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NPR has fired longtime news analyst Juan Williams, also a commentator on the Fox News Channel, after he told Bill O'Reilly that he gets nervous on an airplane when he sees people in Muslim dress.

 News analyst Juan Williams appears on the "Fox & friends" television program in New York, Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010. Williams, who has written extensively on race and civil rights in the U.S., has been... (Associated Press)

 News analyst Juan Williams appears on the "Fox & friends" television program in New York, Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010. Williams, who has written extensively on race and civil rights in the U.S., has been... (Associated Press)

 News analyst Juan Williams appears on the "Fox & friends" television program in New York, Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010. Williams, who has written extensively on race and civil rights in the U.S., has been... (Associated Press)

 In a statement late Wednesday, National Public Radio said it was terminating Williams' contract as a senior news analyst over his comments on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor."

 NPR executives had previously complained about his remarks on Fox and asked him to stop using the NPR name when he appeared on O'Reilly's show.

 The latest comments came Monday, when O'Reilly brought on guests to discuss his own appearance last week on ABC's "The View," during which Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg walked off the set to protest his views on Muslims.

 "Where am I going wrong here, Juan?" O'Reilly asked.

 Williams, 56, responded that too much political correctness can get in the way of reality.

 "I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country," Williams said. "But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

 He went on to say that not everyone in a religious group _ Christian or Muslim _ should be lumped together with extremists.

 NPR CEO Vivian Schiller said that controversial opinions should not come from NPR reporters or news analysts and that whatever feelings Williams has about Muslims should be between him and "his psychiatrist or his publicist."

 Speaking Thursday at the Atlanta Press Club, Schiller also said Williams had veered from journalistic ethics several times before Monday's comments.

 Republicans blasted NPR's decision. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox News that Congress should investigate NPR for censorship and consider cutting off its public funding. NPR receives federal funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but it amounts to a small part of its budget.

 "Juan Williams: Going Rogue," former GOP vice presidental candidate Sarah Palin said Thursday in a Twitter message. "NPR should receive NO fed tax dollars if it operates as intolerant, private radio. Mr. President, what say you?"

 Goldberg also defended Williams on "The View" Thursday. "The point he was trying to say is, 'I get nervous,' and that's OK," she said. "Firing him for saying that I think is kind of ridiculous."

 A phone message left for Williams at his home in Washington was not immediately returned Thursday morning, but on Fox News he stood by his remarks and said his statement was not bigoted.

 Williams said he was abruptly fired Wednesday by Ellen Weiss, NPR's vice president for news. He said he told Weiss he meant what he said on the O'Reilly show, but that she told him he had made a bigoted statement and crossed a line.

 "I said, 'You mean I don't even get the chance to come in and we do this eyeball-to-eyeball, person-to-person, have a conversation? I've been there more than 10 years," Williams said. He said Weiss responded that "there's nothing you can say that would change my mind."

 Before Williams was fired, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said such commentary from a journalist about other racial, ethnic or religious minority groups should not be tolerated.

 "NPR should address the fact that one of its news analysts seems to believe that all airline passengers who are perceived to be Muslim can legitimately be viewed as security threats," CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said.

 Later Wednesday, NPR issued a statement saying Williams' remarks "were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR."

 "Juan has been a valuable contributor to NPR and public radio for many years and we did not make this decision lightly or without regret," NPR spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm said in an e-mailed statement.

 The discussion began with a chat about O'Reilly's comments on ABC's "The View" opposing a proposed mosque near the World Trade Center site in New York. The imam behind that project issued a statement Thursday, saying some news organizations are perpetuating anti-Islamic sentiments.

 "While I am saddened that Mr. Williams has lost his job with NPR, this episode serves as a reminder that we should be looking for similarities among religions and cultures rather than differences," Imam Feisal Rauf said. "Divisiveness only serves to fuel the downward spiral of hate and misunderstanding between the Islamic and Western worlds."

 Williams' appearances on Fox have been an issue for NPR in the past, including his remarks about Michelle Obama on a 2009 episode of "The O'Reilly Factor."

 "Michelle Obama, you know, she's got this Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress thing going. ... her instinct is to start with this blame America, you know, I'm the victim," Williams said, according to an account by NPR's Ombudsman Alicia Shepard. Carmichael was a civil rights activist.

 At the time, Shepard wrote that Williams was the network's biggest "lightning rod," drawing hundreds of complaints. NPR executives then asked Williams to stop using the NPR name when he appears on O'Reilly's show.

 On Monday, he was identified as a Fox News contributor.

 Williams was a longtime reporter, columnist and editorial writer at The Washington Post. He has written extensively on the civil rights movement, including a book on the African-American religious experience and a biography of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

 ___

 Associated Press Writer Greg Bluestein in Atlanta contributed to this report. ||||| UPDATE: Fox News announced Thursday that it had signed Juan Williams to a new, multi-year contract, which the Los Angeles Times reported was worth $2 million. Among other things, Williams will now write columns for FoxNews.com, the first of which appeared on Thursday afternoon.

 In the column, Williams excoriated NPR and its leadership for the decision to fire him. He said he was let go for "telling the truth" about his feelings of nervousness when he sees people he thinks are clearly Muslim on airplanes. He called his debate with Bill O'Reilly -- where he also told the Fox News host to be careful about painting all Muslims as extremists -- an "honest, sensitive" one "in the best American tradition of a fair, full-throated and honest discourse about the issues of the day."

 Williams said that NPR's move to fire him was a "a chilling assault on free speech" that came about due to "political correctness and ideological orthodoxy" by the "self-righteous ideological, left-wing leadership at NPR." He also recounted the years of tension between him and his bosses at NPR that resulted from his association with Fox.

 Williams concluded by comparing himself to Daniel Schorr, the longtime NPR contributor who found himself on Richard Nixon's enemies list.

 "I can only imagine Dan's revulsion to realize that today NPR treats a journalist who has worked for them for ten years with less regard, less respect for the value of independence of thought and embrace of real debate across political lines, than Nixon ever displayed," he wrote.

 ORIGINAL POST: Juan Williams appeared on Fox News' "Happening Now" Thursday morning to discuss his firing from NPR over his comments about Muslims on Monday's "O'Reilly Factor." (h/t Johnny Dollar.)

 Williams said that he received a message from Ellen Weiss, NPR's senior vice president for news, telling him to call her. When he did, he said, she asked him to clarify his comments that he gets "nervous" when he sees Muslims on an airplane.

 "I said, 'I said what I meant to say,'" Williams told Fox News, "which is that it is an honest experience that when I'm in an airport and I see people in Muslim garb who identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I do a double take. I have a moment of anxiety or fear given what happened on 9/11. That's just a reality."

 Weiss, he said, told him that he had crossed the line. When he asked what line that was, she said that his statement had been bigoted. Williams said he had pointed out that he had gone on to tell O'Reilly that America had "an obligation to protect the constitutional rights of everyone in the country" and to prevent bigotry, but that "you cannot ignore what happened on 9/11 and you cannot ignore the connection to Islamic radicalism."

 In response, Williams said, Weiss told him that the decision to fire him had already been taken.

 "I said, 'I don't even get the chance to come in and we do this eyeball to eyeball, person to person?'" he continued. "She said, 'there's nothing you can say that will change my mind, this has been decided above me and we're terminating your contract.'"

 NPR President Vivian Schiller also spoke out about the firing on Thursday. According to the Associated Press, Schiller appeared at the Atlanta Press Club, where she defended the decision, saying that Williams had violated NPR's guidelines barring its analysts from making personal or controversial statements. She also said that he should keep his feelings about Muslims between himself and "his psychiatrist or his publicist." (UPDATE: Schiller apologized for that comment on Thursday afternoon, saying in a statement that "I spoke hastily and I apologize to Juan and others for my thoughtless remark.")

 In addition, Schiller released a statement about the firing to NPR member stations on Thursday. In it, she wrote that "this isn't the first time we have had serious concerns about some of Juan's public comments. Despite many conversations and warnings over the years, Juan has continued to violate this principle." Schiller also wrote that Williams had violated NPR's code of ethics by expressing views that he would not have expressed on NPR.

 "Unfortunately, Juan's comments on Fox violated our standards as well as our values and offended many in doing so," she said.

 Williams will appear on "The O'Reilly Factor" Thursday night to discuss the firing as well. |||||

– Juan Williams says he didn't misspeak when he talked of getting nervous when seeing Muslims in airports, comments that got him fired from NPR. "I said what I meant to say," Williams explained on Fox News today, "which is that it is an honest experience that when I'm in an airport and I see people in Muslim garb who identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I do a double take. I have a moment of anxiety or fear given what happened on 9/11. That's just a reality." Williams described how an NPR executive fired him by phone after he told her just that, reports the Huffington Post. "I said, 'I don't even get the chance to come in and we do this eyeball to eyeball, person to person?'" he said. "She said, 'There's nothing you can say that will change my mind, this has been decided above me and we're terminating your contract.'" Separately today, NPR chief Vivian Schiller said Williams should keep his feelings about Muslims between him and "his psychiatrist or his publicist," reports AP. Click here for more.


Susan Olsen, who played Cindy Brady on “The Brady Bunch” has been fired from her job as a Los Angeles-based radio DJ after she posted a homophobic rant on Facebook, reports Rob Shuter of naughtygossip.

 Olsen interviewed openly gay actor Leon Acord-Whiting as she co-hosted LA Talk Radio’s “Two Chicks Talkin’ Politics” segment on Wednesday, December 7.

 After the show, Acord-Whiting went on Facebook to accuse the 55-year-old former child star of being “dangerous” and “unprofessional.”

 "It is wildly irresponsible for LA Talk Radio to allow a Trump fanatic to co-host one of their programs, where she can spew her idiotic lies unchecked,” he wrote. “(Being a liberal and a patriot are mutually exclusive? Hillary is causing the protests & hate crimes? The Koran is a political tract. As much as I love [cohost]

 Sheena Metal, I think LA Talk Radio needs to give 'Cindy Brady' her walking papers. I will not listen to or appear on any shows there from this point forward until she's gone. This isn't just disagreeing on, say, tax plans or foreign policy. Susan Olsen spreads outrageous misinformation & it is dangerous and unprofessional."

 The next day Olsen replied on her Facebook page writing, "This is the little piece of human waste. He blocked himself from me before I could even get one hit in. If you can find him, please send him my love."

 And that’s when things got really nasty.

 Acord-Whiting shared a screenshot of an expletive-laden private message that Olsen reportedly sent him on Facebook, which read: "Hey there little p--sy, let me get my big boy pants on and Reallly take you on!!! What a snake in the grass you are you lying piece of s--t too cowardly to confront me in real life so you do it on Facebook. You are the biggest f----t ass in the world the biggest p--sy! My D--k is bigger than yours Which ain't sayin much! What a true piece of s--t you are! Lying f----t! I hope you meet your karma SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY."

 LA Talk Radio announced that Olsen was fired on Friday, December 9.

 "LA Talk Radio takes pride in its close and collaborative relationship with the LGBT community, and will continue to provide a home for those who have hopeful and positive messages of togetherness and tolerance to share with our listeners," the station wrote in a statement on Facebook. "We will not tolerate hateful speech by anyone associated with our radio station and have severed our ties with a host that veered off the direction in which we are going." ||||| Susan Olsen, who played the youngest daughter, Cindy Brady, on The Brady Bunch, was fired from her hosting gig on a Los Angeles–based radio show after she posted a homophobic rant on Facebook.

 The 55-year-old former child star spoke with openly gay actor Leon Acord-Whiting as she cohosted LA Talk Radio's Two Chicks Talkin' Politics segment on Wednesday, December 7. After the show, Acord-Whiting took to Facebook to accuse Olsen of spreading "outrageous misinformation."

 Michael Tullberg/Getty Images

 "It is wildly irresponsible for LA Talk Radio to allow a Trump fanatic to co-host one of their programs, where she can spew her idiotic lies unchecked. (Being a liberal and a patriot are mutually exclusive? Hillary is causing the protests & hate crimes? The Koran is a political tract?)," he wrote, referencing the numerous topics discussed on Wednesday's episode. "As much as I love [cohost] Sheena Metal, I think LA Talk Radio needs to give 'Cindy Brady' her walking papers. I will not listen to or appear on any shows there from this point forward until she's gone. This isn't just disagreeing on, say, tax plans or foreign policy. Susan Olsen spreads outrageous misinformation & it is dangerous and unprofessional."

 A day later, Olsen responded on her Facebook page, writing, "This is the little piece of human waste. He blocked himself from me before I could even get one hit in. If you can find him, please send him my love."

 Acord-Whiting then took the feud a step further and shared a screenshot of an expletive-filled private message that Olsen allegedly sent him on Facebook, which read: "Hey there little p--sy, let me get my big boy pants on and Reallly take you on!!! What a snake in the grass you are you lying piece of s--t too cowardly to confront me in real life so you do it on Facebook. You are the biggest f----t ass in the world the biggest p--sy! My D--k is bigger than yours Which ain't sayin much! What a true piece of s--t you are! Lying f----t! I hope you meet your karma SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY."

 LA Talk Radio announced on Friday, December 9, it had fired the actress in the wake of her homophobic rant. "LA Talk Radio takes pride in its close and collaborative relationship with the LGBT community, and will continue to provide a home for those who have hopeful and positive messages of togetherness and tolerance to share with our listeners," the station wrote in a statement on Facebook. "We will not tolerate hateful speech by anyone associated with our radio station and have severed our ties with a host that veered off the direction in which we are going."

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What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Here's a story about a former child star who grew up to be a talk show host with apparently poor impulse control: Susan Olsen, better known as Cindy Brady of the eponymous Brady Bunch, is out of a job after a feud with actor Leon Acord-Whiting, who is gay. How it went down, via US Magazine and Fox News: Acord-Whiting appeared on an LA Talk Radio politics show co-hosted by Olsen, then took to Facebook to complain that "Susan Olsen spreads outrageous misinformation & it is dangerous and unprofessional." Apparently one does not cross Cindy Brady, because Olsen posted this to her own Facebook page: "This is the little piece of human waste. He blocked himself from me before I could even get one hit in. If you can find him, please send him my love." From there, it was war: Acord-Whiting then posted a screenshot of a less-than-Brady-like personal message allegedly from Olsen, reading thusly: "Hey there little p--sy, let me get my big boy pants on and Reallly take you on!!! What a snake in the grass you are you lying piece of s--t too cowardly to confront me in real life so you do it on Facebook. You are the biggest f----t ass in the world the biggest p--sy! My D--k is bigger than yours Which ain't sayin much! What a true piece of s--t you are! Lying f----t! I hope you meet your karma SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY." And per LA Talk Radio, as of Friday: "We will not tolerate hateful speech by anyone associated with our radio station and have severed our ties with a host that veered off the direction in which we are going."


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– Fascism's shadow hung over Spain Monday as a former doctor was found guilty of stealing newborns for infertile couples—but still went unpunished, the BBC reports. A Madrid court ruled that gynecologist Eduardo Vela, 85, had taken newborn Ines Madrigal from her biological mother in 1969 and gave her to another woman who was wrongly certified as Madrigal's birth-mother. But judges said the 10-year statute of limitations for "unlawful detention" had expired, since Madrigal became an adult in 1987 and only brought the complaint in 2012, per the Guardian. "I didn’t know about any of that in 1987," says Madrigal. "But Vela’s lawyer brought up the statute of limitations again and again during the trial—right from the start." And Madrigal isn't alone: Thousands of similar cases have been reported, since General Franco's fascist regime allowed doctors to take newborns from "left-wing" mothers and give them to pro-Franco families, per the AP. Priests and nuns made lists of parents seeking children while doctors allegedly lied to mothers about what became of their kids. Even post-Franco, Spaniards often kept quiet in a society that respected the Roman Catholic Church and embraced a so-called "pact of forgetting" during the 1970s transition to democracy. But with the European Parliament pressing Spain to take action, this drama appears far from over—except for Vela, who ducked a prison sentence that prosecutors wanted to last for 11 years.

Ines Madrigal speaks to journalists outside a court in Madrid, Spain, Monday Oct. 8, 2018. A Spanish court has ruled that a doctor stole a newborn child nearly five decades ago, one of many abducted during... (Associated Press)

 Ines Madrigal speaks to journalists outside a court in Madrid, Spain, Monday Oct. 8, 2018. A Spanish court has ruled that a doctor stole a newborn child nearly five decades ago, one of many abducted during Spain's 20th-century dictatorship, but cleared him because the statute of limitations had expired.... (Associated Press)

 MADRID (AP) — A Spanish court ruled Monday that a doctor stole a newborn child nearly five decades ago, one of the many abducted during Spain's 20th-century dictatorship, but cleared him because the statute of limitations had expired.

 The Madrid court said 85-year-old gynecologist Eduardo Vela could not be punished because one of those who were stolen, plaintiff Ines Madrigal, did not make her complaint until 2012, more than a decade after the gravest crime had taken place.

 The court did find, however, that Vela was responsible for abducting Madrigal in 1969, faking her birth by her adoptive parents and forging official documents.

 Monday's verdict is Spain's first in relation to the wide-scale child trafficking that took place from the onset of the country's Civil War in 1936 to the death of dictator Gen. Francisco Franco in 1975.

 The right-wing regime waged a campaign to take away the children of poor families, prisoners or political enemies, sometimes stripping women of their newborns by lying and saying they had died during labor. The children were then given to pro-Franco families or the church, who educated the children on the regime's ideology and on Roman Catholicism.

 Vela, the director of a Madrid clinic considered to be at the epicenter of the scandal, denied the accusations during this year's trial.

 Madrigal, who learned at 18 that she wasn't living with her biological parents, argued that she couldn't have lodged her complaint earlier because she only learned about the scheme in 2010, when her adopting mother, who died three years later, disclosed the details of what had happened at Vela's clinic.

 DNA tests confirmed the account, but Madrigal's biological parents were never found.

 Madrigal, now 49, said she considered the provincial court's verdict to be "bittersweet" and announced she would be appealing it to the country's Supreme Court.

 "I'm happy because the judges are acknowledging that there was theft, that I was taken away from my mother, but I didn't think they would stop short of convicting him," she told reporters, adding that "the judges should had been brave."

 Madrigal's was the only case of "stolen babies" — as they are known in Spain — that has made it to the trial stage. Most lawsuits have been rejected in the past by courts for coming after the statute of limitations expired.

 Spain only started investigating the "stolen babies" cases a decade ago, when National Court magistrate Baltasar Garzon opened a probe on the more than 30,000 children that were under the care of the regime. ||||| An elderly Spanish doctor who became the first person to stand trial over the country’s infamous “stolen babies” scandal has been found guilty of all charges but acquitted because the statute of limitations had expired.

 Eduardo Vela, who worked as a gynaecologist at the San Ramón clinic in Madrid, had been accused of taking Inés Madrigal from her biological mother in the spring of 1969 and giving her to the 46-year-old woman who was falsely certified as her birth mother and who would raise her.

 Prosecutors had sought an 11-year prison sentence for Vela on charges of unlawful detention, falsifying official documents and certifying a nonexistent birth.

 Judges at Madrid’s provincial court on Monday said that Vela’s landmark trial, which began at the end of June, had “indisputably proved” that he had committed the three offences and it was “crystal clear” the doctor, now 85, had faked official documents and handed the baby over to a couple who were not her parents.

 Franco's cruel legacy: the film that wants to stop Spain forgetting Read more

 However, they ruled that too much time had passed for a conviction since Madrigal could not have been unlawfully detained once she became an adult and had only brought her complaint against Vela six years ago.

 “As a consequence of all the above, and noting that the complainant reached her majority on 4 June 1987, and that the statute of limitations for the most serious crime – unlawful detention – is 10 years, and that the complaint was brought in April 2012, the crimes have expired under the statue of limitations,” they said in their judgment.

 The trial was a test case for the thousands of families who are thought to have been caught up in the illegal practice, which began shortly after Franco’s victory in the civil war and continued until well after the dictator’s death in 1975.

 According to some estimates, as many as 300,000 babies may have been taken from their birth mothers and placed with families who supported the Franco regime. Some of the stolen children are thought to have been placed with families in the US and Latin America.

 Among those women targeted were single mothers, those with “degenerate” political views or those from poor backgrounds.

 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dr Eduardo Vela. Photograph: web

 Madrigal, whose mother told her she was adopted when she turned 18, described the court’s decision as “bittersweet” and said she would appeal against it.

 “I feel good because the judges acknowledged the theft, but of course I don’t agree with the statute of limitations point,” she told the Guardian.

 Her lawyer, Guillermo Peña, had argued that the statute of limitations should not apply to his client’s case as she had not discovered she had in fact been stolen – rather than just adopted – until 2010.

 “I didn’t know about any of that in 1987,” said Madrigal. “But Vela’s lawyer brought up the statute of limitations again and again during the trial – right from the start. And yet the Madrid provincial court has always been opposed to the statute of limitations and had previously always found in our favour.”

 Madrigal said the next step would be an appeal before the supreme court.

 “We’re going to keep fighting.”

 Madrigal said her mother, who died two years ago at the age of 93, had supported her efforts to find justice and answers.

 “I always say she didn’t give birth to me but I was born in her heart,” she said before the trial. “She lived to look after me and see me happy.”

 Madrigal, a railway worker and president of the Murcia branch of the SOS Stolen Babies association, had also acknowledged that the proceedings were unlikely to bring her real closure or help her find her birth mother.

 Vela, who oversaw the clinic for 20 years, told the court that he could not remember details of how it was run. A policeman who investigated the case concluded that the hospital had been used as a source of trafficked babies, and said that Vela had told him that he had burned the archive files.

 Madrigal said she hoped her legal action would be first of many brought by stolen babies and their families, arguing that people like her had been torn from their parents, trafficked and ignored for too long.

 She said some of the stolen children had been placed with families in countries including the US, Mexico and Chile.

 “We were Europe’s baby supermarket and babies were stolen for 60 years,” she said. |||||


Article:

MORE than 1,000 metres of overhead cabling has been stolen in Lincolnshire - leading to a village blackout.

 The theft took place overnight on Friday on land off the A1133 at Newton-on-Trent and left the village without power for several hours.

 It is the second recent theft of overhead cabling in Lincolnshire, with a similar incident taking place at Normanby-Le-Wold in August.

 Officers are warning of the obvious extreme dangers of this type of crime and are appealing for anyone who has any information to call them on 0300 111 0300. ||||| Focused crawls are collections of frequently-updated webcrawl data from narrow (as opposed to broad or wide) web crawls, often focused on a single domain or subdomain. |||||
What is a summary?

– A rash of power line thefts is dogging Britain. An entire English village lost electricity for several hours on Friday after thieves stole some 3,000 feet of cable—and it’s the second such theft in that county alone since August, This Is Lincolnshire reports. It’s a running problem on train lines, too, notes the Telegraph. Cable robbers have been cutting lines and leaving the sparking ends hanging; today, firefighters had to be called out to address the problem. Rail officials found that more than 650 feet of power line had been cut, causing a fire and shutting down train travel into one of London’s major stations. “Yet again, commuters in the capital have had their journeys disrupted by criminals,” said a railway spokesman. “We need to see tougher sentences in the courts for anyone caught stealing cable and new legislation to help crack down on the minority of scrap metal dealers who knowingly profit from rail users' misery."


Image caption Boko Haram has said it will not free the girls until authorities release all imprisoned militants

 Nigeria's military says it has raided a Boko Haram intelligence unit thought to be linked to the recent abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls.

 The cell leader Babuji Ya'ari was arrested, a military statement said.

 Mr Ya'ari had been actively involved in the seizure of the girls as well as the killing in May of a traditional leader, the emir of Gwoza, the statement added.

 More than 2,000 people have been killed this year in attacks blamed on Boko Haram militants.

 Mr Ya'ari has not yet commented on the allegations.

 The defence ministry statement described him as a businessman who "participated actively in the abduction of schoolgirls" in the northern town of Chibok.

 He used his participation in a civilian vigilante group fighting Boko Haram to cover up his work spying for the militants, the military said, adding that he had co-ordinated "several deadly attacks in Maidugiri", the capital of Borno state, since 2011.

 The defence ministry said they had also arrested women from the intelligence cell.

 The military's claims could not be independently verified.

 Boko Haram militants abducted more than 200 girls from their school in Borno state on 14 April. Most are still missing.

 The group says it will not free the girls until authorities release all imprisoned militants. The government says it knows where the abductees are, but that a rescue could lead to the girls being killed.

 The militants have been blamed for several other recent attacks, including an assault on villages near Chibok on Sunday that killed at least 40 people, and a bomb attack on a busy shopping district in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, last week.

 Who are Boko Haram?

 Image copyright AFP Image caption Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has been designated a terrorist by the US government

 Founded in 2002

 Initially focused on opposing Western education - Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language

 Launched military operations in 2009 to create Islamic state

 Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria - also attacked police and UN headquarters in capital, Abuja

 Some three million people affected

 Declared terrorist group by US in 2013

 Who are Boko Haram?

 Profile: Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau

 Why Nigeria has not defeated Boko Haram ||||| BAUCHI, Nigeria (AP) — Suspected Islamic extremists sprayed gunfire at worshippers and torched four churches Sunday in a village just miles from the town where more than 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped, witnesses said.

 At least 30 bodies have been recovered but more are turning up in the bushes, where people tried to escape from Kwada village, said a member of a vigilante group that has had some successes in repelling attacks.

 "They killed dozens of people and burned houses after attacking worshippers," survivor Mallam Yahi told The Associated Press by telephone from Chibok town, to which he escaped.

 Some of the church buildings destroyed included the Protestant Church of Christ in Nigeria, the Pentecostal Deeper Life Bible Church and Ekklesiyar Yan'uwa, which is Hausa for Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, Yahi said. The last was started by American missionaries from Illinois in the 1920s.

 Yahi said the attackers went on to neighboring Kautikari, where they gunned down villagers and burned down homes. The vigilante said they had not yet reached Kautikari so did not know what the death toll was there.

 Police spokesman Gideon Jubrin said he could not confirm the attack because bad communications have kept officials from reaching the nearest security post at Chibok, though Associated Press reporters were able to make cell phone calls to the town. Chibok is the town in northeast Borno state from which more than 200 girls were abducted in April. Officials say 219 girls remain captive. Kwada is 10 kilometers (six miles) and Kautikari seven kilometers (four miles) away.

 Angry Chibok residents said soldiers were slow to respond to news of the attack, and the vigilantes said that once they reached Kwada, the soldiers refused to confront the extremists directly, only shooting at them from a distance outside the village. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the military.

 Boko Haram extremists attacked a military camp in the neighboring local government area of Damboa last week and killed at least 51 soldiers. Survivors said they came in armored personnel carriers mounted with anti-aircraft guns and were armed with rocket launchers and submachine guns much heavier than the soldiers' AK47 assault rifles. The insurgents abducted many soldiers who remain missing, they said.

 Boko Haram extremists are demanding the release of detained fighters in return for the kidnapped girls. Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan has been criticized for the slow reaction to the abductions and failure to swiftly rescue the girls. The United States has drones flying to help locate them and other nations have sent experts to help, but negotiations appear stalled.

 Nigeria's military has said it knows where they are but fears any military campaign could get them killed.

 Jonathan on Sunday condemned other recent attacks — Friday's bombing of a hotel that local reports identified as a brothel in Bauchi state, also in the northeast, and sectarian killings of sedentary farmers who are mainly Christian by alleged Fulani Muslim herders in northern Kaduna state.

 "The president commiserates with all the families who lost loved ones in the heinous attacks and extends his heartfelt sympathies to all those who suffered injuries or lost their properties during the wanton assaults on Bauchi and Kaduna States," said a statement. He promised the attackers would be brought to book.

 Jonathan made no mention of the near-daily attacks Boko Haram extremists have been mounting in the area around Chibok, an enclave of mainly Christian people in the majority Muslim north of the country. Bauchi and Kaduna states are governed by Jonathan's ruling People's Democratic Party while Borno is held by an opposition governor.

 A year-long military state of emergency in three northeastern states, all held by political opponents of Jonathan, has failed to curb the 5-year-old Islamic uprising that has killed thousands of people. The militants have increased the tempo and deadliness of attacks this year, with more than 2,000 people estimated killed compared to 3,600 in all four previous years.

 Boko Haram also has increased its theater of operations to bombings in several northern towns and the capital, Abuja, in central Nigeria. Politicians say some attacks in central Nigeria are being mounted by extremists disguised as Fulani herdsmen.

 Boko Haram is blamed for last week's bombing of a shopping mall in Abuja, the capital in central Nigeria, that killed 24 people. Boko Haram claimed two separate bomb attacks at an Abuja bus station in April that killed more than 120 people and wounded about 200.

 The extremist want to enforce an Islamic state in Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy, the continent's biggest oil producer and its most populous nation of about 170 million people divided almost equally between a majority Muslim north and mainly Christian south.

 ---

 Faul reported from Lagos, Nigeria Associated Press video journalist Lekan Oyekanmi contributed to this report from Abuja. |||||

Write a summary.

– Nigeria's military says it has arrested a businessman who belonged to a vigilante group fighting Boko Haram but was secretly a member of the extremist group himself—and "participated actively" in the kidnap of more than 200 schoolgirls in April. The military says the businessman was part of a Boko Haram intelligence unit and coordinated attacks that have killed hundreds of people, the BBC reports. Two women from the intelligence unit have also been arrested. It's not clear whether the arrest of the businessman will help rescue the girls, at least 219 of whom are still believed to be in captivity: Nigeria said a month ago that it knows where the girls are, but fears trying to free them with force could get them killed. Boko Haram, which says it won't free the schoolgirls until captured fighters are freed, has killed more than 2,000 people so far this year, including dozens killed Sunday in attacks on churches just a few miles from where the girls were kidnapped, the AP reports. Vigilante groups say the militants gunned down worshippers before torching at least four churches, killing more than 30 people.


Ma'am , Eman Ahmed (Egypt) 500kgs requested me 2 save her pls help me get her a medical visa as refused thru normal process @SushmaSwaraj pic.twitter.com/93Fwz6m8iL — Dr Muffi Lakdawala (@DrMuffi) December 5, 2016

 For more than two decades, Eman Ahmed Abd El Aty has not left her home in Egypt. But now the 36-year-old woman is set to travel 2,700 miles to Mumbai for potentially lifesaving surgery. Abd El Aty weighs about 1,100 pounds, according to her family.

 At that weight, Abd El Aty would be the heaviest woman alive by roughly 450 pounds, and close to the heaviest woman ever to live. (At her heaviest, Michigan woman Carol Yager weighed 1,189 pounds, according to a 1993 Associated Press report.)

 Muffazal Lakdawala, a bariatric surgeon at the Center for Obesity and Digestive Surgery in Mumbai, will operate on Abd El Aty. The doctor has performed the most single-incision laparoscopic surgeries (a minimally invasive procedure that relies on video cameras threaded into the body) in the world, according to his bio on the medical center’s website. The Times of India reported that Lakdawala has operated on high-ranking Indian politicians, including two ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet.

 Lakdawala told The Washington Post he has operated on patients above 660 pounds before, but Abd El Aty’s surgery will be “very high risk.”

 Abd El Aty’s sister contacted Lakdawala after Egyptian doctors determined there was little they could do for the bedridden woman. When Lakdawala received her photograph, as the surgeon told The Post by phone early Thursday, he was stunned.

 “My initial reaction was ‘How is she even alive?’” Lakdawala said. But he was determined to help. “If I can somehow use whatever God-gifted talent I have to save her,” he said, “I must try.”

 To operate on patients with extreme weights, even transportation is an obstacle. In 2014, a crane was required to move the then-heaviest man in the world, Manuel Uribe, to a hospital. Taking Abd El Aty out of her home will probably require the demolition of a wall in her room, Lakdawala said.

 And Abd El Aty’s case has already faced hurdles. Getting a visa from the Indian Embassy in Cairo threatened to halt Abd El Aty’s voyage, because it required visiting the embassy for fingerprinting. So Lakdawala petitioned Sushma Swaraj, India’s Minister of External Affairs, on Twitter. Abd El Aty received her medical visa shortly thereafter. The doctor said he is now communicating with commercial airlines to find a plane with an entrance that can accommodate Abd El Aty. He anticipates she will fly to Mumbai within a week to 10 days.

 As for the medical procedure itself, which Lakdawala said he is performing pro bono, he does not know yet exactly what he will do. Abd El Aty’s medical records are sparse. But he thinks the weight-loss surgery will help her lose at least 200 to 300 pounds.

 He also anticipates Abd El Aty will need to remain in Mumbai for months as she recovers. “In every sense, she’s a challenge,” Lakdawala said. “This is a challenge not just for my skill set but for my team.”

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 22 heavily armed men post mannequin challenge on Facebook, much to delight of cops ||||| An Egyptian woman, believed to be the world's heaviest woman at 500kg (1,102lb), will soon be flown to India for weight reduction surgery.

 Eman Ahmed Abd El Aty, 36, will be flown on a chartered plane to Mumbai where bariatric surgeon Dr Muffazal Lakdawala plans to operate.

 The Indian embassy in Cairo initially denied her visa request as she was unable to travel there in person.

 After the surgeon tweeted to India's foreign minister that changed.

 India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who is herself in hospital awaiting a kidney transplant, was quick to respond with an offer of help.

 Ms Abd El Aty's family says she hasn't been able to leave home for 25 years now and claims she weighs 500kg.

 If the claim about her weight is true, then that would make her the world's heaviest woman alive as the current Guinness record holder is Pauline Potter of the United States who weighed 292kg (643lb) in 2010.

 Dr Lakdawala, who has performed weight reduction surgeries on Indian minister Nitin Gadkari and Venkaiah Naidu, told the BBC that from looking at Ms Abd El Aty's medical reports and photographs, he believes that she weighs at least 450kg.

 Ms Abd El Aty's family says she weighed 5kg (11lb) at birth and was diagnosed with elephantiasis, a condition in which a limb or other body parts swell due to a parasitic infection, Dr Lakdawala told the BBC in a phone call from Mumbai.

 "They said when she was 11, she had gained immense weight because of which she could not stand up and would crawl.

 "And then she suffered a stroke which left her bedridden and she has not been able to leave home since then."

 Ms Abd El Aty is cared for by her mother and sister.

 Dr Lakdawala said Ms Abd El Aty's sister got in touch with him in October and he began raising money to bring her over to Mumbai as her family was too poor and unable to bear the costs of chartering a flight.

 "We are expecting to fly her to Mumbai next week as soon as the formalities are over," he said.

 Dr Lakdawala believes that Ms Abd El Aty does not have elephantiasis, but suffers from obesity-related lymphoedema which causes gigantic swelling of legs.

 "She would need to remain in Mumbai for two to three months for the surgery and treatment after which she would be able to return home, but it would take two to three years to bring her body weight under 100kg," the surgeon said.

 "I'm hopeful that I will be able to help her, I won't say I'm confident because I think that would be an exaggeration," he added.

 What is bariatric surgery?

 Bariatric surgery, also known as weight loss surgery, is used as a last resort to treat people who are dangerously obese and carrying an excessive amount of body fat.

 In the UK, this type of surgery is available on the NHS only to treat people with potentially life-threatening obesity when other treatments have not worked.

 Around 8,000 people a year in the UK currently receive the treatment.

 The two most common types of weight loss surgery are:

 Gastric band, where a band is used to reduce the size of the stomach so a smaller amount of food is required to make someone feel full

 Gastric bypass, where the digestive system is re-routed past most of the stomach so less food is digested to make someone feel full

 Where are you on the global fat scale? ||||| Embassy in Cairo called Visa granted.Thank you so much for this prompt response,impressed Appreciate the help @SushmaSwaraj @CODSIndia01 — Dr Muffi Lakdawala (@DrMuffi) December 6, 2016

 Ma'am , Eman Ahmed (Egypt) 500kgs requested me 2 save her pls help me get her a medical visa as refused thru normal process @SushmaSwaraj pic.twitter.com/93Fwz6m8iL — Dr Muffi Lakdawala (@DrMuffi) December 5, 2016

 Now starts my tough journey to give this girl a second chance at life . Thank you Sushma Swaraj Ji . https://t.co/d601BkBinX — Dr Muffi Lakdawala (@DrMuffi) December 6, 2016

 NEW DELHI: Despite being confined to a hospital room herself, ailing external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj intervened to swiftly get a medical visa for an Egyptian who's likely the heaviest woman in the world."I am mighty impressed with the promptness shown by the minister even though she is fighting kidney failure and is hospitalised. Thanks to her, Iman will now be in Mumbai by next week," said Dr Muffazal Lakdawala to a medical news web site, referring to the Egyptian, Iman Ahmad Abdulati, who weighs 500 kgs.Swaraj made sure the medical visa went through in under 24 hours, after the doctor tweeted her that the Indian embassy in Cairo had refused to give a visa to Abdulati who is unable to move from her Alexandria residence and travel to Cairo.Abdulati will now be airlifted to Mumbai for surgery in a specially arranged chartered flight, said the medical news website My Medical Mantra."For 20 years, she didn't step out of her house. Her family had tried many doctors there for medical help but were denied. It was her sister who got in touch with me after she heard of me from a family friend, (on) whom I had operated for obesity," Lakdawala told My Medical Mantra.Iman's sister Chaymaa' got in touch with Dr Lakdawala in October. He is a renowned obesity surgeon who has had several ministers as patients, including Union ministers Nitin Gadkari and Venkaiah Naidu Physicians in Egypt told Al Arabiya.net web site last month that Abdulati suffers from a disruption of the glands as well as from a parasite called elephantiasis. The former causes her body to store huge amounts of water and the latter causes extreme swelling. The combination of these two things has meant a huge amount of excess weight.After Abdulati's family sent Dr Lakdawala all her medical reports, he started sending requests for monetary help to his friends."The family is poor and cannot afford the cost of a private chartered flight to Mumbai from Cairo. While we asked the family to make her passport and arrange for visa, I started collecting funds," said Lakdawala to My Medical Mantra.Still, having managed to collect funds and made travel arrangements for Abdulati, her family and the doctor faced another unexpected obstacle - a visa for Abdulati to travel to India."It was like a roadblock for us. Embassy refused to budge and we needed visa for her to fly to Mumbai," Lakdawala said.That's when he tweeted minister Swaraj.Sitting in her hospital room, Swaraj replied promptly.The 36-year-old Abdulati has not left her house since she tipped the scales at 500 kg, almost 25 years ago, when she was 11 years old. Now, Abdulati gets to come to Mumbai where Dr. Lakdawala will operate on her at the hospital he founded, the Centre for Obesity and Digestive Surgery.For Dr Lakdawala, the journey only really begins now. |||||

Write a summary.

– Eman Ahmed Abd El Aty's family says the 36-year-old Egyptian woman hasn't left her home in 25 years, the BBC reports. Her extreme weight forced her to crawl instead of walk by age 11, and an ensuing stroke left her bedridden. Her family says she weighs more than 1,100 pounds, which would make her the heaviest woman alive—the current Guinness record-holder is only 643 pounds—and close to the heaviest woman ever, according to the Washington Post. While Abd El Aty's weight hasn't been confirmed, Dr. Muffazal Lakdawala in India estimates she is at least 990 pounds based on photos of her. "My initial reaction was '‘How is she even alive?'" he says. His next reaction was to try to save her. Abd El Aty is expected to arrive in Mumbai for surgery in the next 10 days, but it won't be an easy journey. "In every sense, she's a challenge," Lakdawala says. The bariatric surgeon has been raising money to get her to Mumbai and will be operating pro bono, the Times of India reports. But it's not just money that's an issue. Because she can't leave her room, Abd El Aty was unable to make it to the Indian embassy to be fingerprinted for a visa; only a personal plea from Lakdawala secured her an exemption. And while transporting Abd El Aty will be challenging in its own right, Lakdawala says the surgery itself is "very high risk." He says he's "hopeful" but not "confident" he can help Abd El Aty lose up to 300 pounds. (For the obese, objects are closer than they appear.)


– By now, everyone should know not to get too close to hippos in the wild or in captivity, but a California man didn't get the memo. Officials at the Los Angeles Zoo tell the Los Angeles Times they've recruited the LAPD to help look for a most unusual sort of trespasser: a man caught on tape scaling a barrier and slapping one of two hippos in the pen below. The now-viral video, recorded from the other side of the enclosure by what sounds to be a young woman, shows the man slowly climbing over a railing, then reaching down to slap the butt of 4-year-old Rosie, who appeared to be snacking alongside her mother, Mara. Mara looks up briefly, and the person shooting the video can be heard giggling as the man lifts his arms up in an apparent victory stretch and runs off. But zoo officials warn that what happened was anything but funny. "Any unauthorized interaction with an animal is unsafe for the animal and potentially unsafe for the patron," a zoo spokeswoman says, noting something like this also breaks down the animals' trust that zookeepers have worked so hard to instill. The BBC notes hippos are responsible for more human deaths in Africa than any other big animal. The suspect could be hit with a misdemeanor charge or other infraction—California law bars anyone from climbing into zoo enclosures—but the case is being investigated as a trespassing violation, not an animal cruelty one, as the animals didn't seem particularly fazed by the incident.

Expand this summary.

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 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| 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. |||||


Summarize this article:

Campaign seeks to help educate escaped Nigerian schoolgirls

 By Katy Senour

 .- As more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls remain missing after being kidnapped this spring, one human rights group has started a campaign to help educate those who were able to escape.

 “Right now as these courageous girls remain in Nigeria, they are confronted daily with the paralyzing fear of recapture and potential village attacks,” Jubilee Campaign legal intern Sarah Jane Norris told CNA.

 “These are our sisters-in-Christ and they need our help.”

 In April, the radical Islamic group Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 girls from a boarding school in Chibok, Nigeria. About 60 girls have escaped, according to report, but the majority remain missing despite government efforts to locate them.

 Jubilee Campaign USA – a non-profit group that supports human rights and religious freedom – is now raising money to help further the education of several of the girls who have escaped.

 This fits in with one of the organization’s stated goals, which is “to promote and protect vulnerable women and children from bodily harm and sexual exploitation, paying particular attention to the scourge of human trafficking or modern slavery which we oppose however we can, wherever we find it, in all of its forms.”

 “We will assist 10 of the girl child victims, who courageously escaped the confines of their Boko Haram captors, by sending them to specialized boarding schools where their traumatic experiences may be transformed into empowering triumphs over evil,” said Norris.

 Jubilee Campaign aims to raise $125,000 by Aug. 14, in order to help 10 of the girls to “have a fresh start and continue their education in a safe and nurturing environment.”

 Along with providing an education to the young women, the fundraiser is a reminder “that the grand-scale of violence has not stopped in Chibok,” she added.

 “Boko Haram unleashed and continues to unleash a vicious cycle of attacks on villages, churches, and schools,” she said, pointing to recent reports that 11 parents of the abducted girls have now died.

 Jubilee Campaign also hosted a “100 Days of Captivity Rally” on July 24, marking 100 days since the girls had been kidnapped and urging the Nigerian government to do everything in its power to find and return the girls.

 Ultimately, Norris said, the organization hopes to raise enough money to ensure the future of the escaped young women, and to be the light of Christ for them.

 “If we can get these girls back in school in a safe environment, then the Chibok people, the Chibok culture, and these girls will survive in spite of Boko Haram,” she explained.

 Jubilee Campaign’s fundraising website can be found at: http://www.youcaring.com/tuition-fundraiser/education-after-escape-1-month-10-girl-victims-125-000/206245

 Tags: Women, Nigeria, Education, Boko Haram ||||| Recent U.S. surveillance flights over northeastern Nigeria showed what appeared to be large groups of girls held together in remote locations, raising hopes among domestic and foreign officials that they are among the group that Boko Haram abducted from a boarding school in April, U.S. and Nigerian officials said.

 The surveillance suggests that at least some of the 219 schoolgirls still held captive haven't been forced into marriage... ||||| The Education After Escape campaign reached a significant goal of over $20,000 in its one month campaign (July 18- August 18, 2014). Help us raise even more funds to educate the escaped schoolgirls who were abducted by Boko Haram in Nigeria by going to https://www.youcaring.com/nonprofits/education-after-escape/228007.

 As the world’s attention turned to northern Nigeria and the demand for the return of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls, it is important to note that although these women and children may escape Boko Haram’s clutches, they do not escape the long term effects of their capture. With the mass abductions of nearly 300 hundred Chibok girls, Boko Haram has had a chilling effect on girl education in northern Nigeria. Amazingly, some of the girls have managed to escape their vicious captors.

 In the midst of this atrocity, the education of Nigeria’s girls has been disrupted and there is a real risk of having a lost generation, thereby risking the long-term peace and development in Nigeria and the wider region. Every girl deserves the right to an education! These rescued girls are living in constant fear of Boko Haram’s further vengeance and need your help.

 Organizations like Jubilee Campaign USA are trying to make a difference. Jubilee Campaign, a US based non-profit organization with a track record of helping victims of violence in northern Nigeria, is assisting 10 of the girl child victims, who courageously escaped the confines of their Boko Haram captors, to send them to specialized boarding schools where their traumatic experiences may be transformed into empowering triumphs over evil. Each girl will be able to enroll in a school where she will grow in wisdom and stature while gaining mental and emotional support. Through this campaign, these girls who due to cost, environmental threats, or ongoing Boko Haram violence in Nigeria, would otherwise be out of school and thus their future potential and healing neglected, will have the opportunity to survive.

 The Education After Escape Campaign seeks to be the change. We are looking to mobilize $125,000 in 1 month (by the end of August 2014) to support the transportation and education of 10 escaped girl victims from Boko Haram terrorists, leading them to a hopeful and successful future through education.

 On behalf of the children that we help out, we thank you, so much. We have done this successfully with one girl from Chibok already. Now we want to do it for 10.

 So what are you waiting for? Donate now! A donation of any amount will help.

 Share with your friends to also Donate Now!

 Who we are at Jubilee Campaign USA:

 Information about all correctly registered charities in the U.S. is made available through Guidestar.org. Jubilee Campaign has been an IRS registered 501(c)(3) since 1991. You can find this information:

 http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/52-1645262/jubilee-campaign-usa.aspx#legitimacy

 Jubilee Campaign is listed with the Combined Federal Campaign, and our listing can be found by typing in our full name (Jubilee Campaign USA Inc) in that official website:

 http://www.cfctoday.org/_root/index.php?content_id=5204

 Jubilee Campaign is listed as in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council on page 56 of this document on their website:

 http://csonet.org/content/documents/e2013inf6.pdf

 In October 2010, Jubilee Campaign undertook the Justice for Jos Project in order to advocate for victims of Boko Haram violence in northern Nigeria. Since then we have tirelessly advocated for Boko Haram to be designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization on Capitol Hill. Throughout that period, we have also been advocating for refugees and the internally displaced from northern Nigeria violence. Through this work and contacts within U.S. Congressional offices, we have raised awareness and brought help to victims of Boko Haram including introducing them to visiting U.S. Congressman Christopher Smith, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, and Congressman Steve Stockman. After contacting some of the escaped girls, ten of them completed applications to further their education in Europe or the U.S. We have secured admissions for these ten in boarding schools, and we are fundraising to cover the costs of these admissions, travel, and other needs.

 With affiliated offices in Washington, D.C., the U.K., and the Netherlands, Jubilee Campaign is a U.S. registered 501c3 charity that seeks justice for the oppressed. We partner internationally to advance human rights and religious liberty of ethnic and religious minorities; advocate for the release of prisoners of conscience; and protect and champion the physical and spiritual freedom, safety, and care of children and families abandoned, orphaned, homeless, refugees, internally displaced persons, human trafficking victims, relief of poverty, and otherwise victimized or suffering injustice. Jubilee promotes peace, reconciliation, and rehabilitation in conflict areas and legally defends the right to life and dignity from biological conception to natural death where such defense is required.

  |||||

– The Wall Street Journal has a report raising hopes about the 200 or so Nigerian girls still missing after being kidnapped by Boko Haram. US surveillance planes have on at least two occasions spotted sizable groups of girls in remote locales in northeastern Nigeria. The girls had been moved by the time subsequent flights flew overhead, but the development suggests that instead of selling the girls into sex slavery as feared, Boko Haram is keeping them in the hopes of a prisoner swap with the government. In fact, the Journal quotes a Nigerian security adviser who says that Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has given orders that "anybody found touching any of the girls should be killed immediately." President Goodluck Jonathan has publicly ruled out a prisoner exchange, but he is up for re-election in February and under heavy pressure to bring the girls home. Meanwhile, a human rights group has launched a campaign to provide educations for the girls who managed to escape, reports the Catholic News Agency.


Here is a news article: Paris (AFP) - France's influential economist Thomas Piketty, author of "Capital in the 21st Century", on Thursday refused to accept the country's highest award, the Legion d'honneur, to criticise the Socialist government in power.

 "I refuse this nomination because I do not think it is the government's role to decide who is honourable," Piketty told AFP.

 "They would do better to concentrate on reviving (economic) growth in France and Europe," added Piketty, who was once close to the Socialist Party but has distanced himself from the policies of President Francois Hollande. ||||| Image copyright AFP Image caption Mr Piketty said "it is not the government's role to decide who is honourable"

 French economist Thomas Piketty, the best-selling author of Capital in the 21st Century, has turned down France's top award, the Legion D'Honneur.

 "I do not think it is the government's role to decide who is honourable", Mr Piketty said.

 His book examines income inequality in society and became a surprise hit, topping the bestseller list in the US.

 It is rare for anyone to turn down the award, says the BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris.

 But Mr Piketty, who was once close to the Socialist Party but has criticised the government of Francois Hollande, said he was unable to accept the award.

 "I have just learned that I was nominated for the Legion D'Honneur. I refuse this nomination because I do not think it is the government's role to decide who is honourable," he told the news agency AFP.

 "They would do better to concentrate on reviving [economic] growth in France and Europe."

 Capital, a book of almost 600 pages, sold half a million copies in English and was much-debated, particularly in the US.

 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Piketty's analysis and policy suggestions proved controversial

 Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman called it "the most important economics book of the year - and maybe of the decade".

 Last year, cartoonist Jacques Tardi also turned down the Legion D'Honneur.

 Others to have refused the award include philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and radiology pioneers Pierre and Marie Curie. ||||| PARIS—French economist Thomas Piketty, author of the best-selling book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” has turned down the Legion of Honor, saying the government should focus on reviving the country’s anemic economy rather than “decide who is honorable.”

 Mr. Piketty’s refusal of one of France’s highest distinctions—announced via a short declaration to the Agence France-Presse news agency—is a snub to the government a day after President François Hollande cited the global influence of French scholars as evidence of the... |||||
A summary of this is?

– The French economist whose 685-page Capital in the Twenty-First Century became a surprise 2014 bestseller has rejected the country's top honor, saying the government should concentrate on fixing the economy instead of giving out awards. "I refuse this nomination because I do not think it is the government's role to decide who is honorable," Thomas Piketty tells AFP, which notes that he supported the Socialist Party in the 2012 election but has since been a fierce critic of President Francois Hollande's policies. Piketty, who wants a complete overhaul of the tax system to reverse inequality, says the government's priority should be reviving the French and European economies. He had been nominated for the Legion of Honor by the country's education ministry, reports the Wall Street Journal. "We take note of his decision to refuse the distinction," the minister in charge of universities and research says. "The excellence and the visibility of his work remain." It is rare for a nominee to reject the award, although Jean-Paul Sartre and Pierre and Marie Curie also turned it down, the BBC notes.


Write an article based on this summary:

– "If only they could just hug it out," laments the New York Daily News in the case of Connell v. Tarala—Connell being 54-year-old Jennifer Connell, Tarala her 12-year-old nephew Sean, who she claims was so excited at his birthday party four years ago that he broke her wrist, the Connecticut Post reports. The New York City woman, who's suing Sean for $127,000, testified in court Friday that when she arrived at her nephew's birthday party in Westport, Conn., on March 28, 2011, Sean was riding his brand-new bike outside. When he saw Connell, she said, he ran toward her yelling, "Auntie Jen, Auntie Jen!" and then flung his 50-pound body at her, knocking them both to the ground and breaking her wrist. "I remember him shouting, 'Auntie Jen, I love you,' and there he was flying at me," she testified. Connell told the jury she didn't complain about her injury at the time because "it was his birthday party and I didn't want to upset him," but she noted that the broken wrist upended her busy life. "I live in Manhattan in a third-floor walk-up, so it has been very difficult," she said. "And we all know how crowded it is in Manhattan." Not to mention how it affected her in social situations: "I was at a party recently, and it was difficult to hold my hors d'oeuvre plate," she noted. Even though Connell says Sean—who the Post notes listened with his dad to his aunt's testimony looking "confused"; his mom died last year—has always been "very loving" and "sensitive" toward her, she thinks he should still be liable and understand that his actions have consequences. (These parents got an invoice after their son was a no-show at a birthday party.)

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. ||||| 8-year-old Westport boy on trial for exuberance

 facebook photo Jennifer Connell. Connell claims her 8-year-old nephew of Westport, acted unreasonably when he leaped into her arms, causing her to fall on the ground and break her wrist four years ago. The case is in court in Bridgeport, Conn. less facebook photo Jennifer Connell. Connell claims her 8-year-old nephew of Westport, acted unreasonably when he leaped into her arms, causing her to fall on the ground and break her wrist four years ago. The ... more Photo: Contributed / Contributed Photo Photo: Contributed / Contributed Photo Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close 8-year-old Westport boy on trial for exuberance 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

 BRIDGEPORT — New York woman wants a jury to hold her 8-year-old nephew accountable for his youthful exuberance during his birthday party.

 Jennifer Connell claims the boy, Sean Tarala of Westport, acted unreasonable when he leaped into her arms, causing her to fall on the ground and break her wrist four years ago. This week Connell is asking a six-member Superior Court jury to find the boy liable for his actions.

 She is seeking $127,000 from the boy, who she described as always being “very loving, sensitive,” toward her. The boy is the only defendant in the case.

 In court Friday, the boy, now 12 years old, appeared confused as he sat with his father, Michael Tarala, in the Main Street courtroom. The boy’s mother, Lisa Tarala, died last year.

 On the witness stand before Judge Edward Stodolink, the 54-year-old Connell, a human resources manager in Manhattan, testified she loves Sean but believes he should be held accountable for her injury.

 On March 18, 2011, Connell, who has no children of her own, arrived at the Tarala home at 25 Woods Grove Road to attend Sean’s birthday party.

 The boy had gotten his first two-wheeler for his birthday, and was joyfully riding the bright-red bike around and around the home, according to testimony.

 But when he spotted Connell, he dropped the new bicycle on the ground, exclaiming, “Auntie Jen, Auntie Jen.”

 “All of a sudden he was there in the air, I had to catch him and we tumbled onto the ground,” Connell testified of her encounter with the 50-pound boy. “I remember him shouting, ‘Auntie Jen I love you,’ and there he was flying at me.”

 Although hurt, Connell said, she didn’t complain to the boy at the time.

 “It was his birthday party and I didn’t want to upset him,” she told the jury.

 But, Connell continued, her life was turned upside down as a result of the injury.

 “I live in Manhattan in a third-floor walk-up so it has been very difficult,” she said. “And we all know how crowded it is in Manhattan.”

 And then there is the damage the injury has done to Connell’s social life.

 “I was at a party recently, and it was difficult to hold my hors d’oeuvre plate,” she said.

 “The injuries, losses and harms to the plaintiff were caused by the negligence and carelessness of the minor defendant in that a reasonable eight years old under those circumstances would know or should have known that a forceful greeting such as the one delivered by the defendant to the plaintiff could cause the harms and losses suffered by the plaintiff,” the lawsuit claims. |||||


Here is a news article: Richard Carpenter to Music Companies You Screwed Me and Karen Royally

 Richard Carpenter Sues for Karen Over Legendary Music Catalog

 Richard Carpenter has filed a lawsuit against 2 music companies he claims ripped him off in the royalties over Carpenters tunes, and he's brought Karen into the legal action as well.

 Richard and Karen Carpenter's estate claim Universal Music Group and A&M Records have shut them out of profits for iTunes and other online sales distributors.

 It's a whole new world out there with digital downloads, and Richard claims Universal and A&M are not giving artists their fair cut. He goes on to say the courts have agreed with him -- notably in a case involving Eminem -- and now he says it's time to pay up.

 Richard and Karen's estate have crunched the numbers, and they want more than $2 million. ||||| Richard Carpenter, representing the singer-songwriting duo The Carpenters, claims that Universal Music Group and A&M Records have only paid him and the estate of his sister, Karen, only a “miniscule fraction” of digital royalties owed to them, according to a lawsuit he filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday.

 The Carpenters contend that accountants they hired to examine the record label books found multiple errors and that the defendants rejected the claim of royalties. He is seeking compensatory damages of at least $2 million.

 Among other things, according to the lawsuit, the record labels “improperly classified” revenue from digital downloads of Carpenters’ music as sales of records as opposed to licensing revenue — short-changing them from a higher royalty rate. The lawsuit also claims that the defendants undercounted digital downloads and that they applied an incorrect base price to the sales of CDs.

 The lawsuit notes that the lawsuit is similar to litigation involving the recordings of Eminem in which the defendants were several affiliates of UMG. Ultimately, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that digital downloads were a licensing of master recordings rather than a sale of records.

 Related Read Universal Music Chief Lucian Grainge’s Year-End Letter to Staff Capitol Music Group Names Amber Grimes Senior VP of Global Creative

 “I regret that I have been unable to amicably resolve this serious royalty dispute with Universal and A&M,” Carpenter said in a statement. “The Carpenters recordings are among the best sellers in the history of popular music and after 48 years continue to contribute a substantial amount to UMG/A&M’s annual bottom line. It seems only fair that these companies account fairly to my sister’s estate and to me. I look forward to proving the allegations in court.”

 The lawsuit claims breach of contract and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.

 The Carpenters are represented by Larry Iser and Greg Gabriel at Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert.

 During their career, the brother and sister duo recorded 11 albums, released 31 singles, and won three Grammys. Karen Carpenter died in 1983.

 A spokeswoman for UMG did not immediately return a request for comment. |||||
A summary of this is?

– The lawsuits may have only just begun: Richard Carpenter filed a suit in California Wednesday on behalf of sister Karen Carpenter's estate, saying record companies are cheating both of them out of digital royalties. Richard, the surviving member of the sibling duo, accuses Universal Music Group and A&M Records of not giving the band its fair cut of digital sales of Carpenters records, TMZ reports. He says the Carpenters, who recorded 11 albums and released 31 singles before Karen's death in 1983, are owed at least $2 million, and he notes that the courts sided with Eminem in a similar case in 2010. The lawsuit accuses record companies of shortchanging the duo by undercounting digital downloads and "improperly classifying" downloads as record sales when they should be considered licensing, which has a higher royalty rate, Variety reports. "The Carpenters recordings are among the best sellers in the history of popular music and after 48 years continue to contribute a substantial amount to UMG/A&M's annual bottom line," Richard Carpenter said in a statement. "It seems only fair that these companies account fairly to my sister's estate and to me. I look forward to proving the allegations in court."


Here is a news article: Congressman Allen West spoke at a Florida GOP dinner last night, and had some fighting words for Democrats who are trying to mark Florida in the win column this November. He declared it a “battlefield” for citizens to stand on and tell the Democrats that their message is not going to resonate with the citizens of Florida.

 West called out not just President Obama, but Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and fellow Floridian Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

 “Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, and take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.”

 He pledged that he will do everything in his power to stop President Obama from “destroy[ing]” the country. West issued a challenge to Democrats who think they might be able to take him down in this November’s congressional elections: “Bring it on!”

 Watch the video below, courtesy of CSPAN:

 h/t Breitbart.tv

 Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com ||||| The establishment is fighting back, alright.

 This has not received a lot of national attention, but the Republican legislature in Florida is about to push through a plan which puts Allen West at serious risk, and the person leading the effort is one of Mitt Romney’s spokemen. As reported by The Shark Tank:

 After last night’s [Jan. 26] Republican Presidential debate, the candidates’ respective spinmeisters made their cases to the media as to why their guy won the debate. One of Governor Mitt Romney’s spokesmen was Florida Representative Will Weatherford, and during the course of his remarks in the “Spin Room”, he shed a very dim light on the ongoing redistricting process in the Florida Legislature…. West’s congressional district inexplicably sheds the most out support as compared to all other incumbent Republican and Democrat Congressman. A few weeks back we quoted an unnamed legislator saying that, “Allen West was screwed”, a statement which was originally made about made five months before the purposed maps were made public, leading insiders to believe that the fix was in against Allen West. But in light of Weatherford’s comment, it is increasingly clear that this is a fait accompli. According to Weatherford, those preliminary maps will not change- at the most, any additional changes would be minimal, and those changes would not make any appreciable difference from the preliminary maps. In addition, Weatherford stated that a deal was struck between him, Senate President Mike Haridopolos, and Senator Don Gaetz to finalize these maps and push them through as soon as possible.

 Weatherford tried to hide behind a need to comply with [state and] federal law, but that’s obviously a dodge since there could have been many ways to comply yet not sacrifice West:

 A website, SaveAllenWest, had been set up, but it appears to be too late.

 One of the rising stars of the Tea Party is about to be sacrificed by the Republican establishment in Florida, led by someone spinning for Mitt Romney.

 Don’t say you weren’t warned.

 Update 1-30-2012: Florida redistricting looking even worse and Dem SuperPAC targeting “Tea Party 10″.

 Also, Will Weatherford: The Florida legislature has NOT targeted Allen West

 Update No. 2 1-30-2012: Mark Levin interviewed West on January 30. West stated that maps were submitted to the legislature which would have kept his district intact and still been in compliance with state and federal law. Levin said he did not believe the excuses being made that the map had to be drawn the way it was as a matter of law. |||||
A summary of this is?

– Strong conservative, Tea Party favorite, and rising star Allen West could find his congressional seat gerrymandered Democrat—by none other than the Republican Party. West's "sacrifice" at the hands of his own party smells like the latest example of the establishment fighting back against the Tea Party, according to Legal Insurrection. One Florida legislator, who happens to be working for the Mitt Romney campaign, "tried to hide behind a need to comply with [state and] federal law, but that’s obviously a dodge since there could have been many ways to comply yet not sacrifice West," writes William Jacobson. Never one to avoid controversy, West over the weekend had strong words for President Obama and other top Democrats who have their eye on the Sunshine State come November, telling them to "get the hell out of the United States of America," reports Mediaite. Apparently unfazed by any potential challenge to his seat, West told the Democrats to "bring it on!"