News article:

Story highlights China calls for Malaysia to pick up the pace in its search, state media reports

 A U.S. intelligence official says stolen passports could be tied to human smuggling

 Brother of missing passenger: We're holding out hope, because ... there are no answers"

 Underwater search expert: "Crucial time is passing"

 What made Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 go off the grid? Where is it now? And could two stolen passports be the key to unraveling what happened?

 Questions such as these were more common than answers Monday as searchers kept looking for the Boeing 777 that vanished without a trace three days ago.

 As boats and planes scoured the water, chasing a series of leads that proved false, authorities revealed new details in their investigation and speculation surged. Among the latest developments:

 -- Two men who apparently boarded the plane with stolen passports -- and the man who bought their tickets -- have become one focus for investigators. So far, authorities haven't said who the men were or why they were on the flight. The FBI was running their thumbprints through a database on Monday after receiving them from Malaysian officials. One U.S. intelligence official noted that the circumstances surrounding the use of the stolen passports follows a pattern similar to human smuggling rings and might not have anything to do with the plane's disappearance.

 -- The area that nearly three dozen aircraft and 40 ships from 10 countries are combing has grown. "Now it's a search area hundreds of miles big," Cmdr. William Marks of the U.S. Navy 7th Fleet told CNN.

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 Flight 370: Areas being searched

 -- It's too soon to know why the plane went missing, but investigators are weighing a number of possibilities and haven't ruled anything out. The possibility of terrorism is still on the table, though the U.S. intelligence official said that's looking less likely.

 -- Family members of passengers are being told to prepare for the worst. But the brothers of Philip Wood, an American passenger who was on the plane, told CNN they're relying on faith to keep them going. "We're holding out hope," Tom Wood said, "because as of yet, there are no answers in any of this."

 The mysteries surrounding Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 -- and the true identities of some of its passengers -- remain unsolved.

 No emergency signal has been detected by any search vessel or aircraft.

 "For the aircraft to go missing just like that ... as far as we are concerned, we are equally puzzled as well," said Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of the Malaysian Civil Aviation Department. "We have to find the aircraft."

 The stolen passports

 It is perplexing enough that a jetliner seems to have vanished without a trace. Adding to the mystery is the news that at least two people on board were traveling on passports stolen from an Austrian and an Italian.

 The FBI is running those passengers' thumbprints through its database, a law enforcement official told CNN. The thumbprints were taken at the airport check-in in Kuala Lumpur and were shared with intelligence and law enforcement agencies around the world by the Malaysian government.

 Later Monday, a law enforcement official told CNN that information has been shared with various agencies that includes what may be the names of the two men who used stolen passports, and that so far nothing has come up to cause concerns.

 Malaysian officials have also shared images of the men with the U.S. government, a U.S. intelligence official said.

 "They will compare that to what we have in our terrorist databases. These are lists of people on no-fly lists, people with possible terrorist connections, people we have reasons to be suspicious of," U.S. Rep. Peter King told CNN's "The Lead." "We have these listings, and those names and those biometrics will be compared to those."

 According to Thai police officials, an Iranian man by the name of Kazem Ali bought one-way tickets for the two men, describing them as friends who wanted to return home to Europe. While Ali made the initial booking by telephone, either Ali or someone acting on his behalf paid for the tickets in cash, according to police.

 But CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes cautioned against concluding too much from details police apparently learned from a travel agency.

 "We don't know if that information is trustworthy. We know that it's a lead and has been provided to the Royal Thai Police. They've furnished it back to the other agencies," said Fuentes, a former FBI assistant director. "But as far as I'm concerned, it still needs to be confirmed who this gentleman was."

 Authorities have reviewed security footage from the airport and said the men who traveled on the stolen passports "are not Asian-looking men," Rahman said Monday.

 A majority of the 239 people on the plane were from Asia, according to the airline's manifest. There were 154 people from China or Taiwan and 38 people from Malaysia aboard.

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 The Italian whose name was on the plane's manifest, Luigi Maraldi, told reporters in Thailand over the weekend that he'd reported his passport stolen in August.

 Interpol tweeted Sunday it was examining additional "suspect #passports."

 "Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in INTERPOL's databases," said Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble in a statement.

 The passports were reportedly stolen in Thailand, and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra told CNN's "Amanpour" on Monday that police are investigating.

 "Initially we don't know about their nationality yet," she said. "But we gave orders for the police to investigate the passport users. Because this is very important to Thailand, to give full cooperation to Interpol in the investigation about the passport users. We are now following this."

 So far, nothing

 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 took off from Kuala Lumpur shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday (12 p.m. Friday ET).

 The plane disappeared somewhere between Malaysia and Vietnam. Since then, teams of searchers from Vietnam, China, Singapore, Indonesia, the United States, Thailand, Australia, the Philippines and New Zealand have been working alongside Malaysians to scour the Gulf of Thailand, part of the South China Sea that lies between several Southeast Asian countries.

 The focus has now shifted to the Andaman Sea, near Thailand's border, after radar data indicated the plane may have turned around to head back to Kuala Lumpur.

 But the pilot apparently gave no signal to authorities that he was turning around.

 Investigators have said several leads have turned out to be dead ends.

 An oil slick that searchers had thought might be from the plane turned out to be fuel oil typically used in cargo ships, according to Rahman.

 Other leads -- reports that a plane door and its tail had been spotted -- also turned out to be untrue.

 China called on Malaysia to pick up the pace in its search, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

 "We hope Malaysia can fully understand China, especially the mood of the Chinese passengers' families and speed up investigation, search and rescue efforts," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters, according to Xinhua.

 Search and rescue officials said Monday they were expanding the search area to encompasses a larger portion of the Gulf of Thailand between Malaysia and Vietnam.

 Authorities are sending ships to investigate a report of debris found south of Hong Kong, but it will likely be Tuesday before authorities know if there is anything to those reports, Rahman said.

 From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., planes flew over the vast waters. Ships searched through the night.

 "Every day that goes by, it makes the search area much, much larger," said David Gallo, who helped lead the search for the wreckage of Air France Flight 447 after that plane crashed in 2009.

 Looking for wreckage and flight data recorders in the water is no easy task, he told CNN's "The Situation Room."

 "We've only explored about 7% of the world beneath the sea, and there's a reason for that. It's slow going, and it's difficult. So, with every day that passes by, crucial time is passing."

 Terrorism concern

 The passport mystery raised concerns about the possibility of terrorism, but officials cautioned that it was still too early to arrive at any conclusions.

 One possible explanation for the use of the stolen passports is illegal immigration.

 There are previous cases of illegal immigrants using fake passports to try to enter Western countries. And Southeast Asia is known to be a booming market for stolen passports.

 Five passengers ended up not boarding the aircraft. Their bags were removed and were not onboard the jet when it disappeared, Rahman said at Monday's briefing.

 Could the plane have been hijacked? "We are looking at every angle, every aspect," Rahman said.

 "We are looking at every inch of the sea."

 There has been some speculation that the flight might have been a test run for a terrorist organization planning a later attack.

 The incident has some similarities to such incidents in the past, such as the 1994 bombing of a Philippine jetliner that investigators later learned was a test run for a wider plot to bomb numerous airliners, former U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General Mary Schiavo told CNN on Monday.

 But John Magaw, a former Transportation Security Administration official and U.S. Secret Service director, said his best guess is the Malaysia Airlines flight was not a test.

 "They've already done the dry run," he said. "This was the actual flight."

 Analysts warned that it's far too soon to know why the plane went missing or what caused it.

 "We have speculation run amok, because we have no facts," said Michael Goldfarb, a former chief of staff for the Federal Aviation Administration. "Speculation on the cause is always wrong, because it's a unique accident. It rarely happens.

 "And I do believe that they will find the so-called black boxes. ... They'll find where the plane is."

 Agonizing wait

 For the relatives of the 227 passengers and 12 crew members, the wait has been agonizing.

 "As of yet, we know as much as everyone else," Tom Wood told CNN's "AC360" Monday. "It seems to be getting more bizarre, the twists in the story, where they can't find anything. So we're just relying on faith."

 In Beijing, family members gathered in a conference room at a hotel complex.

 More than 100 people signed a hand-written petition that demanded "truth" from the airline. They also urged the Chinese government to help them deal with Malaysian authorities.

 Malaysia Airlines, which was helping family members apply for expedited passports, said it will fly out five relatives of each passenger to Kuala Lumpur.

 A fuller picture of what happened may not become available until searchers find the plane and its flight data recorder.

 And so far, that hasn't happened. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| Helicopters were scrambled on Monday to a floating "yellow object" that rescue teams believed could be a life raft from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane - but it turned out to be a false alarm.

 Pham Quy Tieu, Vietnam's vice transport minister and deputy head of the its rescue committee, said that a search plane had initially been unable to get close enough to determine what it was.

 However, officials later said it was a "moss-covered cap of a cable reel."

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 The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam said on its website searches were being conducted about 90 miles southwest of Tho Chu island, which is located about 120 miles off the coast of southern Vietnam.

 On Sunday, NBC News reported that no electronic "chatter" has been detected indicating any known terror group was behind the Boeing 777's mysterious disappearance.

 Two passengers on board Malaysian Airlines flight were traveling on stolen passports. Both ticket holders were due to connect to a flight to Amsterdam. One of the passengers was then scheduled to head to Frankfurt with the other en route to Stockholm.

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 The red-eye flight was carrying 229 people when it vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing in relatively clear weather. No distress signal was sent.

 “This is an unprecedented mystery,” Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director of Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation, told a news conference on Monday.

 He said a hijacking had not been ruled out: “We have not narrowed down any possibilities.”

 Reuters contributed to this report. ||||| KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Dozens of ships and aircraft have failed to find any piece of the missing Boeing 777 jet that vanished more than two days ago above waters south of Vietnam as investigators pursued "every angle" to explain its disappearance, including hijacking, Malaysia's civil aviation chief said Monday.

 This photo provided by Laurent Errera taken Dec. 26, 2011, shows the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER that disappeared from air traffic control screens Saturday, taking off from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle... (Associated Press)

 A family member of passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines plane wipes her tears at a hotel in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Monday, March 10, 2014. Vietnamese aircraft spotted what they suspected was one... (Associated Press)

 A Chinese relative of passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines plane looks out from a hotel room for relatives or friends of passengers aboard the missing airplane in Beijing, China Monday, March... (Associated Press)

 This screengrab from flightradar24.com shows the last reported position of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, Friday night March 7, 2014. The Boeing 777-200 carrying 239 people lost contact over the South... (Associated Press)

 Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation director general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, right, speaks as Malaysia Airlines Group Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahyain listens during a press conference at a... (Associated Press)

 Malaysian maritime officials found some oil slicks in the South China Sea and sent a sample to a lab to see if it came from the plane, the Department of Civil Aviation chief, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, told a news conference.

 Hundreds of distraught relatives were gathered in a hotel in Beijing, waiting to be flown to Malaysia. Of the 227 passengers, two-thirds were Chinese. There were also 38 passengers and 12 crew members from Malaysia, and others from elsewhere in Asia, Europe and North America, including three Americans.

 "We accept God's will. Whether he is found alive or dead, we surrender to Allah," said Selamat Omar, a Malaysian whose 29-year-old son Mohamad Khairul Amri Selamat was heading to Beijing for a business trip. He said he was expecting a call from his son after the flight's scheduled arrival time at 6:30 a.m. Saturday. Instead he got a call from the airline to say the plane was missing.

 Vietnamese ships working throughout the night could not find a rectangular object spotted Sunday afternoon that was thought to be one of the doors of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet.

 "We have not found anything that appears to be objects from the aircraft," Azharuddin said, adding that the search operation has involved 34 aircraft and 40 ships covering a 50-nautical mile radius from the point the plane vanished from radar screens early Saturday about one hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

 He said officials from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. National Safety Transportation Board have arrived to help in the investigation.

 As hope faded for relatives of the 239 people who were aboard Flight MH370, attention focused on how two passengers managed to board the ill-fated aircraft using stolen passports. Interpol confirmed it knew about the stolen passports but said no authorities checked its vast databases on stolen documents before the jet departed

 Warning that "only a handful of countries" routinely make such checks, Interpol secretary general Ronald Noble chided authorities for "waiting for a tragedy to put prudent security measures in place at borders and boarding gates."

 Still, there was no indication that the two men had anything to do with the tragedy.

 Possible causes of the apparent crash include an explosion, catastrophic engine failure, extreme turbulence, or pilot error or even suicide.

 Azharuddin acknowledged many theories about the plane's disappearance, including hijacking.

 "We are not discounting this. We are looking at every angle but again, we have to find concrete evidence," he said.

 The baggage of five passengers who had checked in to the flight but did not board the plane were removed before it departed, he said. Airport security was strict according to international standards, surveillance has been done and the airport has been audited, he said.

 On Saturday, the foreign ministries in Italy and Austria said the names of two citizens listed on the flight's manifest matched the names on two passports reported stolen in Thailand.

 "I can confirm that we have the visuals of these two people on CCTV," Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said at a news conference late Sunday, adding that the footage was being examined. "We have intelligence agencies, both local and international, on board."

 The thefts of the two passports — one belonging to Austrian Christian Kozel and the other to Luigi Maraldi of Italy — were entered into Interpol's database after they were stolen in Thailand in 2012 and last year, the police body said.

 Electronic booking records show that one-way tickets with those names were issued Thursday from a travel agency in the beach resort of Pattaya in eastern Thailand. A person who answered the phone at the agency said she could not comment.

 But no authorities in Malaysia or elsewhere checked the passports against the database of 40 million stolen or lost travel documents before the Malaysia Airlines plane took off.

 A telephone operator on a China-based KLM hotline confirmed Sunday that passengers named Maraldi and Kozel had been booked on one-way tickets on the same KLM flight, flying from Beijing to Amsterdam on Saturday. Maraldi was to fly on to Copenhagen, Denmark, and Kozel to Frankfurt, Germany. She said the pair booked the tickets through China Southern Airlines.

 As holders of EU passports with onward flights to Europe, the passengers would not have needed visas for China.

 The Thai national police chief on Monday set up a task force to investigate the issue of the stolen passports.

 Interpol said it and national investigators were working to determine the true identities of those who used the stolen passports to board the flight. White House Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said the U.S. was looking into the stolen passports, but that investigators had reached no conclusions.

 Interpol has long sounded the alarm that growing international travel has underpinned a new market for identity theft: Bogus passports are mostly used by illegal immigrants, but also pretty much anyone looking to travel unnoticed such as drug runners or terrorists. More than 1 billion times last year, travelers boarded planes without their passports being checked against Interpol's database of 40 million stolen or lost travel documents, the police agency said.

 Finding traces of an aircraft that disappears over sea can take days or longer, even with a sustained search effort. Depending on the circumstances of the crash, wreckage can be scattered over a large area. If the plane enters the water before breaking up, there can be relatively little debris.

 __

 Associated Press writers Chris Brummitt in Hanoi, Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, Didi Tang, Gillian Wong and Louise Watt in Beijing, Joan Lowy in Washington and Scott Mayerowitz in New York contributed this report. ||||| Teams from nine countries working non-stop, officials say, as hunt goes on for plane missing with 239 people on board

 Search crews involving nine countries are working “every hour, every minute, every second” across a huge swathe of the South China Sea but have yet to find any evidence of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, the country’s civil aviation chief said on Monday.

 Almost 60 hours after flight MH370 vanished from radar screens in the early hours of Saturday officials remain “puzzled” by its sudden disappearance and are considering all possible angles, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said.

 “Unfortunately, we have not found anything that appears to be an object from the aircraft, let alone the aircraft,” he said.

 The Beijing-bound flight was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it went missing around 40 minutes after its 12.41am take-off from Kuala Lumpur, over the seas between Malaysia and Vietnam. The Boeing-777 was cruising at 35,000 feet when it disappeared in apparently good weather, gave no indication of any problems and did not issue a distress call.

 Rahman added: “There are many theories that have been said in the media; many experts around the world have contributed their expertise and knowledge about what could happen, what happened....We are puzzled as well.

 “To confirm what happened on that particular day on this ill-fated aircraft...we need concrete evidence, parts of the aircraft for us to analyse, for us to do forensic study.”

 He said that the government had not discounted speculation about a hijack, but was looking at every possible explanation, noting that it took two years to determine the cause of the 2009 Air France crash.

 He confirmed that five passengers had checked in for the flight but not boarded, adding that their baggage was removed from the aircraft as necessary in such cases.

 Concerns that terrorist might be responsible have been fuelled by the fact two passengers were travelling on stolen European passports - although experts have said that fraudulent documents are reasonably common on regional flights for a variety of reasons.

 The men who used them were of Asian appearance, Malaysia’s home minister had said late on Sunday. But Rahman said on Monday that they were of “non-Asian” appearance.

 Asked by a reporter what they looked like “roughly,” he said: “Do you know of a footballer by the name of (Mario) Balotelli? He is an Italian. Do you know how he looks like?”

 A reporter then asked, “Is he black?” and the aviation chief replied, “Yes.”

 The passports were stolen from Luigi Maraldi and Christian Kozel in the last two years, and were listed as stolen on Interpol’s database. The international police agency said the documents had not been checked with its system and that it had long urged all countries to check passports systematically.

 The suggestion that the plane may have turned back just before disappearing from radar screens - mooted by officials yesterday – remains unconfirmed, Rahman added.

 Nine countries are now taking part in the search, which Rahman said covered the area within a 50 nautical mile radius of the aircraft’s last known position and the northern Straits of Malacca in case the plane had turned back.

 “We are every hour, every minute, every second looking at every inch of the sea,” he said.

 Forty ships are working round the clock, while 34 aircraft are working during daylight hours. Potential sightings of aircraft debris by Vietnamese searchers have not been verified, Rahman said.

 There have been a few glimmers of hope, but so far no trace of the plane has been found.

 On Sunday afternoon, a Vietnamese plane spotted a rectangular object that was thought to be one of the missing plane’s doors, but ships working through the night could not locate it.

 Malaysian maritime officials found some oil slicks in the South China Sea and sent a sample to a lab to see if it came from the plane. Tests showed that the oil was not from an aircraft, Rahman said.

 Malaysia Airlines said in a statement it posted today that its primary focus was caring for the families of passengers, some of whom it has already flown to Kuala Lumpur. It has also sent counsellors to Beijing as two-thirds of the travellers were Chinese.

 “We appreciate the help we are receiving from all parties and agencies during this critical and difficult time...Malaysia Airlines is similarly anxious and we appreciate the patience, support and prayers from everyone,” it said.

 But many of the Chinese passengers’ relatives have complained that the airline has so far given them little information or support and have chosen to stay in Beijing.

 An editorial in the state-run Global Times newspaper attacked the airline and authorities on Monday, warning: “The Malaysian side cannot shirk its responsibilities. The initial response from Malaysia was not swift enough.”

 It added: “There are loopholes in the work of Malaysia Airlines and security authorities. If it is due to a deadly mechanical breakdown or pilot error, then Malaysia Airlines should take the blame. If this is a terrorist attack, then the security check at the Kuala Lumpur airport and on the flight is questionable.” ||||| Investigators searching for a missing Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared with 239 people on board have said all security checks were followed.

 Malaysia's civil aviation chief said two passengers travelling on stolen passports - one issued by Italy and the other by Austria - were "not Asian-looking men".

 Asked for a description of the pair, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman added: "Do you know a footballer by the name of (Mario) Balotelli? (This is) what he looks like. I don't want to dwell on this but the men are not Asian-looking."

 Search teams are scouring vast areas of ocean for the missing flight

 Mr Rahman also revealed the search area has been extended and said rescuers are responding to reports of debris floating in the sea near Hong Kong.

 Meanwhile, samples of oil taken from a slick in the South China Sea came from a ship, not the missing aircraft, it has been confirmed.

 It comes after a reported sighting of a life raft by the crew of a Vietnamese jet turned out to be a false alert.

 Spotter planes and ships are involved in the search for the missing flight

 Authorities admit they are "puzzled" by the "unprecedented" disappearance of flight MH370 mid-way between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.

 Security services are investigating whether the Boeing 777-200 was hijacked or destroyed in a terror attack.

 Earlier reports of debris spotted in the South China Sea, including an aircraft door, have not been confirmed, while a possible sighting of a section of the plane's tail has been ruled out.

 Investigators say Vietnam has not confirmed a possible plane door sighting

 Sky's Jonathan Samuels, in Beijing, said authorities have warned against giving "false hope" to relatives by reporting every sighting of debris.

 "They say it's very distressing and very upsetting for families to hear there may be something like a life raft out in the ocean, only to have their hopes dashed just a short time later," he said.

 The two men travelling on stolen passports bought their tickets together and were due to fly to Europe after landing in Beijing.

 The plane was flying between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing when it vanished

 Search teams are scouring two vast areas of the ocean south-west of Vietnam

 Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said one of the mystery passengers had been identified as a non-resident of the country.

 Officials are discussing whether images of the men should be made public as part of an appeal for information, while Interpol said additional "suspect" documents are under review.

 Initial investigations suggest the plane disintegrated at about 35,000ft, according to the Reuters news agency.

 Samples of oil taken from a slick did not come from the missing plane

 Had the plane plunged into the sea and broken up on impact, search teams would have expected to find a concentrated pattern of debris, a source involved in the probe said.

 The search, which involves teams from 10 countries, was widened after radar suggested the aircraft may have turned back before it vanished.

 Rescuers have been concentrating their efforts on a 10,500 sq mile area of ocean that includes parts of the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea.

 Investigators have told relatives to 'prepare for the worst'

 Meanwhile, relatives of those on the flight are enduring an agonising wait for information and anger is growing in China about the lack of progress with the investigation.

 Nearly two-thirds of the passengers were Chinese and if the loss of the plane is confirmed, it would be the country's second-worst air disaster.

 In a scathing editorial, the Global Times newspaper, which has links to the Chinese Communist Party, said: "The Malaysian side cannot shirk its responsibilities. The initial response from Malaysia was not swift enough.

 "There are loopholes in the work of Malaysia Airlines and security authorities."

 :: Watch Sky News live on television, on Sky channel 501, Virgin Media channel 602, Freeview channel 82 and Freesat channel 202. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– The fate of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight and the 239 onboard continues to stump officials. Authorities are considering every possible explanation for the disappearance, says Malaysia's civil aviation boss, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman. Among those explanations are engine failure, pilot error, or possibly suicide. But so far, searches have yielded little information—even with 40 ships and 34 aircraft investigating a radius of 50 nautical miles around where the plane dropped off radar screens, the AP reports. Nine countries are involved in the search, and they're working "every hour, every minute, every second," Rahman adds, per the Guardian. It's now after dark in the area, and the search will resume tomorrow. In other search news: As for hijacking, "we are not discounting this," says Rahman, via the AP. Malaysia says it has CCTV visuals of two people traveling with stolen passports. Officials said today at a news conference that the two were not "Asian-looking people," as per the BBC. One-way tickets under the names on the stolen passports—Luigi Maraldi and Christian Kozel—were issued at a Thai travel agency. Passengers traveling under those names were also booked on a one-way flight from Beijing to Amsterdam Saturday, says a rep for Royal Dutch Airlines. Maraldi was then due to fly to Copenhagen, while Kozel was set to go to Frankfurt, Germany. Malaysia is now downplaying reports suggesting Vietnam had discovered possible debris. "We have not found anything that appear to be objects from the aircraft, let alone the aircraft," says Rahman, per CNN. Officials had believed they'd spotted a life raft in the water, and helicopters were rushed to the spot—only to find a "moss-covered cap of a cable reel," NBC News reports. Meanwhile, oil slicks discovered in the South China Sea are not connected to the aircraft, Sky News confirms via AFP.


Write an article based on this summary:

– Golf may be "a good walk, spoiled," but at least it doesn't spoil your life expectancy. In fact, a new study finds that heavy cardio sports like cycling and rowing do nothing to help you live longer than playing golf or cricket, reports the Wall Street Journal. Researchers looked at mortality rates in 9,889 Olympic athletes who completed from 1896 to 1936 in 43 types of sports, and surprisingly found that those who competed in intense activities did not live any longer than those who curled, shot guns, played cricket, or golfed. "Engaging in cycling and rowing (high cardiovascular intensity) had no added survival benefit compared with playing golf or cricket (low cardiovascular intensity)," says the study. One theory is that intensive exercise over the long-term also leads to injuries and damage that balance out the benefits of such exercise. "Over time, this will result in an accumulation of damage, which can be explained as a form of aging," says a study author. You can read the original BMJ article here.

Getty Images

 Any talk of golf as exercise could make cyclists choke on their energy bars. But a new study suggests that a round of golf can confer longevity benefits just as robust as a 100-mile bike ride.

 The study in the Christmas edition of BMJ—the peer-reviewed publication formerly known as the British Medical Journal—is based on the mortality records of 9,889 athletes who competed in the Olympic Games between 1896 and 1936. "Engaging in cycling and rowing (high cardiovascular intensity) had no added survival benefit compared with playing golf or cricket (low cardiovascular intensity)."

 More Marathon Runners Stop Aging Out of the Race

 The study adds to a small but growing body of research suggesting that years-long doses of extreme exercise—measured by amount or intensity—may be unproductive, if not counterproductive. In general, the research suggests that the well-established longevity benefits of exercise may cease to accrue or may even diminish beyond a point, for instance, 20 miles a week of running.

 "During high intensive exercise the human body has to deal with all kinds of micro traumata. Over time, this will result in an accumulation of damage, which can be explained as a form of aging," said Frouke Engelaer, an author of the study, conducted by a vitality-and-aging department at Leiden University Medical Centre in Leiden, Netherlands.

 This research is too preliminary and controversial to trigger warnings against marathons and triathlons. And by all accounts it shouldn't be used as an excuse for staying sedentary, which poses well-established risks of cardiovascular disease.

 Apart from health, moreover, extreme fitness can induce euphoria. "When I was in my peak Ironman triathlon shape, I felt my absolute best," said John Gamba, who writes a blog called Golfer Turned Triathlete.

 Gamba, 42, doesn't necessarily buy the idea that walking the links is just as good for him as running a half marathon. But his father does. "My dad just came up to me and said some doctor told him that triathlon and other intensive sports aren't good for you," said Gamba.

 Write to Kevin Helliker at kevin.helliker@wsj.com

 Corrections & Amplifications

 The first name of John Gamba was wrongly given as James in an earlier version of this article. ||||| R Zwiers , PhD candidate 1, F W A Zantvoord , medical student 1, F M Engelaer , PhD candidate 12, D van Bodegom , assistant professor of medicine 12, F J G van der Ouderaa , chief scientific officer 1, R G J Westendorp , professor of old age medicine 12 1Leyden Academy on Vitality and Ageing, Rijnsburgerweg 10, 2333 AA Leiden, Netherlands 2Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden Correspondence to: F Engelaer Engelaer{at}leydenacademy.nl Accepted 14 September 2012

 Abstract Objective To assess the mortality risk in subsequent years (adjusted for year of birth, nationality, and sex) of former Olympic athletes from disciplines with different levels of exercise intensity. Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting Former Olympic athletes. Participants 9889 athletes (with a known age at death) who participated in the Olympic Games between 1896 and 1936, representing 43 types of disciplines with different levels of cardiovascular, static, and dynamic intensity exercise; high or low risk of bodily collision; and different levels of physical contact. Main outcome measure All cause mortality. Results Hazard ratios for mortality among athletes from disciplines with moderate cardiovascular intensity (1.01, 95% confidence interval 0.96 to 1.07) or high cardiovascular intensity (0.98, 0.92 to 1.04) were similar to those in athletes from disciplines with low cardiovascular intensity. The underlying static and dynamic components in exercise intensity showed similar non-significant results. Increased mortality was seen among athletes from disciplines with a high risk of bodily collision (hazard ratio 1.11, 1.06 to 1.15) and with high levels of physical contact (1.16, 1.11 to 1.22). In a multivariate analysis, the effect of high cardiovascular intensity remained similar (hazard ratio 1.05, 0.89 to 1.25); the increased mortality associated with high physical contact persisted (hazard ratio 1.13, 1.06 to 1.21), but that for bodily collision became non-significant (1.03, 0.98 to 1.09) as a consequence of its close relation with physical contact. Conclusions Among former Olympic athletes, engagement in disciplines with high intensity exercise did not bring a survival benefit compared with disciplines with low intensity exercise. Those who engaged in disciplines with high levels of physical contact had higher mortality than other Olympians later in life.

 Introduction Public health associations recommend physical exercise because it is associated with lower mortality risks, better mood and cognition, and lower prevalence of cardiovascular disease.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 However, when Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens in 490 BC to announce the Greek victory over the Persians, he died on arrival. As his case illustrates, exercise of high intensity can also place great strain on the body and can cause serious injuries and damage.8 The question is whether regular high intensity exercise is associated with a lower or higher mortality risk. When the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896, including a marathon run to Athens, the organisers decided to shorten the distance, with the death of Pheidippides in mind. The current distance of 42.195 km was determined only later during the third Olympics in London, when the royal family requested the race to be from the start at Windsor Castle to the royal stage in the White City Stadium. This year, the Olympic Games were back in London, but whether high intensity exercise is beneficial for reducing mortality risk is still debated.9 10 The effect of high intensity exercise on mortality later in life has mostly been studied among professional athletes, using the general population as a control group. The outcomes from these studies differ; some did not find a survival benefit, whereas others showed lower mortality in athletes than in their non-athletic counterparts from the general population.11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 The lower mortality risk of professional athletes compared with the general population could be due to specific social and psychometric characteristics, and whether high intensity exercise brings a survival benefit or an increased mortality risk for athletes remains to be elucidated. We analysed mortality patterns in a large historic cohort of athletes who had all participated in the Olympic Games between 1896 and 1936 but performed at different levels of cardiovascular, static, and dynamic intensity exercise.

 Methods Study population In May 2011 we retrieved a cohort of 21 127 former Olympic athletes from the continuously updated Sports Reference database, the largest online database of Olympic athletes.25 Figure 1⇓ summarises the inclusion process. We included 9889 former Olympic athletes, born between 1830 and 1910, with a known age at death, who participated in at least one of the Summer Olympic Games between 1896 and 1936. We excluded 2162 athletes from nine disciplines that were not mentioned in the classification of the American College of Cardiology.26 We classified skeleton as bobsledding and polo as equestrian, because of the very similar types of exercise. For 7534 athletes, the age at death was unknown owing to an unknown date of birth, date of death, or both. Finally, we excluded 1542 participants born after 1910, as they could possibly be still alive. Fig 1 Flow diagram showing inclusion of former Olympic athletes in study Classification of Olympic disciplines We classified the 43 Olympic disciplines according to the classification system of the 8th Task Force on the Classification of Sports by the American College of Cardiology.26 The classification of cardiovascular intensity sums a static component reflecting maximal voluntary muscle contraction and a dynamic component reflecting maximal oxygen uptake; both were categorised at three levels of intensity—low, moderate, and high. The system also defines three levels of static and dynamic intensity—low, moderate, and high. When an athlete had participated in multiple disciplines, we categorised him/her in the discipline with the highest cardiovascular score. The risk of bodily collision was also classified by the American College of Cardiology.26 Finally, we classified the various disciplines as low (non-contact), moderate (limited contact), and high (full contact), according to the classification of contact sports of the American Academy of Pediatrics.27 The levels of exercise intensity were similar in athletes who were included in and excluded from this analysis (data not shown). Statistical analysis We calculated hazard ratios for all cause mortality by using a left truncated Cox proportional hazards model, entering participants at the age of first participation in the Olympic Games. All analyses were adjusted for sex, year of birth, and nationality. We used Stata 11 for all calculations.

 Results We included 9889 athletes from 43 different Olympic disciplines that were classified in various categories of intensity of exercise, risk of bodily collision, and the level of physical contact. The supplementary table summarises the characteristics of these 43 disciplines. Figure 2⇓ shows all 43 disciplines stratified for the level of static, dynamic, and cardiovascular intensity, classified according the American College of Cardiology.26 Fig 2 43 Olympic disciplines classified in categories of static and dynamic intensity, as well as three categories of low, moderate, and high cardiovascular intensity (from yellow to red).26 We firstly calculated hazard ratios for mortality dependent on different levels of exercise intensity. As the participants came from different birth cohorts, we adjusted all our analyses for year of birth, which, as expected, was correlated with mortality. Next, we adjusted for sex and nationality, which were also correlated with mortality (data not shown). Table 1⇓ shows hazard ratios for mortality for different levels of cardiovascular, static, and dynamic intensity in both univariate and multivariate analyses. Engagement in disciplines with increasing cardiovascular intensity was not associated with a significantly higher mortality risk; the hazard ratio for moderate intensity was 1.01 (95% confidence interval 0.96 to 1.07; P=0.71), and that for high intensity was 0.98 (0.92 to 1.40; P=0.46). Multivariate analysis showed similar results (table 1⇓). Analysis of the static and dynamic components separately showed similar non-significant results. Univariate analysis showed a small beneficial effect of moderate static exercise, but this was not reflected in a lower hazard ratio in athletes engaged in disciplines with high intensity static exercise. Table 1 Hazard ratios of mortality for athletes in disciplines with different intensities of exercise View this table: We also studied the effect of bodily collision and physical contact on mortality (table 2⇓). Athletes engaged in disciplines with a high risk of bodily collision had an 11% higher mortality risk compared with those who were not exposed (hazard ratio 1.11, 1.06 to 1.15; P<0.001). When comparing athletes who had performed in disciplines with various levels of physical contact, we found that those who participated in sports with only moderate contact did not have a higher mortality risk. However, athletes who were exposed to high levels of physical contact had a 16% higher mortality risk compared with those with low physical contact (hazard ratio 1.16, 1.11 to 1.22; P<0.001). These higher mortality risks remained similar in the multivariate analysis, whereas the hazard ratio for bodily collision became non-significant. Table 2 Hazard ratios of mortality for athletes in disciplines with different risk of bodily collision and physical contact View this table: We additionally did similar analyses in various subgroups—men only, deaths after age 50, born before 1900, and born after 1900 (fig 3⇓). In none of the subgroups was exercise at high cardiovascular intensity associated with a reduction in mortality risk. However, we found a significant higher mortality risk in all these subgroups for risk of bodily collision and high physical contact. Fig 3 Hazard ratios of mortality (95% CIs) in former Olympic athletes according to cardiovascular intensity, bodily collision, and physical contact. Analyses were adjusted for sex, year of birth, and nationality

 Discussion Our results show that former Olympic athletes who engaged in disciplines with high cardiovascular intensity had similar mortality risks to athletes from disciplines with low cardiovascular intensity. This would indicate that engaging in cycling and rowing (high cardiovascular intensity) had no added survival benefit compared with playing golf or cricket (low cardiovascular intensity). Although comparing modern sporting activity with that during the first series of the games is a daunting task, this analysis is sobering for all those athletes who trained so hard to qualify for the London Olympics in 2012. Moreover, our analyses point to a potential risk for those engaged in disciplines with a high risk of bodily collision or high levels of physical contact. As the higher mortality risk persisted for death after age 50, this increased risk could not be explained by the death of young athletes due to trauma. We consider it more likely that the higher mortality risk reflects the effect of a gradual accumulation of multiple bodily injuries during sporting activities. Previous studies have shown that bodily collisions or fierce physical contacts are responsible for a large proportion of the total burden of injuries.8 28 These injuries may have longlasting detrimental effects, in line with the generalised theory of ageing. For instance, repetitive blows to the head, especially in boxers, are associated with cognitive impairment, early onset dementia, and reduced life expectancy.29 30 Our findings stand in contrast to several other studies showing a benefit to late life mortality risk in very well trained athletes.31 32 33 34 A possible explanation could be that these studies included only exercise of moderate intensity. Other studies, however, described a late life survival advantage for endurance athletes who had trained at high physical intensity.22 23 24 35 All previous observations may be subject to bias, however, as trained athletes differ from the general population in more ways than just physical fitness. We consider our comparison of former Olympic athletes who performed their sports at different physical intensity to be more robust than a comparison between trained athletes and people from the population at large. This interpretation is strengthened by the fact that outcomes were congruent in all domains of physical intensity (for example, cardiovascular, static and dynamic intensity). In this study, we used data from athletes who participated in the Olympic Games between 1896 and 1936, so outcomes reflect late life consequences of intensive exercise programmes that were in vogue 70 to 110 years ago. Since then, training programmes, especially on a (semi)professional level, have changed substantially. Top athletes now not only train more often and more intensely, but training has also become more individualised and specifically focused. Moreover, medical care to prevent permanent damage is undoubtedly better and could explain why in the past the potential benefits of intensive physical training were overwhelmed by trade-offs later in life. We do not have access to any data that allow for a valid comparison of use of anabolic steroids and other stimulating substances, but many people would argue that their use was probably less prevalent in the past than it is now. For all of these reasons, care is needed in extrapolating our findings to the late life effects of current training schemes. Regarding the negative effect of bodily collision and fierce physical contact, current sporting activities are much more extreme with regard to velocity, g force, and other mechanical strains. Collisions and physical injuries could therefore have more effect nowadays, despite better protective aids and medical treatment. Our findings could well underestimate the late life effects of the gradual accumulation of permanent damage due to repeated collisions and injuries to which top athletes are exposed. This being said, several potential confounders could decrease or further increase the hazard ratios for mortality that we have found. These include unknown factors such as the total number of years spent in training, age at which intensive training ceased, intensity of exercise after athletes withdrew from competitive sports, specific behaviour in specific types of sport, and specific personal characteristics depending on the type of sport. The beneficial effects of exercise could also be counterbalanced by detrimental effects of (acute) cessation of physical exercise resulting in a net neutral effect. Although we did not find evidence that former Olympic athletes from disciplines involving high intensity exercise have a higher mortality risk than other former Olympians, people should think for a moment before engaging in disciplines with risk of bodily collision or fierce physical contact. This notion may help to explain a historical fact. Before Pheidippides exclaimed “νικωμεν” (we have won) and collapsed, he had not only run from Marathon to Athens but had fought in the battle of Marathon before that. It is tempting to speculate that it was not the run from Marathon to Athens but the effect of armed force that led to his tragic death. What is already known on this topic Modern athletes who performing high intensity exercise have a survival benefit when compared with the general population

 Intensive exercise places great strain on the human body and can cause serious injuries and damage What this study adds Former Olympic athletes who engaged in disciplines with high cardiovascular intensity had similar mortality risks to those from disciplines with low cardiovascular intensity

 Engaging in disciplines with risk of bodily collision or physical contact was associated with a higher mortality risk compared with other disciplines

 Notes Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e7456

 Footnotes Contributors: RZ and FWAZ contributed equally to this work; they collected and analysed the data with assistance from FE and DvB. All authors contributed to writing the article and participated in the scientific debate. FE is the guarantor.

 Funding: None.

 Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work. |||||


– A former police employee skirted murder and manslaughter charges in Texas this week when a jury sided with his so-called "gay panic" defense, the Houston Chronicle reports. James Miller, 69, testified that in 2015 he was at the house of neighbor David Spencer, 32, drinking and jamming on their instruments when the younger man tried to kiss him. "We were playing back and forth and everything, and I just let him know—Hey, I'm not gay," Miller says in an affidavit, per KXAN. "Then it seemed like everything was all right, and everything was fine. When I got ready to go—it seemed like [expletive] just started happening." Miller apparently pulled a knife, stabbed Spencer twice, and showed up at a police station in the wee hours saying "I think I killed someone. ... I stabbed him." In his defense, Miller said Spencer was bigger and stronger and might hurt him. Prosecutors argued that Spencer didn't threaten or injure his neighbor, but on Tuesday an Austin jury rejected murder charges and found Miller guilty of criminally negligent homicide, sentencing him to 6 months in jail with 100 hours of community service and $10,000 in fines. Now LGBT advocates are speaking up against "gay panic" defenses, which are legal in every state except California and Illinois. "It's hard to believe that something like this exists," the executive director of the LGBT Bar Association tells the Washington Post. "This is something from the very darkest of ages, based on the idea that if a gay guy hits on a straight guy, then the straight guy gets to do whatever he wants to do to him, including a homicide." (This story has been updated: We originally reported Miller was an ex-cop; he was a civilian employee of the Austin PD.)

Expand this summary.

AUSTIN (KXAN) - A jury on Wednesday sentenced James Miller to 10 years of probation and 6 months in the Travis County Jail.

 Miller was found not guilty of murder Tuesday afternoon, but guilty of a lesser charge — criminally negligent homicide — in connection with the 2015 stabbing death of Daniel Spencer, 32.

 Miller, 69, was also found not guilty of manslaughter. He faced two to 10 years in prison or 10 years probation.

 In addition to the probation and jail time, he will also have to pay $10,000 in fines for restitution, have an alcohol monitor for a year or until a judge decides to remove it, 100 hours of community service and pay off the court costs.

 The prosecution said Spencer was an upstanding member of our community, "who was killed by the defendant for no good reason."

 The state called a number of witnesses to the stand, including the victim's mother.

 "I have a huge hole in my heart. Something's wrong in the world when you lose your child before you go," explained Marsha Spencer. "I'm tortured by the thought of how Daniel died and I'm tortured by the fact that he suffered and that he was alone when he died. It's a loss that cuts deeply."

 The defense argued that Miller acted in self-defense and so he should be eligible for the minimum punishment associated with the charge.

 "It was so uncharacteristic of Mr. Miller that for him to engage in this behavior clearly had to be an act of self-defense," said Charlie Baird, Miller's defense attorney. "We're going to ask the jury to accord him probation and to allow him to return to his family and his home, and to the community."

 The victim and the defendant were playing music and drinking together the night Spencer was killed. The defense argues Spencer came on to Miller, and he stabbed him in self-defense.

 The prosecution said the evidence does not support the self-defense argument, pointing to blood evidence at the scene they say didn't match Miller's story. Further, prosecutors argued it could have been Spencer who turned down Miller's sexual advances.

 Austin police were called around 3:45 a.m. on Sept. 21, 2015 from a service station at the 700 block of East 8th Street. Miller told Austin police "I think I killed someone," and, "I stabbed him."

 The affidavit states that Miller said, "We were playing. We were doing the good music. We were playing back and forth and everything and I just let him know — Hey, I'm not gay. We been playing. We're musicians and all that kind of stuff, but I'm not a gay guy. Then it seemed like everything was alright and everything was fine. When I got ready to go — it seemed like [expletive] just started happening." ||||| A former cop said he killed a man in 'a gay panic' - an actual legal defense that worked

 The "gay panic" defense is legal in Texas. The "gay panic" defense is legal in Texas. Photo: Norberto Cuenca, Contributor Photo: Norberto Cuenca, Contributor Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close A former cop said he killed a man in 'a gay panic' - an actual legal defense that worked 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

 After James Miller retired from the Austin Police Department, he took up guitar, strumming the instrument at a nearby musicians' bar, trying to put together a jazz band and getting together at the house of David Spencer, a 32-year-old neighbor and a saxophonist who shared his passion.

 In September, 2015, after a night of music and drinking at Spencer's house, Miller testified, his younger neighbor made a fatal mistake: He moved in for a kiss.

 "We were playing back and forth and everything, and I just let him know - Hey, I'm not gay," Miller, 69, said in an affidavit, according to Austin NBC-affiliate KXAN.

 "We been playing. We're musicians and all that kind of stuff, but I'm not a gay guy. Then it seemed like everything was all right, and everything was fine. When I got ready to go - it seemed like [expletive] just started happening."

 SENDING A MESSAGE: Police Department's rainbow cruiser raises eyebrows

 Then, he said, he pulled out a knife and stabbed Spencer two times.

 Miller showed up at a police station a few hours later, at 3:45 a.m., according to a police report obtained by the Austin American-Statesman: "I think I killed someone. . . . I stabbed him."

 He was charged with murder.

 Three years later, the former police officer claims the killing was self-defense, and he was in a "gay panic" after being hit on by another man.

 Such claims are legitimate, viable defenses in all but two states - California and Illinois - despite the work of LGBT advocates and a resolution by the American Bar Association to have the defense banned.

 In Miller's case the defense was successful. Jurors did not find him guilty of murder or manslaughter, and while he was convicted of criminally negligent homicide, he will not spend a day in prison.

 The former police officer was sentenced to six months in jail. He will have to complete 100 hours of community service, pay $11,000 in restitution to Spencer's family and use a portable alcohol monitoring service for at least a year. He will also be on probation for a decade.

 The case's disposition outraged LGBT advocates, who say the law gives non-straight people second-class citizen treatment.

 "It's hard to believe that something like this exists," D'Arcy Kemnitz, the executive director of the LGBT Bar Association, told The Washington Post. "This is something from the very darkest of ages, based on the idea that if a gay guy hits on a straight guy, then the straight guy gets to do whatever he wants to do to him, including a homicide."

 Defense attorneys have an obligation to provide a "zealous defense" of their clients, Kemnitz said, but such defenses are "playing on the fact that LGBT people are considered 'others' or outside what is normative or not as valued as others in society."

 Miller, who is 5 feet 4, at least eight inches shorter than Spencer was, testified he felt threatened in Spencer's home.

 "He had height advantage over me, arm length over me, youth over me," Miller said, according to the Austin-American Statesman. "I felt he was going to hurt me."

 "It was so uncharacteristic of Mr. Miller that for him to engage in this behavior clearly had to be an act of self-defense," said Charlie Baird, Miller's defense attorney.

 Prosecutors argued the argument was bogus because Spencer never threatened the older man or had any intention of hurting him. Miller told the court he and Spencer never fought.

 Miller did not have "so much as a scratch on him," prosecutor Matthew Foye said, according to the newspaper.

 The American Bar Association's resolution urged lawmakers across the U.S. to "curtail the availability and effectiveness of the 'gay panic' and 'trans panic' defense."

 Kemnitz said there is active legislation in several states to stop defense attorneys from being able to use a gay panic defense.

 She said the defense re-victimizes a person who has been attacked, but also sends a message to other marginalized members of society.

 "If there's a secondary chilling effect, when an individual gets to attack or indeed murder someone and walk away with a slap on the wrist or scot free, it tells us that we're still vulnerable," she said. |||||


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Crawl of outlinks from wikipedia.org started March, 2016. These files are currently not publicly accessible. Properties of this collection. It has been several years since the last time we did this. For this collection, several things were done: 1. Turned off duplicate detection. This collection will be complete, as there is a good chance we will share the data, and sharing data with pointers to random other collections, is a complex problem. 2. For the first time, did all the different wikis. The original runs were just against the enwiki. This one, the seed list was built from all 865 collections. ||||| The afterglow of President Obama’s reelection and inauguration appears to have vanished as increasingly negative views among Americans about his stewardship of the economy have forced his public approval rating back down to the 50 percent mark, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

 In December, just after he won a second term, Obama held an 18-percentage-point advantage over congressional Republicans on the question of whom the public trusted more to deal with the economy. Now, it’s a far more even split — 44 percent to 40 percent, with a slight edge for the president — but the share of those saying they have confidence in “neither” has ticked up into double digits.

 The poll contains ample evidence of the disillusionment voters feel toward both sides amid a sense of continuing dysfunction in Washington, which since December has been grappling with fiscal crises and deadlines of its own making.

 Almost two weeks into the automatic across-the-board budget cuts known as the sequester, a slim majority of Americans disapprove of the reductions. At the same time, nearly three-quarters say they are feeling no impact on their lives, and fewer than half expect a toll on their family finances if the cuts continue.

 Still, large majorities expect that the sequester will eventually damage the economy, the military and the government’s ability to provide basic services. Most, 68 percent, say they would like the two sides to work together to come up with a deal to stop the cuts. The desire for cooperation is widely shared across party lines.

 View Graphic Obama’s reelection honeymoon ends

 Asked who is responsible for the sequester, 47 percent say Republicans in Congress and 33 percent say Obama.

 The poll suggests a closer divide on which side the public trusts in the battles over issues such as immigration and gun control — closer, perhaps, than the public’s policy preferences would indicate. Americans largely support the administration’s stand on new measures to curb gun violence, but on basic trust on the issue, the president and Republicans in Congress fare about evenly.

 Obama’s overall job-approval rating stands at 50 percent, down five points from before he took the oath of office in January. Looking along partisan lines, the slippage since then has been particularly pronounced among political independents. Two months ago, independents tilted clearly in his direction, with 54 percent approving and 41 percent disapproving. Now, half of independents express a negative opinion of the president’s performance; just 44 percent approve.

 The president has also seen an erosion in confidence among groups that he has counted as core supporters. Compared with a Post-ABC poll in December, the share of liberals who place their faith in Obama over Republicans when it comes to dealing with the economy is 14 points lower; there has been a 12-point slide among women.

 At 50 percent, Obama’s overall standing in the poll is lower than that of most other modern second-term presidents at this point in their terms. Of the seven second-term presidents who have been in office since Harry S. Truman, only George W. Bush had a positive rating as low as 50 percent at this stage.

 Obama and Bush share another similarity, one that describes what is arguably the most potent force shaping political decision-making in recent years: a deeply divided electorate. Among post-World War II presidents, Bush and Obama are the only ones to have led a nation as politically polarized as it is today. In both cases, there is a gap of more than 70 points between Democratic and Republican assessments of the president.

 Congress remains far lower than the president in public esteem, with only 16 percent approving of its performance and 80 percent disapproving. That negative feeling extends to both parties, with congressional Democrats registering a ratio of 34 percent favorable to 62 percent unfavorable sentiment; Republicans are lower still, at 24 to 72.

 The poll was conducted March 7 to 10 among a random sample of 1,001 adults. The full survey has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

 At a moment when the statistics — a booming stock market and surprising new strength in the job market — suggest a more vigorous economy, many Americans are not themselves seeing progress.

 Barely more than half of those surveyed say the economy has started its recovery. And after a brief foray into neutral territory, most Americans again give Obama negative marks on handling the economy. The personal assessments of the economy’s trajectory relate directly to Obama’s overall rating: Seventy-three percent of those who say they sense economic growth approve of the way the president is doing his job, and an identical 73 percent of those who don’t see a recovering economy disapprove of his performance in office.

 As they do on the economy, the president and the Republican opposition have rough parity on the question of who is better positioned on gun control, with Obama the choice of 42 percent and congressional Republicans, 41 percent.

 On immigration, Obama has a six-point advantage, with 45 percent saying they trust him more and 39 percent expressing greater confidence in the Republicans’ approach. The margin may be surprisingly slender, given big majority support for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and strong Latino support for Obama in the November election.

 Nor does the election seem to have produced a lasting consensus on which side is better equipped to figure out what government spending should be cut and what services preserved. When it comes to finding the right balance, 44 percent side with Republicans and 43 percent with the president.

 The poll also confirms one of the political verities of deficit reduction: People may want to see an end to red ink, but there is rarely public support for reductions in popular social programs to achieve it.

 Asked about alternatives to the automatic cuts now in place, 71 percent reject a reduction in Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, and 60 percent oppose raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67.

 There is broader but still limited support for slicing business tax deductions. Most, 56 percent, say they back limiting tax deductions for high-income earners as part of a path out of the sequester. Tax reform is often considered a quid pro quo for reining in entitlement spending, which is a long-term driver of deficit spending.

 A Post-ABC News poll last week found broad opposition to the across-the-board cuts to the military that started March 1 with the sequester, but there is majority support in the new survey for more targeted defense cuts.

 Cohen is director of polling for Capital Insight, the independent polling group of Washington Post Media. Capital Insight pollsters Peyton M. Craighill and Scott Clement contributed to this report.

 Discuss this topic and other political issues in the politics discussion forums. |||||

– Before his second inauguration, President Obama enjoyed a 55% approval rating—but thanks to concerns over the economy, the figure has dropped again to 50%, a Washington Post-ABC News poll finds. Following Obama's reelection, Americans trusted him over congressional Republicans on the economy by 18 points; now the gap is just four points in Obama's favor, 44% to 40%, the Post reports. Obama's 50% mark puts him behind most modern presidents at this moment in their second terms—with the exception of George W. Bush, who also had a 50% approval rating. As for the sequester, a slight majority opposes it, but some three-quarters say it hasn't had an effect on them. On the other hand, most believe it will eventually hurt the economy. Some 47% say congressional Republicans are to blame for it, while 33% say Obama is to blame. But 68% say they want the two sides to cooperate to end the cuts. Click through for more from the poll.


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 With regular referees locked out in a labor dispute with the NFL, a woman replacement ref will work a game for the first time Thursday night. (Bob Leverone / AP) The lockout of NFL referees continues, which means that Shannon Eastin will get her chance to officiate a preseason game.

 Eastin will work Thursday’s game between the Green Bay Packers and San Diego Chargers, marking the first time a woman will be part of an officiating crew, the Los Angeles Times’ Sam Farmer reports. Eastin has been a referee in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and other leagues.

 Replacement refs worked the Hall of Fame game Sunday night between the New Orleans Saints and Arizona Cardinals and stumbled a bit getting out of the gate.

 Craig Ochoa, who has worked Big Ten games, messed up the coin flip, incorrectly announcing the results and then, as he caught his error, stopping to say, “Correction. Arizona won the coin toss.”

 Talks between the league and officials’ union are continuing, with the NFL training replacements in the interim.

 Follow us: @CindyBoren | @MattBrooksWP ||||| Who says NFL exhibition games are meaningless?

 For the first time, a woman will work an NFL game as part of the officiating crew. Shannon Eastin will be part of the replacement crew officiating Thursday's Green Bay-at-San Diego game.

 Eastin, who's from Arizona, has been a referee for several high school and small-college conferences.

 The NFL and its regular officials have yet to agree on a new collective-bargaining agreement. Those officials were locked out in June.

 It's the first such labor meltdown since 2001, when a contract dispute led to the officials missing the last exhibition game and first regular-season game.

 ALSO:

 Chargers Robert Meachem wants more tossed his way

 Son of Philadelphia Eagles Coach Andy Reid found dead

 Cam Newton seeks to take Carolina Panthers to new heights |||||

– With NFL referees locked out since June amid a collective-bargaining dispute, a new batch of officials will be calling the shots in upcoming games—and for the first time, one of them is a woman. Shannon Eastin, who has refereed small-college and high school games, will officiate at a Green Bay Packers vs. San Diego Chargers exhibition game on Thursday, the Los Angeles Times reports. But the replacement refs have had a shaky start: In last night's Hall of Fame game, an official had to correct himself after announcing the wrong coin toss outcome, the Washington Post notes.


Article:

 UPDATE: 4/19/2001 Read Richard Metzger: How I, a married, middle-aged man, became an accidental spokesperson for gay rights overnight on Boing Boing

 It’s time to clarify a few details about the controversial “Hey Facebook what’s SO wrong with a pic of two men kissing?” story, as it now beginning to be reported in the mainstream media, and not always correctly.

 First of all, with regards to the picture:

 The photo which was used to illustrate my first post about the John Snow Kiss-In is a promotional still from the British soap opera “Eastenders.” It features one of the main characters from the show (Christian Clarke, played by the actor John Partridge- left) and someone else who I don’t know. I am not a regular viewer so I can’t say if the man on the right is an extra or an actual character.

 This picture has itself caused scandal in the UK, as it was a gay kiss that was broadcast before the watershed, and as such led to a number of complaints to the BBC. However, since this episode aired (October 2008) Christian now has a boyfriend and a few more gay kisses have taken place.

 In relation to the John Snow Kiss-In event, I used this particular photo because I considered it to be quite mild (no groping, no tongues). The photos I had considered using before I chose that one are much more racy. Oh the irony!

 Secondly, the removal of the Facebook John Snow Kiss-In event:

 It turns out that the Facebook event for the John Snow Kiss-In was not blocked by Facebook, but made private by the creator of the event itself. Paul Shetler, the organizer, left this comment on the previous thread:

 “Hey I just saw this. Before it goes too far, I just want people to know that FB have NOT removed the kiss-in event page; it’s still there, but _I made the event private after the event_ was over and only visible to those who had been invited as there were starting to be trolls posting abusive nonsense on it.”

 Thanks for clearing that up, Paul. Now if Facebook will only reply to Richard’s query about why they removed my original post and photo when he put it up on his wall…

 It has been erroneously reported in the media that our own Richard Metzger (who lives in Los Angeles) organized the London “Kiss-In” event, which is untrue, and also unfair to Paul Shetler and the actual organizers. Also, Richard did not state in his post that Facebook HAD taken the event page down, he just questioned IF this was the case and IF there was a connection with MY post about the event being removed from his own wall. This seems to have confused some people.

 Here is a report on the John Snow Kiss-In from the Guardian, featuring an interview with Mr Shetler:

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 UPDATED: A photo of two men kissing that was posted on a Facebook page protesting a London pub’s decision to eject a same-sex couple for kissing has been removed by the social networking site, an error, according to a rep for the company.

 "The photo in question does not violate our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and was removed in error," the statement, obtained by America Blog, says. We apologize for the inconvenience"

 The Dangerous Minds Facebook page was set up to promote a “gay kiss-in” demonstration in London to protest the pub. The page used a photo of two men kissing to promote the event.

 According to NYULocal.com, the photo was quickly removed and the following e-mail was sent to administrators of the Facebook page: “Shares that contain nudity, or any kind of graphic or sexually suggestive content, are not permitted on Facebook.”

 The decision to remove the photo has prompted scores of people to post their own pictures of same-sex couples kissing in protest — dozens in the last few hours alone. |||||Summary:

– It turns out Facebook is only guilty of about half of what it’s been accused of in the gay kiss incident. The social networking site apologized yesterday for taking down an image used to promote a “kiss-in” event in London. “The photo in question does not violate our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, and was removed in error,” the site said in a statement, according to the Advocate. But Facebook did not, as has been reported in several places, take down the kiss-in event itself. Here’s what happened: The photo Facebook took down was posted by the Dangerous Minds blog to promote the event. In its initial write-up about the incident, the blog observed that the page organizing the protest had been taken down. But it was actually the organizer himself who "removed" the event, Dangerous Minds clarified. Organizer Paul Shetler explains that he decided to switch it from a public event to a private one, as "there were starting to be trolls posting abusive nonsense on it."


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. ||||| FILE--In this Sept. 29, 2016, file photo, attorney Anthony Douglas Rappaport, left, speaks at a news conference with his clients, Denise Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn, right, in San Francisco.... (Associated Press)

 FILE--In this Sept. 29, 2016, file photo, attorney Anthony Douglas Rappaport, left, speaks at a news conference with his clients, Denise Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn, right, in San Francisco. The couple that police detectives wrongly accused of fabricating the woman's kidnapping from their... (Associated Press)

 VALLEJO, Calif. (AP) — A couple reached a $2.5 million settlement with a Northern California city and its police department after investigators dismissed the woman's elaborate and bizarre kidnapping as a hoax.

 Police in the city of Vallejo initially discounted a report by Denise Huskins and her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, that a masked intruder drugged them in their home and then kidnapped her in 2015.

 The assailant sexually assaulted Huskins and released her two days later outside her family's home in Southern California. The Associated Press doesn't normally name victims of sexual assault, but Huskins has frequently spoken publicly about the case in the past.

 Police realized the couple were telling the truth after a disbarred Harvard University-trained attorney, Matthew Muller, was implicated in another crime and tied to the abduction. He pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and is serving a 40-year prison term.

 Quinn's mother, Marianne Quinn, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the settlement in the lawsuit was reached Thursday.

 Vallejo police had apologized after discounting the outlandish kidnapping.

 Muller used a drone to spy on the couple before he broke into their home with a fake gun, tied them up and made them drink a sleep-inducing liquid, prosecutors said. They were blindfolded while Muller played a recorded message that made it seem as if there was more than one kidnapper.

 He put Huskins in the trunk of his car, drove her to his home in South Lake Tahoe and held her there for two days. Investigators said they found videos of Muller arranging cameras in a bedroom and then recording himself twice sexually assaulting his blindfolded victim.

 During and after the kidnapping, Muller used an anonymous email address to send messages to a San Francisco reporter claiming that Huskins was abducted by a team of elite criminals practicing their tactics.

 After she was released in the city of Huntington Beach, Vallejo police called the kidnapping a hoax and erroneously likened it to the book and movie "Gone Girl," in which a woman goes missing and then lies about being kidnapped when she reappears.

 Muller was arrested in an attempted robbery at another San Francisco Bay Area home. Authorities said they found a cellphone that they traced to Muller and a subsequent search of a car and home turned up evidence, including a computer Muller stole from Quinn, linking him to the abduction.

 Huskins sued police, and a judge ruled last year that the lawsuit could proceed.

 "The conduct plaintiffs allege goes beyond defendants being skeptical, investigating alternate theories, and expressing skepticism," U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley wrote in his 22-page decision, adding that, "A reasonable jury could find that defendants engaged in conduct that was extreme and outrageous."

 ___

 Information from: San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com ||||| - The city of Vallejo has agreed to pay a $2.5 million settlement for a federal lawsuit filed by a couple in a bizarre kidnapping case from 2015.

 An attorney for Denise Huskins and her fiance Aaron Quinn said his clients are "grateful."

 James M. Wagstaffe, the couples attorney, issued a statement Thursday that said, "One can only hope that the message of this settlement will be that victims are to be believed and that the police will accept a woman’s highly credible report that she was kidnaped and raped.” He added that the "nightmare" experience has concluded.

 The lawsuit accused the city and two police officers of defamation and inflicting emotional distress.

 The ordeal began in March, 2015 when Huskins, 30 at the time, was forcibly taken from her Mare Island home by an unknown abductor and a ransom demand was made.

 Police did not believe the story, initially saying the case was a hoax and many compared it to the film 'Gone Girl', in which a woman goes missing and then lies about being kidnaped when she reappears.

 Police eventually apologized for their mistake.

 In March of 2017, two days after Huskins' kidnaper, ex-lawyer Matthew Muller was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison, the couple got engaged and posted photos publicly on Facebook.

 During the trial, the couple gave gut-wrenching testimony against their tormentor. They said he drugged them and bound them in their home in an elaborate kidnapping that involved spying on them with a remote-controlled drone.

 Muller, the kidnaper, even came to Huskins’ defense, blasting police for not believing her story. He went as far as writing a series of bizarre emails and a manifesto, including writings to KTVU's Henry Lee, outlining what he had done.

 The City of Vallejo admits no wrongdoing in the settlement.

 The @CityofVallejo has agreed to pay $2.5M to settle federal lawsuit filed by Denise Huskins & bf, who said cops faked her kidnapping, when in fact she was abducted by Matthew Muller. Couple’s attorney sends statement to @KTVU: pic.twitter.com/eoZCqONAjZ — Henry K. Lee (@henrykleeKTVU) March 16, 2018 |||||

Write a summary.

– A California woman whose kidnapping and rape were dismissed by police as a hoax akin to Gone Girl has settled with the City of Vallejo and its police department for $2.5 million, her family tells KGO. In 2015, Denise Huskins and boyfriend Aaron Quinn were drugged inside their home by a masked intruder, who kidnapped the then-30-year-old woman. Huskins was released outside her family's home two days later after being sexually assaulted. At the time, their claims were dismissed by police, who accused Huskins of making up the kidnapping. They only came around after the kidnapper, Matthew Muller, a Harvard-trained attorney and former Marine, was implicated in a different crime. He claimed to be part of a gang of "gentlemen criminals." While police eventually apologized to Huskins and Quinn, a federal judge rejected the city's effort to toss the couple's lawsuit. The settlement was reached Thursday, the AP reports. An attorney for Huskins and Quinn says the couple is "grateful." "One can only hope that the message of this settlement will be that victims are to be believed and that the police will accept a woman’s highly credible report that she was kidnapped and raped," KTVU quotes James Wagstaffe as saying. As part of the settlement, the City of Vallejo admits no wrongdoing. Muller, who pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and even criticized police for not believing Huskins, is serving a 40-year prison sentence.


News article:

Story highlights He allegedly said that 30% of women are unfaithful, according to state media

 Video of his comments appeared on social media, prompting a public outcry

 (CNN) An Egyptian man was sentenced to three years in prison for saying some of the nation's married women are unfaithful, state media reported.

 In addition to prison time, Taymour el-Sobky will also get hard labor.

 He made the assertion during a television show in December, state-run newspaper Al-Ahram reported Saturday.

 "Thirty percent of women have a readiness for immorality ... but cannot find someone to encourage them," he said, according to the paper.

 Video clips of his comments appeared on social media last month, prompting a public outcry that led to his arrest, according to the newspaper.

 Read More ||||| CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court sentenced a blogger to three years in jail with hard labor on Saturday for "spreading false news" after he said about 45 percent of married Egyptian women have the readiness for "immorality" and to cheat on their husbands.

 The court said that Taymour el-Sobki's comments on a talk show in December would harm the public peace and damage the public interest. He can still appeal the sentence.

 El-Sobky faced a backlash from other TV talk show hosts and civilians who filed complaints to public prosecutors accusing him of insulting Egyptian women.

 Public prosecutors, who have the right to vet such complaints and to choose which ones to pursue, charged el-Sobky and took him to court on these grounds.

 "We can criticize or reject the comments he made, but he did not commit a crime," said prominent rights lawyer Gamal Eid.

 Under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, authorities have waged crackdowns against Islamists, then left-wing activists and finally against broader dissent. But lately, many activists say harassment and threats have broadened even to people with no connection to politics or activism.

 Artists, writers, and intellectuals have expressed fear over the future of free speech and creativity in Egypt following a two-year sentence handed by an appeals court last month against author Ahmed Naji for violating "public modesty" through publishing an excerpt of his novel containing a sex scene in an Egyptian literary magazine.

 Naji's detention in a Cairo prison following the sentencing hit Egypt's artistic and intellectual community hard as it followed recent sentences handed to the TV presenter and researcher Islam Behery, who is serving a year-long prison sentence for "defaming religious symbols" and the writer Fatma Naoot, who has appealed a three-year sentence for defaming Islam.

 Eid said el-Sobki's case has similar attributes with the expulsion from parliament of Tawfiq Okasha earlier this month as a response to him meeting Israel's ambassador to Egypt.

 "The two issues seem to be unrelated, but they both share the same attribute .... Okasha did not break the law," said Eid. "The two incidents were handled outside the realm of the law."

 The cases, Eid said, are an example of how "it is not the law, but it is pressure and public opinion, and rallying around someone, that acquits or incriminates him."

 "Unfortunately these are not isolated cases," said Eid. "They come in the context of that the state itself violates the law day and night, and implements it haphazardly." |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Watch what you say about the fidelity of the women of Egypt. That's a lesson Taymour el-Sobky is learning the hard way. The blogger, who runs the Facebook page "The Diary of a Suffering Man," has been sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor by a court in Giza, CNN reports. According to the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper, el-Sobky said, "Thirty percent of women have a readiness for immorality ... but cannot find someone to encourage them," while appearing on a TV show in December. A flood of complaints followed the comments, and a public prosecutor charged el-Sobky for "spreading false news," the AP reports. El-Sobky, who says his comments were taken out of context, has apologized. An appeal is scheduled for March 30. Rights lawyer Gamal Eid says el-Sobky's case highlights how public opinion, rather than the rule of law, controls the legal system in Egypt. Whatever one may think of el-Sobky's comments, "he did not commit a crime," Eid says, adding that the "government violates the law day and night, and implements it haphazardly." More often these days, the government is cracking down on artists, writers, and intellectuals, the AP notes. Ahmed Naji, for instance, received two years in prison for violating "public modesty" after an excerpt from his novel that contained a sex scene was published in a literary magazine. Also, a TV presenter is serving a year in prison for "defaming religious symbols," and another writer has appealed a three-year sentence for defaming Islam.


Summarize this article:

Angela Lansbury has followed up on her controversial claims about women needing to “sometimes take blame” for sexual harassment, saying she’s “devastated” by the backlash and interpretation of her comments.

 “There is no excuse whatsoever for men to harass women in an abusive sexual manner,” she said in a statement released Wednesday evening. “And, I am devastated that anyone should deem me capable of thinking otherwise. Those who have known the quality of my work and the many public statements I have made over the course of my life, must know, that I am a strong supporter of Women’s Rights.”

 Speaking to the Radio Times, the 92-year-old actress opined, “We have to own up to the fact that women, since time immemorial, have gone out of their way to make themselves attractive. And unfortunately it has backfired on us — and this is where we are today.” Lansbury did add, “Although it’s awful to say we can’t make ourselves look as attractive as possible without being knocked down and raped.”

 She concluded her newly released statement by criticizing the reaction to her remarks in the Times, declaring, “Lastly, I would like to add that I am troubled by how quickly and brutishly some have taken my comments out of context and attempted to blame my generation, my age, or my mindset, without having read the entirety of what I said.” ||||| Actress Angela Lansbury has gotten a taste of online culture in 2017, and she doesn’t seem to have liked it very much. The Beauty And The Beast and Murder, She Wrote star came under fire this week, after people took umbrage at comments she made that stated that women are in some part complicit for making themselves attractive to men who sexually harass or assault them.

 Lansbury’s remarks—which included statements like, “We have to own up to the fact that women, since time immemorial, have gone out of their way to make themselves attractive,” and “We must sometimes take blame, women. I really do think that”—were part of a wider conversation in which she also stated that there was no excuse for a man to harm a woman. Caveats aside, though, her comments were still met with a great deal of anger online, including from groups like Rape Crisis England & Wales, which noted that victim-blaming attitudes are only ever harmful to people who have been subject to sexual assault.

 Now, Lansbury has responded to the criticism levied against her, clarifying her points, citing her bona fides as a feminist, and expressing no small amount of anger at the feeling that she’s been misinterpreted or taken out of context. Her statement:

 There is no excuse whatsoever for men to harass women in an abusive sexual manner. And, I am devastated that anyone should deem me capable of thinking otherwise. Those who have known the quality of my work and the many public statements I have made over the course of my life, must know, that I am a strong supporter of Women’s Rights. Lastly, I would like to add that I am troubled by how quickly and brutishly some have taken my comments out of context and attempted to blame my generation, my age, or my mindset, without having read the entirety of what I said.

 Which, uh…Welcome to the internet, Dame Angela. ||||| Angela Lansbury has clarified remarks she made about sexual harassment after she was widely criticized for saying women must sometimes "take blame."

 "There is no excuse whatsoever for men to harass women in an abusive sexual manner," the 92-year-old "Murder, She Wrote" star said in a statement to People. "And, I am devastated that anyone should deem me capable of thinking otherwise. Those who have known the quality of my work and the many public statements I have made over the course of my life must know that I am a strong supporter of Women’s Rights."

 The actress added that she was "troubled by how quickly and brutishly some have taken my comments out of context and attempted to blame my generation, my age, or my mindset, without having read the entirety of what I said."

 Lansbury released the statement after she was criticized for remarks she made about sexual harassment during a recent interview with the Radio Times.

 In the interview, Lansbury said "there are two sides to this coin."

 "We have to own up to the fact that women, since time immemorial, have gone out of their way to make themselves attractive. And unfortunately, it has backfired on us -- and this is where we are today," Lansbury said.

 She went on to say, "We must sometimes take blame, women. I really do think that. Although it's awful to say we can't make ourselves look as attractive as possible without being knocked down and raped."

 Lansbury also added that there was "no excuse" for women being harassed.

 "Should women be prepared for this? No, they shouldn't have to be," she said. "There's no excuse for that. And I think it will stop now -- it will have to. I think a lot of men must be very worried at this point."

 After Lansbury's initial remarks, Rape Crisis England & Wales released a statement saying, "It is a deeply unhelpful myth that rape and other forms of sexual violence are caused or ‘provoked’ by women’s sexuality or ‘attractiveness.'"

 Patricia Arquette took Lansbury to task on Twitter. "It doesn't matter how young or old, how beautiful or homely. Rapists rape. End of story," the actress wrote.

 It doesn't matter how young or old, how beautiful or homely. Rapists rape. End of story. — Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) November 28, 2017

 Designer Donna Karan made similar remarks to Lansbury's in the immediate aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct scandal when she suggested that women were "asking for it" by how they dressed. She later apologized and, in an interview with ABC News' Robin Roberts, said, "What I said is so wrong and not who I am." Weinstein denies all allegations of non-consensual sex. |||||

– After Angela Lansbury said this week that women need to "sometimes take the blame" for sexual misconduct because they make themselves attractive to men, the backlash was fast and forceful. "It is a deeply unhelpful myth that rape and other forms of sexual violence are caused or 'provoked' by women's sexuality or 'attractiveness,'" ABC News quotes Rape Crisis England & Wales as saying. Actress Patricia Arquette added: "It doesn't matter how young or old, how beautiful or homely. Rapists rape. End of story." Lansbury has now responded to her critics. "There is no excuse whatsoever for men to harass women in an abusive sexual manner," Entertainment Weekly quotes the 92-year-old Murder She Wrote star as saying. "And, I am devastated that anyone should deem me capable of thinking otherwise." Lansbury says she's "a strong supporter of women's rights" and is "troubled by how quickly and brutishly some have taken my comments out of context and attempted to blame my generation, my age, or my mindset, without having read the entirety of what I said." To which the AV Club quips: "Welcome to the internet, Dame Angela."