Write an article based on this summary:

– Marco Rubio may have been one of the driving forces behind the Gang of Eight's immigration reform bill, but that doesn't mean he's planning to vote for it. He told radio host Hugh Hewitt yesterday that the parts of the bill related to border security need to be strengthened before the bill heads to final Senate consideration, because he doesn't want the bill to "give overwhelming discretion to the Department of Homeland Security." And if those amendments aren't made, "then I think we’ve got a bill that isn’t going to become law, and I think we’re wasting our time," and he wouldn't support it, Rubio said. The Washington Examiner says such a move would be "an extraordinary turn of events," since Rubio has been the public face of the legislation. Byron York doesn't understand Rubio's change of heart, since the Senate Judiciary Committee actually did strengthen and expand the security measures when it approved the bill. But Rubio could simply be concerned the bill won't pass: He also told Hewitt there aren't 60 votes in the Senate for the bill, and there won't be unless the bill is strengthened, because "the majority of our colleagues are prepared to do immigration reform, [but] they’re only prepared to do it if we ensure that this illegal immigration problem never happens again."

Sen. Marco Rubio, the leading Republican behind the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill, says he will not vote for the legislation he helped write and has staked his political future on, unless substantial changes are made before final Senate consideration.

 Speaking with radio host Hugh Hewitt Tuesday, Rubio said the Senate should “strengthen the border security parts of this bill so that they’re stronger, so that they don’t give overwhelming discretion to the Department of Homeland Security.” He said he was working with other senators on amendments to do just that.

 Then Hewitt asked: “If those amendments don’t pass, will you yourself support the bill that emerged from Judiciary, Senator Rubio?”

 Rubio answered, “Well, I think if those amendments don’t pass, then I think we’ve got a bill that isn’t going to become law, and I think we’re wasting our time. So the answer is no.”

 More from the Washington Examiner Benghazi bust Incremental advances — nuggets of information — don't make for dramatic hearings.

 Rubio’s turning on his own bill would be an extraordinary turn of events. After playing a major role in drafting the legislation, Rubio has been its public face since then, making countless appearances on television, radio, and in print to gather support for the legislation. What has changed that would mean he would not vote for his own bill? If anything, the security measures in the bill were slightly strengthened in the Senate Judiciary Committee; the bill’s original intention to apply new security provisions only to “high-risk” sectors of the U.S.-Mexico border was expanded to apply to all sectors.

 So it would be hard to argue that the Judiciary Committee changed the bill in ways that would make it unacceptable to Rubio. But now he says he will vote against the bill approved by the committee, unless major changes are made. It is hard to tell if Rubio really disagrees with the substance of the legislation approved by the committee — he suggested to Hewitt that he would vote against the bill because it wouldn’t pass without the changes, not because he objected to particular passages in the bill — but the result would be that the principal author of comprehensive immigration reform would vote against it in the Senate ||||| HH: I begin with United States Senator Marco Rubio from the great state of Florida. Senator, welcome back, it’s good to speak with you.

 MR: Hugh, thanks for having me back.

 HH: Earlier today on Fox, you told the audience that there aren’t 60 votes in the Senate for immigration reform. That’s big news. The second news, though, is are you going to offer amendments that you think will gather in enough votes?

 MR: Well, let me first say that the news of what I said today on Fox about there not being the 60 votes, actually, Senator Menendez of New Jersey, a Democrat, said the same thing last week. And that’s a fact. And the reason why is because while there’s a group, well, the majority of our colleagues are prepared to do immigration reform, they’re only prepared to do it if we ensure that this illegal immigration problem never happens again. And so there’s a handful of Democrats, and a sizeable number of Republicans that are saying to us we’re prepared to do immigration reform, but we have to make sure there isn’t another wave of illegal immigration. So for those who want immigration reform, the task is very simple. Let’s strengthen the border security parts of this bill so that they’re stronger, so that they don’t give overwhelming discretion to the Department of Homeland Security, and I think if we can do that, then you’re going to be able to get something done. But if you can’t, it’s not going to happen.

 HH: And will you be the author of those amendments?

 MR: We’re working on it right now. A lot of other…I’ll be involved in it for sure. I think there are other senators that have taken the lead, and I’ll let them kind of come out in the next couple of days with their specific ideas. But we’ve been involved on a daily basis working with them to get to the right point in terms of real measures. And what we’ve heard is people don’t want to just turn it over to the Department of Homeland Security to come up with a plan. They want the plan to be laid out specifically with real measurable, and I think that that’s a good approach. And so we’re working with members now to do that. And we expect to hear from them here in the next couple of days.

 HH: If those amendments don’t pass, will you yourself support the bill that emerged from Judiciary, Senator Rubio?

 MR: Well, I think if those amendments don’t pass, then I think we’ve got a bill that isn’t going to become law, and I think we’re wasting our time. So the answer is no. If they don’t pass, then we’ve got to keep working to ensure that we get to a bill that can become a law. We’re not interested in passing a Senate bill. We’re interested in passing a law that reforms a broken legal immigration system, that begins to enforce the law, and that deals with the 11 million people who are here illegally. And that’s the goal of this endeavor. And so if those amendments fail, we’ve got to go back to the drawing board and keep working until we can figure out one that will pass. But I don’t understand why anyone would be against it, as such, I don’t think there is a good reason to be against strengthening border security for our country.

 HH: Now Senator, the timing of this matter is a lot…Senator Schumer said that he wants to be done by July 4 in the Senate. Is that a reasonable timetable? Do you expect that to hold?

 MR: Well, that’s three full weeks, and that may be enough, it may not be. We don’t know. I think what I’m hoping, and I’m expecting, and it’s always been a condition of our support, has been an open process and extensive process where all viewpoints are heard, where serious amendments can be offered and debated and discussed. And that’s what we were pleased to see during the Judiciary Committee process, and that’s what we expect to see on the floor. So we might be able to do it in three weeks, it might take a little longer. I don’t think that we should set an arbitrary date in terms of when we want to see it done. I mean, I don’t think we need to unnecessarily delay it, but I think really, what we should be working on is getting it right, not getting it fast.

 HH: Now that means the next three weeks are incredibly important. There’s a vacancy. You lost a colleague yesterday, Senator Frank Lautenberg, and I know that every member of the Senate always pauses to say appreciations about him. But Governor Christie has an appointment to make. When it comes to this immigration bill, it might be the most important three weeks of this interim senator’s service in public life. What do you hope Governor Christie looks for, because he’s now in the middle of the immigration debate? He’s going to impact it. What do you want in a new colleague when it comes to this debate?

 MR: Well again, I just want someone who, I mean obviously, I’d prefer it be a real conservative who can help us not just on this issue, but a bunch of other issues that we’re facing. And obviously, it’s his decision to make, and we’ll see what he does with an interim appointment. I understand he’s called for an election in October, and I know that New Jersey laws are complicated, but in the interim, I hope we’ll get a strong conservative there that will help us here in Washington on a myriad of other issues that we’re facing. As far as the immigration bill is concerned, you’re right. I mean, this is very simple. It’s pretty straightforward. If we can pass an amendment, if we can pass a measure that ensures that we will never again have a wave of illegal immigration, I believe that we will have immigration reform. And if we do not pass that, if that does not happen, I believe there will not be immigration reform. It’s as straightforward as that.

 HH: Now Senator Rubio, I’m in Arizona today, and I’m going to talk to Governor Brewer, in fact, next hour, and in Arizona last week, there was a big story on the border fence, and it works. It works effectively, extraordinarily well. In fact, some people still try and climb over it, and they fall and they get terribly hurt. But most people turn back. And so the fence really works. Will the amendments that you think are coming include mandatory construction of fencing? Will they have the money and the authorization? And how much of it will there be?

 MR: Well, as far as how much is we’re getting input from border patrol agents and others who are actually on the ground on a daily basis as to how much and where they should be. But I’ve always believed that fencing is an important component of the plan, and I think that, but what we’re trying to get to, ideally, is an amendment that dictates the number of fences, and also where they’re located, in what sectors and so forth. And that’s what we’re working towards. Now you don’t need fences on every part of the border. There are parts of the border where you’re better off with manpower or something else. But we’re going to take our cues from the people that are on the front lines. We’ve been discussing this extensively with border patrol agents and their union about exactly what we need to be doing, and we continue to work with them. And then hopefully, we’ll have an amendment soon that we can begin to discuss.

 HH: Now Senator, I think if it’s a good enough deal, it’s an offer that conservatives cannot refuse. And so if border security is really in this bill, and it’s not discretionary, and we don’t leave it up to Homeland Security, and it says it goes here, here and here, and it gets this high, and here’s the money, and notwithstanding any other bill, all that good stuff, do you expect to win over conservative opponents of the bill based upon strengthened border security provisions?

 MR: Well look, I think there are some people that want, that are just opposed to anything that allows someone who has violated our immigration laws to ever become a U.S. citizen, no matter how many conditions you place on it. And I respect that view. I don’t think it’s good for our country to have millions of people here that can never become Americans, but we can have a respectful debate and a disagreement about that. I think there are other members that won’t support it because they want to see the legalization first, I’m sorry, they want to see the enforcement first and then the legalization afterwards. And that was initially how I thought about the issue as well. The problem with that is what do we do in the meantime? So if it takes three years to build all these fences, what do we do with the people that are illegally here for the next three years? Do we get engaged in a game of cat and mouse, where if you catch them, they’re deported, but if you don’t catch them, they get to stay? I think we’re better off as a country figuring out who they are, running them through a background check and making them pay a fine, start making them pay taxes, and getting them incorporated into our economy. And then there are those, the vast majority of whom are prepared to support immigration reform the way we’ve laid it out, but only if we can pass an amendment that ensures that we will never have another wave of illegal immigration again. And that’s where I’m really going to focus my energies, is on trying to get language into this bill that gets us that support.

 HH: Now Senator Rubio, if the bill is specific about the fence, and it has a timetable for getting it built, what will be the penalty, as you understand, it’s obviously in draft and it’s still being worked on, and it has to get through the Senate. If it passes, what will be the consequence if that fencing that’s called for doesn’t get built?

 MR: Well, the consequence would be that the green card process doesn’t begin. That’s what they call the trigger. And that’s already in the bill now. In essence, it says that if the e-verify is not in place, if the entry/exit system is not in place, then the green card process does not begin. This would go, obviously, and it also says that if these plans are not fully implemented, the plans that the current bill asks the Department of Homeland Security to create, if those plans are not in place, the trigger is not met. Obviously now, if you actually lay out what the plan is, well, then those specific things would have to happen as well. So but the answer to your question is the green card process does not exist. Those folks who are here on a temporary status would have to remain in that temporary status until those things are accomplished.

 HH: And so if these additional amendments get passed, they will provide that that path to citizenship, which is, well, 15 or 20 years now, is not going to get, the clock is not going to start on that unless and until these things get done. Am I understanding it correctly?

 MR: And that’s actually how the bill’s largely structured now. The only difference is that right now, what it requires is for the plan that the Department of Homeland Security comes up with, for that plan to be fully implemented, or substantially implemented. What we’re going to be doing now is instead of saying the Department of Homeland Security’s plan, it would have to be the plan that Congress mandates in the bill would have to be substantially completed. So we’d actually know what the plan is on the front end, but wouldn’t have to wait for them to produce one and hope that it’s a good one.

 HH: Let me put up a flare. The word substantially, to my lawyer’s ears, is a terrible word, because substantially is in the eye of the beholder, and I just don’t trust them. And you know, you’ve run into this. I believe they’d certify substantially completed if you mandated a thousand miles of fence and they built then. They’d say oh, we’re substantially completed. How will people be able to challenge the administration’s interpretation of the law if in fact they are interpreting it as though, as the way that they’ve interpreted so many other laws like the Defense Of Marriage Act, like the immigration laws themselves?

 MR: Well, part of that is I think it’s important that the plan is effective, not just that the inputs are there, but that it actually is working. And so that’s why your people are discussing things like 90% apprehension rate, et cetera. The thing about substantially completed is imagine if you built, if you mandates a hundred miles of fence, but the last half mile, you can’t build it for whatever reason, you know, the hurricane hits, or there’s some sort of natural disaster, or you can’t get an easement from the property owner, because you’re involved in an eminent domain taking or what have you, I mean, all sorts of things could happen that impedes that. So you want to see the plan substantially completed. But you also want to see the plan be effective. So that’s why you have these things about the 90% measures, and where that fits in, that’s going to be part of this discussion as well as how that fits into the trigger.

 HH: But of course, condemnation is not an issue, right? You can authorize the taking of the property, and notwithstanding the Endangered Species Law or any other law, you can authorize that. Will the bill, I mean, are you going to fly speck this, Senator, make sure it really does provide border security?

 MR: I think like I said, it all depends on whether we’re going to be able to prevent another wave of illegal immigration or not. And people are only going to vote for this, you’re only going to get the votes you need to pass this, not to mention the broad bipartisan support to pass this, if your people feel comfortable that what we are voting on is real. So that’s what I’m working on, is to get to a point where people feel confident about it.

 HH: Senator Marco Rubio, always a pleasure, thank you, Senator.

 End of interview. |||||


On Jan. 18, NASA announced that astronaut Jeanette Epps would not fly, as expected, to the International Space Station in June. The mission would have been historic, since she would have become the first African-American crewmember on the orbiting outpost.

 The space agency hasn't released any information about why Epps was benched from her planned mission, saying only that "these decisions are personnel matters for which NASA doesn’t provide information," according to NASA spokesperson Brandi Dean. Epps will now work in the Astronaut Office at Johnson Space Center and await another possible flight assignment.

 Epps' removal from her planned flight isn't without historic precedent.

 NASA has benched astronauts before flights many times in its decades as a federal agency, and for many different reasons.

 "Flight assignments have been changed often in the past at various stages of training for a variety of reasons," Dean said via email.

 Specifically, quite a few astronauts have been removed from their missions for health reasons.

 NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps. Image: NASA

 NASA's Ken Mattingly was pulled from the Apollo 13 crew just a few days before their scheduled launch because he was exposed to German measles.

 From the ground, Mattingly was part of the team that helped bring back the Apollo 13 crew to Earth after an oxygen tank exploded, putting the lives of the crew in serious danger and forcing them to abandon their planned moon landing.

 Mattingly still earned a place in cinematic history, since he was portrayed by actor Gary Sinise in the movie Apollo 13.

 "Long before Jeanette Epps was pulled from her upcoming space station expedition, astronauts such as Ken Mattingly in 1970 and Don Thomas in 2002 were reassigned due to medical issues, while Mark Lee was pulled from a 2001 space station assembly shuttle mission for reasons NASA never disclosed," space historian and editor of collectSPACE.com Robert Pearlman said in an interview.

 "To their crewmates' credit, despite the interruptions, the missions went on as planned (or in the case of Apollo 13, went awry but at no fault of Mattingly's replacement, Jack Swigert)."

 NASA also replaced Jeff Ashby in 1997 due to an illness in his family, and other astronauts have been removed due to other medical or personal issues.

 "NASA invests a lot of time, effort and money in training their astronaut crews, and stresses teamwork throughout, so the decision to remove an astronaut from a flight is never taken lightly," Pearlman said.

 Epps's 2018 mission was announced in 2017 and it immediately went viral.

 News organizations profiled Epps and wrote about her expected upcoming flight, making the news of her reassignment all the more surprising.

 She has not yet flown to space.

 Epps was chosen as part of NASA's 2009 astronaut class as one of 14 candidates.

 Her path to NASA is different from many other astronauts, however.

 Epps started off as a NASA fellow and then worked at Ford Motor Company before spending seven years at the Central Intelligence Agency.

 Epps was inspired to become an astronaut after watching the first class of women become NASA astronauts decades ago.

 "It was about 1980, I was nine years old. My brother came home and he looked at my grades and my twin sisters' grades and he said, 'You know, you guys can probably become aerospace engineers or even astronauts,'" Epps said in a NASA video.

 "And this was at the time that Sally Ride [the first American woman to fly in space] and a group of women were selected to become astronauts — the first time in history. So, he made that comment and I said, 'Wow, that would be so cool.'" ||||| The brother of a Syracuse-born astronaut said "oppressive racism and misogyny in NASA" is behind the administration's choice not to send Dr. Jeanette Epps to the International Space Station.

 Henry Epps shared a MoveOn.org petition on his Facebook page and called for NASA to reinstate Epps to the mission, where she would be the first African-American to become a crew member on the ISS.

 The petition, started yesterday, has about 120 signatures. Epps did not start the petition, but he and several other family members signed it.

 "My sister Dr. Jeannette Epps has been fighting against oppressive racism and misogynist in NASA and now they are holding her back and allowing a Caucasian Astronaut to take her place!" Henry Epps wrote on Facebook on Saturday night.

 Epps, of Tennessee, and other family members in Delaware and Maryland could not be reached Sunday morning. Epps, like his sister, attended Corcoran High School, according to his Facebook page.

 "We have lost all of the gains we gained over the past 40 years in one year? No more!" he said. "We cannot continue to tolerate what is going on in America but we must stand together and stand behind our people and ou(r) nation! Take a stand and sign the petition! Thank you!"

 It was not clear from Epps' post whether he had spoken to his sister about why she was removed from the mission.

 NASA officials have declined to describe why she was passed over, saying it is a "personnel matter."

 Epps, a Le Moyne College graduate, was part of NASA 20th astronaut class, announced in 2009. She was one of nine selected out of 3,500 applicants. Epps had been assigned to serve as flight engineer for Expedition 56 and remained on board for Expedition 57, according to NASA.

 The crew is set to go to the ISS in June and spend at least six months in space.

 On Thursday, the administration announced that Serena Aunon-Chancellor, who previously was assigned to Expedition 58/59, was reassigned to the ISS mission. She's a surgeon who spent nine months in Russia supporting medical operations for ISS crew members, according to her biography.

 Epps was born in Syracuse and attended Clary Middle School after Danforth. She graduated from Corcoran in 1988 and went on to 11 1/2 more years of schooling, beginning at Le Moyne College. She graduated with a degree in physics in 1992. She eventually earned her doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland. ||||| NASA’s Jeanette Epps was on track to become the first African-American International Space Station (ISS) crew member. However, on Thursday the space agency announced it was rearranging their scheduled line-ups and Epps would be replaced by Serena Auñón-Chancellor for the June mission.

 It’s unclear exactly why she was bumped from the mission. These types of decisions are “personnel matters for which NASA doesn’t provide information,” spokesperson Stephanie Schierholz, said in an email, Newsweek previously reported.

 But, Epps’ brother believes he has the answer to why she was released.

 “My sister Dr. Jeannette Epps has been fighting against oppressive racism and misogynist in NASA and now they are holding her back and allowing a Caucasian Astronaut to take her place!” Henry Epps wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday evening.

 His post was accompanied by a link to a MoveOn.org petition which calls on NASA to reassign Epps to the mission. As of Sunday evening, the post had racked up more than 350 signatures. Epps’ brother didn’t start the online petition, but he and other family members signed it, NYup.com reports.

 “My sister deserve a chance just life [sic] her white peers! This administration policies and culture is reprehensible against their stance against women and minorities in this nation. We have lost all of the gains we gained over the past 40 years in one year?No more!” he wrote on Facebook. “We cannot continue to tolerate what is going on in America but we must stand together and stand behind our people and out [sic] nation!”

 A number of people who signed the petition wrote comments asking for NASA to offer a credible reason for why she was released. It’s important to note it’s not unusual for them to offer no explanation to the public when crews are reassigned. If there’s a medical reason, they’ll sometimes offer some information, but even in those cases, it’s very limited, according to Ars Technica.

 Epps will now remain on the ground in Houston and work at the agency’s Johnson Space Center. She’ll also be considered for future space missions, NASA announced in a statement. |||||

Write a summary.

– Jeanette Epps was to make history when she set foot on the International Space Station in June, as the first African-American astronaut to do so. Emphasis on "was." NASA on Thursday announced a shake-up to its crew assignments, stating Serena Auñón-Chancellor would be bumped from her scheduled Expedition 58/59 to Expedition 56/57, where she would take Epps' place. Instead of Epps flipping to the later mission, she'll "return to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to assume duties in the Astronaut Office and be considered for assignment to future missions," and Anne McClain will join the Expedition 58/59 crew. Newsweek reports that NASA doesn't elaborate on "personnel matters," but notes someone is floating a theory. "My sister Dr. Jeannette Epps has been fighting against oppressive racism and misogynist in NASA and now they are holding her back and allowing a Caucasian Astronaut to take her place!" brother Henry Epps posted on Facebook on Saturday. Mashable notes it's hardly unprecedented for an astronaut to be pulled from a mission, and outlines the reasons that have surfaced in past instances, including medical issues. A former NASA administrator tells Syracuse.com that the likelihood is high Epps will make it to space. "When [crew changes] do happen, the reassigned astronauts almost always fly on a later mission. The exceptions are very few and far between." Sean O'Keefe further speculates that Auñón-Chancellor's medical background might be better suited to the mission's human research experiments than Epps, who is an engineer. (An astronaut who made history died last month.)


– Sorry, Philly—Indianapolis gets to be the City of Brotherly Love this week. That's thanks to Timothy Batz, 21, and his 24-year-old sibling, Noah Batz, both accused of involvement in a chaotic story featuring drugs, nudity, assault, and an intense makeout session in front of a dumpster, WISH and the Indianapolis Star report. Court documents say police who showed up Sunday at the Lighthouse Landings apartment complex found the brothers wandering around naked, and Noah Batz admitted to cops they'd both partaken of some psychedelic mushrooms, with his brother adding pot-smoking to the mix. The mind-altering drugs may explain what allegedly happened before cops arrived. One witness says it began when she emerged from her apartment to see the brothers yelling and lying "completely naked" on top of each other on the sidewalk, the court report notes. The woman says Noah Batz then chased her and clocked her in the forehead. Also per court docs, a second witness, the apartment complex manager, says she spotted the brothers "passionately … making out" in front of a dumpster and that Noah Batz also went after her (she says she locked herself in her car while he screamed he was going to kill her). The brothers, who reportedly jumped and banged on other cars, also allegedly gave cops a hard time during their arrest, with Noah Batz ending up stun-gunned. "It was something beyond just being drunk or high," one of the witnesses tells WXIN. "Not a good batch of whatever he got." The Batzes pleaded not guilty Wednesday to 17 charges combined, including disorderly conduct, obscene performance, and incest. Per court records, they're due back in court in May. (This couple made a dumpster "love nest.")

Expand this summary.

Timothy Batz, left, and Noah Batz, right (Photo: Provided by IMPD)

 One of the brothers found naked in a south-side apartment complex Sunday told police he had smoked mushrooms, but remembered fighting his brother and other people in the apartment complex before charging at an officer.

 Noah Batz, 24, and Timothy Batz, 21, were arrested after police found them walking around naked in the parking lot of Lighthouse Landings apartments in the 6600 block of Heron Neck Drive, where they allegedly fought each other and broke into two vehicles, according to court documents detailing the incident.

 Both have been charged with resisting law enforcement, activity related to obscene performance, public nudity, two counts of criminal mischief and two counts of unauthorized entry of a motor vehicle.

 Additionally, Noah Batz faces one count of battery resulting in bodily injury, and Timothy Batz faces one count of possession of marijuana.

 Noah Batz, who allegedly assaulted one woman and threatened another during the incident, told officers they had smoked mushrooms and that Timothy Batz had also smoked marijuana, according to court documents.

 A witness told police she walked out of her apartment and heard screaming before noticing the pair "completely naked" and on top of each other on the sidewalk, according to court documents.

 When they noticed her, she told officers they began yelling and Noah Batz chased her to her car, where he cursed at her and punched her in the forehead, according to court documents.

 Another woman, identified as an assistant manager at the apartment complex, told police she saw the brothers grab each other's heads and "passionately begin making out with one another," according to court documents. Moments later, Noah Batz ran toward her, screaming he was going to kill her, she told police.

 She got in her car to get away from him, she told police, but he pushed in her side mirror before jumping on top of the complex's maintenance van and began beating on her car.

 A bystander eventually helped one of the officers detain Timothy Batz, who the officer said tried to pull at her legs and attempted to pull off his handcuffs while they were being applied, according to court documents. Noah Batz was immobilized with a stun gun after he approached another officer with his fist balled, shouting.

 After the arrests, officers went to secure Timothy Batz's apartment and found the door open, with clothing, broken glass, broken dishes and blood on several of the walls, according to court documents. They also found a green, leafy substance that appeared to be marijuana in the bedroom.

 Both are expected to appear for a pretrial conference May 8, according to online court records.

 Call IndyStar reporter Holly Hays at (317) 444-6156. Follow her on Twitter: @hollyvhays.

 Read or Share this story: http://indy.st/2m7PUwX ||||| UPDATE (Jan. 26, 2018)– All charges against Noah and Timothy Batz were dismissed. No further information has been made available.

 Original story:

 INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – Two brothers took magic mushrooms, got naked and then caused havoc around an Indianapolis apartment complex, according to court documents.

 Noah Batz, 24, and Timothy Batz, 21, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a combined 17 charges including public nudity, battery and resisting arrest. This all stems from events at the Lighthouse Landings Apartments on Indy’s south side Sunday.

 “We knew it was something beyond just being drunk or high…it was something heavy duty. Not a good batch of whatever he got,” said witness Aimee Payton, who also recorded parts of the ordeal.

 According to court documents, one neighbor came outside her apartment to find the men naked and on top of each other. She told police they yelled, “Look at us, look at us.”

 As she walked to her car, Payton says Noah Batz ran after her and punched her in the face.

 “He was extremely aggressive and then to hear later he punched somebody, it wasn’t surprising with how agitated he was and he continued to get more and more agitated,” Payton said.

 The brothers are also accused of threatening to kill the apartment complex’s assistant manager. She told police she went to tell other residents to stay away from the two men and when she did, one brother began banging on her car screaming, “I’ll kill you.”

 She also told police she saw the brothers, “grab onto each other’s head and passionately begin making out with one another in front of the dumpster,” according to court documents.

 Several other neighbors told police the men had damaged their cars. They are accused of breaking into several open vehicles, getting inside and damaging items and getting blood on the seats.

 “It’s frustrating. It’s not the type of neighborhood we live in,” Payton said. “A lot of us are working professionals and so we all work hard for our stuff and to someone tripping out and going around doing dirty stuff is kind of frustrating.”

 The Batz brothers are due back in court in May. ||||| INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Two men are in custody after they went on a nude rampage Sunday afternoon in front of an apartment complex.

 Police say they arrive to find 21-year old Timothy Batz and his brother 24-year old Noah Batz walking the area nude.

 An investigation found that Timothy and Noah had punched a woman in the forehead earlier after she refused to entertain the brothers’ naked antics. The punch left the woman with a large knot on her forehead.

 The assistant manager of the apartment complex stated that she saw the brothers “passionately making out” in front of a dumpster as residents were being advised to stay away from the two. One of the brothers then ran at her and threatened to kill her while banging on her vehicle’s windows.

 The two continued their charade by getting in and out of nearby vehicles without permission from the owners.

 A witness stated that he also observed the brothers yelling and screaming threats as they jumped and banged on several vehicles in in the apartment complex.

 Once taken into custody, the brothers told authorities that they had been under the influence of marijuana and mushrooms.

 Noah Batz was originally arrested for battery resulting in injury, disorderly conduct, resisting law enforcement, intimidation, public indecency, criminal mischief, obscene performance, incest, attempted auto theft and unlawful entry of a motor vehicle.

 Timothy Batz was originally arrested for public intoxication, incest, intimidation, obscene performance, disorderly conduct, public indecency, possession of marijuana, resisting law enforcement, attempting auto theft, unlawful entry of a motor vehicle and criminal mischief.

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The Oklahoma department of corrections is in dispute with the city of McAlester over who owns the state’s unwired electric chair, which may be put back into service if challenges to Oklahoma’s lethal injection procedure are upheld.

 Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie said the electric chair is in storage.

 “We haven’t had much discussion about it, because it’s not been real pressing at the moment,” Massie said. “We haven’t had that discussion yet, seriously.”

 Asked if the chair would be rewired and used again, Massie said: “It is possible.”

 But he added: “There is not much possibility of that, unless lethal injection is declared unconstitutional."

 State law allows for the electric chair or a firing squad to be used only if lethal injection is found to be unconstitutional. Oklahoma’s execution procedures are under review after the April 29 botched lethal injection of Clayton Lockett, who writhed, groaned and tried to speak. He suffered what corrections director Robert Patton said appeared to be a massive heart attack and died 43 minutes after the execution began. There have been no executions in the US since Lockett's.

 Attorneys for Charles Warner, who was to die the same night as Lockett in a rare double execution, are watching the review closely. He was granted a stay of execution after Lockett's death and is now scheduled to die on November 13.

 The dispute over the chair predates the current execution crisis. Massie told the McAlester News-Capital on Friday that he stands by the department’s claim to the chair.

 McAlester mayor Steve Harrison told the Guardian that the electric chair should be on display for the public to see.

 “I would like to get it displayed somewhere since it is a historical artefact,” Harrison said. “I don’t think it does anybody any good for it to sit in storage somewhere.”

 He said the chair, nicknamed Old Sparky, had been in a museum McAlester – a town of about 18,000 that is home to the state’s death chamber – until the corrections department took it back.

 “The transfer happened a number of years ago, and I’m not sure anybody has the complete story on who legally owns it,” Harrison said. “I’m not sure where it is.”

 Harrison said he expects if Oklahoma planned to electrocute an inmate, the state would get a new electric chair.

 “That chair has not been used since 1966,” Harrison said. “My assumption would be if it ever got to the point the electric chair was needed again they would start with a new one. Can’t imagine they would use one that hasn’t been used in 50 years.”

 The chair, first used in 1915, was used to execute 82 inmates before it was retired. The last inmate to sit in it was James French, who was killed on 10 August, 1966, for the murder of his cellmate.

 Bill Ervin, of McAlester, whose law firm represents the city, said the chair is “not much to look at.”

 “It’s an antique,” Ervin said. “If that’s the one they’re talking about, I don’t know why they would use that one (in an execution).”

 As states grapple with a European-led boycott over lethal injection drugs, some have proposed returning to old methods such as the electric chair and the firing squad. This month, Tennessee’s governor approved the use of the electric chair for executions where drugs could not be acquired.

 Some states – Florida, Alabama and Virginia – have long listed electrocution as an optional execution method. The last US inmate to die by electrocution was Robert Gleason, who chose it over lethal injection and was killed on 16 January, 2013, in Virginia. ||||| You are the owner of this article. |||||

– It is one of the craziest custody disputes you could imagine. A city in Oklahoma wants the state to give it back "Old Sparky," an electric chair last used about 50 years ago. McAlester officials want to put it on display as a piece of history. But the state says it's keeping Old Sparky in storage, just in case the relic needs to be fired up again. "That would be possible," a state DOC spokesperson tells the McAlester News-Capital. Old Sparky had its heyday from 1915 to 1966, when it was used to execute 82 inmates at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. It now sits mothballed in a state facility, as the city and the DOC bicker over who owns it. The newspaper has a letter from the DOC to the city in 2010 in which it explains why the state needed to keep the chair. “In the event our lethal injection protocol is ruled unconstitutional, the electric chair must be used by the state as the back-up method of execution." That might have seemed far-fetched at the time, but the state's lethal injection policies are now, in fact, under review after the botched execution of an inmate last month. Tennessee, meanwhile, just brought back its electric chair. All that is understood, says McAlester's mayor, but ... Old Sparky? “That chair has not been used since 1966,” Steve Harrison tells the Guardian. “My assumption would be if it ever got to the point the electric chair was needed again they would start with a new one." (Click to read about how lawmakers elsewhere prefer the return of the firing squad.)


Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer choked up on Tuesday morning discussing the “pain” he endured over the last five years, under intense questioning from MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” hosts.

 Spitzer was asked by Mika Brzezinski to give a personal, unrehearsed answer on how he had changed in the past five years after a prostitution scandal drove him from office.

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 reset Haberman reports on comeback

 “A lot of pain. A lot of pain. … You go through that pain, you change,” Spitzer said, visibly choking up with watery eyes.

 (PHOTOS: Eliot Spitzer's career)

 Brzezinski wrapped the interview there, but at the end of the show, the hosts discussed an already brewing debate online about whether Spitzer’s tears were real.

 “They felt real to me. I was sitting there, it felt very real to me,” panelist and Republican adviser Nicole Wallace said.

 No matter what people think of Spitzer, Brzezinski said he deserved credit for coming on.

 “He was raw and all there. It was pretty powerful. Don’t know if it’ll change things for him, but I do appreciate a person who’s made mistakes coming and facing the cameras and facing the questions. That’s actually a test of character. There are those that choose not to do that,” she said.

 During the interview, Spitzer said whether he had done enough in the five years to overcome distrust of him was up to the voters to judge, but he asked voters to “look at the totality” of his life and career.

 “All I can say to the public is look at the totality. Look at what I’ve done, what I’ve said, what I’m saying now, look at what I stand for, and then make a judgment. … I will trust the verdict of the public, yes or no,” Spitzer said.

 The exchange came after the hosts repeatedly steered Spitzer away from his now-familiar account of his record and hopes for the comptroller office and back to the scandal that caused him to resign as governor.

 “What I did was not only wrong, but was a consequence of hubris and a failure of judgment and self-indulgence, which is absolutely inexplicable and unjustifiable, improper, and I would agree probably with most of Mika’s characterizations about me,” Spitzer said, asked what flaws led him to break the law.

 Host Joe Scarborough asked, then, if voters will see a less arrogant, more reflective new Spitzer.

 “Hopefully I’ll be more reflective, you know, I’m not sure, the arrogance, I’m not here to quibble about characterizations of me, I’m really not,” Spitzer said, turning the conversation back to “substantive” issues. ||||| When Eliot Spitzer resigned as New York governor amid a humiliating prostitution scandal, no one cheered louder than Wall Street.

 More than five years later, the industry’s outspoken antagonist is attempting to make a political comeback – one that could cause serious headaches for bankers and across corporate boardrooms.

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 reset Eliot Spitzer on comptroller race, Wall Street reform

 Spitzer, 54, is vying to be the next New York City comptroller. The job carries far less public prominence than governor or attorney general, the post from which Spitzer earned the nickname “Sheriff of Wall Street” for his battles with American International Group and the New York Stock Exchange, among others.

 (PHOTOS: Eliot Spitzer's career)

 But it would provide Spitzer with enough power to get back in the face of corporate America and the finance industry.

 As comptroller he could play the role of activist investor while managing the city’s almost $140 billion in pension funds, pressure money managers to accept reforms if they want to do business with New York and audit city agencies’ various dealings with financial companies and make headlines if he thinks the taxpayer is getting a raw deal.

 “Any time you are exerting influence on where to place well over a hundred billion dollars in assets, you have power and influence,” said Jon Lukomnik, a former deputy comptroller for New York City who is now a managing partner of Sinclair Capital.

 (Also on POLITICO: Spitzer explains his return)

 Since his surprise announcement via an interview with the New York Times Sunday evening, Spitzer, who left office in March 2008 shortly after details of his involvement in a high-end prostitution ring became public, has made clear that he would use the city’s shareholder position to be a watchdog of corporate America.

 In an interview on the Brian Lehrer Show on Monday, Spitzer offered several examples of corporate principles he would advocate as comptroller.

 At the top of the list: Separating the roles of CEO and board chairman at large corporations.

 The issue gained attention earlier this year when some investors unsuccessfully sought to have JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon give up his chairman’s role following the bank’s “London Whale” trading debacle, which resulted in billions of dollars in losses.

 (Also on POLITICO: Spitzer launches political comeback)

 “The argument is that Jamie Dimon is a good CEO therefore we don’t want to separate,” Spitzer said. “Look, George Washington was a great president — we did not eliminate checks and balances even though we thought he was a great president.”

 Spitzer added, “Structural checks on decision-making are important in corporate governance as well as in the Democratic arena.”

 John Liu, the current comptroller, was active in the push for Dimon to give up some of his powers, but given Spitzer’s history and reputation, the ex-governor could give the issue of corporate governance added heat and attention.

 As comptroller, Spitzer could also exercise influence over financial institutions that do business with the city to manage its public pension funds. ||||| POLITICO caught up with former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer Monday night to talk about his just-announced candidacy for New York City comptroller. Here’s what he had to say about how he thinks his record will stand up to scrutiny, his hopes to move past the prostitution scandal, and how he sees himself as the anti-establishment candidate — and what he meant when he said prostitution is like smoking dope.

 Q: You have four days to get on the ballot and just over two months to convince people you should be comptroller. How do you convince people to support you in that amount of time?

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 reset Eliot Spitzer on comptroller race, Wall Street reform

 A: I think the argument is, look what I’ve done. I don’t say that with any degree of hubris, but I think what I can say is look what I did to the attorney general’s office. Look what we did in a series of substantive areas, from the well known such as Wall Street, obviously, to the less well known — community gardens. The low wage labor cases. The proposal I had when I was governor to let undocumented immigrants to get drivers’ licenses. It’s now the law of the land, being rolled out across the nation and of course back then was a lightning rod issue.

 So I think I can say I have been on issue after issue — same sex marriage, even in New York, I was the only candidate running for statewide office in 1998 and 2006 who was for it. I’ve been ahead of the curve. I’m not a traditional politician. I am not one who takes the measure of a political issue and calibrates to the public opinion. I’m tough enough to stand up and do what needs to be done. And I think the public knows that. I don’t need to make the case on a tabula rasa. I can point to a record. That doesn’t mean I win, I’m not saying here it comes on a platter, but I think the public does get that. And that’s important.

 (PHOTOS: Eliot Spitzer's career)

 Q: But is two months enough time to do it?

 A: For most people, there’s a visceral response that is generated reasonably quickly as we approach election day or based upon inputs over multiple years. Frankly, I think the larger reality I face is that it’s going to be hard for me to change the public perception of me and the public perception will either win or not. But changing it with even the best communications strategy in the world probably won’t accomplish a whole lot. People remember me looking through the prism as attorney general, as governor and how I left — the good, the bad and the ugly. But I have stood up in front of the public and said I’m seeking a second chance. So we’ll see.

 Q: You’ve repeatedly compared the city comptroller’s office to the attorney general’s office. Given all the differences of powers and staff, is that comparison fair?

 A: I won’t know until I’m there. But do I think that there’s a real metaphor there? Absolutely. Do I think that the opportunity to use the buckets of jurisdiction that I’ve been discussing in the comptroller’s office? Absolutely. I hope to find out.

 (Also on POLITICO: Spitzer explains his return)

 Q: Have you spoken yet to your new opponent, Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer?

 A: No. I have not had the chance.

 Q: Do you think you’ll speak to him before you meet in a debate?

 A: I hope so. I have not had a chance to call him quite frankly. It’s been a little busy. Having said that, I look forward to it, and I’ve always thought of him as a decent guy and friend and colleague in government. I hope it stays that way. ||||| Journalist Sally Quinn, the veteran Washington observer, reflected on the common thread between Spitzer, Weiner and Sanford: “The essential thing that these politicians all have is an absence of shame.

 “We keep hearing about redemption and forgiveness — these are all religious words,” said Quinn, who now writes a column on faith. “There’s nothing religious about what’s going on here. This is strictly about ‘me, me, me,’ and it’s a neediness that I don’t understand but we see all the time in Washington.”

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 reset Anthony Weiner announces NYC mayor run Sanford ad outlines ‘mistakes’

 The sex scandals of the past decade have come with such frequency that one could almost set them to music, a la Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”: Mark Foley’s emails, John Ensign’s coverup, David Vitter and the D.C. Madam, shirtless Chris Lee, Herman Cain’s harassment, Jim McGreevey as “gay American,” John Edwards’s love child. And this is by no means a comprehensive list. A common theme is a mingling of professional positions with sexual adventurism, and a seeming conviction that huge vulnerabilities in private lives would somehow not come to public light. Edwards ran for president even after lover Rielle Hunter was carrying his baby — one Edwards claimed was fathered by an aide — and still nurtured fantasies that he could maneuver his way into being Barack Obama’s attorney general after the National Enquirer disclosed his affair.

 Of course, the historical record, dating from JFK to FDR to the Roman Empire, offers many examples of leaders who mixed public service with private extramarital indulgences. What is much more common now is their ultra-public disclosure — and the accompanying ability of politicians to rebound from what once were almost always career-ending scandals when personal lapses became known.

 On sexual matters, Bill Clinton of course set the modern standard for resilience after being impeached during the Monica S. Lewinsky uproar and seeing his poll numbers rise. Like Richard Nixon before him, said historian Michael Beschloss, Clinton embraced the importance of never giving up and always being seen as a survivor. Contemporary politicians like Weiner and Spitzer may be making a similar calculation, he said, that perceived character defects can be turned into assets through perseverance — “that people will admire their determination to not be defeated.”

 But the ease with which politicians recover from scandal says less about the character of politicians than the character of the times, said Doug Sosnik, a close adviser to Bill Clinton in his second term. Because of the “coarsening of our society” — with voters subject to constant news of bad behavior among leading figures in sports and popular entertainment, as well as politics — “it is almost impossible to disappoint anyone…The expectation is that everyone does everything.”

 In addition, with respect for leaders in nearly all sectors of society at historically low levels, voters look at candidates through a practical prism, not a sentimental one: Are they competent and effective? If the answer is yes, Sosnik said, the response to personal failings is often, “Who cares?” |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Eliot Spitzer is back on the political scene—just like Mark Sanford and Anthony Weiner—and apparently tearing up over his past transgressions this morning on Morning Joe. Which makes Politico wonder: What makes these guys tick? The simple answer, from Washington insiders, is egomania. "The essential thing that these politicians all have is an absence of shame," says journalist Sally Quinn. "This is strictly about ‘me, me, me,’ and it’s a neediness that I don’t understand but we see all the time in Washington." A political psychologist agrees, saying the new runs for office are attempts to redeem bruised egos: "It’s not that the public needs ... them back in office. It’s much more that they need to be back in office." How some are reacting to Spitzer's run for comptroller: Whether or not Spitzer stands a chance, Wall Street won't want to see him back again, Politico notes. "He’s had these legendary duels and battles with a number of people in the sector,” says an industry official. “Should he be elected, you’ll just have another official who’s antagonistic towards the sector." Indeed, as a financial manager for New York City, he'd have a powerful weapon against corporate heavyweights. Spitzer's own argument is that he's a gutsy progressive; he notes his backing for gay marriage in 1998. "I’ve been ahead of the curve. I’m not a traditional politician. I am not one who takes the measure of a political issue and calibrates to the public opinion," he tells Politico. "I’m tough enough to stand up and do what needs to be done." Adds a former Bush administration official: "When people say his name, it’s usually preceded by a four-letter word."


Article:

These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| A man who was camping at Little Harbor Campground on Catalina Island was injured after being gored by a bison the afternoon of Saturday, Feb. 17, police said.

 The incident occurred at about 5:15 p.m. when the man was sitting on a log and a bison was grazing nearby, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Ray Ward.

 “When the man saw that the (animal) was getting closer to him, he got up and tried to move away,” he said. “That’s when (it) charged him and gored him in his left arm.”

 Los Angeles Fire Department officials treated the man at the scene and he was later airlifted to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Ward said.

 Bison are common and roam freely on the back side of Catalina Island where the campground is located, he said.

 “But it’s very rare for them to attack,” Ward said. “People even forget sometimes that they are wild because they appear domesticated.”

 The nature and extent of the man’s injuries were not immediately known. |||||
What is a summary?

– A camping trip turned quite unpleasant for a man on Catalina Island, off the coast of Southern California, when he was gored by a bison Saturday evening. The animal was grazing near a log upon which the man was sitting at Little Harbor Campground, authorities tell the Orange County Register. As the man saw the bison coming closer, he tried to leave the area, but the animal charged him and gored his left arm, according to a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department sergeant. The man was treated at the scene, then airlifted to a medical center on the mainland; he was said to be in stable condition, CBS Los Angeles reports. Bison roam the back side of the island, but the sergeant says attacks are "very rare." (The island's bison have been put on birth control in the past.)


Write an article based on this summary:

– US employers pulled back on hiring in April after a streak of solid monthly gains, adding 160,000 jobs, the fewest in seven months, the AP reports. The unemployment rate remained at a low of 5%, roughly the same level it has been since the fall. The job gain was down from the average increase of 200,000 over the past three months, which is the softest three-month pace since October. The slowdown may raise concerns that weak US economic growth has discouraged some employers from hiring. The economy's growth has slumped to a sluggish 1% annual rate since October. Meanwhile, the labor participation rate went down to 62.8%, per Money. But there was good news on the wage gains front: Average hourly pay rose 2.5% from a year earlier—a "hot number," the Wall Street Journal notes, and above the sluggish 2% pace that has been typical for the past six years. Money reports that consumer confidence in the jobs that are out there is rising, with more people perceiving that jobs are "plentiful" rather than "hard to get" for the first time since the Great Recession ended. The Journal notes that April's jobs report will only serve to keep the Fed in "standby mode" as it ponders whether to boost the short-term interest rate. Officials had suggested that such a rate increase in June may have been in the cards if the economy picked up steam—but now it will likely take better news on consumption, hiring, and inflation for the rate increase to happen.

The Labor Department announced that the economy produced 160,000 new jobs in April, much below market expectations, while the nation’s unemployment rate stayed at 5%. For the past three months, employers have now added an average of 200,000 new positions.

 Hourly earnings, meanwhile, showed signs of life and grew 2.5% over the past 12 months, while the labor force participation rate decreased to 62.8%.

 Late last month, the government reported that the economy grew at a tepid annual rate of 0.5% in the first three months of the year, raising fears that the seven-year-old economic expansion may be nearing an end.

 Today’s number comes while the economy is at something of a crossroads.

 Crude oil prices, for instance, hung below $35 a barrel in the first few months of 2016, thanks to fears over slowing Chinese growth, and economic turmoil around the world. Over the past two months, though, investors have piled back into the commodity, pushing prices up $10 a barrel, as fears over a global recession ebb and optimism comes back in vogue.

 The stock market has had similar arc so far this year. After dropping more than 5% in January, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has rebounded nearly 8% over the past three months.

 Not only are private sector jobs consistently growing, but consumers are becoming more confident. Long-term unemployment is coming down, more people feel confident enough to quit their jobs and initial jobless claims recently hit a 43-year low. More people believe jobs are “plentiful” than “hard to get” – the so-called labor differential – for the first time since the end of the recession. And wage growth was practically buoyant by post-recession standards.

 The bond market, though, is less sanguine. The yield on 10-year Treasury bonds have dropped from more than 2% to start the year to 1.8% now. Bond rates move opposite to fixed income prices. That means investors are buying more government debt, which are more desirable in times of stagnation.

 Other metrics cast a dim lit on the economy, too. While up slightly recently, persistently low inflation has also muted growth expectations, and the economy as a whole barely budged in the first three months of 2016.

 All of the contradictory data has caused the Federal Reserve to hold off raising rates after doing so for the first time in nearly a decade last December. The FOMC, after its most recent meeting in April, acknowledged the unevenness. “[L]abor market conditions have improved further even as growth in economic activity appears to have slowed,” the FOMC said in a statement. “Growth in household spending has moderated, although households’ real income has risen at a solid rate and consumer sentiment remains high.”

 There will be another jobs report before the next Fed meeting in June. If it is as muddled as the past few have been, the Fed’s life will be that much more complicated. ||||| ENLARGE Photo: Bloomberg News

 It’s Jobs Friday. For one ever-so-brief moment, the interests of Wall Street, Washington and Main Street were all aligned on the same thing: jobs.

 Nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 160,000 in April, the Labor Department said. It was the weakest gain since September. The unemployment rate, obtained from a separate survey of U.S. households, held steady last month at 5%. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had predicted 205,000 jobs added and expected the 5% figure.

 Here at MoneyBeat HQ, we crunched the numbers, tracked the markets and compiled the commentary as it came in. |||||


Article:
Less than two weeks after making a last-ditch attempt to find her biological father, a Belgian woman says a Canadian family has given her the piece of her identity she's been missing all her life.

 Florence Heene, 71, had only a few photos and the knowledge her father was a Canadian soldier named "Herbert" stationed in Ghent, Belgium, during the Second World War to go on when she posted a plea for information on Facebook earlier this month.

 Over the weekend, descendants of a veteran from Vancouver named Herbert Louis Hellyer saw Heene's photos published in a CBC News story, recognized their late grandfather and contacted her.

 In an interview from her home in Eeklo, Belgium, Heene told CBC News she was sure Herbert Hellyer was indeed her father.

 "I have the piece [of my life] that I was looking for," Heene said. "Now I can close it."

 Hellyer, who died in 1948, has three surviving children — a son and two daughters who all live in B.C. One of his daughters, Thelma Janes, said she's in "absolute shock" to learn about the existence of a half-sister.

 'Didn't even know about her'

 "I'm 79 and at 79 to find out you have a 71-year-old sister," she said. "To think all these years and we didn't even know about her. I'm getting tears now just thinking about it."

 Hellyer's other daughter, Betty Ingram, is the oldest child but suffers from dementia. It was her granddaughter, Kristy Demidoff, who had read the CBC story about Heene's search for her father. When she saw the picture of the man Heene believed to be her father, Demidoff thought it looked familiar. She went into her mother's old photos and pulled out the identical picture.

 She sent a photo of Hellyer to CBC News, as well as to Heene.

 "It's amazing, truly amazing. This is the only picture our family has of him," said Carol Demidoff, Ingram's daughter and Kristy's mother.

 That picture, which is signed "Love from Daddy, XXXXXX" had been sent during the war to Ingram.

 This was the only clear picture Florence Heene had of the man she believes is her biological father, a picture that matches with one held by a B.C. family. (Florence Heene/Facebook)

 Demidoff herself and other relatives have since been in contact with Heene through Facebook.

 "We're very excited. We're all very happy," Demidoff said. "We hope to get to meet Florence some day ... and try to give her as much information as we can and welcome her into our family."

 Hellyer had 5 children

 The family has been able to fill in some details about Herbert Hellyer's life. He was born in England and emigrated to Canada when he was just a boy. His family ended up in B.C., where he would become a printer by trade. Hellyer would later marry and have five children, before enlisting as a soldier in 1939 and heading off to Europe.

 Herbert L. Hellyer was buried in a Vancouver cemetery after his death in 1948. His family says he died by suicide and had suffered a head injury just days before the war ended in 1945. (Carol and Kristy Demidoff)

 He spent six years there as an instructor in the army, but just days before the war ended, he was thrown out of a jeep, then hit by a truck, suffering a serious brain injury.

 When he returned to B.C., he was dealing with mental health issues and ended up at the Shaughnessy Hospital for veterans. In 1948, while at the hospital, he died by suicide at the age of 35.

 Heene said she's sad that her father died so tragically, but is very glad she has found a "new family" in Canada.

 She first saw the man she came to believe was her father while rummaging through a box of photos as a child. Her mother originally told her the soldiers in the photos were uncles, but eventually said that one of them was her biological father, with whom she had had a relationship when he was stationed in Ghent.

 Mother wouldn't reveal Herbert's last name

 Their relationship ended when he left to fight elsewhere and she married the man who became Heene's stepfather.

 Although her stepfather raised Heene as his own, and she had a happy family life with her brother and sister, Heene desperately wanted to know more about her personal history.

 Her mother never wanted to talk about the relationship and didn't reveal her father's last name, Heene said. "It was very difficult."

 Janes said her own childhood was very difficult. After her father left for the war, her mother was infected with tuberculosis and spent years recovering in a hospital. The children were sent to foster homes and it wasn't until her father returned that the whole family was reunited.

 The reunion, however, was not a happy one. Janes said she doesn't have many memories of her father, but those she does have are not pleasant. When her father returned, he was very temperamental and despondent, behaviour likely related to his brain injuries, members of the family say.

 Janes said she recalls that her father and her mother would have terrible fights, which only stopped when he was admitted to the veterans' hospital. Those circumstances and issues may have taken their toll on the family. Janes and her two siblings are estranged and do not speak.

 Hopes to get acquainted with sister

 Despite her own family dynamics, Janes said she wants to get acquainted with her newly discovered half-sister. She hasn't yet been in contact with Heene, but hopes to soon.

 "I just want to chit chat with her and try and get friends with her," she said.

 Janes doubts that her father ever knew about Heene's existence but is not at all bothered that he had an affair.

 "I'm an elderly woman, I know what went on in the war and it's to be expected," she said. "That part doesn't get me in the slightest. The part that we never knew about each other gets me." ||||| Do you know Herbert?

 I’m sure someone out there does. If you do and you’re reading this, you can help Florence Heere, a deserving woman in Belgium, fill in some missing blanks in her life. Herbert is her biological father.

 Florence Heere

 Herbert was a Canadian soldier serving in Europe during World War II. In the autumn of 1944, while the First Canadian Army was advancing up the channel coast of northern France and Belgium into Holland (knocking out German V-2 rocket launch sites and liberating long-suffering peoples from the Nazis), Herbert was stationed for a while in the Belgian city of Ghent. There he met a young woman named Augusta and the two had a love affair. Then Herbert went back to war and was never heard from again in Ghent.

 Augusta Ryckoort

 But Augusta never forgot Herbert. She was pregnant and had a daughter she named Florence. Florence is now an elderly woman and is trying to find Herbert, her biological father — or, more likely, information about him since so few soldiers of that generation are still alive — while she is still able. Florence knows very little about Herbert … but let’s let her tell her own story.

 On Friday, while Donald Trump was being sworn in as President of the United States, Florence Heere posted this letter and these photos on social media: My name is Florence, I am desperate and this is my last hope. My mother was named Augusta Ryckoort. She lived in Eeklo and worked in Ghent during the 2nd World War in Belgium. It was there that she met my biological father. He was Canadian and stationed in Ghent — his name was Herbert. They had a short but beautiful relationship, but it wasn’t meant to be, because he was called to the front. There ends my father’s story — nothing is known of him since then, but the story didn’t end there for my mother — she was pregnant and was expecting me. She never heard of Herbert again and — to my regrets — she never wanted to talk much about him. It is unknown if he was killed in the war or if he is still alive. A while later, my mother met another man, Julien, and married him. He raised me as his own child and took care of my other brother and sister. We didn’t have a lot, but we were happy. Today I am 71 years old and I have been trying to find my biological father for all my life, without results. It is my greatest wish to find out more about Herbert, my biological father: Is he still alive or how and when did he die? Do I have any other (half) brothers or sisters? The only information I have about him, is his name (Herbert) and a picture. I send you the picture in attachment. If you have any information of any leads whatsoever, please contact me. Sincerely & hopefully yours, Florence

 Since Florence posted her letter and photos, the search for Herbert has gained a bit of traction in Canada, but it’s far from over. Florence still needs your help.

 Here’s what we’ve learned in the past few days:

 The stripes on his uniform indicate that Herbert was a sergeant. Based on the shape of the cap badges of Herbert and his friend, one knowledgable military researcher says they appear to have been in the Royal Canadian Artillery.

 Now here’s the tricky part: It’s fairly easy to find the identities of Canadian soldiers from World War II IF THEY DIED IN THE WAR; it’s not so easy if they survived the war and returned home to be discharged. Another military researcher has found that 481 Canadian soldiers named Herbert died during World War II, according to Archives Canada records. And yet another researcher determined that two of those dead Canadian soldiers named Herbert were members of the Royal Canadian Artillery — but, in both cases, Herbert was a middle name, not a first name.

 So it’s probable that Florence’s father survived the war, returned home to Canada, was discharged and built a life here with family and friends and neighbours and co-workers, any of whom might recognize the photo of Herbert.

 All in all, that’s a pretty amazing job of information gathering in just a couple of days. But Florence still does not have the answers she needs. She still needs your help.

 Here’s a link to a piece on Florence and her search that ran on Monday’s evening news on VTM, Belgium’s principal private Dutch-language television channel. The item on Florence begins near the 48:50 mark.

 If you think you might be able to solve the mystery of who Herbert is, please get in touch with me through this blog and I’ll get you in touch with Florence. Let’s find Herbert and give Florence some answers.

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– For 71 years, "we didn't even know about her. I'm getting tears now just thinking about it," says Thelma Janes of Canada, days after discovering she has a Belgian sister. Janes' father, Herbert Louis Hellyer, married and had five children in British Columbia before heading off to war in 1939, reports CBC News. He returned from Belgium after six years, having suffered a serious brain injury, and committed suicide in 1948. Unbeknownst to any of his children in Canada, Hellyer also left behind their half-sister overseas, the result of an affair he had while stationed in Ghent. Belgium's Florence Heene, 71, who knew only that her father was a Canadian soldier named Herbert, found his photo in a box of her mother's things and shared it on Facebook recently in an effort to find out more about him. Hellyer's great-granddaughter saw the photo circulating in the media in Canada—a blogger at the Toronto Sun was among those on the case—and thought it looked familiar. In a box of her own mother's items, she found an identical picture Hellyer had sent home during the war, signed, "Love from Daddy." "I'm an elderly woman, I know what went on in the war and it's to be expected," Janes, 79, says of her father's affair. But the discovery of a half-sister left her in "absolute shock," she says. Several family members have since reached out to Heene to share their father's story and to welcome her to the family. Heene, for her part, tells the CBC that "I have the piece [of my life] that I was looking for," she says.


The most isolated tribe in the world?

 In the days after the cataclysmic tsunami of 2004, as the full scale of the destruction and horror wreaked upon the islands of the Indian Ocean became apparent, the fate of the tribal peoples of the Andaman Islands remained a mystery.

 It seemed inconceivable, above all, that the Sentinelese islanders could have survived, living as they did on a remote island directly in the tsunami’s path.

 Yet when a helicopter flew low over the island, a Sentinelese man rushed out on to the beach, aiming his arrow at the pilot in a gesture that clearly said, ‘We don’t want you here’. Alone of the tens of millions of people affected by the disaster, the Sentinelese needed no help from anyone.

 Perhaps no people on Earth remain more genuinely isolated than the Sentinelese. They are thought to be directly descended from the first human populations to emerge from Africa, and have probably lived in the Andaman Islands for up to 60,000 years. The fact that their language is so different even from other Andaman islanders suggests that they have had little contact with other people for thousands of years.

 This does not mean, however, that they live just as they did 60,000 years ago. Commonly described, for instance, as belonging to the ‘Stone Age’, they do in fact make tools and weapons from metal, which they recover from ships wrecked on the island’s reefs.

 Like so many isolated tribal people with a fearsome reputation, the Sentinelese are often inaccurately described as ‘savage’ or ‘backward’. Their hostility to outsiders, though, is easily understandable, for the outside world has brought them little but violence and contempt.

 In 1879, for example, an elderly couple and some children were taken by force and brought to the islands’ main town, Port Blair. The colonial officer in charge of the kidnapping wrote that the entire group, ‘sickened rapidly, and the old man and his wife died, so the four children were sent back to their home with quantities of presents.’ Despite being responsible for the deaths of at least two people, and quite possibly starting an epidemic amongst the islanders, the same officer expressed no remorse, but merely remarked on the Sentinelese’s ‘peculiarly idiotic expression of countenance, and manner of behaving.’

 How far this is from the truth can be easily judged from a video of the Sentinelese on the island’s beach taken during an Indian government ‘contact’ expedition in the 1990s.

 The islanders are clearly extremely healthy, alert and thriving, in marked contrast to the two Andaman tribes who have ‘benefited’ from Western civilization, the Onge and the Great Andamanese, whose numbers have crashed and who are now largely dependent on state handouts just to survive.

 Pressure from Survival and other organisations has led the Indian government to alter its policy towards the Sentinelese, from attempting to make contact, to recognising that similar policies have proved disastrous for other Andaman tribes, and accepting that they have the right to decide for themselves how they wish to live. Underpinning this shift is the simple acknowledgment that the people themselves are best placed to decide what is in their own interests. ||||| The Sentinelese, thought to number between 50 and 200, have rebuffed all contact with the modern world, firing a shower of arrows at anyone who comes within range.

 They are believed to be the last pre-Neolithic tribe in the world to remain isolated and appear to have survived the 2004 Asian tsunami.

 The two men killed, Sunder Raj, 48, and Pandit Tiwari, 52, were fishing illegally for mud crabs off North Sentinel Island, a speck of land in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands archipelago.

 Fellow fishermen said they dropped anchor for the night on Jan 25 but fell into a deep sleep, probably helped by large amounts of alcohol.

 During the night their anchor, a rock tied to a rope, failed to hold their open-topped boat against the currents and they drifted towards the island.

 "As day broke, fellow fishermen say they tried to shout at the men and warn them they were in danger," said Samir Acharya, the head of the Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology, an environmental organisation.

 "However they did not respond - they were probably drunk - and the boat drifted into the shallows where they were attacked and killed."

 After the fishermen's families raised the alarm, the Indian coastguard tried to recover the bodies using a helicopter but was met by the customary hail of arrows.

 Photographs shot from the helicopter show the near-naked tribesmen rushing to fire. But the downdraught from its rotors exposed the two fisherman buried in shallow graves and not roasted and eaten, as local rumour suggested.

 Mr Acharya said the erroneous belief in the tribe's cannibalism grew from the practice of another tribe, the Onge, who would cut up and burn their dead to avoid them returning as evil spirits.

 "People saw the flesh cooking on the fire and thought they must be cannibals but this incident clearly contradicts that belief," he said.

 Attempts to recover the bodies of the two men have been suspended, although the Andaman Islands police chief, Dharmendra Kumar, said an operation might be mounted later.

 "Right now, there will be casualties on both sides," he said from Port Blair. "The tribesmen are out in large numbers. We shall let things cool down and once these tribals move to the island's other end we will sneak in and bring back the bodies."

 Environmental groups urged the authorities to leave the bodies and respect the three-mile exclusion zone thrown around the island.

 In the 1980s and early 1990s many Sentinelese were killed in skirmishes with armed salvage operators who visited the island after a shipwreck. Since then the tribesmen have remained virtually undisturbed.

 DNA analysis of another tribe, the Jarawa, whose members made first contact with the outside world in 1997, suggest that the tribesmen migrated from Africa around 60,000 years ago.

 However, the experience of the Jarawa since their emergence - sexual exploitation, alcoholism and a measles epidemic - has encouraged efforts to protect the Sentinelese from a similar fate. ||||| 'I'm privileged to have this contact with the tribesmen,' said Mr Pandit, a director of the Anthropological Survey of India. 'Before, it was worse. They shot arrows when we tried to land.'

 The Sentinelese, as the islanders are known, live on North Sentinel, one of a chain of islands in the Bay of Bengal. Their skin is ash-black and their faces moon- shaped with negroid features.

 They can husk coconuts with their teeth, and use fire, which they hide and guard jealously because they do not know how to make it. With long bows and arrows tipped with iron salvaged from shipwrecks, they are superb marksmen. Farming is unknown to them. They survive on fish and turtles, and hunt wild pig and the huge monitor lizards that abound on their island, an area of a mere 30 square miles.

 Sentinelese songs contain just two notes, and they can only count up to two, above which they call everything else many. Their only form of art is body painting, which consists of wavy smears of white or ochre.

 More than 100 of the Sentinelese live in palm-built lean-tos around the island, yet they have no community structure, no chiefs and no witchdoctors. Their way of life is comparable to that of humans 15,000 years ago; it is possible that they have not evolved any further because they simply have not been required to do so.

 It took Indian anthropologists 24 years to befriend the islanders with gifts of coconut and iron chunks. But now that they have succeeded, Mr Pandit and his team are hesitant about how - or whether - these tribesmen should be 'civilised'.

 'Permanent isolation isn't practical,' he said. 'They're surrounded by 200,000 people living in these islands. But the government has to make sure they're not harmed, and that they don't die from imported diseases.'

 The Sentinelese are not the only aboriginals left in Andaman, a chain of 361 islands stretching between India and Burma. Other aboriginals are hidden in the jungles, such as the Andamanese, the Onge and the Jarawa. But the Sentinelese have resisted contact the longest.

 When the British set up penal colonies in the Andaman Islands in the 1850s, the tribal population was estimated at about 5,000. The aboriginals resented the foreign intruders and fought back with their puny weapons. The British responded by slaughtering many of them, and today, fewer than 400 aboriginals are left.

 For many centuries, sailors viewed the Andaman Islands with dread: tales drifted back of shipwrecked survivors being eaten by cannibals. Mr Pandit claims, however, that the Andaman islanders never dined on their victims. They do, however, like to hang the jawbone of a favourite relative around their necks.

 Despite the many arrows shot at him, Mr Pandit insists the reputation of the Sentinelese for hostility is unfair. 'They're cautious, that's all. They want to defend themselves against outsiders.'

 The islanders cannot be oblivious to the forms of civilisation that surround them; freighters pass by on the horizon and planes across their skies. They make occasional forays in dugout canoes to hunt turtles or fish, but they don't seem to sail far out of sight of North Sentinel.

 Their aggressive isolation seems self-imposed. 'I'd give my right arm to know what they're thinking,' said Mr Pandit, 'but we just haven't learned enough about them yet.'

 When the first anthropological expedition reached the island in 1967, the Sentinelese hid in the jungle. When teams returned in 1970 and again in 1973, the scientists were greeted with a hail of arrows. Then in 1974, the anthropologists tried a different tack: they brought gifts of coconuts, pots and pans, and a live pig, and left them on the beach.

 But the Sentinelese were not so easily bought. Warriors with bows, arrows and spears lined the shore, posturing in defiance, and Mr Pandit recounted in a report: 'Sometimes they would turn their backs to us and sit on their haunches as if to defecate. This was meant to insult us and to say we were not welcome.'

 Unruffled, the anthropologists kept dropping gifts on the island, and the Sentinelese progressively grew less hostile and more playful. They love coconuts, which do not grow on North Sentinel.

 Finally, on 4 January 1991, Mr Pandit and his colleagues were met on the beach by a party of 28 men, women and children, for once unarmed. 'They may not have chiefs, but a decision had obviously been taken by the Sentinelese to be friendly towards us,' Mr Pandit said. 'We still don't know how or why.'

 Now, the anthropologists have learned to remove most of their clothes, watches and spectacles before visiting the Sentinelese and the Jarawa, another isolated tribe. 'I've lost half a dozen pairs of glasses,' lamented Mr Pandit, who has been stripped naked by the islanders on several occasions. 'Clothing doesn't make much sense to them,' he said. 'They're curious about what we're trying to hide underneath.'

 The anthropologists now practise the traditional Sentinelese greeting, which is to sit in a friend's lap and slap your right buttock vigorously.

 A debate is raging among scientists and Indian officials about how the Sentinelese should be treated. Some want them drawn into civilisation as rapidly as possible. But other Andaman tribes have been cruelly exploited: their women have been inveigled into brothels as exotica, the men coaxed away by opium and alcohol to trade in the edible birds' nests that the Chinese consider to be a delicacy.

 So far, the Indian government has banned all visitors to the island and forest areas where the aboriginals live. 'We can't leave them forever,' said Mr Pandit.

 'But the government must ensure that, when they do come into contact with the outside world, the Sentinelese won't be uprooted or hurt. The question is: how?'

 (Photograph omitted) |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Sometimes paradise is better off lost: Off the coast of India in the Bay of Bengal, a Manhattan-size island called North Sentinel Island boasts a deep green canopy of trees, stretches of sandy beaches, coral reef barriers—and a population that's decidedly hostile to outsiders, who aren't likely to live long. As Wackulus explains, the isolated indigenous tribe, one of the last of its kind on Earth, almost always attacks visitors. A little digging uncovered this story: After a night of drinking in 2006, two fishermen drifted too close to the island and were killed by the Sentinelese, who've lived there for 60,000 years. A helicopter sent to recover their bodies was halted by tribesmen's arrows, the Telegraph reported at the time; the air generated by the copter's rotors revealed their bodies in shallow graves. One of the earliest known encounters a century earlier ended when a convict who'd escaped from the neighboring Andaman Islands ended up on the island with his throat slit, the New York Times reported in 2012. In 1967, the Sentinelese—a Stone Age people but for the metal-tipped arrows carved from wrecked ships—hid from an Indian government expedition, during which a marker was placed on the island, declaring it part of India. Indian anthropologist TN Pandit's visits in the late 1980s and early 1990s proved more exciting. He left gifts of coconuts, knives, cloth, mirrors, and once a live pig. The native hunter-gatherers—believed to number between 50 and 400—killed the pig and buried it in the sand, but only insulted Pandit's group. "They would turn their backs to us and sit on their haunches as if to defecate," he told the Independent. India has since established a 3-mile exclusion zone around the island to protect both outsiders and the natives from disease. Survival International argues it's all for the best as the natives are "extremely healthy, alert, and thriving." They have fire and are believed to dine on fish, fruits, tubers, wild pigs, lizards, and honey. (This video reportedly shows the first contact with an isolated tribe.)


Here is a news article: This is going to be a huge crowd-pleaser on Sunday. After auto blog Jalopnik blew the lid off the teaser ad last Friday, Honda has released its Ferris Bueller spot for the Super Bowl on YouTube—actually, a two-minute-plus extended version of it. And it's a great homage to the original 1986 film, with Broderick this time calling in sick to a film shoot and enjoying another day of slacking. The spot, by RPA, is pretty wonderful—Broderick amazingly slips back into the role with ease. And fans who've been grousing that the teaser wasn't for an actual sequel to the movie will be pleased to see that Broderick doesn't sully the original film's reputation here. Quite the opposite—this is how a tribute should look.

 UPDATE: We spoke to RPA, the agency behind the spot, and got some backstory to the campaign, including: Who thought of Ferris, and why no Cameron?

 See Adweek's full Super Bowl coverage here. ||||| Uploaded on

 To celebrate the launch of the all-new 2012 CR-V, Honda brought Ferris Bueller's Day Off back in a big game commercial. We cast Matthew Broderick as himself, skipping out on a day of acting work and living it up in his all-new CR-V. Relive movie history with Honda's fresh twist and wonderful homage to this '80s classic.

 Think you're a true fan of Ferris Bueller's Day Off? We hid over two dozen references to the movie throughout the commercial. Some are obvious, some are VERY subtle. See how many you can find. #dayoff

 http://automobiles.honda.com

 http://cr-v.honda.com

 http://leaplist.honda.com

 http://facebook.com/hondacrv |||||
A summary of this is?

– The full-length Ferris Bueller-inspired Super Bowl ad is here, and AdWeek dubs it "awesome." Matthew Broderick stars in "Matthew's Day Off," a Honda ad in which he calls in sick to a film shoot in order to do all sorts of fun stuff in his CR-V. The extended version of the ad (watch in the gallery) clocks in at nearly two and a half minutes, and according to its YouTube page, features more than two dozen references to the 1986 movie. "Broderick doesn't sully the original film's reputation here," writes Tim Nudd. "Quite the opposite—this is how a tribute should look."