News article:

 (Palin's home, AP Photo)

 Joe McGinniss is a particular sort of journalist unfortunately not so in vogue anymore. His own obsessiveness and personal involvement invariably become part of the story. In his book about the 1968 presidential election, The Selling of the President, one of the most seminal campaign books ever written, he managed to inject himself as a constant shadow presence in the Nixon camp and wrote the model for fly-on-the-wall journalism as well as the basic manual for all future media consultants. His account in Fatal Vision of Jeffrey McDonald’s murder of his pregnant wife and two children is a classic in crime reporting and, as well, one of the stranger tales of an author’s tangled relationship with and dogged pursuit of his subject.McGinniss's hyper-involvement with his stories has bedeviled his subjects, publishers, and critics (Janet Malcolm’s famous study of journalism, The Journalist and the Murder—“Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible…"—is based on McGinniss). It is now bedeviling Sarah Palin and the right wing.Before almost any other journalist (save for Andrew Sullivan), McGinniss got on to the weird and aberrant nature of the Palin phenomenon. He has been tracking it—and her—in his obsessive fashion nearly since John McCain announced her nomination.Now McGinniss has moved into the house next door to the Palins' in Alaska. He overlooks “my children’s play area” and “Piper’s bedroom," Palin complains in one of her Facebook posts about McGinniss. She goes on at considerable length and in stuck-pig fashion to try to mock and demonize and shake McGinniss. She has recruited other right-wing media personalities, including Glenn Beck , to help her in her campaign to run McGinniss out of town. Beck, indeed, has called McGinniss a stalker (which, in shoe-leather journalism fashion, he surely is).The campaign against McGinniss is a pretty stunning abuse of the kind of media access and power that Palin & Co. possess—it’s crowd incitement. Palin, one of the leading political figures in the country, is trying to impede a journalist’s obvious right to cover her by using well-honed and scarily effective right-wing tactics: declaring a jihad on an adversary and having masses of followers deliver threatening hate mail (or hate spam) and other invective of vast and malevolent proportions.McGinniss has sent friends and contacts an email saying that his standard email account had been overwhelmed and he can no longer use it.The Palin campaign is certainly tough for McGinniss and a display of the crude power and bullying that Palin seems to have no second thoughts about using to further her interests.But truly I wouldn’t feel too worried about Joe. Not a lot of chance he’s going to be scared off. He’s Br'er Rabbit. And Sarah’s gotten herself in the tar pit.More of Newser founder Michael Wolff's articles and commentary can be found at VanityFair.com , where he writes a regular column. He can be emailed at michael@newser.com. You can also follow him on Twitter: @MichaelWolffNYC ||||| Nearly 40 days in, our President finally addressed the American people’s growing concerns about the Gulf Coast oil spill. Listening to today’s press conference, you’d think the administration has been working with single-minded focus on the Gulf gusher since the start of the disaster. In reality, their focus has been anything but singular to help solve this monumental problem.

 If the President really was fully focused on this issue from day one, why did it take nine whole days before the administration asked the Department of Defense for help in deploying equipment needed for the extreme depth spill site?

 Why was the expert group assembled by Energy Commissioner Steven Chu only set up three weeks after the start of this disaster?

 Why was Governor Jindal forced more than a month after the start of the disaster to go on national television to beg for materials needed to tackle the oil spill and for federal approval to build offshore sand barriers that are imperative to protect his state’s coastline?

 Why was no mention of the spill made by our President for days on end while Americans waited to hear if he grasped the import of his leadership on this energy issue?

 Why have several countries and competent organizations who offered help or expertise in dealing with the spill not even received a response back from the Unified Area Command to this day?

 The President claimed that “this notion that somehow the federal government is somehow sitting on the sidelines and for the last three or four or five weeks we’ve just been letting BP make a whole bunch of decisions is simply not true.” But, in fact, that is how U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen described the Obama administration’s approach to this crisis: “We keep a close watch.”

 Listening to the President, you get the impression he is continually surprised by the inability of various centralized government agencies to get more involved and help solve problems. His lack of executive experience might explain this because he is apparently unaware that it’s his job as a chief executive to make sure they do their jobs and help solve problems.

 The fundamental problem at the core of this crisis is a lack of responsibility. (I risk the President taking my comments personally, but they’re not intended to be personal; my comments reflect what many others feel, and we just want to help him tackle this enormous spill problem.) There’s a culture of buck-passing at the heart of this administration that has caused the tragedy of a sunken oil rig to turn into a potential disaster.

 The 1990 Oil Pollution Act was drafted in response to the Exxon-Valdez spill in my home state. It created new procedures for offshore cleanups, specifically putting the federal government in charge of such operations. The President should have used the authority granted by the OPA – immediately – to take control of the situation. That is a big part of what the OPA is for – to designate who is in charge so finger-pointing won’t disrupt efforts to just “plug the d#*! hole.” But instead of immediately engaging with this crisis, our President chose to spend precious time on political pet causes like haranguing the state of Arizona for doing what he himself was supposed to do – secure the nation’s border. He also spent much time fundraising and politicking for liberal candidates and causes while we waited for him to grasp the enormity of the Gulf spill.

 Now that the American people are calling him out on his lack of engagement with this disaster, the buck-passing is in full swing – and, unbelievably, his administration is still looking to blame his predecessor. Amazingly, even those of us who support energy independence for America are the brunt of some buck-passing.

 He suggested today that a “culture of corruption” at the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) was solely the previous administration’s responsibility and that the failure of the inspection system was a failure of that administration. That is false. The MMS has been his responsibility since January 20, 2009.

 The MMS director who resigned today, Elizabeth Birnbaum, was appointed by his administration. And the most recent inspection of the oil rig took place a mere 10 days before the explosion – also very much on his watch, not President Bush’s.

 The President is also now attempting to somehow distance himself from his administration’s recent decision to open a few areas of the continental shelf to oil and gas exploration. That’s unfortunate because America desperately needs our domestic oil and natural gas. We rely on it for our prosperity, security, and freedom. The President’s decision to open a few areas to offshore exploration was the right decision then; and unlike his quickly evolving position on energy development now, I continue to believe it’s the right decision today – because energy independence is in the long-term economic and security interests of the United States.

 As I explained in an article in National Review last year, conventional sources like natural gas “can act as a clean ‘bridge fuel’ to a future when more renewable sources are available.” I do not, as the President mistakenly believes, think we can “drill, baby, drill” our way out of all of our troubles. As I have consistently stated, we need an “all of the above” approach to energy independence that combines conventional drilling with energy conservation and renewable-energy development. My record in Alaska clearly shows my commitment to this “all of the above” approach. Over 20 percent of Alaska’s electricity currently comes from renewable sources. As governor, I put forward a long-term plan to increase that figure to 50 percent by 2025, which is the most ambitious renewable energy target in the nation. I take great pride in helping to make Alaska, in the words of the New York Times, “a Frontier for Green Power,” even as we continue to embrace the need to “drill, baby, drill” at the same time.

 Alaska can be that frontier for renewable energy only because our conventional oil and gas reserves provide us with “a bridge” to a greener energy future. In fact, Alaska has enough reserves of both oil and gas to help the United States cross that bridge – if only we are allowed to drill!

 Please, Mr. President, hear me on this, if nothing else: if it’s your administration’s decision to suspend the leases of new oil field developments off the coast of Alaska in response to the Gulf’s deepwater spill, and you still remain committed to locking up ANWR and other oil-rich lands, please know you are making a mistake. Unless we continue to drill here and drill now, we risk digging ourselves deeper into the hole created by our continued dependence on foreign energy – which often comes from regimes that care nothing for our prosperity or security, and even less for global environmental safety.

 We need affordable, reliable, secure, environmentally-sound, and domestically-produced energy, but this administration continues to lock up federal land filled with huge energy reserves. If there is to be a moratorium on offshore development, then it’s time we stop ignoring our safest options for domestic development – places like ANWR and NPR-A in my home state of Alaska.

 And it’s time for the administration to stop passing the buck and get control of the disaster in the Gulf. There’s a reason why Harry Truman had that famous sign on his desk. The “buck stops” with the occupant of the Oval Office. When the American people elected President Obama they gave him responsibility to handle this disaster. He promised to “heal the earth, and watch the waters recede...” or something far-fetched like that. It was unbelievable then, it’s impossible now, but what I believe he meant was that he promised to be held accountable. With all due respect, Mr. President, you have a huge job in front of you. We hope you’re learning. Please learn that we must have domestic energy development, you must stop looking backward and blaming Bush, and we must all work together to “plug the d#*! hole.”

 - Sarah Palin

  ||||| After Sarah Palin suggested that there is a connection between Obama's response to oil spill and BP's financial contributions to him on Fox News Sunday, Robert Gibbs shot down her accusations on Face the Nation.

 PALIN: Well, I think that there is, perhaps, a hesitancy, to -- I don't really know how to put this, Chris, except to say that the oil companies who have so supported President Obama in his campaign and are supportive of him now, I don't know why the question isn't asked by the mainstream media and by others if there's any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration -- if there's any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico. Now if this was President Bush or if this were a Republican in office who hadn't received as much support even as President Obama has from BP and other oil companies, you know the mainstream media would be all over his case in terms of asking questions, why the administration didn't get in there -- didn't get in there and make sure that the regulatory agencies were doing what they were doing with the oversight to make sure that things like this don't happen.

 Gibbs: Palin Should Get More Informed About Drilling:

 "Sarah Palin was involved in that election, but I don't think, apparently, was paying a whole lot of attention," Gibbs said. "I'm almost sure that the oil companies don't consider the Obama administration a huge ally - we proposed a windfall profits tax when they jacked their oil prices up to charge for gasoline." "My suggestion to Sarah Palin would be to get slightly more informed as to what's going on in and around oil drilling in this country," he added.

 As CBS noted, the back and forth between Palin and Gibbs continued after he was on the air. They also did a bit of fact checking on campaign donations on all sides from the oil companies including Palin.

 According to Open Secrets.org, BP's campaign contributions during the 2008 election cycle were $214,915 to Democrats, and $315,909 to Republicans (about 40/60), split almost evenly between individual contributions and PACs. According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, during Palin's 2006 run for Governor in Alaska (where the large majority of donations came from individuals), BP America made the fifth-largest donation by a company to her campaign, contributing $4,650, with BP Alaska giving an additional $250.

 As Media Matters pointed out after the right wing started calling this Obama's Katrina, the administration did respond to the spill immediately, so that part of her argument falls flat as well. The response has been inadequate and they should not have trusted BP's early estimates on how much oil was leaking, but you can't say they weren't out there from day one. Their bigger problem was not cleaning up the MMS and catering to the "drill baby drill" crowd like Palin in order to get some bipartisan support for their energy legislation.

 Chris Wallace also allowed Palin to do some revisionist history when she claimed that she knows "what it takes to hold these oil companies accountable". Uh...not so much.

 Palin’s Exxon Valdez account draws guffaws:

 Sarah Palin’s new memoir, “Going Rogue,” already has been strongly criticized by John McCain’s aides for her account as a vice presidential candidate on the ticket with him in their unsuccessful 2008 race for the White House. Now, add Alaskan experts who were involved in the case over the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster saying her account over her role in the litigation is distorted for a number of reasons. In the book, Palin claims to have helped the fishermen, Alaska Natives and other individuals suing Exxon over spill damages prevail in their legal case. “It took years for Alaska to achieve victory. As governor, I directed our attorney general to write an amicus brief in the case, and, thanks to Alaska’s able attorneys arguing in front of the highest court in the land, in 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the people,” she writes in her book. “Finally, Alaskans could recover some of their losses.” But Palin’s claims of victory for the plaintiffs and of playing a role in achieving that victory are highly distorted, said the chief attorney for the approximately 32,000 plaintiffs that sued Exxon over damages from the worst oil-tanker spill in U.S. waters. “That is the most cockamamie bullshit,” said Dave Oesting of Anchorage, lead plaintiff attorney in the private litigants’ civil case against Exxon and its successor, Exxon Mobil Corp. “She didn’t have a damn thing to do with it, and she didn’t know what it was about.” Read on...

 And as I already noted, the Bush administration DOJ shut down a criminal investigation of BP, so there was no accountability.

 Scott West: The U.S. Government Has Taught BP That it Can Do Whatever it Wants:

 SCOTT WEST: But by August of '07, something had shifted dramatically, and we were told by the US attorney's office in Alaska that the case would settle out for corporate misdemeanor. And at the meeting that I attended there in late August, the question was asked, if we had to go to trial today, what could we prove? And I had to admit that a trial at that moment, the most we could prove was a corporate misdemeanor. And then I said, "But we’re not done with our investigation. We’ve only just begun. We need another couple of years to really vet this out." And they said, well, can I guarantee that I would be able to convict individuals. And I said, "Of course not. You can’t guarantee anything like that in the criminal investigative arena." And so, with that, they said, "Well, then we’re done." And I was in shock. It’s unheard of for a special agent in charge to be denied the opportunity to complete an investigation that was so far from nearing its end. And then— AMY GOODMAN: So you have the EPA considering penalties of upwards of, what, 800—or $672 million, possibly felony charges against BP executives, and they end up settling for $20 million? SCOTT WEST: Yes, they ended up settling for $20 million. And I was told there was a couple of reasons for that $20 million figure. One, we have to go back to the Olympic Pipe Line case. The Olympic pipeline ruptured in Bellingham, Washington in 1999, and the resulting spill of gasoline into a stream caught fire. Three individuals were burned to death, and a stream was destroyed. That case was investigated by EPA out of the Seattle office. In '99 and 2000, it was considered a very significant criminal case in the US attorney's office in Seattle, which was at that time under the Clinton administration. When the Bush administration took over at the Department of Justice, and the US attorney came in, it was—became a bottom-of-the-barrel case and was ultimately settled out for a very low amount of money. And I have been talking with one of the investigators on that case, and he said the amount of money that was determined as the fine in that matched what the insurance companies were willing to pay. So Olympic Pipe Line essentially did not have to actually pay the fine, but it was covered by their insurance company. Now, that Olympic Pipe Line settlement became the benchmark, within the Bush Department of Justice, for environmental crime.

 Yeah, that's some accountability Sarah. There are plenty of more than valid reasons to be criticizing what's gone on with this oil spill and the response. Sarah Palin doesn't have an ounce of credibility to be the one making any of them, but that won't stop Fox News from bringing her on as though she does.

 h/t aview999 for the Reuters link. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Sarah Palin took time out from her war with new neighbor Joe McGinniss—now safely behind a mile-high fence—to launch a Facebook attack on President Obama, who she says passed the buck in his press conference on the Gulf oil spill and hasn't gotten federal agencies involved fast enough. "His lack of executive experience might explain this because he is apparently unaware that it’s his job as a chief executive to make sure they do their jobs and help solve problems." Could be read as a cute rejoinder to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs suggesting sweetly on Sunday that Palin, who had charged that Obama was in bed with BP because of campaign contributions, apparently "wasn't paying a whole lot of attention" during the election, and might want to get "slightly more informed as to what's going on in and around drilling in this country." Palin goes on to slam Obama's decision to suspend drilling off the coast of Alaska, and says it shows how much the president has to learn. "Please learn that we must have domestic energy development, you must stop looking backward and blaming Bush, and we must all work together to 'plug the d#*! hole.' ”


News article:

SABATTUS — Controversial Republican candidate Leslie Gibson, who drew fire for insulting several teen survivors of the Florida school shooting, is abandoning his effort to win a state House seat this year.

 “I am not walking away with my head hung low. I am walking away with my head held high,” Gibson said Friday.

 Gibson said he made the decision after talking with his family, praying and discussing it with friends and colleagues, including Thomas Martin Jr., another Republican contender who entered the 57th District race Thursday.

 “It’s the best thing for everybody,” Gibson said.

 Gibson has been under fire this week for comments he made online about the teens in Florida who survived a school shooting in Parkland, Florida. He criticized two of them who were leading an effort to increase restrictions on gun sales in the wake of the Feb. 14 killings, calling one a “skinhead lesbian,” and another a “bald-faced liar.”

 The 18-year-old student whom Gibson singled out, Emma Gonzalez, is among the students speaking out from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In the wake of the Feb. 14 massacre there that left 17 of her classmates dead, she emerged as a leader in students’ fight to make assault rifles harder to come by.

 “There is nothing about this skinhead lesbian that impresses me and there is nothing that she has to say unless you’re a frothing at the mouth moonbat,” Gibson wrote.

 Gibson said in another tweet that calling her a survivor, as many have done, is disingenuous because she “was in a completely different part of the school” when students were gunned down.

 Gibson apologized in a later tweet, saying, “I would like to extend to you my most sincere apology for how I addressed you. It was wrong and unacceptable. You are doing work that is important to you. I would like to extend my hand in friendship and understanding to you.”

 Gibson said that during his career in the military, he took an oath “to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

 “Because of this,” he said, “I am very passionate about protecting our constitutional rights from those who seek their elimination. It was not appropriate to single out the Parkland students, but I stand firm in my defense of our constitutional rights.”

 David Hogg, the other teen Gibson insulted, tweeted on Wednesday, urging someone to run against Gibson.

 “Who wants to run against this hate-loving politician?” asked Hogg, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. “I don’t care what party. JUST DO IT.”

 Hogg has been an outspoken advocate for taking on the National Rifle Association.

 The incident that apparently set off Gibson was an appearance by Hogg on CNN in which the Parkland student lashed out at NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch. He accused her of working with gun manufacturers to control Congress.

 “She owns these congressmen. She can get them to do things,” Hogg told the network. “She doesn’t care about these children’s lives,” he said.

 Gibson, who retired from the U.S. Navy, for years has used social media to comment on immigration, defend conservative politicians and promote Republican policies. He has a history of retweeting stridently anti-immigrant comments, often from accounts in Maine.

 Last month, he explained on Facebook after “the tragedy that occurred in Florida” that there has been “a lot of misinformation, and flat out lies” circulated by “the liberal media and leftist anti-Second Amendment groups.”

 As a lifetime member of the NRA, he said, he stands with the group’s efforts “to protect and preserve our Second Amendment rights,” which he said are “under attack.”

 “The NRA and its members are being blamed for the Florida tragedy,” Gibson wrote. “Such blame is patently misdirected. The blame rests solely with the person who committed these murders.”

 He made his social media accounts private after the uproar over his insults aimed at the teens.

 Gibson had been cruising toward an unopposed election in the district, which includes Sabattus and Greene. But his comments stirred both Martin and Democrat Eryn Gilchrist to join the contest.

 Gilchrist filed the required paperwork on Thursday to run for the 57th District seat.

 She said she never anticipated running for office but felt so “horrified and embarrassed” at the thought of Gibson representing her that she decided to jump in.

 “I would really have been happy to partake in representative democracy by voting,” Gilchrist said.

 Gilchrist, 28, a Connecticut native who works for a medical device company based in Bowdoin, is a 2013 graduate of Bates College.

 Martin said on Thursday he felt compelled to run after he read Gibson’s strident comments about the two Florida students.

 Martin, a former state senator from Benton, said it is important to have a candidate who represents real Republican values.

 “After those recent unfortunate comments, I couldn’t sit back,” Martin said.

 Martin, a 52-year-old contractor, said that people have to realize “that our words and actions have consequences.”

 Gibson said he hopes his departure from the race will bring things back to normal.

 He said he’s going to try to “get some peace and quiet in our lives” after the turmoil of recent days.

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 filed under: ||||| In the past month, the vocal teenage survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, with their ballooning social-media followings and national TV appearances, have emerged as the newest and youngest voices in the push to beef up gun-control laws in the United States.

 And critics who have bad-mouthed the teens on the Internet or the airwaves have found their own vitriol turned back on them by people sympathetic to the plight of students who became activists after seeing their classmates and educators slaughtered.

 There was the aide to a Florida legislator who was fired after he called the school shooting survivors crisis actors who travel from tragic place to tragic place making impassioned but bogus political pleas to take away gun rights. Then there was Donald Trump Jr., who was blasted after he liked a tweet saying one of the most vocal students had been coached by his FBI agent father to peddle “anti-Trump rhetoric and anti-gun legislation.”

 And several naysayers have been castigated for criticizing the teens for smiling on the set of CBS’s morning news show, saying the students were “posing for the photos like they are partying rock stars.”

 Claiming some of the students on tv after #Parkland are actors is the work of a disgusting group of idiots with no sense of decency — Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 20, 2018

 And then there is Leslie Gibson.

 A week ago, the Republican was the only declared candidate to represent the 57th District in Maine’s House of Representatives. On Friday, his fortunes vastly changed as he quit the race to represent the towns of Greene and Sabattus, according to the Associated Press.

 Leslie Gibson quits state House race after Thomas Martin jumps in for GOP https://t.co/REYsl1GAR0 via @SteveCollinsSJ #mepolitics pic.twitter.com/l4I0zuh8PM — Sun Journal (@sunjournal) March 17, 2018

 Gibson had become known outside his little corner of Maine for what many say was his rage-tweet against the vocal survivors of the shooting that killed 17 in Parkland, Fla.

 “There is nothing about this skinhead lesbian that impresses me and there is nothing that she has to say unless you’re a frothing at the mouth moonbat,” the now-deleted tweet read.

 [Broward Sheriff’s Office releases video showing deputy standing outside Parkland school during massacre]

 The 17-year-old girl he was referring to is Emma González, who has emerged as one of the most outspoken activists in the Parkland group.

 She has, for example, called President Trump’s plan to arm teachers as a first line of defense school shooters “stupid.”

 “First of all, Douglas ran out of paper for, like, two weeks in the school year, and now all a sudden they have $400 million to pay for teachers to get trained to arm themselves?” she says. “Really? Really?”

 Sometimes, she has led people in “Shame on you!” chants directed at lawmakers.

 Gibson’s tweet last week was a response to a report on González’s rocketing number of Twitter followers, the AP reported. But she wasn’t the only Parkland survivor he targeted.

 He also criticized David Hogg, another Parkland student who has become a prominent activist following the shooting, calling Hogg “a bald faced liar.”

 The reaction was swift. Hogg, who also saw a precipitous increase in his Twitter following, asked whether somebody, anybody, would run against Gibson.

 Hey freinds in Maine! Who wants to run against this hate loving politician he's is running UNOPPOSED RUN AGAINST HIM I don't care what party JUST DO IT. https://t.co/vRR7p1ZHKf — David Hogg (@davidhogg111) March 14, 2018

 The next day, Eryn Gilchrist, a 28-year-old Democrat who also hails from Maine’s 57th District, announced that she would also run for the seat, according to CBS News, because she was “horrified and embarrassed” that Gibson would represent her in the legislature.

 And Thomas Martin Jr., a Republican, said he “couldn’t sit back” after reading Gibson’s comments and felt compelled to enter the race, according to the Portland Press Herald.

 [‘Can you play dead?’ New details about the chaos and fear that surrounded the Parkland massacre.]

 Gibson said he made the decision to quit after meeting with friends, family members and colleagues. Those consultations included what he calls a “very positive conversation” with Martin, the newspaper reported. Dropping out, he said is “the best decision for myself, my family, the Maine GOP and for candidate Tom Martin.”

 Just as they have criticized politicians for what they say is inaction on gun control, the students have also gone head-to-head against their critics.

 “I just think it’s a testament to the sick immaturity and broken state of our government when these people feel the need to peddle conspiracy theories about people that were in a school shooting where 17 people died, and it just makes me sick,” Hogg told BuzzFeed News. “It’s immature, rude and inhuman for these people to destroy the people trying to prevent the death of the future of America because they won’t,” he said.

 Late Friday, he took to Twitter again. This time he was sharing news that Gibson was out of the race.

 Read more:

 A middle school teacher led a double life as a white-nationalist podcaster

 Video shows the moment a U.S. marshal killed a gang member lunging for a witness

 Stabbed and left for dead, a teen named her killers in her final moments, police say

 This civil servant was tormented for sending Hawaii’s panic-inducing missile alert. Wrong guy. ||||| Now, a 28-year-old woman who was “horrified and embarrassed” by the candidate is running to fill the seat in her first-ever campaign.

 A Republican candidate for Maine's House of Representatives dropped out of the race on Friday after facing a storm of backlash for mocking Parkland survivor and activist Emma González as a "skinhead lesbian." Afp Contributor / AFP / Getty Images

 Leslie Gibson had previously been the only declared candidate in the race. “There is nothing about this skinhead lesbian that impresses me and there is nothing that she has to say unless you’re a frothing at the mouth moonbat,” Gibson had tweeted, according to the Press Herald. In another tweet, Gibson reportedly derided claims that González is a survivor of the shooting because she “was in a completely different part of the school” when the shooter opened fire and killed 17 of her classmates. And, in yet another tweet, Gibson called David Hogg, another Parkland survivor and activist, “a bald faced liar" for his criticism of NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch.

 Gibson's attacks on the students were criticized by Democrats and Republicans alike. Bruce Bickford, a Republican in the Maine House of Representatives, posted on Facebook that "this type of behavior is not an example of the Republican Party. I cannot and will not support this person! So Sad!!" Amy Volk, a Republican state senator in Maine, tweeted that Gibson had previously attacked her on social media and that he should not run for office. "Respect and kindness are so important, whether we are working with each other in the #MaineLegislature, interacting with constituents or discussing national issues," Volk said. In a statement to the Press Herald, Phil Bartlett, the chair of the Maine Democratic Party, called on Republican leadership to condemn Gibson. “Regardless of where someone falls along the political spectrum, we should all be able to agree that Les Gibson’s comments are reprehensible and deserving of our denunciation," Bartlett said.

 Gibson subsequently apologized to González in a tweet on Monday. “Emma, my name is Les Gibson from Maine," he wrote. "I would like to extend to you my most sincere apology for how I addressed you. It was wrong and unacceptable.” González did not respond.

 On Wednesday, Hogg tweeted and asked literally anyone to run against the unopposed candidate. Hey freinds in Maine! Who wants to run against this hate loving politician he's is running UNOPPOSED RUN AGAINST HIM I don't care what party JUST DO IT. https://t.co/vRR7p1ZHKf

 And two people took actually Hogg up on the suggestion. The following day, Republican Thomas Martin Jr. and Democrat Eryn Gilchrist filed the paperwork to run for the seat. Martin, a former state senator, told the Press Herald he decided to run because "after those recent unfortunate comments, I couldn’t sit back."

 Gilchrist, a 28-year-old who works for a medical device company, said she'd never considered running for office, but was so “horrified and embarrassed” at the idea that Gibson might become her representative that she decided to enter the race. Eryn Gilchrist is stepping up to challenge Les Gibson, who called a Parkland survivor a "skinhead lesbian," because she knows Maine people deserve leaders who show respect and work through differences to make lives better. Go Eryn! #mepolitics https://t.co/rVSdSad7Dd

 “I would really have been happy to partake in representative democracy by voting,” Gilchrist said. Gilchrist and Martin could not immediately be reached for comment.

 González tweeted about Gilchrist's decision to run, saying that "all I can say is Thank You." Eryn 💕💕💕 all I can say is Thank You https://t.co/DhBR5LN3Ro

 On Friday, Gibson dropped out of the race, saying, "It’s the best thing for everybody." “I am not walking away with my head hung low," he told the Press Herald. "I am walking away with my head held high.” He has since deleted his personal Twitter account and set his campaign's Twitter to private. BuzzFeed News was unable to reach Gibson for comment.

 After Gibson's announcement, González and Sarah Chadwick, another activist and Parkland student, pulled no punches. It’s what he deserves ☕ https://t.co/NvXx6fKjYV |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– A Maine candidate's attack on an outspoken survivor of the Parkland school shooting angered so many people that he ended up having to drop out of a race in which he had been running unopposed. Leslie Gibson, a Republican who had been running for a state House seat in the 57th district, tweeted that Emma Gonzalez was a "skinhead lesbian" with nothing to say "unless you’re a frothing at the mouth moonbat." In another tweet from his now-deleted account, Gibson rejected Gonzalez's claim to be a survivor of the mass shooting, saying she had been in a "completely different part of the school," BuzzFeed reports. He also called David Hogg, another survivor, a "bald-faced liar," prompting Hogg to ask whether anybody would run against him, the Washington Post reports. After the tweets—which were denounced by several Republican state lawmakers—28-year-old Democrat Eryn Gilchrist announced her candidacy, saying she would be "horrified and embarrassed" to have Gibson represent her. Thomas Martin Jr., a Republican, also announced his candidacy, saying he represented "real Republican values," the Portland Press Herald reports. Gibson, who apologized to Gonzalez earlier in the week for the "wrong and unacceptable" way in which he addressed her, dropped out of the race Friday, saying he had made the decision after speaking to family members, friends, and Martin. "I am not walking away with my head hung low. I am walking away with my head held high," he said. (After the Parkland shooting, Gonzalez called out President Trump and the NRA.)


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 Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. ||||| Truck-driving Alabama man arrested after videos of him threatening bicyclists goes viral

 By Scott Kaufman

 Friday, May 23, 2014 14:37 EDT

 An Alabama man who posted videos of himself complaining about bicyclists has been arrested and charged with reckless endangerment.

 In the videos, Keith Maddox describes what it’s like sharing the road with bicyclists as he drives to work.

 “See what I was talking about?” he says in a video posted on May 21, 2014. “Look there! Look right there. I ought to run him in the ditch. Ride your little bicycle!” he yells as he passes the bicyclist.

 “You piece of crap! I oughta run him in the ditch is what I shoulda done! I shoulda put him in the ditch.”

 In another video, he passes a bicyclist and says, “Lord have mercy, I’m gonna hurt one of them one of these days. Can’t help myself, I’m gonna do it.”

 “Isn’t that nice?” he asks in a video from May 20, 2014. “Me, I’m trying to make it to work. Watch this,” he says, revving his engine as he passes the bicyclists.

 “That scare you boys?” he yells.

 The videos were discovered by cycling enthusiast groups online, who alerted the Calhoun County Sheriff’s office to Maddox’s threats. They arrested him and charged him with reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor charge, and released him on $3,000 bond.

 Maddox asked for forgiveness on his Facebook page with a note — since taken down — in which he apologized “to all people that I have offended over those absolute stupid videos that I posted …anybody who knows me knows that I would never ever intensionally [sic] hurt anyone…those were in very bad taste and I especially want to apologize to the northeast Alabama bicycle association…I am truly sorry for Anyone I may have offended….and please everyone share the road and be very aware of bicycle riders everywhere..and again I am truly sorry for my extremely bad judgement…please except my apology thanks.”

 Watch a compilation of the videos that Maddox posted below. |||||

– A series of angry viral videos has an Alabama man facing a reckless endangerment charge. Apparently fed up with cyclists slowing him down on the road, Keith Maddox posted videos in which he explains his feelings—and threatens those on bikes, the Raw Story reports. "You piece of crap!" he shouts while driving by one cyclist. "Ought to run him in the ditch is what I should have done." "I’m gonna hurt one of them one of these days. Can’t help myself, I’m gonna do it," he says in another clip. Cyclist groups told police about the videos and Maddox was charged with the misdemeanor. On Facebook, however, he apologized about "those absolute stupid videos that I posted," adding that he wouldn't actually hurt anybody. "Please everyone share the road and be very aware of bicycle riders everywhere." A local cycling association head said he'd accept the apology, the Anniston Star reports. "Many cyclists' first reaction will be to scream for the guy's head," Bobby Phillips said. "But that's not going to help anybody and could drive biking and non-biking people further apart."


(CNN) A strong wintry storm still was dumping snow Friday in far northern New England after creating traffic havoc that claimed at least eight lives across the country's eastern half and knocked out power for tens of thousands of people.

 A mix of rain, snow and ice that initially hit the Midwest caused headaches from the South to the Northeast, leaving up to a foot of snow in some parts of the latter and widespread freezing rain and ice accumulations elsewhere. Conditions prompted school closures, hours-long delays for commuters and hundreds of flight cancellations.

 Pedestrians push through a wintry mix of snow and ice Thursday in New York.

 About 200,000 customers in four states were without power at 6 p.m. ET Friday, according to Poweroutage.us, in part due to freezing rain.

 The snow in the Northeast was expected to end Saturday morning, though gusty winds and coastal flooding will continue, the National Weather Service said . Another cold front will drop additional snowfall from the Great Lakes to the New England interior through Sunday.

 Weather-related deaths

 The wintry weather contributed to traffic crashes that killed people in several states, authorities said.

 A 60-year-old woman died Thursday in Miami County, Indiana, after she lost control of her vehicle and crashed in slick road conditions, the state's police said.

 One person was also killed Thursday in Canton, Ohio, and another in Maryland, police said.

 In Mississippi, a tour bus crashed Wednesday , killing two people and wounding several others. The bus, carrying 46 people, was traveling from Huntsville, Alabama, to Tunica, Mississippi, Sgt. Joseph Miller of the Mississippi Highway Patrol said.

 The other occupants were taken to area hospitals with various injuries, Miller said. The cause of the crash was weather-related.

 Arkansas Highway Patrol reported two separate incidents in which three people were killed after drivers lost control of cars on icy roads.

 Traffic nightmare, airport delays in New York area

 For hours Thursday, crashes left drivers stuck on the George Washington Bridge, which connects Upper Manhattan and northern New Jersey.

 New Jersey State Police responded to 555 motor vehicle crashes and helped 1,027 motorists, the agency said.

 "If you don't have to go out, please stay home so road crews can treat the roads," police said. "If you have to go out, please drive slowly and allow for more time to get where you are going."

 The storm generally snarled traffic Thursday evening in the New York City area, with about 6 inches of snow accumulating around Central Park and in Newark, New Jersey, the National Weather Service said.

 More than 8,200 flight delays and 1,900-plus cancellations were reported Thursday in the United States, flight-tracking site FlightAware.com reported. Newark Liberty International appeared the most affected, with more than 470 cancellations and more than 340 delays for flights to or from that site.

 Scores of would-be passengers stood in line for hours Thursday night and Friday morning at a Newark airport terminal, waiting to adjust travel arrangements, traveler Pankaj Trivedi said.

 "Bring more staff to help. There are many seniors & kids," Trivedi posted on Twitter, along with pictures of the lines.

 at Newark airport Hundreds of passengers standing in queue for the last 7 hours waiting for their turn to cancel/renew tickets. Flights were cancelled by bad weather. There are 4 staff members to attend. Bring more staff to help. There are many seniors & kids #unitedAIRLINES pic.twitter.com/VMO234kih9 — PANKAJ TRIVEDI (@PankajTri29) November 16, 2018

 US flight delays (5,597) and cancellations (717) were fewer by Friday evening, according to FlightAware.com.

 The weather forced long waits Thursday night at Manhattan's Port Authority Bus Terminal. The terminal, near Times Square, was packed with commuters waiting for buses that struggled to access the site.

 Ajoy Singha said it took him four hours to get from Manhattan to his home across the Hudson River in Jersey City, starting with a lengthy wait at the bus terminal. He ended up abandoning the terminal to take a PATH train and an Uber ride home, he said.

 For those requesting to use videos in news sites, here is the unedited full length video. Feel free to use it with credit. #NewYorkSnow pic.twitter.com/VvyITfrSXx — Ajoy Singha (@AjoySingha) November 16, 2018

 New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the strength of the snowstorm took the city by surprise.

 "We're going to be more conservative going forward, but the real key here is, had we had better (forecast) information, we would have told people to stay home and cleared the roads," de Blasio told NY1 on Friday morning.

 "But in the end, there's also going to be times when Mother Nature is just stronger than us, and sometimes we're going to be playing catchup. And this was certainly one of those times."

 New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said Friday the storm was a "regional nightmare," and state Department of Transportation Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti offered "our apologies to all of our New Jerseyans who last night experienced a really rough commute home."

 "We got behind the storm. I realize that," she said.

 Students forced to wait in schools

 In Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, some school buses couldn't get students all the way home Thursday because of road closures and "unsafe travel conditions."

 Drivers were forced to take them back to schools in the Elizabeth Area School District , where they were kept in a "shelter-like environment" until parents could pick them up.

 The schools operated on a two-hour delay Friday, the district said. ||||| Visitors walk through the 9/11 Memorial in New York during a snowfall, Thursday Nov. 15, 2018. One of the first big storms of the season moved across the eastern half of the country Thursday, causing... (Associated Press)

 Visitors walk through the 9/11 Memorial in New York during a snowfall, Thursday Nov. 15, 2018. One of the first big storms of the season moved across the eastern half of the country Thursday, causing deadly traffic crashes and closing schools. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) (Associated Press)

 TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The first snowfall of the season lingered Friday in the Northeast as thousands of exhausted commuters pointed their fingers at politicians and meteorologists for leaving them creeping along highways or stuck in mass transit hubs because of a storm that left seven dead as it moved through the Midwest and South.

 Some students in West Orange, New Jersey, were forced to sleep at their schools after their buses turned back, while others were taken to a diner to eat because snow-covered roads were clogged with traffic Thursday.

 "Students are safe in their schools with teachers and staff. They have eaten dinner and are preparing to get some rest," a district alert said.

 They were not alone in finding the ride home difficult. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie tweeted it took him nearly six hours to travel a distance that normally would take 45 minutes.

 Bridges and major roads in the New York metropolitan area reopened Friday after many closures caused by crashes during Thursday's storm.

 Some drivers woke up in their cars Friday morning after being stuck overnight on the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx. Accidents on the George Washington Bridge halted traffic on the crossing and led to backups in New York and New Jersey.

 New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he understands why people are frustrated that city officials were caught off guard by a snowstorm that stranded some New Yorkers in their cars for hours.

 De Blasio said on New York 1 Friday that the city "will do a full review of what happened here."

 A mayoral spokesman said the early storm meant that Metropolitan Transportation Authority didn't have snow chains on its buses. He said many of them had to pull over, "further clogging streets."

 New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who tweeted the storm was worse than forecast, was slated to hold a briefing Friday.

 NJ Transit bus passengers were told to expect substantial delays and cancellations Friday because many drivers, who inched their vehicles in the snow and ice, worked past their normal schedules and federal law mandated a rest period for them.

 The delays for buses caused a logjam of commuters Thursday, forcing officials to close the doors at New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal.

 The wintry weather caused a traffic nightmare on a 30-mile stretch of Interstate 78 in Pennsylvania, with numerous vehicles stuck for several hours from the Lehigh Valley to the New Jersey state line. Police sometimes drove on the opposite side of highway, honking their horns to wake up drivers who had fallen asleep.

 About 105,000 homes and businesses were without power Friday in Pennsylvania, mostly in the western part of the state.

 Some areas of Massachusetts received more than nine inches of snow in the storm, which turned to rain overnight to complicate the morning commute.

 The towns of Topsfield, Carlisle and Billerica, northwest of Boston, were among the towns that got more than nine inches of snow, the National Weather Service said. Boston got less than three inches.

 State police said a stretch of the Massachusetts Turnpike east was closed Friday morning after several tractor-trailer crashes.

 Many schools in northern New England were delayed or closed after the region saw anywhere from four to eight inches of snow. Interstate speeds in New Hampshire and Maine were lowered to 45 mph.

 Schools were closed or were opening with delays in upstate New York, including in the Albany and Syracuse areas.

 ___

 Associated Press writers Karen Matthews in New York, Bob Salsberg in Boston, Kathy McCormack in Concord, N.H., and Bruce Shipkowski in Trenton, N.J., contributed to this story. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– The first snowfall of the season lingered Friday in the Northeast as thousands of exhausted commuters pointed their fingers at politicians and meteorologists for leaving them creeping along highways or stuck in mass transit hubs because of a surprise storm, per the AP. The storm left seven dead as it moved through the Midwest and South. Some students in West Orange, New Jersey, were forced to sleep at their schools after their buses turned back, while others were taken to a diner to eat because snow-covered roads were clogged with traffic Thursday. In fact, State Police in New Jersey responded to 555 vehicle crashes and aided 1,027 motorists, reports CNN. Bridges and major roads in the New York metropolitan area reopened Friday after many closures caused by crashes during Thursday's storm. Some drivers woke up in their cars Friday morning after being stuck overnight on the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx. Accidents on the George Washington Bridge halted traffic on the crossing and led to backups in New York and New Jersey. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he understands people are frustrated that city officials were caught off guard by the storm and promised "a full review of what happened here." A mayoral spokesman said the early storm meant that Metropolitan Transportation Authority didn't have snow chains on its buses. He said many of them had to pull over, "further clogging streets." The delays for buses created a logjam, forcing officials to close the doors Thursday at New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal. (The opposite coast is reeling, too. Read the latest on the California fires here.)


A feisty Dutch grandmother was 'arrested' by local police after her niece notified them she wanted to be handcuffed and locked up by authorities before she died.

 The woman, known only as Annie, was pictured grinning as local police arrested her and she was photographed being taken into custody.

 Grandma Annie has been ticking items off her bucket list, and police at Nijmegen Zuid were happy to help.

 She had told her family she always wanted to know what it would be like to be arrested. ||||| A nearly 100-year-old Dutch woman fulfilled a wish on her bucket list by getting arrested.The woman named Annie says she had always wanted to "experience a police cell from within."Police arrested and booked her into a jail cell in the Netherlands town of Nijmegen-Zuid last week.They posted the story on the department's Facebook page and included several pictures of the smiling centenarian.------ ||||| Most people dream of avoiding trouble with the law over the course of their lives. But for a nearly 100-year-old woman in the Netherlands, her bucket list —the list of things she wants to do before "kicking the bucket," as it were—included an unusual item. While many turn to experiences like skydiving or traveling to the seven wonders of the world to fill out their lists, the elderly woman named Annie had expressed that she wanted to spend time in a jail cell to see what it was like from the inside, according to ABC Action News.

 So the very accommodating police force of the Nijmegen area made good on her wish, sharing the pictures of the experience to their Facebook page. It looks like she's having an absolute blast. She even got to test out handcuffs. As the caption notes (in Dutch), it was a "day to remember" for all involved in making this particular dream come true. And that's certainly another box checked off of her bucket list. |||||

Write a summary.

– Cops handcuffed and arrested a 99-year-old grandmother who's never committed a crime, the Telegraph reports, and yet there were no protests or outraged blog posts. That's because Annie, who lives in the Netherlands, wanted to "experience a police cell from within" as part of her bucket list, according to WPVI. Last week, police in the town of Nijmegen-Zuid happily obliged. Officers put handcuffs on Annie and closed her in a jail cell, posting photos on the department's Facebook page. Time says "it looks like she's having an absolute blast." And officers say it was a "day to remember."


Article:
Elon Musk: billionaire, entrepreneur, and man with a Twitter account. It’s a lethal combination that means when Musk tweets, we must ask questions. Namely: is he serious?

 Last month, the SpaceX CEO sent out a string of tweets complaining about traffic. He suggested that a possible solution might be to start a tunnel-digging firm called — wait for it — The Boring Company, following it up by saying “I am actually going to do this,” and updating his bio to read: “Tesla, SpaceX, Tunnels & OpenAI.” This morning, he repeated the claim, and even assured a questioner that he was, in fact, serious.

 Exciting progress on the tunnel front. Plan to start digging in a month or so. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2017

 But is he?

 The thing is, the idea of building tunnels to “solve” traffic sounds, on the face of it, no wilder than Hyperloop or a mission to Mars. By which I mean: it might be technically possible, but the logistical headaches involved mean there has to be serious will (and money) behind any efforts. Do we think Musk is really going to build a tunnel from his desk at SpaceX, as one tweet suggested? No.

 @_wsimson Starting across from my desk at SpaceX. Crenshaw and the 105 Freeway, which is 5 mins from LAX — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2017

 More plausible explanations for Musk’s interest in tunnels include the fact that, with President Trump’s pledge to fund infrastructure, starting a boring company now might be a lucrative idea. Or it’s just a joke — related, perhaps, to Trump’s plans to build a border wall with Mexico. After all, in the same Twitter sesh Musk also said his “neural lace” required for our conversion to cyborgs would be announced next month. It’s clear the man has a sense of humor.

 We’ve messaged Musk to ask what’s going. Fingers crossed he’ll be a little more serious in his DMs than his tweets. ||||| Billionaire Elon Musk says he really does plan to dig a tunnel to avoid LA traffic, and that he plans to start "digging next month."

 Musk first announced his intentions in December, complaining that traffic in Los Angeles is out of control.

 But that was then followed by some tweets that suggested he was joking.

 Some have found it hard to believe that Musk, who already is pretty busy running Tesla (with its recent SolarCity acquisition), SpaceX, and the OpenAI project, is serious about boring through the earth beneath southern California to avoid traffic, but the entrepreneur has repeatedly stressed he is not merely trolling.

 Musk said he plans to start digging "across from my desk at SpaceX. Crenshaw and the 105 Freeway, which is 5 mins from LAX." Crenshaw Boulevard is a major street in Los Angeles that runs past SpaceX headquarters and the adjacent Tesla Design Center.

 As with any Musk project — self-driving cars, human colonies on Mars — questions remain over whether laws, or simple scientific realities, could stymie such a project.

 A Musk spokesperson was not immediately available to comment.

 It might not seem terribly wise digging underground in a city known for its earthquakes, but Los Angeles does have a underground rail system already — though it is far more limited in range than those in other major U.S. cities.

 When Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer introduced a bill into the Senate in 2007 to allow for the expansion of Los Angeles' subway system, Feinstein said, "Experts have now assured us that tunneling technologies have improved sufficiently to allay" concerns over earthquake damage.

 So Musk's tunnel may be possible. |||||Summary:

– Say what you will about Elon Musk, he's not boring. But apparently that could change next month. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX tweeted last month about traffic in Los Angeles "driving me nuts" and said he was going to make a tunnel boring machine and "just start digging." He insisted at the time that he was serious. Musk was back to talking tunnels Wednesday, when he tweeted that he's planning "to start digging in a month or so." CNBC reports the plan is apparently to start drilling at SpaceX in order to tunnel under Los Angeles and get around its notoriously awful traffic. While it appears possible—probable?—that Musk is joking (he's dubbed his tunneling business The Boring Company), USA Today points out the man did send rockets to space and popularize electric cars. If anyone is going to successfully tunnel under Los Angeles, Musk would be the one to do it. But he would have to get around laws, permitting, and what CNBC calls "simple scientific realities." The Verge reports it's more likely that—if not joking—Musk is simply trying to set himself up to take advantage of President Trump's promise to throw money at infrastructure projects. In fact, Musk met with Trump this week.


Write a summary based on this article:

Mercedes-Benz is tapping into the popularity of ultra-luxurious all-terrain vehicles, with a new Maybach SUV that can ferry passengers over desert dunes with an open top and thermal cupholders.

 The Mercedes-Maybach G-Class 650, shown at the Geneva auto show, will be the world’s most expensive sport utility vehicle with a price of about $500,000. It’s Daimler AG’s latest extension of the top-of-the-line Maybach marque that it resurrected amid surging demand for higher-end models. Limited to a run of 99, the SUV will have a V12 engine and a landaulet style, with a front row that’s covered and a retractable fabric roof in the back.

 The Mercedes-Maybach G650 Landaulet in Geneva on March 8. Photographer: Luke Macgregor/Bloomberg

 “This car meets the highest demands for luxury and yet still has all the elements that make the G-Class a real off-roader,” said Gunner Guethenke, who heads Mercedes’s SUV business. Customers who buy the marque’s G-Class -- the segment is named for Gelaendewagen, the German term for all-terrain vehicles -- are looking for something “unique,” he said.

 Under pressure to foot the soaring bill of developing electric cars, autonomous-driving features and ride-sharing platforms, Daimler is more aggressively targeting ultra-wealthy customers with high-margin models on the one hand, while also adding more affordable cars that sell in large volumes. That strategy helped Mercedes unseat rival BMW AG as the world’s best-selling luxury marque last year and allowed Daimler to boost its research and development budget by almost a quarter.

 After struggling for years to sustain a niche for Maybach, Mercedes revived the 1930’s-era sub-brand in 2014 and has since expanded it with more opulent and spacious adaptations of popular models, such as convertible and three-row stretch limousine versions of the Mercedes S-Class sedan.

 The Maybach G650, which will test customers’ appetite for a full-production SUV from that marque, will have an electric -- and dimmable -- glass partition to separate passengers from the driver, retractable footrests and folding tables stashed in the middle console. To master truly rugged terrains, the vehicle is positioned almost half a meter (1.6 feet) above the ground. It’ll be available for sale after September.

 Exotic Versions

 Daimler isn’t alone in chasing after the lucrative cash cow of luxury SUVS. Volkswagen AG’s Bentley marque introduced the $229,100 Bentayga last year, currently the industry’s priciest off-roader in regular production. BMW’s Rolls-Royce is set to release its first 4x4 conveyance with an anticipated price tag of more than $400,000 next year.

 The boxy G-Class has been around since 1979. With a rugged exterior that’s reminiscent of Land Rover’s now discontinued Defender, the iconic car is Stuttgart-based Daimler’s most expensive passenger vehicle, priced from $122,400. Production last year surpassed 20,000 units for the first time.

 Mercedes has a history of launching exotic versions of the G-Class. There’s a sporty version sold by the performance-focused AMG sub-brand, which makes up half of all sales. The G63 AMG 6x6, a three-axle show car unveiled in 2013, had a pick-up load area behind a cabin that housed four electrically adjustable, heated and ventilated individual seats. Almost 200 of the 379,000-euro car were built.

 The carmaker “has already pushed the boundaries pretty far with the standard G-Class,” said Ian Fletcher, a London-based analyst with forecaster IHS Automotive. “Every time it does, customers just seem to lap it up.”

 Read our complete coverage of the 2017 Geneva Motor Show. ||||| You read that model designation correctly: The team working under Dr. Gunnar Güthenke, CEO of Mercedes-Benz G (yep, the Geländewagen platform has its very own CEO), started out with a basic G-wagen, took the portal axles of the ultra-aggressive 4×4² version, stuffed the G65 AMG’s twin-turbocharged V-12 under the boxy hood, stretched the wheelbase by 22.8 inches, and added the “first-class” rear seats from the Mercedes-Maybach S-class. For good measure, the rear portion of the standard fixed roof has been replaced by a power-operated fabric top (last available nearly four years ago). Sure, it’s a parts-bin production—but using only parts from the shelf above the top shelf. Cars don’t get much more extreme. Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche reacted with enthusiasm when he first saw the project and jacked up the production target, originally planned to be minuscule, to 99 units. ||||| Off-road driving is set to become more luxurious—and expensive—than ever before, thanks to the new Mercedes-Benz Maybach SUV unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show.

 Passengers aboard the V12-powered Mercedes-Maybach G-Class 650 will enjoy massages from designer leather chairs, warm drinks courtesy of thermal cup holders and a sunroof that opens to reveal the great outdoors, Bloomberg reports.

 All that pampering won’t come cheap, though. At $500,000, the 99 units parent company Daimler AG ddaif plans to roll out will be the most expensive sports utility vehicles ever produced.

 These extravagant gas-guzzlers also represent a Faustian pact for the automaker: by targeting ultra-rich customers with high-margin models such as the Maybach, Bloomberg suggests, Mercedes is able to bankroll the development of electric cars, autonomous-driving features and ride-sharing platforms.

 For more on the Geneva Auto Show, see Fortune’s video:

 So far, the strategy is working. Last year Mercedes surpassed BMW bmwyy as the world’s best-selling luxury marque, allowing Daimler to step-up its research and development budget by almost a quarter. ||||| Oh, the Maybach brand! Remember when Mercedes-Benz relaunched it as its Rolls-Royce in 2002, only to lose a ton of money because seemingly nobody cared? Well, after the Maybach 57 and 62 were both killed off in 2012, Mercedes gave it another go, bringing the name back in 2015 as a sub-brand positioned above the top of the Mercedes range. And now, Daimler says one in every ten vehicles sold in the S-Class segment wears a Mercedes-Maybach badge. That's not bad, given that Maybach only offered variants of the S-Class sedan and the S 650 cabrio ... up until the arrival of this: the G 650 Landaulet.

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 The last time a Maybach was this capable off-road, Germany was invading Poland, but this G 650 Landaulet is more of a toy than a tank. Mercedes quietly discontinued the open-top G Wagen roughly three years ago, and while the AMG G63 6x6 was an absolute masterpiece, it only had a twin-turbo V8 under the hood, where clearly there's room for four more cylinders. Therefore, humanity needed a long-wheelbase version with an electric soft-top and a twin-turbo V12. Frankly, it was the logical step forward.

 The 22.75 inches added to the wheelbase (now 135 inches) allowed Mercedes to fit the G 65 Landaulet with individual rear captain's chairs, wrapped in the finest calf leather and able to fully recline. The occupants are held gently in place on any terrain by inflatable air chambers, while heated massage programs take care of their tense muscles. It's S-Class time in the G, and if the party gets even wilder, the electrically operated glass partition can be changed from transparent to opaque at the press of a button:

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 While the heated and cooled cupholders, the fancy seats, the premium stereo, the high-resolution displays and the entire open top experience all sound fun, it's not like the G65 Landaulet's driver will get bored. He or she will have 630 horsepower and 737 ft.-lb. of torque to play with, and 17.7 inches of ground clearance thanks to the portal axles. Like all G Wagens, this open-top bruiser has three locking differentials and a shift-on-the-fly low range. And let's not forget about the side pipes—the G 65 Landaulet is a riot front, rear, and on both sides.

 Limited to just 99 units, production starts in Graz, Austria this autumn. If you can't wait that long, go and spec a private jet while you wait—because while Mercedes hasn't announced a price, we're assuming it'll be even more costly than the $500,000-plus G 63 AMG 6x6.

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 Cool? Sure. But you know what's even cooler? The frozen 2018 G Wagen: |||||

– If you'd like your passengers to be able to sip from silver champagne flutes in comfort while being transported across rugged terrain—and you have at least $500,000 to spare—look no further than the Mercedes-Maybach G-Class 650 Landaulet. The ultra-high-end SUV, described by Road and Track as the ideal vehicle for the world's extravagant dictators, was introduced at the Geneva auto show as the latest addition to parent company Daimler AG's luxury Maybach brand. Only 99 of them will ever be made, and while the final price tag hasn't been settled, it is expected to be the most expensive SUV ever produced, Fortune reports. With features like massage seats and thermal cup holders, "this car meets the highest demands for luxury and yet still has all the elements that make the G-Class a real off-roader," Mercedes SUV chief Gunner Guethenke tells Bloomberg, which notes that the company may be trying to offset the costs of developing electric cars and self-driving vehicles with its top-end ventures. So how does it handle? Car and Driver took the "most over-the-top vehicle imaginable" for a spin and found that "craggy rocks, nasty holes, and muddy swampy bogs are simply nonissues," and while speed is not the primary goal, "if the order arrives from the rear seat, the chauffeur can hurl it forward with gusto."


– Greenland isn't just losing Manhattan-sized chunks of ice from its huge glaciers. A heat-dome that moved over Greenland on July 8 caused surface melt to soar from 40% to an unprecedented 97% in just four days, reports Live Science. Typically, just half of Greenland's surface ice melts during the summer. "This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: Was this real or was it due to a data error?" said one researcher. There were even signs of ice melt at Summit Station in central Greenland, a point two miles high and near the thickest part of the ice sheet. "Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average," said one glaciologist. "With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time." However, she cautioned that such a wide-ranging melt was rare and a potential warning. "If we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome," she told the Guardian.

Expand this summary.

The Greenland ice sheet melted at a faster rate this month than at any other time in recorded history, with virtually the entire ice sheet showing signs of thaw.

 The rapid melting over just four days was captured by three satellites. It has stunned and alarmed scientists, and deepened fears about the pace and future consequences of climate change.

 In a statement posted on Nasa's website on Tuesday, scientists admitted the satellite data was so striking they thought at first there had to be a mistake.

 "This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: was this real or was it due to a data error?" Son Nghiem of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena said in the release.

 He consulted with several colleagues, who confirmed his findings. Dorothy Hall, who studies the surface temperature of Greenland at Nasa's space flight centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, confirmed that the area experienced unusually high temperatures in mid-July, and that there was widespread melting over the surface of the ice sheet.

 Climatologists Thomas Mote, at the University of Georgia, and Marco Tedesco, of the City University of New York, also confirmed the melt recorded by the satellites.

 However, scientists were still coming to grips with the shocking images on Tuesday. "I think it's fair to say that this is unprecedented," Jay Zwally, a glaciologist at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center, told the Guardian.

 The set of images released by Nasa on Tuesday show a rapid thaw between 8 July and 12 July. Within that four-day period, measurements from three satellites showed a swift expansion of the area of melting ice, from about 40% of the ice sheet surface to 97%.

 Scientists attributed the sudden melt to a heat dome, or a burst of

 unusually warm air, which hovered over Greenland from 8 July until 16

 July.

 Greenland had returned to more typical summer conditions by 21 or

 22 July, Mote told the Guardian.

 But he said the event, while exceptional, should be viewed alongside

 other compelling evidence of climate change, including on the ground

 in Greenland.

 "What we are seeing at the highest elevations may be a sort of sign of

 what is going on across the ice sheet," he said. "At lower elevations

 on the ice sheet, we are seeing earlier melting, melting later in the

 season, and more frequent melting over the last 30 years and that is

 consistent of what you would expect with a warming climate."

 Zwally, who has made almost yearly trips to the Greenland ice sheet for more than three decades, said he had never seen such a rapid melt.

 About half of Greenland's surface ice sheet melts during a typical summer, but Zwally said he and other scientists had been recording an acceleration of that melting process over the last few decades. This year his team had to rebuild their camp, at Swiss Station, when the snow and ice supports melted.

 He said he had never seen such a rapid melt over his three decades of

 nearly yearly trips to the Greenland ice sheet. He was most surprised

 to see indications in the images of melting even around the area of

 Summit Station, which is about two miles above sea level.

 It was the second unusual event in Greenland in a matter of days, after an iceberg the size of Manhattan broke off from the Petermann glacier. But the rapid melt was viewed as more serious.

 "If you look at the 8 July image that might be the maximum extent of warming you would see in the summer," Zwally noted. "There have been periods when melting might have occurred at higher elevations briefly – maybe for a day or so – but to have it cover the whole of Greenland like this is unknown, certainly in the time of satellite records."

 Jason Box, a glaciologist at Ohio State University who returned on

 Tuesday from a research trip to Greenland, had been predicting a big

 melt year for 2012, because of earlier melt and a decline in summer

 snow flurries.

 He said the heat dome was not necessarily a one-off. "This is now the

 seventh summer in a row with this pattern of warm air being lifted up

 onto the ice sheet on the summer months," he said. "What is surprising

 is just how persistent this circulation anomaly is. Here it is back

 again for the seventh year in a row in the summer bringing hot, warm

 air onto the ice sheet."

 He also said surfaces at higher elevation, now re-frozen, could be

 more prone to future melting, because of changes in the structure of

 the snow crystals. Box expected melting to continue at lower

 elevations.

 About half of Greenland's surface ice sheet melts during a typical

 summer, but Zwally said he and other scientists had been recording an

 acceleration of that melting process over the past few decades. This

 year his team had to rebuild their camp, at Swiss Station, when the

 snow and ice supports melted.

 Lora Koenig, another Goddard glaciologist, told Nasa similar rapid melting occurs about every 150 years. But she warned there were wide-ranging potential implications from this year's thaw.

 "If we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome." she told Nasa.

 The most immediate consequences are sea level rise and a further warming of the Arctic. In the centre of Greenland, the ice remains up to 3,000 metres deep. On the edges, however, the ice is much, much thinner and has been melting into the sea.

 The melting ice sheet is a significant factor in sea level rise. Scientists attribute about one-fifth of the annual sea level rise, which is about 3mm every year, to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

 In this instance of this month's extreme melting, Mote said there was evidence of a heat dome over Greenland: or an unusually strong ridge of warm air.

 The dome is believed to have moved over Greenland on 8 July, lingering until 16 July. ||||| Greenland's Petermann Glacier birthed a massive new iceberg in June 2012. The glacier has shrunk significantly in recent years.

 Greenland ice, it seems, can vanish in a flash, with new satellite images showing that over just a few days this month nearly all of the veneer of surface ice atop the island's massive ice sheet had thawed.

 That's a record for the largest area of surface melt on Greenland in more than 30 years of satellite observations, according to NASA and university scientists.

 The images, snapped by three satellites, showed that about 40 percent of the ice sheet had thawed at or near the surface on July 8; just days later, on July 12, images showed a dramatic increase in melting with thawing across 97 percent of the ice sheet surface.

 "This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: was this real or was it due to a data error?" said Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., referring to the July 12 images taken by the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Oceansat-2 satellite.

 Extent of surface melt over Greenland’s ice sheet on July 8 (left) and July 12 (right) based on data from three satellites. (Light pink: probable melt, meaning at least one satellite showed melt; dark pink: melt, meaning two to three satellites showed melt. Credit: Nicolo E. DiGirolamo, SSAI/NASA GSFC, and Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory

 Nghiem had reason to be baffled, as this record ice-melt is well above average: About half of Greenland's surface ice tends to melt every summer, with the meltwater at higher elevations quickly refreezing in place and the coastal meltwater either pooling on top of the ice or draining into the sea. [Giant Ice: Photos of Greenland's Glaciers]

 Instruments on two other satellites proved out Nghiem's findings — the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites

 Data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder on a U.S. Air Force meteorological satellite also confirmed the mind-blowing melt.

 As for what caused the disappearing ice, University of Georgia, Athens climatologist Thomas Mote suggests it could be a ridge or dome of warm air hovering over Greenland that coincided with the extreme melt.

 "Each successive ridge has been stronger than the previous one," Mote said in a NASA statement. The latest in a series of these heat domes, which have dominated Greenland weather since May, began to move over Greenland on July 8, before coming to a halt over the ice sheet some three days later. By July 16, the heat dome had started to dissipate.

 Signs of ice melt were even found around Summit Station in central Greenland, which at 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) above sea level is near to the highest point of the ice sheet.

 "Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average," said study researcher Lora Koenig, a glaciologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time," Koenig said in a statement.

 The melting of such a huge ice sheet — spanning an area of 656,000 square miles (1.7 million square kilometers) — is important for various reasons, particularly its potential effect on sea levels. If melted completely, the Greenland ice sheet could contribute 23 feet (7 meters) to global sea-level rise, according to a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international body charged with assessing climate change.

 Whether or not this recent massive melt will affect the overall ice loss this summer, and as such bump up sea level, is still an open question.

 Scientists say that man-made global warming, a result of greenhouse gas emissions, is contributing to Greenland ice melt. In fact, past research has suggested that the Greenland ice sheet will vanish in 2,000 years under business-as-usual carbon emissions. If humans managed to limit global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), the disappearance would take 50,000 years.

 Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+. |||||


Summarize this article:

Associated Press

 A judge in North Carolina is determining whether to grant a new trial in the murder of Michael Jordan's father, James, per Michael Gordon and Mark Washburn of the Charlotte Observer.

 In March 1996, a jury convicted Daniel Green of murder. Green's accomplice, Larry Martin Demery, testified that he and Green walked up to James Jordan's car with the intention of robbing him. Demery told the jury Green shot Jordan after he awoke from a nap and saw the two men outside his car.

 However, Green's attorneys, Scott Holmes and Ian Mance, contend Demery pulled the trigger and that their client wasn't at the scene at the time of the murder. They've brought forth new evidence in order to get Green a new trial, according to court documents obtained by Gordon and Washburn.

 Holmes and Mance have a sworn statement from the jury forewoman in Green's trial that says she investigated Jordan's murder on her own, which would've gone against the judge's orders. A former newspaper editor from Robeson County, North Carolina, also signed a sworn affidavit in which she described an admission by Demery that he committed the murder.

 The attorneys also cast doubt on the evidence provided by a state forensics expert regarding Jordan's blood being found in Green's car.

 The state of North Carolina has until the end of April to respond to Holmes and Mance's filing, and after that, Robeson County Superior Court Judge Robert Floyd will make a decision about a new trial. ||||| 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. |||||

– Twenty years later, the man found guilty of murdering Michael Jordan's father may get a fresh trial. Attorneys for the convicted gunman, Daniel Green, say the original trial was rife with problems that only now are coming to light, the Charlotte Observer reports. To recap, Green and Larry Demery were teenagers when they were tried for murdering 56-year-old James Jordan—whose son was an all-time great NBA player—during a 1993 carjacking in South Carolina. In the high-profile trial, Demery became a witness for the state and accused Green of pulling the trigger. With physical evidence apparently supporting Demery, both were found guilty and eligible for parole in 20 years, but Green got an added 10 years for conspiracy. Now Demery is up for parole consideration, and Green's attorneys are claiming that: The trial's jury forewoman broke the rules by conducting her own investigation of the murder. Other jurors may have violated orders by reading or seeing accounts of the case. A state forensics expert admits that her testimony about blood in the car (which supported Demery's version of events) was shaky, and she destroyed the only existing blood sample from James Jordan on a supervisor's orders. The editor of a local Native American newspaper said that during a jail interview, Demery admitted to pulling the trigger. The first person the killers called from James' car phone was a cocaine dealer who happened to be Robeson County Sheriff Hubert Stone's out-of-wedlock son, but the jury wasn't allowed to hear about the sheriff's connection. Details about that could undermine "the entire Jordan investigation," the attorneys say. A judge is likely to rule on the attorneys' request sometime after the end of April, says Bleacher Report.


Write an article based on this summary:

– Authorities say a man who was in a Colorado court for violating his bond on a drug charge is in even more trouble after a wad of cocaine fell from his hat while he was in front of the judge. The Vail Daily reported Wednesday that 43-year-old Juan Jose Vidrio Bibriesca was standing next to two other defendants at an Eagle County District Court podium when he took his hat off and a square of folded paper fell out. A police officer watched the paper filled with cocaine fall to the floor, reports the AP, and after reviewing surveillance footage, authorities determined it fell from Bibriesca's hat. Bibriesca was then walked to the county jail, and now faces new charges of narcotics possession and another bond violation. Booking documents don't indicate if he has hired an attorney. The Vail Daily notes that Bibriesca is in the country illegally, meaning his legal woes aren't over.

EAGLE — Let this be a lesson to you: When you're in court before the judge, and you doff your cap in deference, make sure your cocaine does not fall out of your hat and onto the floor where both the judge and the cops can see it.

 And it would help if you weren't in court on a separate felony drug charge in the first place.

 Juan Jose Vidrio Bibriesca, 43, was one of three defendants at the podium before Eagle County Court Judge Katharine Sullivan. Bibriesca was in Judge Sullivan's company for a bond violation on a separate felony drug charge.

 Apparently, Bibriesca was raised to be polite. When he reached the podium in the middle of Sullivan's courtroom, he removed his hat, as a gentleman would, and held it behind his back in both hands.

 As he swung his hat behind his back, a small square of folded paper fell from it and landed on the floor behind him.

 A local law enforcement officer was in the gallery, behind the threesome at the podium, and watched the whole thing.

 Recommended Stories For You

 At first, the officer thought the bindle had been dropped by one of the other two men at the podium.

 However, another officer in the courtroom suggested that since the courtroom is packed with video surveillance gear, they should invoke the courtroom equivalent of the NFL's video review rule and take a look at the replay.

 Sure enough, right there in slow motion was video evidence that Bibriesca, who we'll remind you was already in court on a felony drug charge, appeared to have cocaine in his hat, the hat from which that cocaine appeared to fall and land on the floor of a courtroom, mere yards from the front door of the Eagle County jail, to which he was whisked almost immediately.

 Bibriesca appeared Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 8, before District Court Judge Paul Dunkelman, where he learned that he now faces two more charges: narcotics possession and bond violation, both felonies.

 Bibriesca was born in Mexico and is reportedly in the country illegally, which means Immigration and Customs Enforcement will also want a word with him.

 Staff Writer Randy Wyrick can be reached at 970-748-2935 or rwyrick@vaildaily.com. ||||| EAGLE, Colo. (AP) — Authorities say a man who was in a Colorado court for violating his bond on a drug charge is in even more trouble after a wad of cocaine fell from his hat while he was in front of the judge.

 The Vail Daily reported Wednesday that 43-year-old Juan Jose Vidrio Bibriesca was standing next to two other defendants at an Eagle County District Court podium when he took his hat off and a square of folded paper fell out. A police officer watched the paper filled with cocaine fall to the floor, and after reviewing surveillance footage, authorities determined it fell from Bibriesca's hat.

 Bibriesca was then walked to the county jail. He was charged with narcotics possession and another bond violation.

 Booking documents don't indicate if he has hired an attorney.

 ___

 Information from: Vail Daily, http://www.vaildaily.com/ |||||


Write an article based on this summary:

– It's a miserable day on Wall Street so far, with the Dow plunging more than 370 points about an hour after the open. MarketWatch says one of the driving factors is a weak report on durable-goods orders, which suggests that businesses are worried about a slowdown rather than investing in growth. Also not helping: disappointing quarterly results from a slew of blue-chip companies, reports the Wall Street Journal. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 were down 2.2% and 1.7% respectively.

U.S. stocks fell Tuesday after disappointing results at blue-chip companies like Microsoft Corp. and Caterpillar Inc. sparked concerns about the strong dollar’s drag on earnings growth.

 Earlier in the session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down as many as 390 points, but in afternoon trading stocks pared some losses.

 In recent trading, the Dow dropped 234 points, or 1.3%, to 17445. The S&P 500 declined 19 points, or 0.9%, to 2038, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 60 points, or 1.3%, to 4711. Meanwhile, the Russell 2000 index, the widely followed benchmark of small-cap U.S. companies, was down 0.2%.

 Microsoft and Caterpillar contributed about 67 points to the Dow’s total decline. Microsoft shares fell 8.5% after the company set its financial forecast for the fiscal year, which ends in June, below Wall Street estimates, citing the strong U.S. dollar.

 Caterpillar gave a disappointing 2015 outlook, citing tumbling oil, copper and coal prices, and reported fourth-quarter earnings that missed expectations. A stronger dollar is also hurting sales, the company said. Shares dropped 7.5%.

 ENLARGE Microsoft shares were hit after the company forecast lower-than-expected earnings because of the strong U.S. dollar. Above, CEO Satya Nadella in October. Photo: Reuters

 The surge in the U.S. dollar has helped drive current earnings season’s tepid outlook. The drop in oil prices and weak economic activity overseas are also contributing to low expectations.

 Going into fourth-quarter earnings season, analysts polled by FactSet had expected earnings to rise 1.1% from a year earlier, which would mark the slowest quarterly pace of growth since the third quarter of 2012. Including 102 companies that have reported, the S&P 500 is on track to see earnings inch up 0.1% from a year earlier.

 “This earnings season is starting to validate that these really big companies will start to see more headwinds,” said Andrew Slimmon, who oversees about $4.3 billion as managing director of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s Global Investment Solutions. “The stronger dollar is going to hurt big U.S. companies.”

 Concerns about a strong U.S. currency are driving some investors to small-cap stocks. The sector lagged behind the broader market in 2014, with the Russell 2000 index ending the year up 3.5% compared with the S&P 500’s 11.4% rise. But with the strengthening U.S. dollar hurting multinational companies’ profits, some money managers say now may be the time to move money into small-cap names.

 “U.S. small caps tend to do most of their business in the U.S., meaning they’re not as exposed to the stronger dollar,” said David Lebovitz, global market strategist for J.P. Morgan Asset Management, which manages $1.7 trillion. He added that some of these companies use imports to make their products, so the strong dollar could actually help their bottom line.

 “There’s probably an opportunity in those more domestically-focused companies,” he said.

 In the past week, the Russell 2000 has gained 2.4%, compared with the S&P 500’s 0.7% rise.

 Several traders said market activity was heavier than they expected given the snowstorm that blanketed the New York City area and kept many in the city’s financial community at home. New York Stock Exchange operator NYSE Group Inc. invoked the rarely used “Rule 48,” which relaxes some trading rules in a bid to ensure a smooth opening to trading.

 “I thought it would be dire today,” said Michael Antonelli, a sales trader at the Milwaukee office of investment bank Robert W. Baird. “I thought it would feel like a holiday today given a component of people being out. But with this incredible earnings action, markets are not dead by any stretch.”

 “We’re on track for a normal day,” he said.

 In other earnings news, Procter & Gamble Co. said Tuesday it expects currency volatility to reduce its 2015 sales by 5% and profit by 12%. Shares declined 3.7%.

 Kent Engelke, chief economic strategist at Capitol Securities Management, Inc., said he has cut his forecast for profit at multinational companies because of the dollar’s strength. The dollar could get another boost if the Federal Reserve signals it remains on track to raise interest rates this year, he added.

 The Fed begins its two-day monetary policy meeting on Tuesday and is scheduled to release a statement on Wednesday.

 “If the Fed raises rates, the dollar should continue to rally, and that will impact profits negatively,” Mr. Engelke said.

 U.S. economic data Tuesday also helped sour investor sentiment. The Commerce Department said orders for durable goods fell 3.4% in December from November. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected orders to climb 0.3%.

 Declines in European stocks added to the negative tone. Nervousness about a potential showdown between Greece’s new government and its international creditors continued to grip Greek financial markets Tuesday, with stocks and bonds extending their postelection losses. The Stoxx Europe 600 fell 1%.

 Assets considered havens rose Tuesday. Gold futures added 0.9% to $1290.80 an ounce. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.795% from 1.830% on Monday. Yields fall as prices rise.

 In other markets, crude-oil futures rose 1.6% to $45.87 a barrel.

 —Dan Strumpf contributed to this article.

 Write to Corrie Driebusch at corrie.driebusch@wsj.com and Saumya Vaishampayan at saumya.vaishampayan@wsj.com a ||||| NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks opened sharply lower after a weaker-than-expected durable-good orders report triggered fears that economic growth is slowing. Durable-goods orders fell 3.4% in December, raising questions about whether businesses are really ready to ramp up investment in 2015. A string of disappointing earnings reports from the likes of Microsoft Corp., Caterpillar Inc., DuPont and Freeport-MoMoRan Inc. also dented sentiment. The S&P 500 SPX, +0.95% opened 23 points, or 1.2%, lower at 2,033. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.31% dropped 263 points, or 1.5%, to 17,411. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.98% began the day with a loss of 75 points, or 1.6%, at 4,695

 Read the full story: U.S. stocks slide on weak data, earnings |||||