Here is a news article: Sean Penn Charged in Latest Photographer Dustup

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 Frank Mateljan of the Los Angeles city attorney's office said prosecutors are alleging the star kicked a photographer and then broke his camera.

 The incident was Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn has been hit with battery and vandalism charges stemming from an encounter with a photographer outside a Brentwood store in October. If convicted, Penn could face up to 18 months in jail.Frank Mateljan of the Los Angeles city attorney's office said prosecutors are alleging the star kicked a photographer and then broke his camera.The incident was captured by TMZ and shows the actor charging towards the photographer, taking a punch and kick while shouting "get out!" and continuing his pursuit as the man doggedly keeps filming. Nowhere in the footage does the camera leave the photog's hands.

 The actor, who resides in San Francisco, will be arraigned in Los Angeles County Superior Court on March 22. Penn's people have not been reached for comment.Twenty-five years ago, Penn received a suspended sentence after pleading guilty for attacking two British journalists trying to snap pics of his then-wife Madonna. He also got punchy in 1987 with a movie extra on the set of 'Colors.'Lately, Penn has been spending time in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, attempting to highlight the need for more aid in the earthquake-leveled nation. ||||| One year after the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake, how Sean Penn, Paul Haggis, Maria Bello and their friends are still fighting for Haiti’s survival amid unspeakable horror.

 It’s Christmas Eve in Haiti, and while the rest of the world is slowing down, Sean Penn is speeding up.

 His fingers gripped tight on the handrail of a mud-splattered SUV, gulping cigarette smoke like oxygen, he’s wiry, intense, haggard, his hooded eyes alert to every move, emotions clenched tight as a fist, as his car lurches through a hilly slum, ironically named Bel Air. PHOTOS: Sean Penn's Haiti home.

 Half-naked children clamber around the crumbling shacks. A family stews food on the porch of a building stamped with red letters, meaning it’s destined for demolition — only the place is still here, and so is the family.

 It’s a bad set designer’s version of the apocalypse, except that it’s real — especially for Penn, 50, who’s been a fixture in Haiti since moving here almost immediately after the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake that threw the country into chaos, and the actor’s own life, too.

 “There’s a great thing Paul Newman said about his long marriage,” he says wryly. “ ‘As it turns out, we still love each other.’ That’s how I feel: ‘As it turns out, I’m still here.’ ”

 He cracks a rare smile as we approach a small, newly erected school for about 300 children. Penn is here to meet its founder, a Haitian-American event producer funding the endeavor from his New York base who’s come to see the result, his exquisite Tunisian girlfriend in tow.

 An enigmatic businessman. A 6-foot model. A school that’s open on Christmas Eve. It’s enough to make anyone wary, let alone the genetically cautious Penn.

 “He wants us to contribute what we’ve got, a heavy-equipment team and a civil engineer,” he says. “But I don’t know. There’s a lot of people, and you don’t know where they’re coming from.”

 Given this, it’s hardly a surprise that Penn holds back when the man, Unik Ernest, greets him warmly and leads him into the rough-and-tumble building. As we make our way through crevice-like hallways, he shows us a giant bowl of rice that provides these kids with one solid meal per day — a miracle in this impoverished town — and ushers us into a cramped classroom where nearly 50 children squeal with delight at seeing Penn.

 Not Penn the actor: Penn the humanist. Penn the leader of a camp that houses 55,000 displaced persons. Penn the man whose rubble-busting machinery might turn this squalor into

 something bordering on the human.

 One by one, the girls line up to kiss him. If Penn hesitates — he’s hardly the kiss-and-cuddle type, and cholera is a clear and present danger — he kisses them on the cheek nonetheless, with a disarming gentleness.

 Then the girls sing: “We wish you a merry Christmas. We wish you a merry Christmas. We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year!”

 [pullquote]

 It will be a happy New Year for the kids. “We have a deal,” Penn tells Ernest. “We’ll make it happen.”

 Doing so will mean bulldozing about four or five blocks. It also will mean working with a young man who has been lurking in the shadows. Small, with a lost gaze and listless manner, he seems rather sweet; it’s only later that I learn he runs one of the deadliest gangs in town.

 “There are a lot of killers,” Penn shrugs. “But there’s fallibility in leadership by fear. So we sit down and go, ‘Your guy here, he brought us in, he cares,’ and he gets more power. It’s a lot better than threatening them with a machete.”

 Machetes are not the average Hollywood star’s stock in trade. But no one has ever called Penn average, any more than the other Hollywood celebrities fighting for Haiti.

 Nearly a year since George Clooney’s Hope for Haiti Now telethon raised $66 million for such organizations as Oxfam America, Partners in Health, the American Red Cross and UNICEF, several dozen Hollywood players have defied cynicism and are plunging into relief work, made harder by a recent hurricane and the cholera epidemic spreading into the capital of Port-au-Prince.

 They range from Patricia

 Arquette, whose Give Love foundation is working on better sanitation and sending container homes for the displaced; to Ben Stiller, who’s building six schools through his Stiller Foundation; to Mel Gibson, the much-maligned star who quietly arranged a plane to ferry medical supplies.

 While Hollywood activists frequently raise eyebrows among professionals, this group draws praise.

 The telethon funds were allocated “brilliantly,” says Lisa Szarkowski, a spokesperson for UNICEF USA, which received $11 million. “They had us submit proposals for how we would spend that money. It was a really smart way of going about this.”

 But while the NGOs are positive about Hollywood, Hollywood is anything but positive about many organizations working in Haiti. The United Nations, in particular, earns Penn’s wrath.

 Hidden behind fortresslike walls, with armed guards posted on lookout at night, it’s one of the few moderately lit places in a city that’s engulfed in darkness, where locals pass through the surrounding streets like ghosts.

 Penn sniffs at “the amount we’re getting done, versus what they’re doing — which is nothing. Quite honestly, if you want something done, do it yourself.”

 Says Szarkowski: “I’m sure there are organizations that deserve to be criticized, and maybe celebrities, too. But everybody is doing their best.”

 Paul Haggis, 58, is one of them.

 The writer-director of Crash was among the first industry figures to become interested in Haiti, back in 2008 when he learned about the work of the Rev. Rick Frechette, a priest and doctor who had been toiling “for 20 years in the slums,” he recalls. “He’d just finished building a new children’s hospital, and I said, ‘I have to go see him.’ So I hopped on a plane and went to find him.”

 Soon after, Haggis established Artists for Peace and Justice to spearhead educational efforts, probably the most active Hollywood-based nonprofit beside Penn’s J/P Haitian Relief Organization. He has since persuaded more than 15 celebrities to pledge $50,000 a year for the next five years.

 He vividly remembers learning about the earthquake itself. “I was sitting in my editing room in New York,” he says. “I started making some calls and put a little over $150,000 together, and I walked through SoHo with it in a brown paper bag.”

 Later, “The State Department said they knew of someone flying a small plane out of Florida. So I went and waited. After a couple of days, I got on a plane, but it was turned around. There were so many flights coming in, the army had shut down the airport in Port-au-Prince.”

 That’s when he heard Penn had booked two planes, one for 30 passengers and supplies, the other purely for cargo, and flew with him. When he arrived, “They’d imploded — the people, the bodies. It was horror upon horror upon horror. It looked like Dresden after the war.”

 Tron: Legacy star Olivia Wilde experienced her own post-earthquake trauma.

 Arriving around the same time as Haggis, she witnessed “surgery on a 3-year-old girl whose hand had been bitten by rats, because she was living in one of the tent camps, which were completely overrun.” The girl was brought to the Saint Damien Hospital, where her hand was stitched to avoid amputation. “I was struck by the terror, the sheer terror of this little girl before she was put to sleep,” Wilde says. “She had no idea where she was.”

 Today, many Americans barely know where Haiti is, and even fewer remain invested in the aftermath of the quake.

 As the world approaches the one-year anniversary of the 7.0 temblor, a quick scan online and on TV finds scant information. When Penn called me just before I flew out, warning that riots linked to the current elections might shut down the airport, there was very little to be found about it in any mainstream media. And when word spread that locals had been lynched — a response to rumors that witch doctors had caused the cholera — the news couldn’t be seen on any U.S. television broadcast.

 Which perhaps explains why Maria Bello, another prominent Haiti supporter, brings a veritable media posse with her, including a video crew and a blogger from the Huffington Post, when she flies in two days after Christmas.

 •••••

 It’s mid-morning and Bello, 43, is squeezed into a sweltering conference room with about 20 locals in the administrative offices of Cité Soleil, the most notorious Port-au-Prince slum.

 A large, middle-aged Haitian woman is leading a colloquy of slum leaders as they talk to Bello and some of her aides from We Advance, a pro-women nonprofit she’s created. The woman is Barbara Guillaume, 49, a folk singer, former exile and current mayoral candidate.

 At first, it’s just officials speechifying. And then one of the speakers addresses the problem of rape, how girls under age 18 — some as young as 2 — are victimized in the poorly lit slums and often too ashamed to come forward. Then another woman joins in, and another, and soon a local rapper is cheering them on, everyone’s pitching in, and it’s all the strong-minded actress can do to maintain order.

 She urges them to provide contact information — everyone appears to have a cell phone, no matter how poor — and assures them: “I’m not Haitian, but this is my second home. Still, it’s you who have the power to change your country.”

 Afterward, as we tour Cité Soleil, heading toward a women’s clinic Bello has set up that will open next week, I speak to Guillaume.

 For a woman whose life has been under siege because of her outspoken politics and who has been physically attacked, she’s remarkably calm. “I have a lot of hope for Cité Soleil,” she explains, strolling past shacks made of cinder blocks and corrugated iron.

 But danger is ever present. She recalls how “the people now in power crushed my car. Young people came armed while I was inside.” They started to batter the vehicle, smashing its windows. “Luckily, a young man climbed up on the car and said, ‘If you’re going to kill her, you’re going to kill me too.’ ”

 Was she afraid? No, she says. “I’m already dead. My mother, my parents already say that: ‘She’s dead.’ When you live in Haiti and want to sacrifice yourself for the country, for the downtrodden, you have to think of yourself as dead.”

 It’s a view that contrasts starkly with Guillaume’s colleague, Sister Marcella, 47, a down-to-earth Italian nun who has spent the past five years in the slum and whose own clinic has treated 1,200 cholera victims in recent weeks alone. Many have died, and more will if the cholera sweeping from the southeast further impacts the city.

 We pause at the entrance to her little building, and I can’t help noticing that a bleach tray outside, designed to be stepped in to kill the disease, is almost empty. Has all this death and destruction shaken the sister’s faith?

 Just the opposite, she says. A year ago, “My mother died, so I flew to Italy. That was hours before the earthquake. My mother saved me.”

 She smiles. “The problem isn’t God, it’s the heart of man.”

 •••••

 The heart of man is alive and well in Jacmel, a seaside city about 25 miles from Port-au-Prince, where a tiny film school has been founded by documentarian David Belle. The video crew trailing Bello trained here, so I set out to find it.

 The road to Jacmel is long and winding; it takes me through Grand Rue, the most spectacularly devastated street of Port-au-Prince, where building after building looks as if it’s been bombed, then over lush green mountains, until, two-and-a-half hours later, I finally reach Jacmel, where a cliffside diving school has become the school’s headquarters.

 The facilities are rudimentary: There are only five video cameras for several dozen students, and one is broken. But the students’ love of the place is palpable, which becomes clear when I meet Kaziah Jean, 26.

 Unsure of her future, she was blown away when she saw a documentary Belle had made about a Haitian midwife, shown at the first Jacmel Film Festival in 2004. “These were films we weren’t used to seeing,” she marvels. “It was really stunning to see films about our people.”

 Flush with enthusiasm, Kaziah tried to track Belle down. “I followed him everywhere,” she says. “But he was in a car; I wanted to speak to him, but I couldn’t.”

 The following year, she enrolled in a free two-week class about moviemaking — and fell in love. When Belle subsequently set up his film school, supported by Haggis and Sofia and Francis Ford Coppola, she applied.

 The response from her family was hardly what she expected. “My mother and older brother were against it,” Kaziah admits. Her parents were Jehovah’s Witnesses, and besides, “wanted me to enroll in a proper university.”

 The school has become her life. Haggis arranged for her and other students to work on the post-earthquake video We Are the World, and she’s made a living assisting foreign news crews.

 “Now my family is glad,” she says. “I’m supporting them all.”

 •••••

 Sean Penn is supporting 55,000 more.

 Back in Port-au-Prince, he walks me through the J/P HRO camp in Petionville, a once-affluent suburb, that has become his obsession. He pauses to look over what was previously a nine-hole golf club spread across several hills; it’s now sprinkled with 11,000 tarp-covered structures housing the displaced persons he and his group of about 50 volunteers and trained professionals oversee, along with a Haitian staff of 108.

 The camp has become a veritable city of its own. There’s a medical unit whose hospital stays open 24/7; a tent where cholera victims are hooked to IV’s; an outdoor market; and even a red-light district — though neither red lights nor clients are present right now.

 “This is SOP, standard operating procedure,” he shrugs. “When those things take place, it’s the beginning of economies.” Then he quips, “I know I’m going to have feminists screaming at me.”

 ►WHAT IS CHOLERA? The waterborne sickness is tearing through Haiti Cholera, a bacteria, is spread through contaminated water. The diarrhea it causes leads to dehydration that can easily be cured but only if treated rapidly — the biggest challenge for Haitians, especially in rural areas, who often live miles from medical care. By mid-December, more than 91,000 Haitians had been sickened by the disease and more than 2,000 had died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 As Penn walks on, a gun safely concealed inside his pants, children run up to greet him. “Hey you!” they call, or “seanpenn!” One leads me inside a tent — the local movie theater, where a television rigged to electrical wires hanging from trees shows a Jackie Chan picture, the screening times posted outside.

 Things like this elic it a smile from Penn. One of the 40-plus workers who share his nearby house laughs at his flashes of dark humor, recalling the time when he brought home a battery-operated tarantula and set it crawling across the floor.

 Still, there’s an intensity to him, a profound seriousness that is his predominant mode and that’s what led him here in the first place.

 After getting a text from a friend right after the earthquake alerting him, “Oh God, poor Haiti,” Penn started manning the phone. Within days, he had booked the two planes and arranged for doctors and medical supplies to accompany him.

 “The airport was chaos,” he says. “As soon as you landed, another plane came in. The military was pulling off pallets, then they’d meet the next plane. Everything was going in all directions. And there’d been the big aftershock, so the port was closed.”

 Penn stayed in a friend’s backyard, sending his doctors to one of the hospitals and speaking to Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners in Health, who “gave us a good map” of what to do.

 Soon, he learned that some 35,000 locals had sought refuge at the golf club, where the military’s 82nd Airborne was based. Penn asked to be of service. “They said, ‘You can stay if you’re effective. If you stop being effective, we kick you out.’ ” He was so effective, he became camp manager.

 At first, he says, he was promised $1 million from an entrepreneur, (the “J” in J/P HRO). But, he adds, most of the money never materialized and he ended up spending chunks of his own.

 “I started paying for stuff,” he notes, “and that was when I thought, ‘OK, I better figure this out, because at this burn rate I’ll last about a week and a half.’ ”

 Now Penn has received help from Oxfam and Save the Children, among other aid organizations. But the $450,000 a month it costs to run the camp — even more when heavy equipment is needed — is always perilously close to running out.

 Security is critical. On one occasion, a gang from Cité Soleil heard the camp had received $80,000. Penn and his colleagues had to hold the gangsters at bay, though he won’t say how. As to the gang members in his camp, “We hardball the shit out of them,” he says. “One incident happens, and it’s an immediate hardcore response.”

 Penn’s own hardcore response is harder to understand.

 He claims “I didn’t have commitments, except for way in the future; I had nothing pressing,” as if this will make everything clear. But he admits, “I got practical issues, like everybody. I had two federal cases against me at the time, and one criminal one,” he says, referring to charges for illegal trips to Cuba and assaulting a paparazzo. Also, he says, about his former wife Robin Wright, “I had just got taken for one half of everything I had in the divorce, so it’s not like I don’t have to work.”

 He says the divorce impacted him much more than his move to Haiti. “A much more profound change in life for me personally was not being able to raise my son in a whole family through high school,” he professes bitterly.

 He describes how his involvement in Hurricane Katrina paved the way for this. But deeper motives are never addressed. “When I first came to Haiti, the decision was to go for two weeks,” he says. In fact, it’s been a whole year.

 If he seems perpetually tired, who can blame him? He’s ordering supplies, arranging funds, supervising staff and figuring out what to do if a hurricane hits, as it almost did just weeks ago. Deep gashes of sleep deprivation line his face. His eyes seem half-closed with fatigue. And yet he keeps on going, chain-smoking his American Spirits like lifesavers.

 “He’s crazy,” says one of his volunteers. ”He’s a genius,” says another.

 Recently, after spending most of his time in Haiti, he has started to take breaks, alternating a few days in Malibu with a few days here. He’s also taken several weeks to shoot a film, This Must Be the Place. But always, he returns.

 He speaks of a future when he might leave the camp in others’ hands, then wavers. On some level, he belongs here. “Let’s face it,” he admits, as the daylight begins to fade, “I’m a person that feels pretty alienated from the rest of the world and never felt understood by anyone.”

 •••••

 It’s night now. As we stroll through the camp one last time, bathed in newly installed lighting, pools of brightness intersecting with the dark, half-seen figures loom out of the shadows — children carrying pails of water, a woman nursing her baby.

 “Bonsoir!” a man calls happily from behind the flap of his tent. “Bonsoir,” Penn replies.

 The man has no idea this is a movie star. And no idea of the sacrifice it’s cost him to help. But Penn knows the difference he’s made. And knowing this means he’s stuck here. Forever.

 “There’s no end point,” he says, drained to the point of collapsing. “This is where I’ll be when I’m not working, for the rest of my life.” ||||| Sean Penn 'Got Taken for One-Half of Everything' in Divorce From Robin Wright

 Email This Sean Penn normally doesn't like to talk about his personal life, but while discussing his efforts in Haiti with

 "I didn't have commitments, except for way in the future; I had nothing pressing," he said of how he was able to spend most of 2010 in Haiti. "I got practical issues ... I had just got taken for one-half of everything I had in the divorce, so it's not like I don't have to work."

 Penn is, of course, talking about his split from ex-wife Robin Wright, which was Sean Penn normally doesn't like to talk about his personal life, but while discussing his efforts in Haiti with The Hollywood Reporter , the two-time Oscar winner let slip on why he'll have to start making some money again soon."I didn't have commitments, except for way in the future; I had nothing pressing," he said of how he was able to spend most of 2010 in Haiti. "I got practical issues ... I had just got taken for one-half of everything I had in the divorce, so it's not like I don't have to work."Penn is, of course, talking about his split from ex-wife Robin Wright, which was finalized July 22 after several failed reconciliations in the span of three years.

 They first filed for divorce in 2007, but reconciled months later. Then, in April 2009, the Oscar-winning actor asked for a legal separation in court, but retracted his bid the following month. That August, Wright decided to call it quits again and filed for divorce.While Wright has spoken of the split on occasion -- telling More magazine she had "no regrets" -- Penn has always been more guarded.This summer, he told Vanity Fair , "She [Wright] is a ghost to me now." In his interview with THR, Penn said that aside from the monetary aspects of his divorce, the separation from his kids, 19-year-old daughter Dylan and 17-year-old son Hopper, has been worse."A much more profound change in life for me personally was not being able to raise my son in a whole family through high school," he said. |||||
A summary of this is?

– How long will Sean Penn’s work in Haiti go on? Forever, he tells the Hollywood Reporter. “There’s no end point,” he says. “This is where I’ll be when I’m not working, for the rest of my life.” Penn was there on Christmas Eve, kissing young students on the cheek at a newly built school despite fears of cholera, nearly a year after he first arrived. The extensive article reveals the constant struggle Penn endures to keep his camp—which costs $450,000 a month—running. Why does he do it? “I didn’t have commitments, except for way in the future; I had nothing pressing,” he says of the period leading up to his work in Haiti. “I got practical issues, like everybody. I had two federal cases against me at the time, and one criminal one.” (Illegal trips to Cuba and allegedly assaulting a paparazzo, specifically). But, he adds, “I had just got taken for one half of everything I had in the divorce, so it’s not like I don’t have to work.” Click for more from the interview and his comments about his divorce.


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Occupy Philadelphia gets evicted. Here, demonstrator Lauren Foley of Philadelphia is confronted by a police on horseback. "That was so scary," she said later. ( APRIL SAUL / Staff Photographer)

 Originally published Nov. 30, 2011 Police swarmed around City Hall and rousted Occupy Philadelphia protesters from their encampment overnight, more than two days after a deadline passed for them to leave. The occupiers responded by roaming around Center City, scattering and regrouping with police following their every move in a chaotic night of cat-and-mouse that ended before daylight. "The Dilworth occupation is over," Mayor Nutter said at a news conference just before 7 a.m.

 Is Occupy Philly over? Yes, now that they've been rousted from Dilworth, they'll lose their strength No, they'll reform somewhere else and continue their activism View results

 Crews were using bulldozers and other heavy equipment to clear up debris and fire hoses to wash down Dilworth Plaza as he spoke.

 He called the police operation to clear the plaza "tremendously well planned and executed."

 Officials said 52 people were arrested, 45 of them in a 5 a.m. face off on North 15th Street behind the Inquirer and School District buildings. all were charged with failure to disperse and obstruction.

 "We followed them around Center City all night long and finally arrested some of them," Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey.

 Nutter said three police officers suffered minor injuries, two while making arrests and one while taking down a tent on the plaza. He said a female protester was hurt when a police horse stomped on her foot.

 The attempt to disperse the occupiers began about 1 a.m. - 56 hours after the city-imposed deadline form them to leave Dilworth Plaza came and went.

 The District Attorneys Office said the first person arrested was Ryan Stroud, 22, who was taken into custody at 1:55 a.m. when he returned the plaza.

 Tensions rose and ebbed throughout the night, beginning when police moved to evacuate the Occupy encampment. Police gave protesters at least three warnings that they had to leave the plaza.

 After the third warning, 15 protesters locked arms and started walking south on 15th Street.

 Thus began a four-hour trek from Dilworth Plaza to Rittenhouse Square and then snaking east of City Hall before turning north on Broad Street, and then left on Spring Garden and left again on 15th Street, where the arrests were made.

 "Get up, get down, there's revolution in this town," the protesters shouted at 17th and Spruce Streets.

 When the march started, police, many of them riding bicycles, were patient as protesters confronted them repeatedly, chanting "This is what a police state looks like" and "Shame, shame."

 At two points, protesters crashed through metal barriers set up by police to prevent them from returning to City Hall, and police simply watched and resumed following the marchers.

 But as the night wore one, tensions mounted.

 Protesters repeatedly accused police of using their bikes to shove people, and at least twice, a protester ended up on the ground.

 When this happened, the marchers began shouting "All eyes! All eyes," ensuring there would be witnesses to what was happening. Many protesters held up video cameras to document the skirmishes.

 In one incident, one police officer scolded another for using his bike to shove a marcher.

 On 15th Street just south of Market Street, protesters and police, including mounted officers, were practically nose to nose as Occupiers accused the force often brutalizing Philadelphians.

 "They pretend they are your friends," one protester shouted, and the group repeated. Some protesters seemed uncomfortable with the accusations against the police. "Stop yelling at the police," one shouted when the brutality accusation came up. "Have a heart."

 At one point, mounted units swept into the crowd, pressing it back and injuring one woman.

 Protesters pressed forward with some shouting from crowd. Some horses appeared spooked, with one running off as the crowd grew rowdy.

 The crowd roamed from street to street, once again crashing through metal barricades.

 Police regrouped and blocked the protesters.

 By 3:45 a.m., police had successfully cleared the area around the south side of 15th street, and blocked it with vehicles.

 Workers tossed the remains of the encampment into garbage trucks and dragged away wooden pallets that had become part of the infrastructure.

 Ramsey had said early on that police wanted to avoid making arrests, but that after four hours of following protesters around Center City that was not to be.

 Addressing the timing of the eviction, he said: "We want to try to minimize any conflict. So it just made sense to do it early in the morning, when the businesses are closed."

 The overnight drama marked the end of the first, and possibly final, phase of Occupy Philadelphia, a movement that spread here from Wall Street as thousands of people across the country pitched tents in public places to protest growing income inequality and a host of other problems.

 Occupy Philly got its start Oct. 6, when about 700 people gathered, playing guitars, a trumpet, and drums and carrying signs such as "HUMAN NEED NOT CORPORATE GREED."

 Mayor Nutter initially embraced the protest, arranged for his staff to meet with the movement's representatives, and even provided electricity for their computers. The group held near-daily press conferences and staged sit-ins at Comcast headquarters to protest corporate tax breaks and at a Center City Wells Fargo Bank branch to denounce home foreclosures. The city maintained a large police presence on Dilworth, assigning a regular contingent from the civil affairs unit. Overtime costs are estimated to have reached $641,000 as of Nov. 23.

 At the nightly general assembly meetings that Occupy held on the plaza and in the nearby American Friends Service Committee, a consensus was reached among the majority, who agreed to move from the encampment when construction began on the $50 million renovation of Dilworth Plaza, a project that has been in the works for several years.

 Unions, which supported the protesters message, had argued that the project would create jobs.

 The plans call for overhauling the SEPTA station underneath Dilworth, improving handicapped access, and creating a green landscape on the plaza with grass and trees as well as a café and a winter ice rink.

 As the weeks went on, scores of homeless people, drawn in part by the regular hot meals that Occupy provided, moved into the encampment. At its peak, city officials estimated there were 230 tents. Over the last few weeks, Nutter began losing patience with the protesters as problems mounted at the site, including public urination, other unsanitary conditions and one reported sexual assault.

 Many protesters claimed the mayor's concerns were overblown. Some, disagreeing with the general assembly consensus, determined to stay after the eviction deadline, saying the money intended for the renovation project would be better spent on housing, particularly for the homeless.

 On Nov. 16, Nutter ordered the protesters to leave immediately so that construction would begin. Most Occupiers stayed. But on Friday, after the mayor gave the protesters a deadline of 5 p.m. Sunday to vacate the plaza, the exodus began. By Monday, only about 75 tents remained.

 Nutter said this morning that since Sunday, outreach workers have helped 49 homeless from the encampment find placements, including 15 this morning.

 "I want to thank the citizens of this great city for their patience," Nutter said. "We have worked hard to respect the free speech rights of those who need to protest while also balancing the needs of our city to continue operating."

 The city issued a permit for Reasonable Solutions, a splinter group, to protest on Thomas Paine Plaza, across the street from Dilworth, but only between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. The permit also limited Reasonable Solutions to erect one tent, as long as it was taken down at the end of each day. As of Tuesday, the group had yet to set up there.

 Earlier Tuesday, some Occupiers said they had heard rumors that the police would come during the night.

 Elisabeth Levinson, 24, said she did not know where she would go if police kicked her off the plaza. The daughter of an addict and an absentee father, Levinson is homeless. Before joining Occupy, Levinson said, she lived in a women's shelter in West Philadelphia until it closed, then stayed with friends who let her sleep on the couch.

 "Half of us don't have homes right now," she said, cradling a stray kitten about the size of a child's palm that she had found on the plaza, and wondering what to feed it. She said she had named him "99," a reference to the "We are the 99 percent" Occupy slogan about the growing income inequality between the top 1 percent of Americans and the rest of the country.

 At least two Occupiers prepared for the expected confrontation night by fortifying their tents. Ahuyiva Harel surrounded his with jagged pieces of lumber arranged in a Tinker Toy-type grid.

 "I'm opposed to public property being in private hands," he said, explaining his opposition to leaving. He was referring to the fact that the Center City District will lease Dilworth from the city for $1 a year for 30 years and operate the plaza. That arrangement was required so that the project would qualify for certain funds. Proceeds from the café will pay for the plaza's maintenance.

 Contact staff writer Miriam Hill at 215-854-5520 or hillmb@phillynews.com. ||||| Police have been converging on the stadium all evening as they prepare to take down the camp. In recent minutes, Metro buses filled with officers have left, headed downtown.

 The massive deployment comes as police are facing down hundreds of chanting protesters at several intersections near City Hall. The protests have been peaceful and demonstrators were respecting the police lines.

 Columns of officers were seen swarming from several direction around City Hall and began to remove tents.

 Hundreds of Los Angeles Police Department officers have deployed onto downtown streets to clear out the Occupy L.A. camp on the lawn of City Hall.

 Some LAPD officers are already facing down protesters on the streets around City Hall. Deputy Chief Jose Perez, the incident commander for the night's operation, said he had asked lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild -- a group that has served as an informal intermediary between police and protesters -- to fan out among the protesters and tell them they will have "a reasonable amount of time" to leave the park after the dispersal order is given.

 "Those who want to be arrested will be. Those who don't, won't," Perez said in a brief interview. The LAPD has closed off an area from Temple Street on the north to 3rd Street on the south and from Alameda Street on the east to Broadway on the west.

 FULL COVERAGE: Occupy protests

 An LAPD helicopter announced the start of the department's action, swooping low and incessantly circling the City Hall steps on which hundreds of protesters had gathered. It flooded the camp with light from its high-powered searchlight and the din from its propellers threatened to drown out a chant of "Occupy L.A., all day, all night!" by the protesters.

 Someone then launched fireworks over the camp.

 RELATED:

 Protesters vow to stand their ground at Occupy L.A.

 Occupy L.A. protesters set up barriers to block police

 LAPD on tactical alert; Occupy protesters say eviction imminent

 -- Andrew Blankstein, Kate Linthicum and Joel Rubin

 Photo: Los Angeles Police Department officers move in as Occupy L.A. protesters are ordered out of their encampment near City Hall.

 Credit: Robert Lachman / Los Angeles Times ||||| Los Angeles police say more than 200 people were arrested during a raid of the Occupy LA encampment.

 A crowd gathers during the Occupy LA protest in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011. Officers began a raid on the camp early Wednesday, two days after a deadline passed for protesters to clear out.... (Associated Press)

 A Los Angeles police officer carries his helmet and weapon to a bus at the Occupy Los Angeles camp in Los Angeles late Tuesday Nov. 29, 2011 in Los Angeles. Police are preparing to evict protesters... (Associated Press)

 Los Angeles police officers fill a bus late Tuesday Nov. 29, 2011 in Los Angeles as they prepare to evict protesters from the Occupy Los Angeles encampment outside City Hall in Los Angeles. The Protesters... (Associated Press)

 Los Angeles police officers with wrist restraints sit on a bus late Tuesday Nov. 29, 2011 in Los Angeles as they prepare to evict protesters from the Occupy Los Angeles encampment outside City Hall in... (Associated Press)

 Los Angeles police officers sit on a bus late Tuesday Nov. 29, 2011 in Los Angeles as they prepare to evict protesters from the Occupy Los Angeles encampment outside City Hall in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Lucy... (Associated Press)

 Los Angeles police officers Face protesters from the Occupy LA encampment outside City Hall in Los Angeles Wednesday Nov. 30, 2011. Police have moved in on the Occupy Los Angeles encampment and began... (Associated Press)

 Los Angeles Police officers gather at the Elysian Park command post to prepare for the Occupy Los Angeles raid, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Bret Hartman, Pool) (Associated Press)

 Los Angeles Police officers wait on a bus at the Elysian Park command post to prepare for the Occupy Los Angeles raid, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Bret Hartman, Pool) (Associated Press)

 Los Angeles police officers stand by a sack containing wrist restraints late Tuesday Nov. 29, 2011 in Los Angeles as they prepare to evict protesters from the Occupy Los Angeles encampment outside City... (Associated Press)

 Los Angeles Police officers wait on a bus at the Elysian Park command post to prepare for the Occupy Los Angeles raid, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Bret Hartman, Pool) (Associated Press)

 Police Chief Charlie Beck said at an early Wednesday news conference that the arrests were mainly peaceful and there were no injuries.

 Beck says an initial search of the camp turned up no drugs or weapons.

 More than 1,000 police officers raided the camp and dismantled what was left of the tent city that stood for two months.

 Police in Los Angeles and Philadelphia stormed Occupy Wall Street encampments under darkness to arrest or drive out some of the longest-lasting protesters since crackdowns ended similar occupations across the country.

 About 50 protesters were arrested in Philadelphia.

 THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

 Police in Los Angeles and Philadelphia stormed Occupy Wall Street encampments under darkness Wednesday to arrest or drive out some of the longest-lasting protesters since crackdowns ended similar occupations across the country.

 Dozens of officers in riot gear flooded down the steps of Los Angeles City Hall just after midnight and started dismantling the two-month-old camp two days after a deadline passed for campers to leave the park. Officers in helmets and wielding batons and guns with rubber bullets converged on the park from all directions with military precision and began making arrests after several orders were given to leave.

 The raid in Los Angeles came after demonstrators with the movement in Philadelphia marched through the streets after being evicted from their site. About 40 protesters were arrested after refusing to clear a street several blocks northeast of City Hall, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey. They were lined up in cuffs and loaded on to buses by officers. Six others were arrested earlier after remaining on a street police that police tried to clear.

 Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa raised public safety and health concerns in announcing plans for the eviction last week, while Philadelphia officials said protesters must clear their site to make room for a $50 million renovation project.

 Defiant Los Angeles campers who were chanting slogans as the officers surrounded the park, booed when an unlawful assembly was declared, paving the way for officers to begin arresting those who didn't leave.

 In the first moments of the raid, officers tore down a tent and tackled a tattooed man with a camera on City Hall steps and wrestled him to the ground. Someone yelled "police brutality."

 Teams of four or five officers moved through the crowd making arrests one at a time, cuffing the hands of protesters with white plastic zip-ties. A circle of protesters sat with arms locked, many looking calm and smiling.

 Opamago Cascini, 29, said the night had been a blast and he was willing to get arrested.

 "It's easy to talk the talk, but you gotta walk the walk," Cascini said.

 At least two dozen people had been arrested in the first two hours and police said they planned to arrest the 75 people remaining in the park. Police Cmdr. Andrew Smith said one person was arrested for violence against a police officer, but Smith couldn't provide details.

 Police used a cherry picker to pluck five men from trees. Two others were in a tree house _ one wore a crown and another taunted police with an American flag.

 In Philadelphia, police began pulling down tents at about 1:20 a.m. EST after giving demonstrators three warnings that they would have to leave, which nearly all of the protestors followed. Dozens of demonstrators then began marching through the streets and continued through the night.

 Ramsey said breaking up the camp in the early-morning hours helped minimize any disruption to businesses and traffic.

 "We acknowledge the fact that we are going to have to leave this space .... but in another sense this has been our home for almost two months and no one wants to see their home taken away from them," Philadelphia protestor Bri Barton, 22, said before police began clearing out the camp.

 "Whether or not we have this space or work in the city is nowhere near done," she said.

 The eviction overall appeared to have been carried out without any significant scuffles or violence.

 Demonstrators and city officials in both Los Angeles and Philadelphia were hoping any confrontation would be nonviolent, unlike evictions at similar camps around the country that sometimes involved pepper spray and tear gas. The movement against economic disparity and perceived corporate greed began with Occupy Wall Street in Manhattan two months ago.

 About 1,200 Los Angeles officers staged for hours outside Dodger Stadium before the raid. They were warned that demonstrators might throw everything from concrete and gravel to human feces at them.

 "Please put your face masks down and watch each other's back," a supervisor told them. "Now go to work."

 Before police arrived in large numbers, protesters were upbeat and the mood was almost festive. A protester in a Santa Claus hat danced in the street. A woman showed off the reindeer antlers she had mounted on her gas mask.

 Some were smoking pot, some were carrying gas masks, others wore hoodies and had bandanas around their faces. Some protesters carried lit candles and held signs saying "Defend Occupy LA."

 Fireworks exploded in the sky at one point. Later, as helicopters hovered above, someone blew "The Star Spangled Banner" on a horn.

 As officers first surrounded the camp, hundreds of protesters chanted, "The people united will never be defeated."

 Campers planning to defend the camp and hold their ground barricaded entrances to the park with trash cans.

 The police operation was planned at night because downtown is mostly vacant, with offices closed, fewer pedestrians and less traffic, but a spokesman said it could make officers more vulnerable.

 "It's more difficult for us to see things, to see booby traps," Lt. Andy Neiman, told pool reporters. "Operating in the dark is never an advantage."

 Neiman said the force was prepared to deal with demonstrators holed up in the camp or those who had climbed up trees in the small park.

 Gia Trimble, member of the Occupy LA media team, said a lot of people committed to the cause would stay and risk arrest.

 "This is a monumental night for Los Angeles," Trimble said. "We're going to do what we can to protect the camp."

 In their anticipation of an eviction, the Los Angeles protesters designated medics designated with red crosses taped on clothing. Some protesters had gas masks.

 Organizers at the camp packed up computer and technical equipment from the media tent.

 Two men who constructed an elaborate tree house lashed bamboo sticks together with twine to push away any ladder police might use to evict them.

 Police said they would be able to remove the tree climbers.

 Members of the National Lawyers guild had legal observers on hand for an eviction.

 ___

 Matheson reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press writer Shaya Tayefe Mohajer also contributed to this report. ||||| On the north and west sides of City Hall, police were busy loading arrestees onto buses headed for jail.

 Bomb-sniffing dogs were being led around the building, sniffing for molotov cocktails that police feared protesters would use, but which so far had not materialized.

 Police discovered several protesters hiding in the trees. "You've got one up here, too?" Officer Norma Eisenmen asked a fellow officer about a demonstrator hiding in the foliage of a tree on Spring Street.

 Occupy L.A.: Photos | Videos | 360° photos | Live webcam

 It appeared that getting him and others back on the ground was going to be the officers' biggest task as the night wore on.

 The men in the tree were refusing to come down. One wore a crown. Another taunted police with an American flag.

 "Obama says 'Yes, we can,'" he said. "Well, yes we did!"

 "We are here to uphold the law, why are you here?" said the other.

 RELATED:

 LAPD traps hundreds of protesters in camp

 Confrontation occurs on Broadway at 1st Street

 Some protesters prepare for tear gas, others leave

 -- Kate Linthicum at Los Angeles City Hall

 Photo: LAPD officers at the Occupy L.A. encampment in downtown Los Angeles. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times |||||

– More than 1,000 police officers moved in late last night to clear out the Occupy LA encampment on the lawn of City Hall. Police swarmed into the camp from several directions and began dismantling tents as protesters chanted, reports the Los Angeles Times. By early this morning, the site was in shambles, with police dragging out the few remaining protesters by their arms and legs. Some protesters also remained in trees, but police were working to remove them—with the assistance of a cherry picker. The AP reports that more than 200 were arrested; police loaded them onto buses headed to jail. No injuries were reported and the arrests were mainly peaceful. Police also stormed Occupy Philadelphia in the wee hours of the morning, razing the camp and arresting about 50 some 56 hours after the city ordered them to clear out of Dilworth Plaza. Officials in Los Angeles and Philadelphia had hoped to avoid the violent confrontations happening in other cities. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that at least three police officers suffered minor injuries in that city’s raid.


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Super Cats, A Nature Miniseries premieres nationwide Wednesdays, October 24-November 7 at 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Each episode will be available to stream the following day at pbs.org/nature and on PBS apps.

 Stalking in the shadows, prowling almost every continent, cats are one of the world’s most diverse and successful predators. But there is far more to these charismatic and misunderstood animals than most people recognize. Filmed over 600 days in 14 countries and featuring 31 species of cat, this groundbreaking three-part miniseries narrated by F. Murray Abraham uncovers the secret lives of big cats and introduces behaviors captured on film for the first time, using the latest camera technology and scientific research.

 From the solitary bachelor snow leopard in the Himalayas to the elusive swamp tiger of South Asia, to a remarkably efficient Californian bobcat that is blind in one eye, Super Cats, A Nature Miniseries reveals how cats survive and thrive in all four corners of the globe. Nature uncovers their social sides, their complex communication, devoted parental care, courtship rituals, hunting patterns and more.

 Advances in technology allowed for several on-camera firsts, including the nocturnal pursuits of a tiny but deadly black-footed cat in South Africa who hunts more in one night than a leopard does in six months. Remote cameras capture exclusive intimate moments between a mother Pallas’ cat and her kittens. Low-light technology exposes a true rarity: a puma preying on Magellanic penguins, one of the few successful hunts ever caught on film. A swamp tiger takes a bath in the sea — a phenomenon previously unseen on television.

 Production Credits: Episode 3 - Science and Secrets Print Narrated by

 F. MURRAY ABRAHAM Produced & Directed by

 GAVIN BOYLAND Photography

 STUART DUNN Sound

 ZUBIN SAROSH Additional Photography

 SIMON ENDERBY

 SUE GIBSON

 DAVID LOUGEDO

 JOSÉ LUIS ROUCO FERNANDEZ

 KALYAN VARMA

 VISUAL AIR PRODUCTIONS Additional Sound

 NICK ALLINSON

 ELLIE WILLIAMS Film Editor

 NICK CARLINE Edit Producer

 GILLIAN TAYLOR Assistant Film Editor

 JACK ROBERTS Post Production

 DOGHOUSE POST PRODUCTION

 WOUNDED BUFFALO Graphic Design

 BDH CREATIVE Sound Editor

 JONNY CREW Dubbing Mixer

 BEN PEACE Colorist

 FRED TAY Online Editor

 MICHAEL LANSDELL Original Music

 BLEEDING FINGERS Score Producers

 MONICA SONAND

 RUSSELL EMANUEL Scientific Consultants

 Dr ALEXANDER SLIWA

 Dr LUKE HUNTER Special Thanks

 TATJANA HUBEL

 SABAH PARKS DEPARTMENT

 LE PARC DES FÉLINS

 UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH, PALANGKA RAYA Archive

 BORNEO NATURE FOUNDATION

 SHANSHUI/PANTHERA/SLT/SEEF/GZC Wildlife Permits Provided by

 JUNTA DE ANDALUCÍA

 JUNTA DE EXTRAMEDURA

 MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT AND FORESTS, INDIA Director

 SARA DOUGLAS Researchers

 ANNA PLACE

 HARRIET LAWRENCE

 LEAH ARNOLD-REDMAN Production Coordinators

 JO ARMSTRONG DAVIS

 SUSANNA PROUSE Production Team

 ARPANA PATERSON

 JANE ATKINS

 GEORGE PILAS

 SOPHIE EDWARDS

 BECKY PAYNE

 ESHIKA FYZEE

 NATHALIE GALVE

 ELLIE KYNASTON Production Manager

 STELLA STYLIANOS Unit Manager

 KATE GORST Commissioning Editor

 TOM MCDONALD Series Producer

 GAVIN BOYLAND Executive Producer

 MICHAEL GUNTON For NATURE Series Editor

 JANET HESS Senior Producer

 LAURA METZGER LYNCH Coordinating Producer

 JAYNE JUN Associate Producer

 JAMES F. BURKE Legal Counsel

 BLANCHE ROBERTSON Digital Producer

 HEATHER TONER Social Media Editor

 KAREN HO Audience Engagement

 CHELSEY SAATKAMP Budget Controller

 JAYNE LISI Online Editor

 STACEY DOUGLASS MOVERLEY Re-Recording Mixer

 ED CAMPBELL Original Funding Provided in Part by

 The Arnhold Family In Memory Of Clarisse Arnhold

 Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III

 Kate W. Cassidy Foundation

 Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust

 Kathy Chiao and Ken Hao

 Anderson Family Fund

 Filomen M. D’Agostino Foundation

 Rosalind P. Walter

 The Halmi Family in memory of Robert Halmi, Sr.

 Sandra Atlas Bass

 The Arlene and Milton D. Berkman Philanthropic Fund

 Anne Ray foundation

 Corporation for Public Broadcasting Series Producer

 BILL MURPHY Executive Producer

 FRED KAUFMAN A BBC Studios Production for PBS and BBC with THIRTEEN Productions LLC, co-produced by France Télévisions This program was produced by THIRTEEN Productions LLC, which is solely responsible for its content © 2018 BBC

 SUPER CATS ADDITIONAL MATERIALS © 2018 PBS AND

 © 2018 THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC

 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 Production Credits: Episode 2 - Cats In Every Corner Print Narrated by

 F. MURRAY ABRAHAM Produced & Directed by

 PAUL WILLIAMS Photography

 SUE GIBSON

 LUKE BARNETT

 HOWARD BOURNE

 LIANNE STEENKAMP

 KALYAN VARMA

 KENNAN WARD Additional Photography

 NEIL ANDERSON

 DOUGLAS PARKER

 ALONSO SANCHEZ ESPINOZA

 WILL STEENKAMP Film Editor

 SAM ROGERS Assistant Film Editor

 JACK ROBERTS Post Production

 DOGHOUSE POST PRODUCTION

 WOUNDED BUFFALO Graphic Design

 BDH CREATIVE Sound Editor

 TIM OWENS Dubbing Mixer

 BEN PEACE Colorist

 FRED TAY Online Editor

 MICHAEL LANSDELL Original Music

 BLEEDING FINGERS Score Producers

 MONICA SONAND

 RUSSELL EMANUEL Scientific Consultants

 Dr ALEXANDER SLIWA

 Dr LUKE HUNTER Special Thanks:

 EVIE ADAMS

 JANE ATKINS

 MATT RICHARDS

 SERGIO ESCOBAR-LASSO

 BLACK-FOOTED CAT WORKING GROUP

 GOINGWILD LLP

 SECUNDA SYNFUELS OPERATIONS / SASOL LTD. Logistics Support

 DR BARIUSHAA MUNKHTSOG

 RICHARD FOSTER

 BIOCENOSIS MARINA LIMITADA

 THE BELIZE ZOO AND TROPICAL EDUCATION CENTER Wildlife Permits Provided by

 MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT AND FORESTS, INDIA

 WILDLIFE TRUST OF INDIA Directors

 SARA DOUGLAS

 ANNA PLACE Researcher

 HARRIET LAWRENCE Production Coordinators

 JO ARMSTRONG DAVIS

 ELLIE WILLIAMS Production Management Assistant

 SUSANNA PROUSE Production Manager

 STELLA STYLIANOS Unit Manager

 KATE GORST Commissioning Editor

 TOM MCDONALD Series Producer

 GAVIN BOYLAND Executive Producer

 MICHAEL GUNTON For NATURE Series Editor

 JANET HESS Senior Producer

 LAURA METZGER LYNCH Coordinating Producer

 JAYNE JUN Associate Producer

 JAMES F. BURKE Legal Counsel

 BLANCHE ROBERTSON Digital Producer

 HEATHER TONER Social Media Editor

 WHITNEY MCGOWAN Audience Engagement

 CHELSEY SAATKAMP Budget Controller

 JAYNE LISI Online Editor

 STACEY DOUGLASS MOVERLEY Re-Recording Mixer

 ED CAMPBELL Original Funding Provided in Part by

 The Arnhold Family In Memory Of Clarisse Arnhold

 Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III

 Kate W. Cassidy Foundation

 Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust

 Kathy Chiao and Ken Hao

 Anderson Family Fund

 Filomen M. D’Agostino Foundation

 Rosalind P. Walter

 The Halmi Family in memory of Robert Halmi, Sr.

 Sandra Atlas Bass

 The Arlene and Milton D. Berkman Philanthropic Fund

 Anne Ray foundation

 Corporation for Public Broadcasting Series Producer

 BILL MURPHY Executive Producer

 FRED KAUFMAN A BBC Studios Production for PBS and BBC with THIRTEEN Productions LLC, co-produced by France Télévisions This program was produced by THIRTEEN Productions LLC, which is solely responsible for its content © 2018 BBC

 SUPER CATS ADDITIONAL MATERIALS © 2018 PBS AND

 © 2018 THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC

 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ||||| The black-footed cat ( Felis nigripes ) hunts amongst the short desert scrub in the Karoo of South Africa.

 The deadliest cat on Earth isn't a shaggy-maned lion, a sleek leopard or a stealthy tiger. It's a wee cat that you've probably never heard of: Africa's smallest feline, the black-footed cat.

 Native to the grasslands of southern Africa, the black-footed cat has an endearingly round face and a light brown, black-spotted body that is small even compared to domestic cats. The wild feline measures only 14 to 20 inches (36 to 52 centimeters) long, stands about 8 inches (20 cm) tall and weighs about 2 to 6 lbs. (1 to 3 kilograms), according to the International Society for Endangered Cats (black-footed cats are listed as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature).

 Admittedly, those measurements don't sound very impressive when compared to the sizable big cats that are among the world's most fearsome predators. But despite its small size, the black-footed cat hunts and brings down more prey in a single night than a leopard does in six months, according to the PBS Nature miniseries "Super Cats." [Meet the Rare and Fabulous Felines of 'Super Cats' (Photos)]

 The second episode in the miniseries aired on PBS last night (Oct. 31). It featured an unprecedented glimpse of the black-footed cat, along with views of other fascinating and elusive wild felines, such as a pregnant jaguar in Costa Rica, a rare swamp tiger in India and a family of fishing cats — the only semiaquatic cats — in the wetlands of Asia.

 For the latest episode, titled "Cats in Every Corner," filmmakers captured never-before-seen views of black-footed cats by collaborating with researcher Alexander Sliwa, a curator at the Cologne Zoo in Germany who has studied the black-footed cat since the 1990s. Through Sliwa, the series' makers gained access to several small cats that had already been fitted with radio collars at a study site in South Africa, "Super Cats" producer Gavin Boyland told Live Science.

 Filming the tiny cats proved unusually challenging, Boyland said. Because the black-footed cats are so small, they're harder to track through tall grasses than big cats are. Since the little cats hunt mostly at night, the production crew needed to use a special light-sensitive camera to detect the felines at all, recording footage of hunting behavior that had never been captured before, Boyland explained.

 And when it comes to hunting, as the filmmakers saw, the black-footed cat is extraordinarily efficient — "a real powerhouse," said Luke Hunter, Chief Conservation Officer at Panthera, a global wildcat-conservation organization.

 Hunter, who served as a scientific consultant for "Super Cats," explained that small predators like the black-footed cat have accelerated metabolisms, which they need to keep fueled all the time, "so they're constantly hunting," he said.

 Black-footed cats are found only in three countries: Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Credit: Copyright Alexander Sliwa

 Black-footed cats use three very different techniques to nab their prey. One method is known as "fast hunting," in which the cats bound quickly and "almost randomly" through the tall grass, flushing out small prey such as birds or rodents, Hunter said. Another of their methods takes them on a slower course through their habitat, with the cats weaving quietly and carefully to sneak up on potential prey.

 Finally, they use a sit-and-wait approach near rodents' burrows, a technique called still hunting, Hunter said.

 "They wait for up to 2 hours, [staying] absolutely immobile, just silently waiting at the burrow for a rodent to appear. And then they nab it," Hunter told Live Science.

 In one night, a black-footed cat kills between 10 and 14 rodents or small birds, averaging a kill about every 50 minutes, according to Hunter. With a 60 percent success rate, black-footed cats are about three times as successful as lions, which average a successful kill about 20 to 25 percent of the time, Hunter said.

 "If you're a gazelle or a wildebeest, a black-footed cat isn't at all deadly. But those success rates make them the deadliest little cat on Earth," he said.

 Livestock grazing reduces the habitats of black-footed cats, which hunt birds, rodents and even insects that inhabit grassland ecosystems. Credit: Copyright Alexander Sliwa

 Black-footed cats represent but one species in a highly diverse feline family, many of which are difficult to observe in the wild and are not well-understood. And though most of the felines that appear in "Super Cats" face serious threats of habitat loss and destruction from human activity, conservation efforts can yet preserve vulnerable populations, Hunter said.

 "I believe it's mostly not doom and gloom. But if we don't actively conserve these species, if we don't work to reduce those threats, then we could lose some of these animals," he added.

 Episode 2 of "Super Cats" is available to stream beginning today (Nov. 1). You can also watch Episode 1 — "Extreme Lives" — and learn more about the miniseries on the PBS Nature website and on PBS apps. Episode 3, "Science and Secrets," premieres Wednesday, Nov. 7, at 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings).

 Originally published on Live Science. |||||

– The world's deadliest cat is no leopard or tiger—in fact, it's the size of a house cat and appears just as cuddly. But the black-footed cat of southern Africa can hunt the grasslands like no other, Live Science reports. The PBS series Super Cats follows them on nightly forays, showing how they hunt and explaining why they kill more prey in a night than a leopard does in half a year. German zoo curator Luke Hunter helped by fitting several black-footed cats with radio collars, enabling the crew to track them in tall grasses. "If you're a gazelle or a wildebeest, a black-footed cat isn't at all deadly," says Hunter, who has studied the cats since the 1990s. "But those success rates make them the deadliest little cat on Earth." And the black-footed cat has tricks. It can hunt by bounding randomly through grass, sneaking up on prey in a weaving pattern, or waiting patiently by burrows for a meal to emerge. They can "wait for up to 2 hours, absolutely immobile, just silently waiting at the burrow for a rodent to appear," Hunter says. "And then they nab it." They kill 10 to 14 small birds and rodents nightly, or about one every 50 minutes—a constant hunt necessary to supply their active metabolisms. Like most felines in the series, the black-footed cat is endangered, but Hunter accentuates the positive: "I believe it's mostly not doom and gloom," he says, but "if we don't work to reduce those threats, then we could lose some of these animals." See the episode at PBS. (Or see why a judge has halted grizzly bear hunts around Yellowstone National Park.)


Article:

More wine is drunk per person in the Vatican City than in any other country in the world, according to the latest statistics released by the Wine Institute.

 The figures show that residents of the Vatican consume 74 litres of wine on average – roughly equivalent to 105 bottles over the course of a year.

 That’s around double the amount drunk by the average person in France or Italy as a whole, and triple the quantity consumed in the UK.

 There is no denying that the population of the Vatican represents an unusual, and rather uniform, demographic.

 As well as the occupational hazard of being required to take ceremonial Communion wine, the National Catholic Reporter said Vatican residents are more likely to be old, male, highly educated and eat in larger groups – all factors that can contribute to greater wine consumption.

 These aspects of the Vatican’s national character are more likely to put it at the top than simply its size alone – though other so-called microstates also featured prominently in the Wine Institute’s list.

 The fact that it only has a population of around 800 people does make it easy for per-capita figures to be distorted by outlying groups, however – and in the Vatican there is reportedly a single supermarket supplying everyone with wine almost completely tax-free. ||||| The seed for this crawl was a list of every host in the Wayback Machine

 This crawl was run at a level 1 (URLs including their embeds, plus the URLs of all outbound links including their embeds)

 The WARC files associated with this crawl are not currently available to the general public. |||||
What is a summary?

– If you're a big fan of wine and would like to be surrounded by apparently like-minded people, consider moving to Vatican City. Despite its small size, or perhaps because of it, it manages to consume more wine per capita than any other country, according to the Wine Institute. How much exactly? At 74 liters of wine per person, double Italy's consumption, Religion News Service reports—and in terms of major countries, Italy is one of the top two wine consumers. That amount translates to about 105 bottles of wine per resident per year, the Independent notes. And no, this doesn't hinge around all that communion wine. As local media have pointed out, the number is probably so high because Vatican residents are, in general, older, male, and highly educated, and they eat communal meals. All of those factors tend to increase wine consumption. And with a population of just 800, those numbers are easily skewed by outliers. Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that just one store sells wine in the Vatican—and the wine is practically tax-free.


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Story highlights Obama's spokesman released a statement on Trump's travel ban

 "The President fundamentally disagrees" with faith-based discrimination, the statement said

 (CNN) Former President Barack Obama criticized President Donald Trump's executive order curbing immigration in a statement on Monday, backing protesters who have taken to the nation's airports to express their displeasure with Trump's action on Friday.

 "The President fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion," said Kevin Lewis, spokesman for the former president, in a statement.

 Frm Pres @BarackObama is heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country. pic.twitter.com/X5Fk3xRDEX — Kevin Lewis (@KLewis44) January 30, 2017

 Lewis added Obama feels the individuals protesting are "exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake."

 This is first time Obama, who ceded power to Trump 10 days ago, has criticized the current president, breaking with an unwritten rule that former presidents refrain from criticizing the current White House occupant.

 Read More ||||| President Donald Trump defended his sweeping immigration policy by calling it “similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months.” That’s a faulty comparison.

 There was a delay in processing Iraqi refugees in 2011 after it was discovered that two Iraqi refugees living in Kentucky had been involved in roadside bombing attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. One of the refugee’s fingerprints were found on a detonation device in Iraq, prompting U.S. immigration, security and intelligence agencies to use federal databases to rescreen about 58,000 Iraqi refugees in the U.S. and more than 25,000 Iraqis who had been approved to enter the U.S., but had not yet been admitted, Department of Homeland Security officials testified at the time.

 The Kentucky case not only caused a backlog in processing Iraqi refugees in 2011, but it also resulted in an overhaul of the refugee screening process.

 The Obama administration’s actions were limited to one country and in response to a specific threat — the potential for other Iraqi refugees to take advantage of a flaw in the screening process.

 By contrast, Trump ordered a far wider ban — albeit also temporary — without identifying a specific threat.

 President Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 27 that bars Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. indefinitely and bars all other refugees for 120 days, and keeps out visitors for 90 days from seven predominately Muslim countries: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Initially, as ABC News reported, administration officials said the ban also applied to U.S. green card holders reentering the United States from those seven countries, though they could get a waiver to reenter. But two days after Trump signed the executive order, administration officials said green card holders, who are permanent residents, would be admitted on a case-by-case basis after additional security screening.

 Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said in a statement that “lawful permanent resident status will be a dispositive factor in our case-by-case determinations.”

 The order caused confusion at the nation’s airports over the weekend as refugees, legal visa holders and visitors affected by the new policy were detained and some even sent back to their home countries. Democrats and some Republicans criticized the Republican president for overreaching his authority and jeopardizing Muslim relations in the fight against terrorism.

 A day after Trump signed the order, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union won a temporary stay in federal court to allow those already in the U.S., or en route to the U.S., to remain in the country.

 As a candidate, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” But, in response to criticism of his executive order, Trump issued a Jan. 29 statement accusing the media of “falsely reporting” that it is a “Muslim ban.” Trump said his policy is “not about religion — this is about terror and keeping our country safe.”

 Trump also drew comparisons to the Obama administration’s action on Iraqi refugees.

 Trump, Jan. 29: My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months.

 But what Obama did was not a ban, and it did not involve visas.

 Trump and the White House did not elaborate on the 2011 reference, but the conservative Breitbart website posted a story the same day with the headline, “Flashback: Obama Suspended Iraq Refugee Program for Six Months Over Terrorism Fears in 2011.” Trump’s senior counselor and chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, is the former executive chairman of Breitbart.

 Breitbart, Jan. 29: In 2013, ABC News first revealed that two years earlier, the State Department had imposed a freeze over the processing of Iraqi refugees for six months. The halt was the result of the discovery of two al-Qaida members admitted as refugees from Iraq who were living in Bowling Green, Kentucky and who had admitted to targeting U.S. troops in Iraq.

 That is an accurate summary of the ABC News article.

 Iraqi refugees Waad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi settled in Kentucky after entering the U.S. in 2009. Alwan entered the U.S. in April of that year and Hammadi in July, according to the federal indictment.

 Alwan was involved in planting and detonating IEDs against U.S. troops in Iraq from approximately 2003 to 2006, the Department of Justice said. ABC News reported that the FBI opened an investigation after receiving an intelligence tip that led them to Alwan, who then led investigators to Hammadi.

 Alwan “had claimed to be a refugee who faced persecution back home — a story that shattered when the FBI found his fingerprints on a cordless phone base that U.S. soldiers dug up in a gravel pile south of Bayji, Iraq on Sept. 1, 2005,” ABC News wrote. “The phone base had been wired to unexploded bombs buried in a nearby road.”

 The FBI set up a sting operation that led to the conviction of both Iraqi refugees on several charges, including attempting to provide support to terrorists in Iraq. The men were sentenced in January 2013.

 “As a result of the Kentucky case, the State Department stopped processing Iraq refugees for six months in 2011, federal officials told ABC News – even for many who had heroically helped U.S. forces as interpreters and intelligence assets,” ABC News reported.

 The case also “prompted the bureau to assign hundreds of specialists to an around-the-clock effort aimed at checking its archive of 100,000 improvised explosive devices collected in the war zones, known as IEDs, for other suspected terrorists’ fingerprints,” ABC News reported.

 ABC News, Nov. 20, 2013: “We are currently supporting dozens of current counter-terrorism investigations like that,” FBI Agent Gregory Carl, director of the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC), said in an ABC News interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News’ “World News with Diane Sawyer” and “Nightline”.

 At a congressional hearing on Sept. 13, 2011, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the Kentucky case resulted in an overhaul of the screening process.

 Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said more than 58,000 Iraqi refugees had been admitted to the United States (since 2007), but more than 25,000 Iraqis at the time had been approved but not yet admitted and resettled. Collins asked Napolitano “is there a hold on that population until they can be more stringently vetted to ensure that we’re not letting into this country people who would do us harm?”

 Napolitano would not use the word “hold,” but explained that tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees already in the U.S. had to be rescreened and Iraqi citizens in the future would undergo a tougher screening process.

 Napolitano, Sept. 13, 2011: Yup. Let me, if I might, answer your question in two parts. First part, with respect to the 56, 57,000 who were resettled pursuant to the original resettlement program, they have now all been revetted against all of the DHS databases, all of the NCTC [National Counter Terrorism Center] databases and the Department of Defense’s biometric databases and so that work has now been done and focused. Collins: That’s completed? Napolitano: That is completed. Moving forward, no one will be resettled without going through the same sort of vet. Now I don’t know if that equates to a hold, as you say, but I can say that having done the already resettled population moving forward, they will all be reviewed against those kinds of databases.

 On July 13, 2011, Rand Beers, under secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security, testified at a Senate hearing that it had rescreened about 58,000 Iraqi refugees already living in the United States, but the rescreening process had caused a backlog. Beers said that “it was not an easy process because it required some database adjustments and interactions that we had not even tried before.”

 At a congressional hearing on Jan. 7, 2014, a homeland security official said the screening process was strengthened as a result of the Kentucky case.

 “Following the May 2011 arrest of Mohanad Hammadi and Waad Ramadan Alwan in Kentucky, DHS and DOS have worked closely with the Intelligence and Law Enforcement communities to enhance our screening regime for refugee resettlement applicants,” Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Molly Groom said.

 “While the exact details of these new checks are classified, we are prepared to provide a classified briefing to members should there be interest in this information,” Groom said. “While no screening is infallible, we believe that current screening systems to vet refugee applicants are more likely today to detect individuals with derogatory information should they apply.”

 The new screening process for Iraqi refugees in 2011 reduced the number of Iraqi refugees admitted that year.

 In calendar year 2011, the U.S. admitted only 6,339 Iraqi refugees — down from 18,251 in 2010, according to the State Department’s refugee admissions database. The number of Iraqi refugees jumped to 16,369 in 2012 after the screening systems were changed.

 Trump’s comparison of his immigration actions to Obama’s policy in 2011 is a faulty one. The fact is that the Obama administration was responding to a known and specific threat from one country and limited its response to refugees from that country, while Trump’s order temporarily bans refugees from all countries — indefinitely in the case of those from Syria — and temporarily bars all other visitors from seven predominately Muslim countries. |||||

– It didn't take long for Barack Obama to criticize his successor: The former president issued a statement Monday disagreeing with President Trump's immigration moves and praising those who are protesting them, reports CNN. Spokesman Kevin Lewis said Obama is "heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country.” (Read the statement in full via tweet.) Before leaving office, Obama pledged to remain silent in regard to Trump's policies, except in cases where he thinks "our core values may be at stake," notes the Washington Post. In Monday's statement, Obama made clear he believes this is now the case, saying that the protests around the country are "exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake." The former president took issue with Trump asserting that Obama did something similar in 2011 on Iraqi refugees. “With regard to comparisons to President Obama’s foreign policy decisions, as we’ve heard before, the president fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion.” (A post at FactCheck.org digs into the comparison and dismisses it as "faulty.")


Since 1951, the Miss World pageant has been featuring over 120 contestants competing for one title and a crown.

 Now, for the first time in 63 years, the organization's chairwoman Julia Morley has announced that Miss World will no longer feature a swimsuit round in their competition.

 "The organization has decided to take itself out of the swimsuit world because it isn't the path they're trying to take," said Chris Wilmer, the national director of Miss World America/Miss United States organization. "It's not just a beauty contest, it's 'beauty with a purpose'. There didn't seem to be a purpose to have the swimsuit."

 In recent years, Miss World has emphasized their "beauty with a purpose" round, where contestants carry out charity work and raise awareness to worthy causes.

 "Miss World should be a spokesperson who can help a community," Wilmer told ABC News. "She's more of an ambassador, not a beauty queen. It's more about the outreach and what a woman could do with a title like Miss World."

 As they try to steer clear of focusing on the physical appeal of their contestants, Miss World plans to feature a beachwear round in competitions, as opposed to bikinis. "It'll be more of a fashion competition than a bikini show," Wilmer said.

 In addition to the swimsuit round, Miss World contestants have competed in challenge events like sports, dance, talent, top model gown, Beauty with a Purpose video, and several interviews.

 "I salute the miss world organization for their efforts to try and modernize," Wilmer said. "Pageantry is an age old industry and I think with Julia getting rid of swimsuit and making it more of a lifestyle competition sends a strong message and I applaud her for it."

 On Dec. 14, Rolene Strauss of South Africa was crowned the 64th Miss World winner in London. It marked the final event featuring contestants wearing bikinis. ||||| In 1951, 26 women dressed themselves in bikinis and floated down the River Thames on a bargeat least one was wearing a suit made entirely of spotted mink. It was a publicity stunt fabricated by an enterprising man named Eric Morley, as an attempt to raise both money and morale following the devastation of World War II. When the press heard that the most beautiful women in the world had gathered in their swimwearsomething completely unheard of at that time in Englandthey flocked to witness such an extravaganza and the Miss World competition was born.

 Last night, the 64th Miss World, Rolene Strauss of South Africa, was crowned winner. While she is undoubtedly beautiful, as are each of the 121 international representatives she competed against, the pageants purpose is vastly different than it was during its inception 63 years ago. In addition to four optional competitions in talent, fashion runway, swimwear, and athletics, Strauss was judged on an in-depth interview, a service project dedicated to keeping girls in school, and her academic record. (To wit: the 22-year-old is a fourth-year medical student.) Miss Strauss will also hold a unique place in the history of the pageant: She will be the last winner to participate in a Miss World competition that includes a swimsuit competition. In a private meeting on Friday, Julia Morley, the chairwoman of Miss World (she assumed the role following the death of her husband in 2000), announced to the international directors that the bikini portion will be eliminated entirely beginning in 2015.

 "I really dont wantI dont need to see women just walking up and down in bikinis. It doesn't do anything for the woman. And it doesnt do anything for any of us," Mrs. Morley, 74, tells me as we watch a sing-off between Miss Malaysia and Miss Scotland during a dress rehearsal at the ICC Auditorium in the heart of London's Royal Docks. "I dont care if someone has a bottom two inches bigger than someone else's. We are really not looking at her bottom. We are really listening to her speak."

 For contrast, The Miss Universe pageant, which is owned by Donald Trump and was founded the year after Miss World, places a strong emphasis on the swimsuit element of the pageant. And, unlike Miss World, it does not include an interview or a service element. According to Mrs. Morley, following the death of her husband, Mr. Trump phoned: "So little lady," he asked. "Are you ready to throw in the towel?" It was then that she decided to take out a $5 million loan to keep the company afloat. "They are not little girls," she says. "This is what I want to get away from. This sort of 'cute' image. No offense to Mr. Trump."

 There is an established belief, especially from the feminist left, that beauty pageants are a superficial and patriarchal forum. Following the first wave of the feminist revolution in 1968when Bob Hope asked a swimsuit-clad pageant contestant to turn around so he could observe her from behind400 women protested outside the Miss America pageant holding signs with messages that read, 'Cattle parades are degrading to human beings,' and 'We are not beautiful, we are not ugly, we are angry.' The sentiment existed in Britain too, and from 1988 until 2011 (23 years), pageants were not broadcast on primetime television in the UK. For the last three years, however, the spectacles have resurfaced as a cultural juggernaut: Yesterday's Miss World competition was hosted by E! and was reportedly watched by over one billion viewers worldwide. Instead of throngs of protestors, the event was attended by a well-dressed and worldly crowd proudly waving their national flags.

 "Weve evolved so much. The real problem is trying to get Britain to understand they are 20 years behind when they think, 'Oh, bikinis. Oh, Miss World.' They never want to understand us because we are a good [agenda] item for their promotion,' Mrs. Morley says of a group she calls "women's libbers."

 In 1951, the simple idea of putting a woman in a bikini on-stage shocked the world. And by the following year, two countries threatened to pull out of the pageant, citing immodesty. So the format changed: The swimsuit became a single segment of the competition, winners were crowned wearing a gown, and the interview portion of the event was introduced. In 1974, Mrs. Morley began Beauty with a Purpose, the service element of Miss World, which has helped to divert attention away from the external, physical side of the competition and raised over $1 billion for charity. In recent years, the bathing suit competition has been held prior to the finale, and judged privately by a modesty panel rather than during the live broadcast. Most women opt to wear one-piece suits or to wrap scarf around their waist. "We don't want to just make them feel like they are walking bodies, you know?" Mrs. Morley says.

 In an age where seeing women's bodies in states of undresson billboards, in commercials, in magazine adshas become common place, it's nearly more shocking not to display womens bodies on television than to reveal them. Mrs. Morley is making a pioneering move for the industry and one that may encourage others in the industryand the public at largeto consider what modern pageantry could mean when the bikini, and the body, are removed from the equation of how women are judged.

 Related: Miss USA Contestant Mekayla Diehl Likes Being Called "Average" ||||| Edward Miller/Getty Images Competitors in the first Miss World contest in 1951 floated on a barge in their bikinis on the River Thames. China Photos/Getty Images Contestants of the 55th Miss World 2005 compete for the crown during the finals at the Beauty Crown Theatre in China. Previous Next

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 It's the end of the Miss World as we know it.

 The international pageant has decided to cut the swimwear round and focus on contestants' other assets, executives announced last week.

 "I don't care if someone has a bottom two inches bigger than someone else's," Chairwoman Julia Morley told ElleDec. 12. "We are really not looking at her bottom. We are really listening to her speak."

 The organization decided to ditch the event critics called degrading to judge contestants' more on attributes such as their intellect and charity work.

 Contestants will be judged in other rounds that are already mainstays of the competition, including talent, fashion sense, sport, service work, social media and an in-depth interview.

 LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images Contestants parade during the grand final of the Miss World 2014 pageant at the Excel London ICC Auditorium in London Sunday. Getty Images/Getty Images Miss World chairwoman Julia Morley announced the competition will stop showing women in their bathing suits and will focus more on contestants’ other assets. Alastair Grant/AP Miss South Africa Rolene Strauss (C) celebrates after being crowned Miss World 2014 on Sunday. Miss Hungary Edina Kulcsar (L) came second with Miss United States, Elizabeth Safrit (R) finishing third. Leonard Burt/Getty Images The contestants in the 1967 Miss World contest wore one-pieces. Previous Next

 Enlarge

 In recent years, Miss World stopped televising the bathing suit competition, which was made optional. Judges focused on the women's swimwear fashion in private panel.

 "Miss World should be a spokesperson who can help a community," U.S. director Chris Wilmer told ABC News. "She's more of an ambassador, not a beauty queen. It's more about the outreach and what a woman could do with a title like Miss World."

 Miss World's competitor, Miss Universe, owned by Donald Trump, will continue to feature the swimwear competition.

 Miss World began as a publicity stunt featuring 26 women in their swimwear on the River Thames in 1951, Elle reported.

 More than 1 billion people tuned into the competition Sunday when Miss South Africa Rolene Strauss was crowned. She and the other 120 contestants are the last to compete in their bathing suit.

 rblidner@nydailynews.com |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Just days after South Africa's Rolene Strauss won this year's crown, Miss World organizers have announced it will no longer feature the swimsuit portion of the contest, reports the New York Daily News. Next year's competition will be the first year in the event's 63-year history in which the contestants put on a "beachwear" fashion show instead of parading down the catwalk in bikinis, ABC News reports. It's not exactly clear what "beachwear" means, though a rep for the event frames it as "more of a fashion competition than a bikini show." The Daily News notes that Miss World had already stopped airing the bathing suit portion of the competition, and had made it optional. Donald Trump, who owns the Miss Universe pageant, puts what Elle calls a "strong emphasis" on swimsuits and doesn't include interviews or service elements during his contest, as Miss World does. After Miss World Chairwoman Julia Morley's husband (the founder of Miss World) died in 2000, Trump called Morley and reportedly asked, "So little lady, are you ready to throw in the towel?" His remarks spurred Morley to get a $5 million loan and keep her contest going. As for the latest change, "I don't need to see women just walking up and down in bikinis," Morley tells Elle. "It doesn't do anything for the woman. And it doesn't do anything for any of us." (Miss World got rid of bikinis in 2013 out of respect to host country Indonesia.)


During their season-opener against Fresno State, Nebraska honored its late punter, Sam Foltz, who was killed in a car crash in July.

 On a 4th-and-4 early in the game, the team came out with 10 men, in punt formation, without a punter. Players on both sides, as well as fans, clapped and cheered to remember the legacy of Foltz and former Michigan State punter Mike Sadler, who was also killed in the crash.

 After about a minute, they punted the ball away.

 Foltz was the Big Ten Punter of the Year last season and led the conference with 44.2 yards per punt. He was on the Ray Guy watch list for best punter in the nation this season. ||||| Nebraska honored punter Sam Foltz by sending out a punterless punt team after going three-and-out in its first drive tonight against Fresno State—taking a delay of game penalty while the ten remaining players stood in memory of their teammate.

 Foltz and former Michigan State punter Mike Sadler died five weeks ago in a Wisconsin car accident.

 [BTN] |||||

Write a summary.

– The Nebraska Cornhuskers lost punter Sam Foltz in a car accident in July, and the football team paid him tribute in its first game of the season on Saturday: After their first drive ended with a fourth and four, the team lined up solemnly in punt formation with just 10 men and stood without a punter for a minute as the crowd cheered, reports Sports Illustrated. The Cornhuskers took a delay of game penalty for their tribute, notes Deadspin. Foltz was the Big Ten Punter of the Year last season.


Article:

Investigators seized 9 different firearms, thousands of rounds of ammunition and other items. (Source: Coffee County Sheriff)

 Officials said suspects planned to penetrate a research facility in Alaska that has been the subject of several conspiracy theories. (Source: WALB)

 Two south Georgia men are accused of plotting domestic terrorism based on bizarre conspiracy theories.

 Coffee County Sheriff's investigators arrested Michael Mancil, 30, and James Dryden Jr., 22, on Thursday.

 Officials said the suspects planned to penetrate a research facility in Alaska that has been the subject of several conspiracy theories.

 Investigators said the massive amount of arsenal seized looked like something out of a movie, one where a small army was headed to war.

 But Coffee County investigators said the two Douglas men collected dozens of weapons as part of a plan to attack the High Frequency Active Aural Research Facility or HAARP.

 The former U.S. Air Force lab is now owned by the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

 "We were really, really concerned about all the arsenal that they were piling up," said Coffee County Sheriff Doyle Wooten.

 Four AR-15 rifles, four Glock hand guns, a Remington rifle and two to three thousand rounds of ammunition were found on the 200 block of Jim Road in Coffee County.

 Investigators also seized radios, two flak jackets, $5,500 and a small amount of marijuana.

 Investigators discovered the plot after starting to investigate Mancil for possible drug sales.

 A local gun shop also alerted investigators to the fact that Mancil was trying to buy a large amount of weapons.

 "He's never known to be violent. This past four to six weeks he just snapped and just changed. His whole personality changed," said Wooten.

 Wooten said Mancil plotted with Dryden to destroy HAARP because they believe conspiracy theories claiming the facility manipulates the weather, controls minds and even traps the souls of people.

 Officials at HAARP told us they actually study the Earth's atmosphere.

 They said they've had threats before but nothing of this magnitude.

 "Also are really grateful to the law enforcement agencies there in Georgia for following up on this tip and their work in making these arrests," said University of Alaska Fairbanks spokesperson Marmian Grimes.

 HAARP officials have security in place to prevent such attacks.

 Mancil and Dryden are charged with selling Methamphetamine, possession of marijuana, possession of a weapon during the commission of a crime.

 Mancil is also charged with use of a telecommunication device in committing or facilitating a felony.

 More charges are pending.

 Copyright 2016 WALB. All rights reserved. ||||| Just One More Thing...

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 Close ||||| Two men arrested last week in southern Georgia were planning to attack an aurora research facility owned by the University of Alaska Fairbanks around which conspiracy theories of mind control have long swirled, investigators said.

 Television station WALB in Georgia first reported Monday that investigators with the Coffee County Sheriff's Office arrested Michael Mancil, 30, and James Dryden Jr., 22, on Thursday and said "the massive amount of arsenal seized looked like something out of a movie, one where a small army was headed to war."

 Michael Vickers, a detective with the sheriff's office, told Alaska Dispatch News that both men confessed "that God told them to go and blow this machine up that kept souls, so souls could be released."

 "All I can tell you is they were planning on blowing up the machine," Vickers said. "Going to try to find a scientist, to steal his car and ID badge to gain access. Any scientist."

 Vickers could not say what else the men might be charged with.

 "It is being investigated and there … could be more charges pending, but as of right now, there's nothing I can tell you," he said.

 Once a U.S. Air Force facility, High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program ownership last year was transferred to UAF. For many years, conspiracy theories about HAARP's capabilities for mind and weather control have persisted, to the point where the center hosted an open house in August in an effort to dispel such theories.

 The program studies the properties and behavior of the Earth's ionosphere, a part of the atmosphere that can affect communication and navigation systems.

 Marmian Grimes, a spokeswoman at UAF, said that while HAARP has been the target of threats before, "in the recent past there hasn't been anything quite this extreme planned." She didn't have specific details about other threats.

 "We're just very glad and thankful to the law enforcement agency in Georgia for following up on that and being able to apprehend those individuals," she said. "There's lots and lots of conspiracy theories and … it's important to remember that actually this is a scientific research facility."

 Among the weapons seized were AR-15 rifles, Glock handguns, a Remington rifle and thousands of rounds of ammunition, WALB reported. Authorities discovered the plot to attack HAARP after initially investigating Mancil "for possible drug sales." |||||
What is a summary?

– Some men want to save our souls through religion. Two Georgia men arrested last week allegedly wanted to save them by shooting up an Alaska research facility that has been at the center of multiple conspiracy theories. Det. Michael Vickers tells the Alaska Dispatch News the men—30-year-old Michael Mancil and 22-year-old James Dryden Jr.—claim "that God told them to go and blow this machine up that kept souls, so souls could be released." Some conspiracy theorists believe the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP, can control people's minds and the weather. Vickers tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Mancil believes it keeps people's souls from getting to heaven. Last week's arrest of Mancil and Dryden started with an investigation into Mancil for allegedly dealing drugs, WALB reports. Georgia authorities believe the men were bound for Alaska when they were arrested last Thursday in South Georgia. Sheriff Doyle Wooten says the men had an "arsenal": four AR-15 rifles, four handguns, another rifle, thousands of rounds of ammo, and two flak jackets. Vickers tells the Dispatch News the men planned "to try to find a scientist, to steal his car and ID badge to gain access." A spokesperson for the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which took over HAARP from the government in 2014, says they've had threats before but nothing "quite this extreme." HAARP researches Earth's ionosphere, which has an impact on communication and navigation systems.