Oase 1, Fu said.

 Where the action happened

 The size of Neanderthal segments in human DNA suggest that the two species mated 37,000 to 86,000 years ago. But where and how often they did so have remained a mystery.

 East Asians and Native Americans have more Neanderthal DNA than Europeans, suggesting that more interbreeding happened with the ancestors of eastern non-Africans than with Europeans, the authors wrote in their paper, published today (June 22) in the journal Nature. Until now, there's been little genetic evidence that early humans interbred with Neanderthals once they got to Europe.

 "Analyses of present-day genomes have not yielded any evidence that Neanderthals mixed with modern humans in Europe, despite the fact that Neanderthals were numerous there and cultural interactions between the two groups have been proposed," Fu said.

 However, the new study is changing that: The proximity of a Neanderthal to Oase 1 on the family tree suggests the two species continued interbreeding long after humans first left Africa and entered the Near East. Humans and Neanderthals were mating "later as well, and probably in Europe," the authors wrote.

 However, Oase 1 didn't leave much of a mark on Europe. He shared more gene variants with present-day East Asians and Native Americans than with Europeans, even though he lived in Europe, the researchers said.

 "He may have been a member of an initial early modern human population that interbred with Neanderthals but did not contribute much to later European populations," Fu said.

 Follow Jennifer Abbasi on Twitter. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. |||||
A summary of this is?

– A jawbone found in Romania more than a decade ago provides the first genetic evidence that humans and Neanderthals knocked boots in Europe before the latter disappeared between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago. Scientists who came across the bone of one of the earliest modern humans in Europe in a cave known as Pestera cu Oase noticed it had both modern human and Neanderthal traits. Now, a study of the bone's DNA—made possible by recent technological advances—explains why. "The sample is more closely related to Neanderthals than any other modern human we've ever looked at before," Harvard researcher David Reich explains in a press release. "We estimate that 6% to 9% of its genome is from Neanderthals. This is an unprecedented amount." In comparison, all people except sub-Saharan Africans share 1% to 4% of their DNA with Neanderthals today. DNA in the fossil, which is 37,000 to 42,000 years old, suggests the Oase individual had a Neanderthal ancestor four to six generations back, reports Reuters. In other words, a great-great-grandparent might've been a Neanderthal, notes LiveScience. That shows interbreeding occurred far more recently than scientists had guessed; they initially thought interbreeding took place only in the Middle East between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. "It's an incredibly unexpected thing," Reich says. "In the last few years, we've documented interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans, but we never thought we'd be so lucky to find someone so close to that event." You aren't likely to share any DNA with the jawbone's owner, however. Reich says the hunter-gatherer was from a "pioneer population" that entered Europe but "didn't give rise to the later population." (The oldest Neanderthal DNA is some 150,000 years old.)


News article:

Under pressure over its longstanding ban on gays, the Boys Scouts of America is proposing to lift the ban for youth members but continue to exclude gays as adult leaders.

 The Scouts announced Friday that it would submit this proposal to the roughly 1,400 voting members of its National Council at a meeting in Texas the week of May 20.

 Earlier, the BSA had indicated it might give local Scout units the option of admitting gays as both youth members and adult leaders, or continuing to exclude them

 The BSA said Friday it changed course due in part to results of surveys sent out this year to members of the scouting community.

 Gay-rights groups have demanded a complete lifting of the ban. Some churches and conservative groups want it maintained. ||||| The statue of a scout stands in the entrance to Boy Scouts of America headquarters in Irving, Texas, February 5, 2013.

 NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Boy Scouts of America on Friday proposed lifting a ban on gay scouts but maintaining a prohibition on gay adults from leading troops, a compromise that attempts to end a fight that has split the century-old American institution into bitter factions.

 Reaction from scouting supporters ranged from outrage to limited approval. The biggest organization in scouts, the Mormon Church, said it was studying the proposal, leaving uncertain the outcome of a May vote by scout leaders that will set policy. Gay rights groups said continuing to bar gay adults was unacceptable, but they welcomed the change for youths.

 "The general feeling is that this is a bad move," which could precipitate a major crisis, A.J. Smith, president of the Association of Baptists for Scouting, wrote in a website post, attempting to summarize Baptists' views. "This is about a concerted effort to bring down a cultural icon. We must brace ourselves for the long haul on this one."

 The scouts' decision is a focal point of a heated gay rights debate in the United States, where polls show public opinion is fast moving toward greater acceptance and a core of social conservatives stridently oppose such change.

 In the coming months, the Supreme Court will rule on whether to strike down parts of a federal law that defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman. In 2011, the military repealed a ban on openly gay soldiers.

 The Boy Scouts proposal would create a situation where a gay youth could become a scout and then be forced to resign when he becomes an adult.

 Scout leaders in 2000 won a Supreme Court battle over the right to exclude gays. There are more than 2.6 million youth scouts and 1 million adults, with faith-based groups sponsoring 70 percent of scout units.

 If the resolution is approved, "no youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone," Deron Smith, the organization's spokesman, told Reuters.

 But the policy is not changed for adults, the group said, and an internal document obtained by Reuters says that when youth members become adults, they "must meet the requirements of our adult standards" to remain in the group.

 LONG STUDY BEFORE COMPROMISE

 Smith said a parents in three of four U.S. regions opposed the current membership policy.

 A report on the matter found religious groups linked to the Scouts were concerned with homosexual adult leaders, not with youth, and concluded "a change in the membership policy specific to youth only would be consistent with the religious beliefs of the BSA's major chartered organizations."

 AT&T; Chief Executive and Chairman Randall Stephenson, a Boy Scouts board member who had called for allowing gays scouts and a key corporate advocate on the issue, endorsed the new policy on youths but did not comment on banning gay adults.

 "I fully support the BSA Executive Council's resolution to ensure all youth have the opportunity to participate in scouting and benefit from the life-long leadership skills scouting helps develop," he said in a statement.

 Gay rights groups were quick to say the decision was not far-reaching enough.

 "By refusing to consider an end to its ban on gay and lesbian parents, the Boy Scouts have missed an opportunity to exercise leadership and usher the organization back to relevancy," said Rich Ferraro, a spokesperson for GLAAD, which promotes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.

 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon church, which has more than 430,000 youths in scouts, "will take the time needed to fully review the language and study the implications of this new proposal," spokesman Michael Purdy said.

 The Mormon church has consistently opposed gay marriage, and was a primary promoter of California's 2008 ban, known as Proposition 8. But recently it has emphasized respecting gay church members and declared that homosexuality is not a choice, reflecting changing attitudes among members.

 "This was an exceptionally difficult decision as a business," said Patrick Boyle, whose 1994 book "Scout's Honor" examined sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America.

 "They were stuck in a very bad spot with their constituents divided - constituents being the parents, and also the churches and the businesses that support the scouts."

 The road to a decision has been long. In July 2012, the group's board voted to uphold the gay ban. Six months later, group leaders said they were mulling over whether to remove the national restriction, leaving local branches to decide whether to admit gays and lesbians. A final vote, expected in February, was delayed following a request from a coalition of 33 faith-based councils that represent about one-fifth of all youth members in the Boy Scouts.

 Boyle notes that this reversal "shows how the gay rights movement has caught fire in the past dozen years."

 Chuck Small, a BSA adult leader and the parent of 10- and 12-year-old scouts in South Carolina, welcomed the proposal.

 "It's a hard and divisive issue, but what it comes down to is that we learn more from people who are different from us than people who are like us," Small said.

 "I think it's a healthy thing, and I hope my boys are up to the challenge to accept people for what they do, rather than what they believe or how they're made up."

 (Additional reporting by Chris Francescani and Aruna Viswanatha; Editing by Vicki Allen, Andrew Hay, Eric Walsh and Stacey Joyce) |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– It looks like the Boy Scouts of America may be ready to end its ban on openly gay scouts, but not on gay leaders. The organization today proposed doing away with the longstanding and controversial ban, which would mean that in the future, "no youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone," a spokesperson tells Reuters. However, the proposal would continue to exclude gay adult leaders, the AP reports. The policy won't become official, however, unless the organization's National Council, which has 1,400 voting members, approves it at its meeting in Texas the week of May 20. This proposal comes on the heels of three months of research the Boy Scouts did, including surveys sent to members.