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 In this Nov. 9, 2015, photo, Yale University students and faculty rally to demand that Yale University become more inclusive to all students on Cross Campus in New Haven, Conn. (Arnold Gold/New Haven Register via AP)

 In November, an email about Halloween costumes touched off a student uprising at Yale over racial bias and insensitivity, echoed at colleges across the country. The Yale lecturer who authored the e-mail has decided to leave her teaching post, the latest chapter in an ongoing debate over racism, cultural offense, and freedom of speech.

 A confrontation over race at Yale: Hundreds of students demand answers from college’s first black dean

 “On the front lines for free speech at Yale”

 Isaac Stanley-Becker, a senior at Yale, writes about the fallout.

 By Isaac Stanley-Becker

 NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The Yale lecturer whose email about Halloween costumes exposed long-simmering racial tensions on this Ivy League campus has decided to stop teaching at the university.

 Before Erika Christakis found herself at the center of a national debate about free speech and racial sensitivity, she was known primarily as an early childhood educator who taught courses on child development and psychology. But it is her role as the associate master of Silliman College, one of Yale’s 12 undergraduate communities, that became a focus of intense scrutiny after she sent an email to Silliman students critiquing a college-wide request that they think twice before wearing Halloween costumes that might be seen as culturally insensitive.

 “American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience,” she wrote Oct. 30. “Increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition.”

 The email, combined with allegations leveled the same weekend that a Yale fraternity had barred black women from a party, provoked outrage among students of color, who confronted top administrators and demanded they take action to improve the university’s racial climate.

 Through a set of initiatives unveiled last month, including faculty growth in fields dealing with race and ethnicity, Peter Salovey, Yale’s president, took a major step in quelling these tensions.

 At the same time, Salovey said Christakis and her husband, Silliman Master Nicholas Christakis, would remain at the helm of the college. And an open letter that circulated recently, and was signed by nearly 70 faculty members, expressed “strong support of the right of Erika and Nicholas Christakis to free speech and freedom of intellectual expression.”

 That figure is dwarfed by the number of faculty signatories on an open letter expressing solidarity with students’ concerns about “racism and devaluation,” though it did not specifically refer to the Christakises.

 While many student protesters called for the Christakises’ dismissal from Silliman, few mentioned their presence in the classroom.

 Christakis said she has resigned her teaching role to return to her work with young children and families. The decision was first reported by Business Insider.

 “I have great respect and affection for my students, but I worry that the current climate at Yale is not, in my view, conducive to the civil dialogue and open inquiry required to solve our urgent societal problems,” she said in an email to The Washington Post.

 Nicholas Christakis, a physician and sociologist who runs his own lab at the university, said Friday he will take a sabbatical in spring 2016 and thus not teach his popular lecture, Health of the Public. He said he is not teaching next semester so that he can focus on his laboratory research and on the needs of students in Silliman.

 This fall, Erika Christakis was teaching two seminars: The Growing Child in Global Context and Concept of the Problem Child.

 A course evaluation for Concept of the Problem Child states: “This seminar is phenomenal and Professor Christakis is, hands down, my favorite professor that I’ve had while I’ve been here.”

 An African American junior who was enrolled in the seminar this spring but asked not to be identified to speak freely about a former instructor praised the course, as well as Christakis’s care for students. Still, he said the week spent discussing children of color left him uncomfortable, as he felt compelled to speak from personal experience about his own black childhood to fill in for gaps in the syllabus and in class discussion.

 The student said he understood Christakis’s rationale for leaving the classroom, but said he was disappointed by her decision.

 “The concept of the problem child, and the global child, they’re very important topics, and Yale doesn’t have many classes on education and child development,” he said. “To lose that is a very big detriment to students interested in these issues, and the class could have been getting better. And if she was learning from the events happening on campus, and if she went into it trying to make it better for all communities, that would have been better for her and better for the school in general.”

 A Yale spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.

 Read more:

 The Yale I know

 Amid national conversation about race, Yale acknowledges ‘failing’ its minorities

 Students accuse Yale fraternity brother with saying “white girls only” at party door

 Minority students give list of demands to the president of Yale

 Yale president responds to protesters, announces new initiatives to improve racial climate on campus ||||| NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A Yale University faculty member who sparked protests when she said students should be free to push boundaries with Halloween costumes, even to the point of offense, resigned from her teaching position, the school announced Monday.

 Erika Christakis chose not to continue teaching in the spring semester, the university said on its website.

 "Her teaching is highly valued and she is welcome to resume teaching anytime at Yale, where freedom of expression and academic inquiry are the paramount principle and practice," the school said.

 Christakis came under attack in October for her response to a request from the Intercultural Affairs Committee that students avoid wearing racially insensitive costumes, such as Native American headgear, turbans or blackface. She wrote in an email to students living in the residence hall where she's an administrator that they should be able to wear any costume they want.

 "Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious, a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive?" she wrote. "American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience; increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition."

 The email was one of several incidents on campus that prompted hundreds of students and faculty members to march in protest on Nov. 9 of what they see as racial insensitivity at the Ivy League school.

 The school also has been dealing with criticism over a residential hall named after John Calhoun, a prominent slave-owning politician, questions about how minorities are treated on campus and allegations that a woman was turned away from a fraternity party because she was not white.

 After the march, dozens of faculty members contributed to an open letter showing support for Christakis, who taught courses on child development and psychology.

 "I have great respect and affection for my students, but I worry that the current climate at Yale is not, in my view, conducive to the civil dialogue and open inquiry required to solve our urgent societal problems," Christakis said in an email to The Washington Post. |||||Summary:

– Christmas is around the corner but at Yale, they're still dealing with the fallout from a Halloween controversy. Lecturer Erika Christakis has resigned from her teaching position after causing an uproar in October with her response to an email from the campus Intercultural Affairs Committee urging students to avoid insensitive costumes like Native American headdresses, the New York Times reports. "Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious, a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive?" she asked. "American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience; increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition." Christakis, who taught courses on child development, became the target of student protesters amid a wider discussion of racial issues on campus, AP reports. Yale said in a statement that it is disappointed she has decided to not to teach next semester and she is "welcome to resume teaching anytime." Christakis and her husband will remain as "masters" of Silliman College, one of Yale's 12 residential colleges. She tells the Washington Post that while she has great respect for her students, the current climate at Yale is not "conducive to the civil dialogue and open inquiry required to solve our urgent societal problems." (At Harvard, house "masters" have decided it is time for "a new inclusive title.")


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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. ||||| Image caption Ad hoc drinking may mean we do not actually know how much we are consuming

 The amount of alcohol consumed in England could be much higher than previously thought, a study suggests.

 University College London researchers compared alcohol sales figures with surveys of what people said they drank.

 They found there was a significant shortfall with almost half of the alcohol sold unaccounted for in the consumption figures given by drinkers.

 This suggests as many as three-quarters of people may be drinking above the recommended daily alcohol limit.

 The researchers reached their estimates by factoring in the "missing" alcohol - and found excess drinking was far more than suggested by official figures, they told European Journal of Public Health.

 Experts said much alcohol use went unreported, partly because drinkers did not admit or keep track of how much they consumed.

 'Health implications'

 The study found that 19% more men than previously thought were regularly exceeding their recommend daily limit - and 26% more women.

 Total consumption across the week was also higher than officially thought - with 15% more men, and 11% more women drinking above the weekly guidelines.

 The current recommendation set by the UK Chief Medical Officers is not to regularly exceed four units per day for men and three units a day for women; the Royal College of Physicians recommends weekly alcohol limits of 21 units for men and 14 units for women - although these are currently under review.

 A unit of alcohol is roughly equivalent to half a pint of ordinary strength beer, or nearly one small (125ml) glass of wine.

 Sadie Boniface, lead author of the study at University College, said: "Currently we don't know who consumes almost half of all alcohol in England. This study was conducted to show what alcohol consumption would look like when all of what is sold is accounted for, if everyone under-reported equally.

 "The results are putative, but they show that this gap between what is seen in the surveys and sales potentially has enormous implications for public health in England."

 The team used alcohol sales data from Revenue and Customs and compared it with two self-reporting alcohol consumption surveys conducted in 2008 - the General Lifestyle Survey (GLF) which analysed average weekly alcohol consumption in 12,490 adults, and the Health Survey for England (HSE) which looked at consumption on the heaviest drinking day in the previous week among 9,608 adults.

 Counting units

 The researchers say they will now look at the characteristics of those that are under-reporting the number of drinks they have had, and why.

 They suggest it may be down to drinking patterns and habits - those that are mixing drinks, and drinking at different venues, may be more likely to under-report.

 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Alcohol Concern's Eric Appleby: "Particularly when we drink at home, we pour much larger measures"

 The charity Alcohol Concern suggests irregular and chaotic drinking behaviour may play a part: "When we're totting up our drinks total we don't always count some occasions as proper drinking.

 "We may underestimate drink sizes and their alcoholic content, and not count holidays and special occasions like weddings, birthdays and Christmas when we often drink a great deal more than usual."

 The researchers suggest that government drinking guidelines need to reflect actual consumption instead of reported drinking - especially when ascertaining what levels are associated with harm.

 The Department of Health says this will be taken into consideration in their alcohol consumption review.

 It said: "We already know people underestimate what they drink and many drink too much. That's why we work to help people make healthier decisions, including the recent Change For Life campaign to help them track consumption and understand the impact on their health.

 "We're also tackling excessive drinking through our proposed minimum unit price at 45p per unit, tougher licensing laws, more GP risk assessments, better access to specialist nurses and more specialised treatment."

 Diane Abbott MP, Labour's shadow public health minister, said: "This has got to be a wake-up call for the government and the country, because after more than two years of bitter internal rows, the government has got cold feet about its only proposed alcohol harm policy.

 "More needs to be done to tackle problem drinking, which costs the country £21bn." |||||

– People in Britain are drinking a lot more alcohol than they care to admit, say researchers at the London's University College. They compared the amounts that people say they drink with actual alcohol sales and found that about 40% of the booze sold is mysteriously unaccounted for, reports the Telegraph. The study's authors estimate that 44% of men and 31% of women were exceeding government guidelines for weekly consumption, notable jumps in both categories. “Particularly at home, people underestimate how much they drink," says one of the authors. British government guidelines say men should drink no more than four units of alcohol a day, which equates to two pints of beer; for women, it's three units per day, the equivalent of three small glasses of wine. The weekly limits are 21 units for men and 14 for women, reports the BBC.


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– John David LaDue had it all figured out. He would kill his mother, father and sister and then create a diversion to keep first responders busy while he went to Waseca Junior/Senior High School to wreak havoc.

 There, the 17-year-old planned to set off pressure-cooker bombs full of nails and metal ball bearings in the cafeteria. Students who weren’t maimed or killed would be gunned down in the halls, he told police.

 After his arrest Tuesday, the high school junior said he intended to kill “as many students as he could,” before he was killed by the SWAT team, according to charging documents filed in Waseca County District Court.

 LaDue was charged Thursday with four counts of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree damage to property and six counts of possession of a bomb by someone under 18. Police found seven firearms and at least six completed bombs in his bedroom and in the storage unit where he was arrested.

 Police on Friday said they have no further information to share on the investigation and declined to comment on how LaDue was able to obtain so many guns and bomb-making materials. Students in the Waseca schools were home on Friday on a scheduled off day.

 A community meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Friday at Waseca High School “to communicate to families our plans for moving forward together,” the School District said in a notice on its website.

 Parents throughout the town were shaken and shocked as they began to hear details of LaDue’s plot.

 “It’s just too scary to put in words,” said a parent who has kids in Waseca’s middle school and high school but asked that her name not be used. “Everybody in town feels sick to their stomach. Scared. There were tears today.”

 Police Capt. Kris Markeson said that he believes LaDue would have carried out his murderous plot “just because of the amount of preparation and thought he put into this.”

 LaDue had planned and practiced for 10 months, refining the chemicals in his bombs to try to find a more lethal combination. He set off “practice bombs” on the playground at Hartley Elementary School, Faith United Methodist Church, Oak Park and high school softball fields. Some of those bombs were found in March, raising concerns.

 The criminal complaint said LaDue told police that he originally planned the attack for April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre that killed 13 people in Littleton, Colo., in 1999.

 That was thwarted because that day was Easter Sunday and there was no school.

 Markeson said police believe the attack would have happened “within the next few weeks” if it hadn’t been for an alert 911 caller who grew suspicious after she saw a tall, white male wearing a backpack open a storage unit, go inside and close the door.

 Chelsie Schellhas was washing dishes Tuesday night when she noticed a boy with a backpack and a fast-food bag walking through her back yard toward the nearby MiniMax Storage Units.

 “He walked through the puddles when there was a perfectly good road he could have walked on,” she said. “It just didn’t seem right to me because we see people come and go with their trucks, and they don’t come on foot and cut through people’s back yards. It was like he was blatantly trying not to be seen. That’s why I thought it was odd.”

 And then it took “some time” for him to open the door, leading Schellhas to believe he was breaking in. Before he shut the door, Schellhas noticed trash and Wal-Mart bags in the unit. That also “didn’t look right,” she said.

 According to the complaint, three Waseca officers were sent to the storage facility at 7:24 p.m.

 LaDue was in the unit when officers arrived. Several small lanterns were set up inside to provide light, and officers saw ammo boxes, a scale, a pressure cooker and packaging for red iron oxide, materials commonly used for making bombs. ||||| Minnesota teenager John David LaDue methodically plotted a horrific assault in three acts designed to inflict maximum casualties in his home and school before his expected death at the hands of a police SWAT unit, according to court documents.

 An affidavit in a criminal complaint filed in a Waseca County court paints a chilling portrait of the 17-year-old's preparations for what police say was intended to be a murderous rampage that would begin at his home and, after a brief detour to set a diversionary fire, continue at the high school he attended.

 LaDue, who is charged with attempted murder and explosives in connection with the alleged plot, amassed a frightening arsenal over a nine-month period, including an SKS assault rifle with 400 rounds of ammunition, a 9mm Beretta handgun with ammunition and at least six homemade bombs, according to the affidavit by Waseca police Capt. Kris Markeson.

 The affidavit did not make clear how LaDue obtained the weapons.

 As detailed in a 180-page notebook found in a locked guitar case in LaDue's bedroom, the teenager planned to kill his parents and sister with a .22-caliber rifle to avoid making too much noise, then proceed to a rural location and start a fire in an attempt to attract and occupy first responders.

 While the blaze burned, he intended to go to Waseca Junior & Senior High School, which he attended, and set off pressure-cooker bombs and other explosive devices in the cafeteria. He then would kill the school's liaison police officer and shoot as many students as possible before dying at the hands of police marksmen, Markeson said.

 "LaDue planned on setting off pipe bombs and throwing Molotov cocktails down the main wing corridors in the school, and then shooting and killing students as they rushed out of the corridors," according to the affidavit.

 In preparation for the assault, it said, LaDue admitted he had previously detonated explosive devices at a nearby elementary school, outside a local church and in a city park in an effort to refine his bomb-making skills.

 In addition to documenting his plan, the journal contained entries describing LaDue's "thoughts, plans, to-do lists, supply lists, successes and failures (in his bomb experimentation) .. attempts and successes he made at acquiring additional firearms and ammunition," Markeson said. It also outlined chillingly mundane details of the plot, such as LaDue getting a job so he could purchase necessary supplies, getting a checking account and debit cards and renting a storage locker to store his growing cache of weaponry, he said.

 It also described the strange encounter on Tuesday between LaDue and police officers at a storage facility where he had rented a unit, ultimately unraveling his plot.

 Three Waseca police officers arrived at the storage facility after a neighbor called to report that she had seen someone sneak through her backyard and enter the commercial business from the rear.

 When the officers announced their presence, the affidavit said, LaDue was initially defensive, but then told Officer Tim Schroeder that he would talk to them if the officer could guess correctly what he was doing in the storage unit. When Schroeder said he believed LaDue had been making explosive devices, the teenager agreed to accompany police to the Waseca Police Department, where he was subsequently interviewed and arrested, it said.

 In addition to the guns, police recovered an array of bomb-making and related gear at LaDue's home and the storage locker. Other items included various containers of ball bearings, a pressure cooker, three boxes of Remington 12-gauge shotgun shells, military trip wire, a ski mask and a black duster/trench coat. Three 5-pound bags of potassium perchlorate and a 10-pound bag of red iron oxide were among the array of chemicals recovered, as well.

 The criminal complaint said LaDue told police that he originally planned the attack for April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre that killed 13 people in Littleton, Colo., in 1999. He changed his plans when he realized April 20 was Easter Sunday and school was not in session.

 The Bloomington, Minn., police bomb squad detonated the completed bombs, and members of the squad were shocked by the amount of bomb-making chemicals and components that LaDue had in his possession, the affidavit said.

 First published May 2 2014, 9:08 AM ||||| The woman credited with foiling a Columbine-style attack at a Minnesota school nearly approached the suspicious teen she saw trudging across her backyard — but she said Friday she's relieved her cousin urged her to call the police instead.

 Chelsie Schellhas, 21, was washing dishes when she spotted John David LaDue, 17, cutting through her muddy backyard to get to a nearby storage facility.

 "This person is either breaking in or he is staying the night there," Schellhas said she thought after watching LaDue fiddle with the storage unit lock for 10 minutes. "Turns out he was making bombs instead," she said.

 LaDue was charged Thursday with 10 attempted murder and explosives counts after police determined he was two weeks away from carrying out a plot to kill his family and then bomb Waseca Junior/Senior High School in an effort to murder "as many students as he could."

 Schellhas' first instinct was to question the trespasser, but her cousin encouraged her to call the police, who found three fully functional bombs, bomb-making materials, gunpowder, numerous firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in LaDue's home and the storage locker.

 The police "told us it is a good thing we called, and we saved a bunch of people's lives," said Schellhas' cousin, Katie Harty.

 But Schellhas added, "It is hard for me to believe I am a hero. I didn't take the bomb out of his hands, I just witnessed it," she said.

 Schellhas does realize that if police hadn't discovered LaDue's plan, the outcome could have been "horrible."

 She said that in her small town, everyone has a connection to the school, and such a tragedy would have left the community devastated. "My cousin would've been dead, my boyfriend's sister, teachers that I have known."

 Instead, Waseca residents are heaping messages of thanks on the young woman. "The flowers I received today — they say 'thank you, from a grateful parent,'" Schellhas said.

 — Elisha Fieldstadt

 First published May 2 2014, 3:26 PM |||||

– The Minnesota teenager accused this week of planning a school massacre didn't just make a few offhand remarks. He laid out his plan in methodical detail in a notebook he kept locked inside his guitar case, and police are convinced that John David LaDue was poised to strike within weeks, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The 17-year-old had a three-stage plan: He would kill his parents and sister at home with a .22-caliber rifle, go to a rural spot to start a fire and draw first-responders, and finally head to Waseco High School to kill as many people as he could with guns and homemade bombs. He planned to be killed himself by police. “LaDue planned on setting off pipe bombs and throwing Molotov cocktails down the main wing corridors in the school, and then shooting and killing students as they rushed out of the corridors,” says the criminal affidavit, reports NBC News. Police found an assault rifle with 400 rounds of ammo, a 9mm handgun, and at least a half-dozen bombs at the teen's storage unit and home. When officers confronted him in the storage unit, they say he basically taunted them by making them guess what he was doing before answering any questions. When an officer guessed he was making bombs, the teen agreed to go to the station. The plot unraveled thanks to a 21-year-old who called police when she saw LaDue cut through her yard on his way to the storage unit and then act suspiciously outside it. "The flowers I received today—they say, 'Thank you, from a grateful parent,'" Chelsie Schellhas tells NBC.


– Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder admits he lost the public's trust in failing to respond quickly to concerns about Flint's drinking water. "I'm sorry I let you down," he said during his State of the State address on Tuesday. "Your families face a crisis—a crisis you did not create and could not have prevented," he added, per ABC News. "I'm sorry, and I will fix it." Almost two years after corrosive drinking water from the Flint River was contaminated with lead in April 2014, Snyder says he's asking legislators for $28 million to replace water supply pipes in Flint's schools, daycares, and hospitals; treat children with high lead levels; conduct environmental assessments; and more, per CNN. However, Flint Mayor Karen Weaver says the costs to fix the water issues and address health concerns could reach $1.5 billion. "We will provide resources to help anyone and everyone [affected]," Snyder said, noting he takes "full responsibility" for fixing this "catastrophe." He also vowed to release all of his emails relating to Flint from 2014 and 2015. Though some residents claim the state ignored the water issues for months, "we took action … as soon as I became aware of elevated lead levels in blood" on Oct. 1, 2015, Snyder told Time last week, noting bottled water, water filters, and water testing kits were handed out. Snyder lays blame on the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which told residents the water was safe to drink, though some homes showed toxic lead levels. The department admitted it didn't get the necessary chemicals to treat the corrosive water. Residents have now filed three lawsuits at the federal, state, and municipal levels.

Expand this summary.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder apologized to the citizens of Flint, saying he would take "full responsibility" for fixing the toxic water "catastrophe" that has stricken the town.

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 "Your families face a crisis," the governor said during his State of the State address. "A crisis you did not create and could not have prevented."

 Snyder called the situation a "catastrophe" that no citizen should have to endure and promised to release all of his emails from 2014 and 2015 regarding Flint to the public.

 "I'm sorry I let you down," he said. "You deserve better."

 Snyder outlined the immediate actions that were taken in response to the water crisis, including daily door-to-door distribution of bottled water, water filters, filter replacements and water testing kits. More than 21,000 homes have been visited by volunteers and emergency responders, he said.

 The Michigan government has made budgetary recommendations for Flint to remain on Detroit's water line until the end of 2016, Snyder said. Provisions in the budget recommendation have also been made to replace water supply pipes and fixtures in Flint schools and to fund specialized staff locally in Flint for follow-up care for affected residents.

 "We will provide resources to help anyone and everyone effected," Snyder said.

 Carlos Osorio/AP Photo

 In addition, a request has been made to Michigan legislature for immediate, short-term funding for: replacement of fixtures in schools, daycare and hospitals; treatment of children with high lead levels, including diagnostic testing, nurse visits and environmental assessments; child and adolescent health centers and additional support for children’s health care access; an infrastructure integrity study for pipes and connections, using outside experts; and providing aid to the city for utilities.

 "I give you my commitment that Michigan will not let you down," Snyder said, addressing the residents of Flint after. He also promised that individuals responsible for the water crisis will be held accountable.

 Earlier Tuesday, President Obama and senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett met with Flint Mayor Karen Weaver, saying that his administration will provide continued support to state and local officials.

 Informative meeting with Mayor Karen Weaver from Flint, Michigan. pic.twitter.com/37mSbxPZsf — Valerie Jarrett (@vj44) January 19, 2016

 On Monday, a crowd gathered outside of Snyder's downtown Ann Arbor apartment Tuesday, calling for the governor to be arrested for "poisoning" the city of Flint, the Detroit Free Press reported.

 Elevated lead levels were found in the water supply in Flint after the city disconnected from Detroit's water line to save money and began drawing water from the Flint river in 2014. The move was intended to be a stop-gap measure until the pipeline to Port Huron Lake was completed for Flint's municipal water.

 Improperly treated water from the Flint River allowed lead to leach from the pipes, officials said. On Saturday, President Obama declared a state of emergency in Flint after a request by Snyder on Thursday. ||||| (CNN) Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder vowed to do everything in his power to solve the Flint water crisis, asking legislators for $28 million to fund a series of immediate actions.

 He also apologized for the crisis during his annual State of the State speech Tuesday night.

 The Republican governor has become a lightning rod for criticism because the crisis unfolded under the state's watch.

 "To begin, I'd like to address the people of Flint. Your families face a crisis, a crisis you did not create and could not have prevented," Snyder said. "I am sorry and I will fix it."

 The additional money would go to help fund the following, the governor said:

 Bottled water, filters, replacement filters;

 Assistance to Flint to help with utility-related issues;

 Testing and replacing fixtures in schools and other high-risk locations;

 Treatment of children with high lead levels;

 Services for the treatment of potential behavioral health issues;

 Support for children and adolescent health centers;

 An infrastructure integrity study for pipes and connections.

 Snyder spoke about the long-term consequences of the crisis, saying the $28 million request won't be the last budget request for Flint.

 He also released a detailed timeline of steps officials have taken already and announced he will be releasing his 2014 and 2015 emails related to the crisis.

 "No citizen of this great state should endure this kind of catastrophe. Government failed you -- federal, state and local leaders -- by breaking the trust you placed in us," Snyder said.

 "You deserve better. You deserve accountability. You deserve to know that the buck stops here with me. Most of all, you deserve to know the truth."

 The governor's address did little to quiet his critics.

 "For those who think $28 million will begin to remedy the Flint water crisis, that is a fraction of the money city residents have paid for poisoned water that they cannot drink," said Democratic U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee.

 Flint Mayor Karen Weaver has previously said the costs to undo the damage, both to infrastructure and residents' health, could be between $1 billion and $1.5 billion.

 "Flint deserves an immediate response equal to the gravity of this ongoing public health emergency. A state-appointed emergency financial manager created this problem and the state must step up and do more to help Flint families and children right now," Kildee said.

 Outside where the governor spoke in Lansing, protesters gathered and demanded that Snyder step down.

 Tomeko Hornaday has been a resident of Flint for some 40 years. She said what's happened there is an embarrassment.

 "Just to see the city of Flint just go down for the last decade, you know, with the crime, with no jobs, all the way down to us not having any water," Hornaday said. "We're angry. We want something done."

 #FlintLivesMatter #flintwatercrisis #CNNiReport A video posted by Tamia (@miahunter1) on Jan 19, 2016 at 2:54pm PST

 Easily averted?

 In April 2014, the state, which had appointed an emergency manager to Flint amid a financial crisis, decided to temporarily switch Flint's water source to the Flint River as a cost-saving measure until a new supply line to Lake Huron was ready.

 The Flint River had long had a reputation for nastiness when the state made the switch, and a 2011 study had found that before water from the Flint River could be considered potable, it would need to be treated with an anti-corrosion agent, a measure that would have cost the state about $100 a day.

 Experts say that water treatment would have prevented 90% of the problems with Flint's water.

 JUST WATCHED What is lead poisoning? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH What is lead poisoning? 01:12

 After the switch, residents complained their water looked, smelled and tasted funny.

 Virginia Tech researchers found the water was highly corrosive. A class-action lawsuit filed last year alleges the state Department of Environmental Quality didn't treat the water for corrosion, in accordance with federal law, and because so many service lines in Flint are made of lead, the noxious element leached into the water of the city's homes.

 The city swapped back to the Lake Huron water supply in October, but the damage was already done to the lead pipes. The state is now handing out filters and bottled water with the help of the National Guard.

 'No-good water'

 An attorney representing Flint residents who are suing Michigan officials over what his legal team calls the city's "lousy, no-good water" has a message for state officials targeted in the lawsuits: "Don't fight it."

 The state is responsible for the water woes Flint residents have suffered and continue to suffer as a result, and the only responsible thing the state can do is own up to it, attorney Michael Pitt said.

 JUST WATCHED High-level officials sued for tainted water in Flint Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH High-level officials sued for tainted water in Flint 02:19

 "If you make the mess, you clean it up," he said. "I'm reminding our elected officials of what my kindergarten teacher told me."

 The three lawsuits seek individual damages for Flint residents -- an estimated 500 and counting -- who have complained of health issues and worry about future ailments as a result of the state swapping the city's water source from Lake Huron to the notoriously filthy Flint River in 2014.

 Bill Goodman, another member of the legal team, explained to reporters the purpose of the three lawsuits: The federal lawsuit filed in November addresses alleged violations of the U.S. Constitution; the suit filed last week in the Michigan Court of Claims targets alleged violations of the state constitution; and the suit filed in Genesee County Circuit Court deals with what he called "grossly negligent actions by government officials."

 'Stuff is revealed'

 During the discovery process, Goodman said, attorneys and their clients should receive within six weeks emails and other documents from various government officials, including Snyder, that could shed light on a critical yet heretofore unanswered question: How the heck did this occur?

 "We finally find out what happened. Stuff is revealed that hasn't been revealed," he said.

 Pitt added that the response to the federal lawsuit is due February 1, and that may provide some answers, but he encouraged state leaders to act promptly in providing money to residents who have been inconvenienced, sickened or worse by the water debacle.

 "They need financial aid. Water's great. Filters are great," he said. "But our people need financial aid, and they need it now."

 He further lambasted state officials who, he alleged, learned of elevated lead levels in children's blood in 2014 and did nothing.

 "They were staring at a public health emergency, and they sat on it for over 10 months," he said, further criticizing leaders who assured residents the water was safe when they knew it wasn't true.

 "I don't know how many kids were poisoned because of these false assurances, but we're going to find out." ||||| As National Guard troops patrol Flint handing out bottled water, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder defended his handling of the crisis and defied calls for him to resign.

 “As soon as I became aware of elevated lead levels in blood,” Snyder said on Jan. 14 in an exclusive interview with TIME at his office in Lansing, “we took action.”

 The crisis in the struggling industrial city of 100,000 dates to April 2014, when Flint switched its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River in order to save money. The river water turned out to be highly corrosive to the city’s pipes, leaching toxic levels of lead into water being used for drinking, cooking and bathing. Shortly after the switch, residents began complaining of discoloration in the water, bad odors and health effects like headaches and rashes. Last summer, researchers at Virginia Tech found that the water in some homes contained enough lead to be considered toxic waste. On Jan. 5, months after testing revealed the city’s water supply was unsafe, Snyder declared a state of emergency. Nine days later, the governor announced that he had asked the Obama administration to designate the county surrounding Flint as a federal emergency area.

 What the state and its governor, a Republican who was re-elected in 2014 after helping Detroit emerge from bankruptcy, knew and when they knew it have emerged as critical questions as the crisis stretches into its 19th month. Residents and a growing number of local and national officials have accused Snyder of ignoring a public health emergency, with some calling for him to step down as a result.

 In an interview with TIME shortly before he announced the federal emergency request, Snyder says he first knew about potentially serious problems with the water supply on Oct. 1, 2015, when testing by state environmental officials confirmed elevated levels of lead. Pressed on whether that was the first time he became aware of any concern with Flint’s water, Snyder says, “Obviously, I knew there were water issues in Flint. But did I know there were unsafe blood levels? No.”

 Read more: Michigan Governor Sends Bottled Water to Flint

 In a recently-released email from July 2015, Snyder’s former chief of staff, Dennis Muchmore, wrote to a state health department official that he was concerned that Flint residents believed they were getting “blown off” by state officials. Snyder says the email shows that his office was not neglecting the city, and Muchmore was “concerned that we were getting straight answers so he asked tough questions and he got answers.”

 Asked if he waited too long to declare a state of emergency, Snyder defended the state’s response. “There was some time period where we were offering filters, we were working hard to get water. All these kind of things. But not enough of it was being accepted. Now we’re to the point now where hopefully we’re fully engaged and have everyone working hard to make sure everyone in Flint has access to a water filter.”

 Snyder did fault the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which repeatedly told Flint residents the water was safe to drink despite reports within the department that some Flint homes showed extremely high lead levels, for “being probably too technical in their interpretation of things or following a traditional pattern of doing things rather than stepping back to look at what else you might see in data.”

 “There were issues in terms of getting appropriate answers,” Snyder tells TIME. “That was unfortunate. It would’ve been good to have that information sooner. And I am responsible for those people. I don’t deny that.”

 Read more: Toxic Water Isn’t Just in Michigan

 Flint has since stopped using the river for its water, but concern remains that the system’s pipes will continue to release lead. State officials are now focused on providing water filters and drinking water to Flint residents. But protesters, who marched onto the Michigan Capitol Building Thursday, say they’re going to keep the pressure on the governor, who admits that it will be a challenge to regain residents’ support.

 “We are working hard to earn their trust back,” Snyder says. “I can appreciate the concerns that they have and we’re trying to work hard to show them that we really do care.” |||||


Article:

If you thought the new Facebook was invasive, computer scientists are now one step closer to reading our minds.

 Researchers from UC Berkeley pieced together the brain patterns of its subjects as they watched YouTube videos, and then produced a YouTube video of their own with the results.

 What emerged was like a Surrealist painting: a blurry, dream-like interpretation of reality (see video below).

 For the experiment, subjectsthe researchers themselvesspent hours lying still inside a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, watching two sets of movie trailers. The MRI machine recorded the amount of blood flowing through the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes visual information.

 During the first set, recorded brain activity was fed into a computer to program a "movie reconstruction algorithm," which matched neural activity to what was taking place in the video. The algorithm thus learned to associate certain neural patterns with dynamic informationshapes, images, soundsagainst 18 million seconds of random YouTube videos.

 Subjects then watched the same set of trailers as the algorithm pieced together a video based on brain activity recorded by the MRI. The result is a continuous, if abstract, reconstruction of the actual videos.

 The key word there is "continuous." Scientists have long been able to reconstruct static photos and images from reading brain patterns, but this is believed to be a first for reading a dynamic visual experience.

 It's only a small step towards Jedi mind reading, but the scientists say it paves the way for eventually being able to see what's going on in the mind without visual stimulation: dreams and thoughts.

 "Our natural visual experience is like watching a movie," Shinji Nishimoto, lead author of the study, said in a statement. "In order for this technology to have wide applicability, we must understand how the brain processes these dynamic visual experiences."

 For more from Sara, follow her on Twitter @sarapyin.

 For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag. ||||| California scientists have found a way to see through another person's eyes.

 Researchers from UC Berkeley were able to reconstruct YouTube videos from viewers' brain activity -- a feat that might one day offer a glimpse into our dreams, memories and even fantasies.

 "This is a major leap toward reconstructing internal imagery," said Jack Gallant, professor of psychology and coauthor of a study published today in Current Biology. "We are opening a window into the movies in our minds."

 Gallant's coauthors acted as study subjects, watching YouTube videos inside a magnetic resonance imaging machine for several hours at a time. The team then used the brain imaging data to develop a computer model that matched features of the videos -- like colors, shapes and movements -- with patterns of brain activity.

 "Once we had this model built, we could read brain activity for that subject and run it backwards through the model to try to uncover what the viewer saw," said Gallant.

 Subtle changes in blood flow to visual areas of the brain, measured by functional MRI, predicted what was on the screen at the time -- whether it was Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau or an airplane. The reconstructed videos are blurry because they layer all the YouTube clips that matched the subject's brain activity pattern. The result is a haunting, almost dream-like version of the video as seen by the mind's eye.

 The researchers say the technology could one day be used to broadcast imagery -- the scenes that play out inside our minds independent from vision.

 "If you can decode movies people saw, you might be able to decode things in the brain that are movie-like but have no real-world analog, like dreams," Gallant said.

 The brain activity measured in this study is just a fraction of the activity that lets us see moving images. Other, more complex areas help us interpret the content of those images -- distinguish faces from lifeless objects, for example.

 "The brain isn't just one big blob of tissue. It actually consists of dozens, even hundreds of modules, each of which does a different thing," said Gallant. "We hope to look at more visual modules, and try to build models for every single part of visual system."

 More models, Gallant said, mean better resolution. It also means a ton more data to analyze.

 "We need really big computers," Gallant said.

 Shinji Nishimoto, a neuroscientist in Gallant's lab and the study's lead author, said the results shed light on how the brain understands and processes visual experiences.

 "We need to know how the brain works in naturalistic conditions," Nishimoto said in a statement. "For that, we need to first understand how the brain works while we are watching movies."

 Whether the technology could also be used to watch people's dreams or memories -- even intentions -- depends on how close those abstract visual experiences are to the real thing.

 "We simply don't know at this point. But it's our next line of research," said Gallant.

 If the technology could be used to broadcast imagery, it could one day allow people who are paralyzed to control their environment by imagining sequences of movements. Already, brain waves recorded through electrodes on the scalp can flip a switch, allowing people with Lou Gehrig's disease and other paralyzing conditions to choose letters on a computer monitor and communicate.

 Gallant and his team are often asked whether the technology could be used in detective work or court cases -- an idea that brings to mind the futuristic crime-foiling action in "Minority Report."

 But the potential to watch a person's memories may not be so far off. Whether such memories could be used in a court of law, however, would be limited not only by the technology but also the nature of memories. After all, Gallant's website reads, an accurate read-out of a faulty memory only provides misleading information. |||||
What is a summary?

– Scientists at UC Berkeley have made a major advancement in the field of mind reading, reconstructing YouTube videos based on brain scans from people who’d seen them. Researchers would put subjects into an MRI machine and track their brain activity as they viewed videos. Once they’d build a model of how a subject’s mind processed the video, “we could read brain activity for that subject and run it backward … to try to uncover what the viewer saw,” one study coauthor tells ABC News. Using the scans they were then able to reproduce the videos—though they’re blurry. “This is a major leap,” the co-author says. He thinks the technique could eventually be used to reconstruct dreams or memories, if it turns out the brain processes those things similarly to how it processes movies. “It’s our next line of research.” (More details on how the experiment worked, along with a video, at PC Magazine.)


Maxim Shemetov / Reuters file Sochi's Olympic Park is seen in December.

 A catastrophic terrorist strike at the Sochi Winter Olympics would present the United States with a logistically mind-boggling and diplomatically delicate challenge: How to get more than 200 American athletes safely out of Russia.

 U.S. military officials have described plans to use two warships in the Black Sea and planes already on standby in Europe to evacuate Americans if the worst fears of security experts come true.

 But these are the Olympics of President Vladimir Putin, who is spending a reported $50 billion on the games, including a purportedly impenetrable “ring of steel” around the Olympic city, and who sees the games through a prism of national pride.

 Any American rescue operation would depend heavily on his approval, security experts say. And that’s unlikely if not impossible.

 NBC News' Richard Engel reports from inside the difficult-to-reach Coastal Cluster in Sochi.

 “As far as being able to do things without Russian cooperation, it’s basically a nonstarter,” said Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a former Russia expert in the Clinton White House and an NBC News analyst.

 “This is their territory, their country,” he said. “They get to decide what kind of outside help they need.”

 Fears of Olympic terror have grown in the countdown to the games, which formally open Feb. 7. In the past week, a militant video has promised a “surprise” in Sochi, and Russia has hunted for at least five suspected terrorists who may have designs on an attack.

 On Tuesday, police said they had killed a senior Islamist militant in Russia's North Caucasus as they hunted three Muslim women dubbed “black widows” and other terror suspects ahead of the Winter Olympics.

 So while Putin’s ring of steel may help thwart larger coordinated attacks, experts are warning that lone attackers also pose a significant threat to the Games.

 According to Gordon Woo, terrorism expert at risk management modeling firm RMS, analysis shows that terror plots involving up to 10 operatives have a 5 percent chance of succeeding.

 Ezra Shaw / Getty Images Snowboarder Kelly Clark at a competition earlier this month.

 "Smart terrorists" rein in their ambition and aim for simpler plots with fewer operatives, he said.

 The U.S. Olympic Committee declined to discuss the details of security for the American athletes or what would happen in the event of an evacuation.

 “The safety and security of Team USA is our top priority,” Patrick Sandusky, a USOC spokesman, said in a statement.

 “As is always the case, we are working with the U.S. Department of State, the local organizers and the relevant law enforcement agencies in an effort to ensure that our delegation and other Americans traveling to Sochi are safe,” he said.

 But at least part of the American contingent for Sochi, the skiing and snowboard teams, is paying a private company, Global Rescue, for additional security.

 The company promises communications help, “rally points” for athletes to shelter in place and ways to get them around, or out of, Sochi. Dan Richards, the CEO, said in an interview that Global Rescue has six aircraft that it could “utilize for rapid response.”

 Exactly how that would work — a private security company landing its planes in or around Sochi in the immediate aftermath of an attack — is not clear, and Richards declined to provide details of the company’s plans.

 Global Rescue also offers its services to individuals and companies, and in recent years has helped customers during the Arab Spring, the earthquake in Haiti and the tsunami and nuclear crisis in Japan.

 Counterterrorism analyst Michael Leiter says transportation in Russia is vulnerable in the high-threat areas surrounding Sochi. The terrorists who previously launched an attack, he said, have every incentive to do so again.

 “In every major crisis we’ve been involved with, we’ve never had host governments deny us overflight or landing permission,” he said. “The likelihood is that we’ll all work together, the Russians, our government, other friendly government and other private companies.”

 Richards would not say what the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association is paying for the additional protection. The skiers and snowboarders are among the richer American teams.

 The American luge team — 10 athletes and four coaches, plus medical and support staff — will rely on the U.S. Olympic Committee, said Gordy Sheer, the team’s director of marketing and sponsorship.

 “They’re working pretty hard, and we’ve been given a lot of assurances,” he said in a phone interview. “I feel that the USOC is really making it a priority, and obviously the Russians are as well.”

 There are signs of concern among American athletes. Some, including at least two members of the high-profile hockey team, have told their families not to travel to Sochi to cheer them on.

 “I’m actually really concerned about it,” Zach Parise, one of the hockey players, told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul. “I know they say they have evacuation stuff for us and all, but you just never know. I guess you have to wonder at what point does someone say it isn’t a good idea for us to go.”

 The biathlon team has bought satellite phones for its coaches and is recommending that traveling families of its 10 athletes purchase medical and evacuation insurance — the same already provided to Olympic athletes by the USOC — should anything go wrong, said Max Cobb, president and CEO of U.S. Biathlon.

 Other American athletes say their minds are on getting ready for competition.

 “I’m not worried about any safety issues in Russia at this point,” said Kelly Clark, a snowboarder competing in her fourth Winter Games. “We’re so focused on our competition and on our sport.”

 U.S. officials say the terror threat is higher than at any previous Olympics. The State Department will have diplomatic security officers in Sochi, though it has declined to say how many, and the FBI will have a presence as well.

 Evan Vucci / AP file President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin last June.

 “The Russian government has the lead here for security,” Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, told reporters. “Obviously we’ve said we’re happy to assist in any way we can, certainly for American citizens.”

 President Barack Obama spoke with Putin this week about Olympic security, and Russia has raised the possibility of the Americans’ sharing bomb-detecting technology for the games. That would mean having American military personnel on the ground to help.

 But senior defense officials told NBC News on Wednesday that there was little or no chance that the technology could be in place in time. It would take months to train the Russians, and there has been no discussion of using the system in Sochi under total American control, they said.

 And the Olympics take place at a time of frayed U.S.-Russian relations — tested by the Edward Snowden affair and the Boston Marathon bombings — not to mention the long shadow of the Cold War.

 A large-scale attack would trigger almost unimaginable complications, said Weiss, the Russia expert.

 For example: At least 85 countries and 2,500 athletes are taking part in the games. Sochi has a fairly small airport, so who gets to fly out first? And why should the Americans be given priority?

 “Something that looks like the U.S. cavalry riding to rescue Russia or Vladimir Putin from an attack seems — well, it’s just hard to imagine that happening,” he said. “Ultimately, it’s all on Russia.”

 Catherine Chomiak, Courtney Kube, Jim Miklaszewski, Andrea Mitchell and Michele Neubert of NBC News contributed to this report.

 Related:

 This story was originally published on ||||| A policeman standing guard Wednesday at the Rosa Khutor Park in the Krasnaya Polyana complex, which will be used for skiing at the upcoming games. | Reuters

 Amid heightened concerns about security at the upcoming Sochi Winter Games, Russia has introduced extensive safeguards that observers say are close to those imposed in a state of emergency. But some countries' teams will be providing their athletes with even more security, worrying that the level of danger in Sochi is higher than at any previous Olympics.

 Some 2,000 athletes will participate in the Games, and about 213,000 visitors are expected to come to Sochi, which borders Russia's turbulent North Caucasus republics. The Games will be held in the wake of two recent suicide bombings that killed 34 people in Volgograd, 700 kilometers north of Sochi.

 Many nations said that while they were concerned about the Volgograd attacks, they would primarily count on the Russian authorities to provide security during the Games. Part of the U.S. team, however, has hired a private security firm for its athletes, while the U.S. government has sent FBI agents to Sochi and Moscow for the duration of Games and made air and naval assets available to help Russia prevent possible terror attacks.

 Several groups have threatened to attack the Sochi Olympics, the latest being a group that calls itself Vilayat Dagestan, which also claimed responsibility for the Volgograd bombings. They said the attacks were ordered by rebel leader Doku Umarov, who has also threatened to strike Sochi during the Olympics.

 In response to the possible threats, the U.S. ski and snowboard team has hired private security firm Global Rescue to protect its athletes in case of emergency. Global Rescue head Daniel Richards said Sochi was a unique environment with challenges that his firm had not experienced at the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, in 2006 or Vancouver, Canada, in 2010, when its security agents also worked for the U.S. team.

 For the Sochi Games, the firm will have five aircraft on standby to assist the team in case an emergency requires an evacuation. Richards said it would be one of the firm's larger deployments for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association given the scale and the location. "Our planning with them began months ago," he said by e-mail.

 Global Rescue is also providing athletes with guidelines to minimize the possibility that they would become targets and develop protocols and strategies they can use to deal with events that might occur while they are in Sochi. He said his firm's team would work with Russian state agencies as necessary.

 Britain has also said it will provide additional security to its Olympic team by sending security staff to Sochi as part of its delegation, but said the move is not related to last month's attacks in Volgograd.

 Alexander Demianchuk / Reuters A ski lift operating at a Sochi venue.

 "We will rely primarily on the security provided by the Games Organizing Committee and the host country," the British Olympic Association said in a statement following the Volgograd bombings. "As with previous Olympic Games, we will have security personnel as part of our delegation. That has been in our planning all along."

 The statement said that in the interests of secrecy, neither the exact number of security personnel nor where those individuals will be based would be disclosed.

 Russia's security services are taking what some observers say are unprecedented measures to provide sufficient protection from would-be attackers.

 Some 40,000 police officers will be used to provide security during the Olympics, and Russia's 58th Army unit, which is composed of about 70,000 soldiers, will patrol Russia's nearby southern border with Georgia.

 By comparison, at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, some 13,000 police officers and 17,000 soldiers were used for security.

 "Security is to be ensured by some 40,000 law enforcement and special services officers," President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with foreign media on Sunday. "We will protect our air and sea space, as well as the mountain cluster. I hope things will be organized in such a way that they do not catch the eye and will not, so to say, depress the participants in the Olympic Games."

 Some nations, even those that have experienced tragedy at past Olympics, say that they consider these measures sufficient and that they will not be sending additional security for their teams.

 Israel, which saw 11 of its Olympic team members taken hostage and later killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, is among them. Vladimir Shklyar, head of the Israeli delegation to the Sochi Olympics, said by phone that Israel was confident that Russian security agencies would do their job properly and that the Games would be safe.

 A spokesman for the German Olympic Sports Federation said Germany also trusted Russian authorities to provide excellent security in Sochi. "But we will look closely with our German national security authorities on the situation in Sochi, because in the modern world you can never be 100 percent confident that there will be no emergency situations," he said.

 The spokesman said he could not reveal whether German security officials would be a part of the German delegation or would observe the situation from Germany. When asked whether the team would use the services of a private security firm like Global Rescue, he said: "We will have no aircraft, that is all that I can say."

 A representative for the Dutch Olympic Committee said he could not comment on whether the Netherlands would take any additional security measures but said: "We take security seriously, just like the authorities in Sochi."

 From Sweden, only one special pair could demand a security detail — and it is not the star athletes from their cross-country skiing squad.

 "We rely on the host country's authorities — only the king and queen can get additional security personnel," said a spokesman for the Swedish Olympic Committee. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– The US has sent two warships to the Black Sea and put planes on standby in Europe as it prepares to evacuate its Olympians from Sochi in the event of an attack. But officials fear their preparations might not be enough, reports NBC News, which describes the effort as "logistically mind-boggling and diplomatically delicate." The big issue: The US can't do much without Russian permission, and it doesn't expect to get that. "Something that looks like the US cavalry riding to rescue Russia … well, it's just hard to imagine that happening," one Russian expert said. The US skiing and snowboarding teams have signed up their own private security company, Global Rescue, which claims it has six aircraft ready for an evacuation if necessary. But having planes isn't the only issue; it's having runways. Sochi's airport is fairly small, so deciding which of the 85 countries competing to use it would be a nightmare. Other teams are also taking special security precautions, the Moscow Times reports. Britain, for example, is sending extra security personnel with its delegation. A German spokesman, meanwhile, said the country trusted Russia, but would "look closely" at the situation. "We will have no aircraft, that is all that I can say."


Article:
Tearful radio hosts say sorry to nurse's family in UK

 SYDNEY — The Australian radio hosts who made a prank call to a London hospital treating Prince William's wife Kate tearfully told of their heartbreak Monday at hearing that a nurse had been found dead.

 Mel Greig and Michael Christian from Sydney station 2Day FM have been in hiding and undergoing counselling since their hoax sparked global outrage following the apparent suicide of Jacintha Saldanha.

 In interviews on Australian television, the pair broke their silence following Saldanha's death last week in London, as 2Day FM's owner said it was cancelling their show and stopping all hoax calls by its broadcasters.

 An emotional Greig said she was devastated on hearing the Indian-born nurse had died.

 "Unfortunately I remember that moment very well because I haven't stopped thinking about it since it happened," she told Australia's Seven Network.

 "And I remember my first question was, was she a mother?"

 In a separate interview with the Nine Network, Greig added: "It came into my head that I just wanted to reach out to them (the family), give them a big hug and say sorry. I hope they're okay, I really do."

 The call, with Greig and Christian posing as Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, was taken by mother-of-two Saldanha, 46, at London's King Edward VII Hospital.

 With no receptionist on duty in the early morning, she put them through to a colleague who divulged details of the pregnant Kate's recovery from severe morning sickness.

 Saldanha was subsequently found dead, although British police have refused to confirm whether it was suicide pending an inquest.

 Christian said he too was devastated.

 "Shattered, gutted, heartbroken and obviously you know... our deepest sympathies are with the family and the friends," he told Nine.

 He added that it was supposed to be "just a simple, harmless, fun call".

 "Prank calls are made every day... no one could have imagined this to happen," he said.

 "We just hope that her family and friends are as good as they can be and that they are getting the love and support they deserve."

 The death sparked an outpouring of fury against the radio station and the presenters, although the broadcaster Monday said no one could have foreseen the tragic consequences of what the hospital says was an "appalling" stunt.

 Rhys Holleran, chief executive of Southern Cross Austereo, which owns 2Day FM, said the station called the hospital five times to discuss what it had recorded before going to air.

 He said he was satisfied that the appropriate checks were conducted before the pre-recorded segment was broadcast.

 "We attempted to contact them on no less than five occasions," Holleran told Fairfax radio. "We wanted to speak to them about it."

 Holleran did not say whether the broadcaster received any response. The stunt was vetted by lawyers before being aired in Sydney last week, according to the station.

 But a hospital spokesman said: "Following the hoax call, the station did not talk to anyone in hospital senior management or anyone at the company that handles our media inquiries."

 In a statement to the stock exchange, Southern Cross, which has media interests throughout Australia, said that it had decided to halt all prank calls by its broadcasters.

 It also axed the show Greig and Christian presented, Hot 30, and suspended all 2Day FM advertising until further notice.

 The case has triggered demands for tougher regulation of the electronic media although Australia's press regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, has not commented on whether the station broke any rules.

 Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the ACMA was considering whether to initiate an inquiry beyond its usual process of giving broadcasters 60 days to respond to complaints.

 Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ||||| The two DJs at the centre of a prank call to the hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was staying have spoken for the first time since the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha.

 Mel Greig and Michael Christian told of their distress upon hearing about Saldanha's death.

 "[It was] the worst phone call I've ever had in my life," Greig told the Nine network's A Current Affair programme.

 "There's not a minute that goes by that I don't think about what that family [of nurse Jacintha Saldanha] is going through and the thought that we may have contributed to it is gut-wrenching," she said.

 Asked if she had a message for Saldanha's family, Greig said she'd thought about it "a million times in my head and have wanted to reach out to them and just give them a big hug. I hope they're OK, I really do".

 "Our deepest sympathies go out to the family," said Michael Christian. "We just hope that her family and friends are being as good as they can be and are giving [them] the love and support they need. We are shattered."

 The two DJs were speaking for the first time since they went into hiding on Saturday when news broke of the the death. They gave interviews to both Channel Nine and Channel Seven's main evening current affairs programmes.

 Asked by Channel 9 whose idea the prank call was, the DJs said it had come up at a team meeting before the show, but did not say who suggested it.

 "We had the idea for a simple harmless call. A call that would go for 30 seconds that we thought we would be hung up on," said Christian. Neither expected their call to be put through to the Duchess of Cambridge's room.

 Christian and Greig said they thought the joke was on them and their poor accents rather than on the nurses.

 "Every other media outlet wanted to touch on it. Our angle was having those silly accents," said Grieg.

 They reiterated that no one could have expected or foreseen what happened after the call. "At every single point it was innocent on our behalf. It was something that was funny and lighthearted and a tragic turn of events that I don't think could have predicted," said Christian.

 Both DJs said they had not participated in the vetting of the interview. They said it was standard practice for them to record an item then hand it over to be assessed by others. Both said they did not know what the vetting process included.

 The segment was subject to an internal review, including with 2Day FM's lawyers, before it went to air.

 The DJs pulled out of a third interview they were scheduled to do for The Project, on the Ten network, because they were unwell, according to a spokesman for the TV channel.

 The host of the Nine programme, Tracey Grimshaw, earlier tweeted that the interview had not been paid for. It was "neither asked nor offered", she said.

 Grimshaw told Fairfax Media the prerecorded interview was "very intense" with a lot of people in the room including radio station staff and supporters. She said she felt sympathy for the DJs.

 "They're at a certain point on the food chain. There are other people who made the decision to put it to air. It wasn't live to air. There was a decision made after that prank call was recorded to put it to air, and virtually all the focus has been on them," Grimshaw said.

 Rhys Holleran, CEO of Southern Cross Austereo, which owns 2Day FM, said the station attempted to contact King Edward VII hospital "no less than five times" before broadcasting the pre-recorded material.

 "It is absolutely true to say that we actually did attempt to contact those people on multiple occasions," Holleran told Fairfax Media. "We rang them to discuss what we had recorded," he said, adding that this was done before the recorded prank went to air. "Absolutely. We attempted to contact them on no less than five occasions. We wanted to speak to them about it."

 Holleran reiterated that he was "deeply saddened" by the tragic events that had unfolded since the call but again said no one could have reasonably foreseen the circumstances. He said the station was happy to co-operate with any investigation into the incident.

 In a statement, the radio station's owner, Southern Cross Austero Media, said it had suspended advertising on 2Day FM until further notice, ended Greig and Christian's Hot 30 show and suspended prank calls across the company.

 "The company does not consider that the broadcast of the segment has breached any relevant law, regulation or code. The company will fully co-operate with any investigations," the statement said.

 The industry-drawn-up Commercial Radio Codes of Practice and Guidelines state that a station must not broadcast the words of an identifiable person unless they have been informed in advance that the recording may go to air. If someone is unaware they are being recorded, the interviewee must grant consent for it to be played, prior to anything being broadcast.

 This is not the first time the radio station 2Day FM has been in trouble. It has had two licence conditions imposed on it in the past three years by the statutory regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

 The first followed an on-air incident in 2009 in which a 14-year-old girl was strapped to a lie detector, and was questioned by her mother about whether she was sexually active. The mother volunteered to quiz her daughter despite apparently already knowing she had been sexually assaulted.

 When she said that she had been raped at age 12, 2Day FM's 'shock jock', Kyle Sandilands, who presented the show with DJ Jackie O'Neil, then asked: "Right, and is that the only sexual experience you've had?" The interview ended after O'Neil stepped in and she and Sandilands apologised.

 ACMA found that the station had breached standards of decency and ordered the it to implement staff training programmes.

 In 2012 another licence condition was imposed after Sandilands insulted a female journalist for reporting the low ratings of a TV show that he and O'Neil had presented.

 "Some fat slag on [the media website] news.com.au has already branded it a disaster," he said. "You can tell by reading the article that she just hates us and has always hated us. What a fat, bitter thing you are. You're deputy editor of an online thing. You've got a nothing job anyway. You're a piece of shit."

 ACMA made the Code's decency requirement (which says "programme content must not offend generally accepted standards of decency") a condition of the 2Day FM's licence for a period of five years

 Shares in Southern Cross Austereo fell 7.7% in early trading on the Australian stock market before recovering slightly.

 • For confidential support call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90 ||||| Story highlights The Australian radio network suspends all prank calls

 A review of relevant policies and processes is being conducted, the company says

 Nurse Jacintha Saldanha was found dead after taking the prank call on Catherine

 An Australian radio network at the heart of a hoax targeting Prince William's pregnant wife canceled the show responsible for the prank on Monday, expressing deep regret for the death of a nurse who took a call from the DJs involved.

 The two DJs "will not return to the airwaves until further notice," the statement from the network, Southern Cross Austereo, said. The company also suspended all prank calls, pulled advertising and ordered a comprehensive review of relevant policies and processes.

 The DJs, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, who were impersonating Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles, called the hospital Tuesday and gained some information about the condition of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge -- which they subsequently played on air.

 On Friday, the nurse who transferred the call through to the ward, Jacintha Saldanha, was found dead after apparently committing suicide.

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 "First and foremost we would like to express our deep and sincere condolences to the family ... for their loss. We are very sorry for what has happened," Rhys Holleran, the network's chief executive officer, said in Monday's statement.

 "We don't claim to be perfect and we always strive to do better. We have initiated a detailed and rigorous review of our policies and procedures to inform any improvements we can make."

 Greig and Christian also apologized in interviews with the Australian TV shows "A Current Affair" and "Today Tonight" on Monday.

 "There is nothing that can make me feel worse than what I feel right now," Greig said on "Today Tonight."

 Christian told "A Current Affair" the prank had become "a tragic turn of events that I don't think anyone could have predicted or expected."

 "I'm still trying to make sense of it all," he said, offering "our deepest sympathies" to Saldanha's family.

 Opinion: Why airing the prank call was wrong

 London's Metropolitan Police have contacted Australian authorities in relation to the call, but "are not discussing about what or with who" they're talking, a spokesman told CNN.

 A spokeswoman for New South Wales Police in Australia told CNN: "As the investigation into the death of London nurse Jacintha Saldhana continues, New South Wales Police will be providing London's Metropolitan Police with whatever assistance they require."

 Ben Barboza, Saldanha's husband, expressed grief over his wife's death in a post on Facebook: "I am devastated with the tragic loss of my beloved wife Jacintha in tragic circumstances, She will be laid to rest in Shirva, India."

 Saldanha's daughter posted a photo of herself with her mother and wrote: "I miss you, I loveeee you. Jacintha saldanha."

 The chairman of the hospital where the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge was a patient slammed the Australian radio station's decision to broadcast the recorded prank call as "truly appalling" on Saturday,

 "King Edward VII's Hospital cares for sick people, and it was extremely foolish of your presenters even to consider trying to lie their way through to one of our patients, let alone actually make the call," wrote the chairman, Simon Glenarthur.

 "The immediate consequence of these premeditated and ill-considered actions was the humiliation of two dedicated and caring nurses who were simply doing their job tending to their patients.

 "The longer term consequence has been reported around the world and is, frankly, tragic beyond words."

 Glenarthur called on the radio station to take steps "to ensure that such an incident could never be repeated."

 Read more: Nurse's death casts glare on 'shock jocks'

 The Australian Communications and Media Authority, the country's media regulator, has not yet commented on the case.

 However, it will be "engaging with the licensee, Today FM Sydney, around the facts and issues surrounding the prank call," said the regulator's chairman, Chris Chapman.

 News of Saldanha's death broke Friday, with the hospital saying she "was recently the victim of a hoax call."

 London's Metropolitan Police said that Saldanha, 46, had living quarters in central London provided by her workplace.

 Police said they were notified Friday morning that a woman was found unconscious at the address. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Police are treating the death as "unexplained."

 A postmortem examination will take place on Tuesday, police said Monday.

 A spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said Saturday that he "thinks this is a very sad case and his thoughts are with her family and colleagues."

 Throughout the controversy surrounding the hoax, authorities did not identify the nurse. Her identity was released after her death.

 Audio of the call posted online suggests a woman spoke briefly to the DJs before she put the call through early Tuesday morning to the ward where the Duchess of Cambridge was being treated for acute morning sickness.

 "They were the world's worst accents ever," Greig told listeners Thursday. "We were sure 100 people at least before us would've tried the same thing. ... We were expecting to be hung up on. We didn't even know what to say when we got through."

 A tweet from 2Day FM last week after the incident described it as a "hilarious prank."

 Read more: Radio pair apologizes for duchess prank call

 Off the air, Greig and Christian tweeted about the practical joke on Thursday and earlier Friday, promising "more on the #royalprank." The pair's Twitter accounts were taken down late Friday.

 Some listeners applauded the prank, like one who identified himself as Guido on the station's Facebook page and wrote, "It is only a joke people! it was great i love it!!!"

 Others were outraged, with negative comments outnumbering positive ones on 2DayFM's Facebook page even before the nurse's death.

 "Your stunt was done at a time in this country where there is paranoia about the intrusion of the media into people's lives," Gary Slenders wrote. "I know you will say it is harmless fun, the management of 2DayFM will say that it won't happen again, but this is exactly where the phone hacking scandal started."

 The outcry grew exponentially after the hospital confirmed Saldanha's death, leading the Coles supermarket chain to remove all its advertising from 2DayFM.

 "This death is on your conscience," reads one Facebook post. Several accused the two DJs of having "blood on your hands."

 Saldanha's family released a statement asking for privacy and directing questions to police. She is survived by her husband and two children.

 "We as a family are deeply saddened by the loss of our beloved Jacintha," said the statement, released by police.

 Saldanha worked at King Edward VII's Hospital for more than four years, and she was described as an "excellent nurse," well-respected by co-workers, the hospital statement said.

 The hospital "had been supporting her throughout this difficult time," it said.

 A St. James's Palace spokesman said: "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are deeply saddened to learn of the death.

 "Their Royal Highnesses were looked after so wonderfully well at all times by everybody at King Edward VII Hospital, and their thoughts and prayers are with Jacintha Saldanha's family, friends and colleagues at this very sad time."

 Separately, a palace spokesman told CNN: "At no point did the palace complain to the hospital about the incident. On the contrary, we offered our full and heartfelt support to the nurses involved and hospital staff at all times." |||||Summary:

– Australian DJs Michael Christian and Mel Greig have broken their silence on their royal prank call gone horribly wrong, reports the Guardian, tearfully telling an interviewer that they're "shattered, gutted, heartbroken" over the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha. "No one could've imagined this to happen," Christian said. "Naturally, we're shattered. We're people, too." "There's not a minute that goes by that I don't think about what (Saldanha's) family is going through, and the thought that we may have contributed to it is gut-wrenching," says Greig. The DJs meant no harm, adds Christian: "At every single point it was innocent on our behalf." Innocent or not, Greig and Christian "will not return to the airwaves until further notice," says parent company Southern Cross Austereo, which has also axed their show, halted all prank calls, and nixed ads amid an internal review, CNN reports. But the station is doubling down on its decision to air the prank, saying that it had tried to contact King Edward VII's Hospital no fewer than five times to talk about the recording before airing it. "It is absolutely true to say that we actually did attempt to contact those people on multiple occasions," says Southern Cross' CEO. It's not clear if the hospital responded, notes the AFP, but it has mounted a withering assault against the station in the aftermath of Saldanha's death.