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Story highlights Genevieve Kelley, featured on CNN's "The Hunt," was on the run since November 2004

 Kelley was wanted for kidnapping her daughter and unlawful flight

 Kelley is in the custody of authorities after turning herself in on Monday

 The whereabouts of her now 18-year-old daughter are still unknown

 A woman who allegedly took her daughter in violation of a court ruling and then went on the run for a decade has turned herself in, according to U.S. marshals in New Hampshire.

 The whereabouts of the woman's now-18-year-old daughter remains unknown, authorities say.

 Featured on CNN's "The Hunt" in August, Genevieve Kelley was wanted by law enforcement since November 2004, accused of noncustodial kidnapping and unlawful flight to avoid persecution.

 Kelley, 50, along with her husband, Scott Kelley, 49, fled New Hampshire with her daughter, Mary Nunes, when the child was 8. At the time, the child's father, Mark Nunes, had full custody rights because of allegations of mistreatment, according to the Marshals Service.

 Marshals were involved in efforts spanning the United States, Canada and Central and South America to locate Mary Nunes and Genevieve and Scott Kelley.

 Genevieve Kelley was featured as the U.S. Marshals Service "Fugitive of the Week" in New Hampshire, coinciding with the nationally televised story of Mary Nunes and her kidnappers aired on "The Hunt," which is hosted by John Walsh.

 After Genevieve Kelley surrendered Monday, U.S. Marshal David Cargill Jr., "I am happy that (she) is in custody and will face justice for these charges, but we will all be the happiest, when we know Mary Nunes is safe."

 Scott Kelley is considered a fugitive and is being sought, the Marshals Service said in a news release.

 Cargill credited the media and investigators for providing the "push needed to get Genevieve Kelley to surrender."

 In March, Genevieve Kelley informed the New Hampshire prosecutor through her attorney that she wanted to negotiate her surrender.

 Kelley is in the custody of the Coos County Sheriff's Office and has made an initial court appearance.

 Breaks in other 'Hunt' cases

 Kelley's arrest came the same day authorities in Texas announced that in an unrelated case, remains found in September were confirmed to be those of another fugitive, Kevin Patrick Stoeser , also featured on CNN's "The Hunt."

 Stoeser, a U.S. soldier who was dishonorably discharged, pleaded guilty in 2003 to child sexual assault and child pornography charges and was sentenced to 13 years behind bars.

 Authorities said Monday it's unclear when or how he died. No other remains were found, they said.

 Remains of another suspect featured on the "The Hunt" were also found earlier this year, and another suspect who was profiled on the show was killed in a gun battle with authorities.

 In August, the remains of Shane Miller were found in California. Miller was the prime suspect in the deaths of his wife and two young daughters. ||||| CONCORD, N.H. - Mark Nunes fondly remembers the last days he spent with his daughter Mary.

 Seven years old at the time, Mary had traveled from New Hampshire to spend a week with Mark, his new wife and their two children in northern Virginia. It was August 2003, and they camped and went to the zoo and a water park.

 Mark, 46, a pediatrician, was about to start a new job and buy a house, partly in hopes that Mary, who lived with his ex-wife, could begin spending more time with his family.

 "I remember Mary picking out her room," he recalls. "It was very sweet."

 But the sweetness was not to last. Their next scheduled visit, two months later, was abruptly canceled, and a year after that, Mary simply vanished.

 Her disappearance with her mother and stepfather was the climax of a long, acrimonious tug of war over the child. The pair, Genevieve Kelley, 45, a family practice physician, and Scott Kelley, 44, a special-education teacher, are wanted by the U.S. Marshals Service on federal warrants for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

 Bitter divorces in which children become pawns are not rare, and they often include a steady stream of complaints about parental conduct ranging from frivolous to felonious. But after serving as Mary's court-appointed advocate while Genevieve and Mark battled in court during this one, guardian ad litem Abbie Teachout leaves no doubt where she stands.

 "She (Genevieve) appeared to be really, almost obsessed in her concern over Mary and that Mark had done something" to harm the child, said Teachout, who, like police investigators, found no evidence to support the mother's complaints. "Out of all the families I've worked with, this was a case where parent alienation was 100 percent evident - that Genevieve was doing everything she could to alienate this child from her father, from the beginning."

 Genevieve Kelley's family says concern for her child motivated her actions.

 Mary is now 13. A forensic artist's image of how she might look today is on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Web site.

 Looking at it brings a sad realization to her father: "That my daughter's a teenager right now..."

 In his mind, she's forever stuck at 7.

 ---

 The couple met and married in the Air Force: Genevieve San Martin was a flight surgeon. Mark Nunes was specializing in genetics. They planned to have children and settle down. Mary was born in 1996.

 But arguments over money and military-imposed separations eventually led Genevieve to move back to Whitefield, N.H., near her parents, and file for divorce. She got a restraining order against Mark, saying she was afraid of him. He said the worst thing he ever did was slam a door once during an argument.

 "I very naively went into the entire process trying to save my marriage," he said.

 The divorce was granted in 1998 on grounds of irreconcilable differences. Genevieve had primary custody of Mary; Mark traveled from Biloxi, Miss., for monthly, long weekend-type visits. The two eventually married others, but when it came to Mary's care, the arguments never ended.

 Genevieve complained to Teachout that Mary was starved during Mark's visits; he said that was impossible. She said Mary, who was born prematurely, had developmental delays; he disagreed.

 Teachout recalls one visit she made to Genevieve's house:

 "Mary was crawling and on her way to walking ... the whole living room was covered in blankets and pillows and every time this baby would go to move, someone would be there hanging onto her. And I had concerns at that point that this baby wasn't going to be able to develop appropriately if you didn't let her go."

 As Mary grew, Genevieve and Mark communicated through a notebook Mary brought with her on flights to Mississippi. If Mark wanted to call Mary, he had to reach her at assigned times - and the calls weren't always answered or returned.

 In October 2003, as Mark was getting ready to fly up to see his daughter, the visit was canceled. Based on what Genevieve said were Mary's words and actions, she told police that Mark had sexually abused the child.

 He said he had wondered "when the sexual abuse card was going to be played. ... I was supposed to disappear."

 He was never charged and was cleared a year later by police and state investigators who felt he had been unfairly accused.

 The state Division of Children, Youth and Families interviewed Mary. "There wasn't information that gave us reason to believe that this child had been harmed by her father or anyone else, for that matter," said Lorraine Bartlett, the division's child protection administrator. The agency provided information about the case to The Associated Press only after getting permission from Mark.

 The child underwent a court-approved evaluation at a clinic in Portland, Maine. The family moved in 2004 to Colorado, where Mary was evaluated by two doctors.

 At one point, Genevieve gave authorities homemade videotapes of Mary to support her case. (Family members quoted Scott as saying a counselor treating Mary suggested they make the tapes.)

 "It was an extraordinarily disturbing tape," Mark said, noting his daughter sometimes screamed and hid from the camera. Child welfare workers, police and prosecutors said the tape showed leading conduct on Genevieve's part.

 "Clearly Mom was interfering with and providing information to the child and how she was questioning her, leading her to certain statements, literally making statements, This is what happened, yes? Daddy did this, right?' ... We would never be able to go forward with any of this," Bartlett said.

 The clinic evaluating Mary also "raised some concern" about the mother's role, Bartlett said. "Is Mom contributing to some of the anxiety and some of these other things being said by this child?"

 Wayne Rioux, who was Whitefield police chief at the time, said the Kelleys were trying to indoctrinate Mary "into not only hating her father but trying to make her say things against her father."

 In the fall of 2004, a judge ordered Mary brought to Bartlett's agency in advance of a scheduled evaluation at the clinic. But mother and child never showed up. By the end of November, authorities discovered that Mary, now 8, hadn't attended school in Colorado for at least a month, and the family's mail was undeliverable.

 That December, Mark was given legal custody of Mary. In 2005, the Kelleys were indicted on a charge of interference with custody.

 ---

 Beth Kelley, Scott's sister, said Genevieve was doing everything she could to help her daughter and wasn't sure whom she could trust anymore.

 "I think they absolutely realized that when they left that they would be probably not coming back at all," Beth said. "I'm sure that it was the worst decision that the two of them ever had to make in their entire lives. But they had to do it for Mary's sake if there was even a chance that she was going to have to see her father again."

 Beth had befriended Genevieve at a health care practice where they worked and introduced her to Scott. The two, both divorced, hit it off and got married at a drive-by chapel in Las Vegas, Beth said.

 Sometimes her brother's family missed family get-togethers, saying Mary was having behavioral problems, Beth said.

 A counselor in Concord treated Mary for post-traumatic stress disorder, Beth said. She quoted her brother as saying Mary seemed to be doing much better after she saw the doctors in Colorado.

 "Mother was really like a ship without a rudder trying to find the best way she could to support her child," one of the Colorado psychiatrists, Dr. Ron Minson, testified at a hearing in October 2004. He agreed that something had traumatized Mary, but declined to comment about whether she had been abused.

 Family members have not heard from Scott, Genevieve and Mary, Beth said. "We prefer to picture them sitting on a beach holding a drink with an umbrella in it," she said.

 Genevieve's parents, George and Regina San Martin, also have not heard from their daughter since she disappeared, said John McKinnon, their attorney. "There's nothing. There's been not one communication, there's been not one postcard, one letter," he said.

 A police search of their home in 2005 turned up years of stored utility bills, yet no phone records; the San Martins said they shred the phone bills.

 Several thousand dollars' worth of travelers cheques were found in Mrs. San Martin's purse, and she said she used them to pay bills, according to former Whitefield Police Sgt. Shawn White, who conducted the search. The San Martins' computer showed they were researching real estate in Texas, and White said Mrs. San Martin had asked him if her daughter was stopped in Texas whether she would be brought back to New Hampshire. He advised that she would.

 The couple declined to be interviewed for this story.

 ---

 Marshals investigating the Kelleys' 2004 disappearance have received help from the U.S. State Department, Interpol and other agencies.

 The family could be living in the United States. But the marshals say they initially went to Central America and were in at least two countries there. Genevieve, who speaks fluent Spanish and had lived in Spain, used to travel to the region with Mark.

 "She could blend right in," said Deputy U.S. Marshal William Marr.

 The marshals put out an alert to traveling emergency medical service workers about a condition Mary has - arteriovenous malformation - marked by seizures, headaches, bleeding and other symptoms. They've followed Internet leads, even reaching out to a Web site that looks for stolen horses; two horses Mary used to ride vanished, too.

 Mark Nunes would like to know where his teenage daughter is. He keeps pictures of the younger Mary on his mantel. His 8-year-old son, now older than Mary was when Mark last saw her, sometimes asks about her. Mark also has a 5-year-old daughter and once hoped the children would make a difference in each other's lives.

 "That's gone. That's shattered," he said.

 ---

 On the Net:

 www.usmarshals.gov/district/nh/fugitives/index.html

 www.amw.com/missing-children/brief.cfm?id

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 www.missingkids.com/ ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| 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. ||||| CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A woman who fled with her 8-year-old daughter a decade ago during a custody dispute turned herself in Monday to face trial.

 Genevieve Kelley of Whitefield disappeared with her daughter, Mary, into Central America in the fall of 2004 after her attempt to prove her ex-husband had harmed the child backfired.

 The U.S. Marshals Service investigated numerous tips through the years. Shortly after her daughter turned 18 in February and was no longer subject to the family court, Kelley, 50, made contact. Her lawyer said she wanted to face a jury on her custodial interference charge. She said her daughter is safe.

 Police felt Kelley's ex-husband, Mark Nunes, was unfairly accused. He was never charged with a crime.

 Kelley turned herself in Monday in Lancaster, New Hampshire, and was arrested, Deputy U.S. Marshal Jamie Berry said. He said her lawyer and Coos County Attorney John McCormick were arguing bail.

 Mark Nunes hasn't given up hope of being reunited with his daughter and hopes to learn more about her.

 "Is she alive? Is she safe?" he said Monday.

 It wasn't immediately known if Mary Nunes was in the courtroom. In an interview last week, Kelley's lawyer, Alan Rosenfeld, said his client would likely appear on her own first.

 "She wants to be vindicated," Alan Rosenfeld said. "She wants a trial."

 Rosenfeld, a Colorado attorney who specializes in child advocacy and domestic violence cases, had asked prosecutor McCormick twice this year if he would agree to recommend to a judge that Kelley voluntarily return and not be jailed unless she is convicted. He said she would not be a flight risk, but McCormick disagreed, noting she left in the middle of a family court proceeding in 2004.

 "She fears there's a chance she'll be held, a fear that's probably well founded," McCormick had said.

 Rosenfeld had said if things didn't work out, "she's just going to show up unannounced one day."

 Mary Nunes, presumably, would be a witness at the trial, he said.

 "She was old enough to know what was going on," he said.

 Mary was 7 when her father last saw her.

 "I am happy that Genevieve Kelly is in custody and will face justice for these charges, but we will all be the happiest, when we know Mary Nunes is safe," U.S. Marshal David Cargill Jr. said.

 In an emailed statement, Nunes said he is heartbroken about his daughter.

 "We want to say publicly that we as Mary's family love her, look forward to her coming home and to keep an open mind as we believe that she has been told falsehoods and misstatements on the events of her youth," he said. |||||
What is a summary?

– In the midst of a bitter custody battle, Genevieve Kelley took her 8-year-old daughter and vanished in November 2004. Over the past decade, the US Marshals Service followed up on tips that had them looking for the New Hampshire woman—along with new husband Scott Kelley, daughter Mary Nunes, and two horses that also disappeared—in the US, Canada, and Central and South America (Kelley, a one-time flight surgeon with the Air Force, is fluent in Spanish). Then, in March of this year, Kelley made contact through her lawyer, who told the New Hampshire prosecutor that Kelley was prepared to face her charge of custodial interference. The 50-year-old turned herself in Monday. Says her lawyer per the AP, "She wants to be vindicated. She wants a trial." Mary turned 18 in February, meaning she is no longer under the purview of family court. In 2009, the AP categorized the girl's vanishing as "the climax of a long, acrimonious tug of war." Kelley and Mark Nunes divorced in 1998, with Kelley retaining primary custody of the girl. The ensuing years were not exactly smooth, and in late 2003, Kelley told police that Nunes had sexually abused Mary; those allegations were determined to be unfounded. Roughly a month after the trio disappeared, Mark Nunes was awarded legal custody of the child. Mary's current location remains unknown, per CNN, though Kelley says she is safe. The Find Mary Nunes website has a phone number in the right rail of every page, along with this message: "Mary, here is a number so you can talk to your daddy. It is on 24 hours a day. We love you and miss you."


Authorities have arrested 56-year-old Florida resident Cesar Sayoc in connection with more than a dozen suspected mail-bomb devices sent to prominent Democrats and outspoken critics of President Trump this week.

 A single fingerprint taken from a mail bomb sent to Rep. Maxine Waters helped investigators get a break in solving a terror plot that targeted senior Democrats and vocal opponents of President Trump, federal officials said.

 That clue led investigators on Friday to a white van parked outside an AutoZone shop in Plantation, Fla. The van was plastered with images of Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. It also had pictures of liberal figures in crosshairs.

 ... ||||| (CNN) Cesar Sayoc was charged Friday with five federal crimes and faces up to 48 years in prison in connection to improvised explosive devices sent to prominent Democratic politicians, donors and CNN offices in New York.

 Sayoc was arrested in a south Florida auto parts store Friday morning as additional explosive devices or suspicious packages were identified in New York and California.

 A total of 13 bombs were mailed around the country, FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a new conferences, adding that there could be more packages not yet discovered.

 "These are not hoax devices," Wray said.

 Sayoc was charged with illegal mailing of explosives, threats against former presidents and others, and assaulting current and former federal officers, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, adding that charges could change or expand as the investigation continues. He initially said Sayoc faced up to 58 years in prison, but the Justice Department later revised that figure to 48.

 "This is a law-and-order administration," Sessions said at the Justice Department. "We will not tolerate such lawlessness, especially not political violence."

 Speaking at the White House Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump congratulated law enforcement on the arrest and denounced what he called "terrorizing acts." He also called for unity: "peace and love and harmony as fellow Americans."

 "We must never allow political violence to take root in America," Trump said at one point. "I'm committed to doing everything in my power as President to stop it."

 As the situation initially unfolded mid-morning -- before the arrest was announced -- the President complained on Twitter that the news media was busy reporting on "'Bomb' stuff" and not politics.

 "Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this 'Bomb' stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows - news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and vote!" Trump tweeted.

 Sessions said a political motive was not immediately known.

 Asked why the targets were Democrats or Trump critics, Sessions said, "I don't know. Other than what you might normally expect. He may have been -- appears to be partisan but that will be determined by the facts as the case goes forward."

 Sayoc's social media accounts showed he was a fervent supporter of Trump and had posted criticism of CNN and other media outlets. Among the posts were threats to individual political figures and media outlets, including CNN and CNN employees.

 Trump told reporters Friday on the South Lawn he had heard Sayoc was a supporter of his, but that didn't mean much to the President.

 "I heard he was a person who prefers me over others, but I did not see that," Trump said when asked about images of Trump on Sayoc's van.

 The President added, "There's no blame, there's no anything."

 Sayoc initially cooperative after arrest

 JUST WATCHED Trump praises law enforcement for arrest Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump praises law enforcement for arrest 02:08

 FBI agents used flash bangs to arrest Sayoc and took him into custody near an AutoZone store in Plantation, a law enforcement official said. He was initially cooperative and told investigators that the pipe bombs wouldn't have hurt anyone and that he didn't want to harm anyone, the official added.

 A white van -- adorned with images of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, as well as a "CNN Sucks" sticker -- in Plantation was towed away Friday to Miramar, Florida, where an FBI field office is located. The official said Sayoc had been kicked out by his parents and was living in the van.

 He later retained an attorney so police questioning has ceased, the official added.

 DNA found on at least one of the packages, as well as Sayoc's cell phone, helped investigators identify him, multiple law enforcement officials said.

 Previous arrests

 Sayoc was not previously known to the Secret Service, law enforcement sources said, but Florida records show a string of arrests dating back to the early 1990s.

 Notable among them is a 2002 arrest by Miami police for an offense described in online records as a "threat to bomb" and "threaten to discharge destructive device." A police report at the time shows that he threatened to blow up a power company and that "it would be worse than September 11th."

 Cesar Sayoc is shown in this undated photo.

 Sayoc pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year of probation, records show.

 The records show a total of eight arrests for offenses, including grand theft, battery, fraud and drug possession, as well as multiple probation violations. In 2014, he was arrested after stealing copper pipes at a Home Depot, to which he plead guilty.

 The adjudication of each of the arrests could not immediately be determined from the summary of offenses provided by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Sayoc appears to have pleaded no contest to some offenses. Prosecutors appear to have dropped charges in other matters.

 Sayoc also was arrested in North Carolina in 1999 on a stolen vehicle charge, which was later dismissed.

 Florida voting records show Sayoc is a registered Republican. He filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

 New packages Friday

 JUST WATCHED New suspicious packages addressed to Booker, Clapper Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH New suspicious packages addressed to Booker, Clapper 02:01

 Earlier Friday, authorities intercepted suspicious packages intended for Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey; former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper; Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California; and major Democratic donor Tom Steyer, the latest to be sent to prominent Democrats and critics of Trump that were discovered earlier this week.

 Authorities believe the package addressed to Steyer is from Sayoc, according to multiple law enforcement officials.

 This brings the total number of known packages sent by Sayoc to 14. However, he's been charged with sending only 13 packages.

 One of the officials says the package has been rendered safe and will be transported to the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, for analysis.

 The FBI said Friday that the package addressed to Booker was discovered in Florida and is "similar in appearance to the others." Sources told CNN the package was addressed to the senator's Camden, New Jersey, office. Booker confirmed the package was intended for him but declined to comment further to CNN. The packages intended for Harris and Steyer were discovered in California, law enforcement sources said.

 The package intended for Clapper also was addressed to CNN, a law enforcement official said. It was found at a New York City postal facility and was similar to the other packages, the official added.

 The Clapper package arrived in a manila envelope with six US flag stamps, just like others discovered this week. The return address is that of Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's Florida office, which was the address on packages intended for former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, billionaire and Democratic donor George Soros, actor Robert De Niro, former Attorney General Eric Holder, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and former CIA Director John Brennan. There is no information that suggests Wasserman Schultz sent them.

 Clapper, who has frequently criticized Trump, vowed to CNN Friday morning that he wouldn't be intimidated in light of the discovery.

 "I do want to just echo one thing that John Brennan said and that this is not going to silence the administration's critics," Clapper said.

 This story is breaking and will be updated. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.

 Oct. 26, 2018, 4:00 PM GMT / Updated Oct. 26, 2018, 11:58 PM GMT By Pete Williams, Rich Schapiro, Adiel Kaplan and Corky Siemaszko

 The Florida man charged Friday with sending more than a dozen pipe bomb packages to prominent critics of President Donald Trump was a bulked-up, down-on-his luck former stripper with a right-wing bent who had been living in his van.

 DNA evidence played a role in the arrest of 56-year-old Cesar Altieri Sayoc, whose past criminal history includes an arrest for making a bomb threat — and who, according to a cousin, also worked as a bouncer in a number of strip clubs and described black people during a 2014 conversation using a racist term in Italian slang.

 "I said, ‘What do you hate for?’” recalled the cousin, Lenny Altieri — who noted that Sayoc is part Italian and part Filipino. "He got very upset with me and that was the last time we spoke."

 "I couldn’t understand why he’d say something like that," Altieri added. “He’s multi-racial himself."

 At least six of Cesar Sayoc's booking photos. Top row: 2002, Feb. 15, 2004, April 14, 2004; bottom row: Aug. 31, 2005, Jan. 27, 2015, Aug. 30, 2015. Broward County Sheriff's Office, Hennepin County Sheriff's Office

 Sayoc was hit with multiple federal charges, including making "threats against former presidents," in connection with the pipe bombing campaign that could send him to jail for up to 48 years. Nobody was hurt, but the bombs were real, officials said.

 "These are not hoax devices," FBI Director Christopher Wray said.

 Earlier, the suspect's white van, which had pictures of Trump and the presidential seal plastered to the windows, was seized by the officials and hauled off to a secure facility in Plantation, Florida.

 In Washington, Trump praised the FBI and Secret Service for the swift arrest.

 "It’s like a needle in a haystack," Trump said. "And they have done an incredible, incredible job."

 A registered Republican, Sayoc appeared to attend a Trump rally in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2016. His Facebook page and Twitter accounts contained several postings in support of Trump.

 There were also several on his Facebook pages critical of George Soros, the liberal philanthropist who also was targeted with one of the package bombs earlier this week. The account handles were equally ominous — “Killgeorge Soros” and “Killall Socialist.”

 A Facebook spokesperson said Sayoc's page was taken down after it was flagged.

 "In line with our policies, as our community standards explain, we do not allow praise or support for horrendous acts like these," the spokesperson said. "We also do not allow the suspect to maintain a presence on our site, so we’ve removed his account."

 Altieri said Sayoc was born in Brooklyn but moved to Florida as a child and grew up in North Miami Beach.

 Sayoc has a criminal record in Florida and was arrested in 2002 for making a bomb threat, according to Miami-Dade County court records. He pleaded guilty. There were also two arrests, one in 1992 and the other in 2014, for petit theft.

 In the later theft case, Sayoc tried to walk out of a Walmart with a shopping cart filled with $239 worth of merchandise, according to an arrest affidavit.

 In 2015, Sayoc was convicted of stealing a heavy rolling briefcase and a garment bag from Walmart worth $58.

 Sayoc also had a misdemeanor arrest on his record in North Carolina, where he was charged in 1999 for possession of stolen car, records show. And in 1995, he was charged in Minnesota with theft and possession of crack cocaine.

 In May 2015, Sayoc also said that he was the victim of a robbery, according to a Broward County Sheriff’s report obtained by NBC News. The report says that 11 items of clothing worth roughly $7,000 were taken from Sayoc.

 Listed under the “make” section of the report, describing the nature of the clothing, was the president’s name — “Donald Trump.”

 The 2002 mug shot of Cesar Sayoc when he made a bomb threat in Miami. Miami-Dade Police Department

 The suspect also appeared to have money troubles. Records revealed he had a property foreclosed on in 2009 and filed for bankruptcy in 2012. At the time, he was living with his mother and employed as a grocery store manager, records show.

 But of late, Sayoc had been living in his van and showering at the gym where he works out, a Florida-based cousin told NBC News.

 Sayoc played soccer for one semester at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 1983. "He was a good kid and a hard worker," former teammate Philip Drosdick said.

 But Drosdick said their relationship took a bizarre turn after he left UNCC for the University of Central Florida and Sayoc followed. He said Sayoc suspected he had stolen his favorite jacket and took revenge by sneaking into his room, grabbing one shoe of every pair he had as well as his mattress, several jackets and pants, and his $350 surfboard.

 Drosdick said he found most of his stuff in a shed. "I've not seen Cesar or my surfboard since then, " he said.

 Records show that Sayoc also lived for a time in New Jersey, Michigan and Brooklyn, New York.

 On Facebook, Sayoc also claimed to be a booking agent with the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. A spokesperson for the tribe told NBC News that Sayoc was not a member and had never been employed at the casino.

 It was not immediately clear if Sayoc has Native American ancestry. But he named the two businesses he operated for a time Native American Catering & Vending and Proud Native America One Low Price Drycleaning, according to Florida business records.

 On his LinkedIn page, Sayoc listed himself as Cesar Altieri and claimed to have worked for Chippendales. After word of this leaked out, the male striptease dance troupe quickly issued a statement declaring that Sayoc "has never been affiliated in any way with Chippendale USA, LLC."

 Sayoc grew up in North Miami Beach with his two sisters and was thrown out of his house as a teenager, the cousin, Lenny Altieri, said.

 He described him as a "loose cannon" and a "lost soul" who was estranged from his family and had been abusing steroids.

 Cesar Sayoc Jr. at a Trump rally. via Facebook

 "He's been in the strip clubs since he was 22, that was his life," Altieri said. "He was a male dancer and he wanted to be a wrestler. He was taking steroids. He was all buffed up. ... He was built like a rock."

 Another cousin, who lives in another state, told NBC News she was stunned by Sayoc's arrest.

 "Oh my God," the woman, who asked not to be identified, said. "He's always been a very nice, thoughtful person. I don't know anything about this. It's shocking."

 The cousin said that she hadn't seen Sayoc for two decades but that he called her recently after her father died.

 "It was mostly just small talk," she said. "How's your family, that kind of thing. I don't really know that much about him. We have a very big family." ||||| New York City police officers clear the scene after a report of a possible suspicious package was called in at the Time Warner Center Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018, in New York. The NYPD had said it had evaluated... (Associated Press)

 New York City police officers clear the scene after a report of a possible suspicious package was called in at the Time Warner Center Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018, in New York. The NYPD had said it had evaluated the packages "as a precaution" on Thursday night. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) (Associated Press)

 WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal authorities took a man into custody Friday in Florida in connection with the mail-bomb scare that earlier widened to 12 suspicious packages, the FBI and Justice Department said.

 The man was identified by law enforcement officials as Cesar Sayoc, 56, of Aventura, Florida. He was arrested at an auto parts store in the nearby city of Plantation.

 Court records show Sayoc has a history of arrests.

 Law enforcement officers were seen on television examining a white van, its windows covered with an assortment of stickers, in the city of Plantation in the Miami area. Authorities covered the vehicle with a blue tarp and took it away on the back of a flatbed truck.

 The stickers included images of American flags and what appeared to be logos of the Republican National Committee and CNN, though the writing surrounding those images was unclear.

 President Donald Trump said he expected to speak about the investigation at a youth summit on Friday.

 The development came amid a coast-to-coast manhunt for the person responsible for a series of explosive devices addressed to Democrats including former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton.

 Law enforcement officials said they had intercepted a dozen packages in states across the country. None had exploded, and it wasn't immediately clear if they were intended to cause physical harm or simply sow fear and anxiety.

 Earlier Friday, authorities said suspicious packages addressed to New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and former National Intelligence Director James Clapper — both similar to those containing pipe bombs sent to other prominent critics of President Donald Trump— had been intercepted.

 Investigators believe the mailings were staggered. The U.S. Postal Service searched their facilities 48 hours ago and the most recent packages didn't turn up. Officials don't think they were sitting in the system without being spotted. They were working to determine for sure. The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

 The FBI said the package to Booker was intercepted in Florida. The one discovered at a Manhattan postal facility was addressed to Clapper at CNN's address. An earlier package had been sent to former Obama CIA Director John Brennan via CNN in New York.

 Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday the Justice Department was dedicating every available resource to the investigation "and I can tell you this: We will find the person or persons responsible. We will bring them to justice."

 Trump, on the other hand, complained that "this 'bomb' stuff" was taking attention away from the upcoming election and said critics were wrongly blaming him and his heated rhetoric.

 Investigators were analyzing the innards of the crude devices to reveal whether they were intended to detonate or simply sow fear just before Election Day.

 Law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that the devices, containing timers and batteries, were not rigged to explode upon opening. But they were uncertain whether the devices were poorly designed or never intended to cause physical harm.

 Most of those targeted were past or present U.S. officials, but one was sent to actor Robert De Niro and billionaire George Soros. The bombs have been sent across the country - from New York, Delaware and Washington, D.C., to Florida and California, where Rep. Maxine Waters was targeted. They bore the return address of Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.

 The common thread among the bomb targets was obvious: their critical words for Trump and his frequent, harsher criticism in return.

 Trump claimed Friday he was being blamed for the mail bombs, complaining in a tweet sent before dawn: "Funny how lowly rated CNN, and others, can criticize me at will, even blaming me for the current spate of Bombs and ridiculously comparing this to September 11th and the Oklahoma City bombing, yet when I criticize them they go wild and scream, 'it's just not Presidential!'"

 The package to Clapper was addressed to him at CNN's Midtown Manhattan address. Clapper, a frequent Trump critic, told CNN that he was not surprised he was targeted and that he considered the actions "definitely domestic terrorism."

 Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN Worldwide, said in a note to staff that all mail to CNN domestic offices was being screened at off-site facilities. He said there was no imminent danger to the Time Warner Center, where CNN's New York office is located.

 At a press conference Thursday, officials in New York would not discuss possible motives or details on how the packages found their way into the postal system. Nor would they say why the packages hadn't detonated, but they stressed they were still treating them as "live devices."

 The devices were packaged in manila envelopes and carried U.S. postage stamps. They were being examined by technicians at the FBI's forensic lab in Quantico, Virginia.

 The packages stoked nationwide tensions ahead of the Nov. 6 election to determine control of Congress — a campaign both major political parties have described in near-apocalyptic terms. Politicians from both parties used the threats to decry a toxic political climate and lay blame.

 Trump, in a tweet Thursday, blamed the "Mainstream Media" for the anger in society. Brennan responded, tweeting that Trump should "Stop blaming others. Look in the mirror."

 The bombs are about 6 inches (15 centimeters) long and packed with powder and broken glass, according to a law enforcement official who viewed X-ray images. The official said the devices were made from PVC pipe and covered with black tape.

 The first bomb discovered was delivered Monday to the suburban New York compound of Soros, a major contributor to Democratic causes. Soros has called Trump's presidency "dangerous."

 ___

 Associated Press writers Laurie Kellman, Ken Thomas, Jill Colvin and Chad Day in Washington and Jim Mustian, Deepti Hajela, Tom Hays and Michael R. Sisak in New York contributed to this report.

 ___

 For the AP's complete coverage of the mail-bomb scare: https://apnews.com/PipeBombAttacks ||||| An outspoken supporter of President Trump from South Florida was charged on Friday with sending explosive packages to at least a dozen of the president’s critics, apparently bringing to a close an attempted bombing spree that has gripped the country just ahead of the midterm elections.

 The suspect, Cesar Altieri Sayoc Jr., 56, was arrested outside an auto parts store near Fort Lauderdale after a fast-moving investigation in which the authorities said they were able to pull a fingerprint from one of the bomb packages and collect Mr. Sayoc’s DNA from two others.

 Mr. Sayoc, who seemed to be living out of a van in Aventura, Fla., was taken into custody on a day when four more explosive packages were found, including two intended for United States senators, both Democrats.

 A federal criminal complaint spells out his contempt for this week’s many bomb targets, noting that Mr. Sayoc’s van was slathered with images and slogans often found on fringe right-wing social media accounts. |||||

Write a summary.

– An arrest has been made tied to the mail bombs being sent around the nation. Multiple sources tell CNN a man was taken into custody Friday. He has been identified as 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc Jr. of Aventura, Florida, and DNA evidence helped lead investigators to him, per NBC News and the AP. A white van believed to be linked to Sayoc, which was reported to be adorned with Trump pictures and the presidential seal, was impounded by law enforcement officials and taken to a "secure facility." The New York Times reports the arrest in Florida came just hours after two more devices had been intercepted by the FBI: one meant for New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, and another for ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Law enforcement officials say Sayoc is a store manager in Florida, per the Wall Street Journal. Online court records show Sayoc was arrested in Miami in 2002 for making a bomb threat and received a year's probation; court records tie at least two other criminal cases in the Miami area to Sayoc. A DOJ spokeswoman announced that a press conference regarding the arrest will be held Friday at 2:30pm EDT.


Write a summary based on this article:

EDS NOTE GRAPHIC CONTENT - A man in military fatigues lies dead next a truck on a road after a gunbattle between rival drug gangs near the town of Ruiz, in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, Mexico,... (Associated Press)

 A gunbattle between rival drug gangs in western Mexico left 29 bodies in fake military uniforms heaped across a roadway and inside bullet-riddled vehicles in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, the army said Thursday.

 The bodies, all male, were found Wednesday scattered around 14 shot-up pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, two of which had bulletproofing.

 Television images of the scene near the town of Ruiz showed what appeared to have been a convoy of cartel vehicles that was ambushed or engaged by another column of gunmen on a stretch of rural highway. Military-style boots, bulletproof vests, hand grenades and thousands of rounds of ammunition were found at the scene.

 Federal and state officials gave conflicting reports on the incident.

 Nayarit state police said officers responding to reports of a kidnapping found four wounded men at the scene of the shootout. One injured person died later, and three remain at the hospital, Nayarit officials said.

 The army said two suspects wounded in the battle were found at the scene. It was unclear if the two reported by the army were included in, or additional to, the state figure.

 The army said in a statement that around the same time Wednesday, soldiers engaged in a shootout with armed suspects in a town about 35 miles (60 kilometers) north of Ruiz. Two suspects _ a man and a woman _ were killed in that confrontation. The military statement did not say whether the two shootouts were related.

 Nayarit's attorney general Oscar Herrera told a radio station that preliminary reports indicated the two gangs involved in the fierce highway battle were the Sinaloa and the Zetas drug cartels. He said one of the two cartels kidnapped a man of the rival gang, which resulted in a car chase and subsequent gunfight.

 Nayarit and the nearby states of Michoacan and Zacatecas have become battlegrounds for drug cartels fighting for control of the area.

 The Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's most powerful, has long been active in Nayarit, which borders its home base in Sinaloa state, but the gang has recently been challenged by the Zetas and by remnants of the Beltran Leyva cartel.

 In nearby Michoacan state, officials said 500 marines and soldiers have been deployed to an area where at least 1,200 villagers fled their homes during three days of clashes between rival drug traffickers, which appeared to be unrelated to the Nayarit conflict. The government gave the families refuge at five shelters in two nearby towns.

 The arrival of security forces Wednesday appeared to have soothed fears and hundreds of villagers decided to go back home by Thursday. Officials said only 300 people remained at the five shelters Thursday evening.

 It is at least the second time a large number of rural residents have been displaced by drug violence in Mexico. In November, about 400 people in the northern border town of Ciudad Mier took refuge in the neighboring city of Ciudad Aleman following cartel gunbattles. That shelter has since been closed and most have returned to their homes.

 Michoacan state Civil Defense Director Carlos Mandujano said the villagers were put up at a church, recreation center, event hall and schools in the towns of Buenavista Tomatlan and Apatzingan.

 Mandujano said state authorities provided sleeping mats, blankets and food for those in the shelter.

 Residents had reported after fleeing that gunbattles between rival drug cartel factions had made it too dangerous for them to stay in outlying hamlets. The latest reports said arsonists were burning avocado farms in the nearby town of Acahuato.

 "We woke up with fear (on Monday), but things appeared to have quieted down. It wasn't until later that morning that we saw SUVs with armed men driving by very fast and shooting at each other," said a woman who did not want to be named for security reasons.

 Several displaced people said they would stay at the shelters all week before considering going back to their villages.

 "I am not scared, but my children are," said a mother, who asked not to be quoted by name because of fear of retaliation.

 The fighting in Michoacan is believed to involve rival factions of the Michoacan-based La Familia drug cartel, some of whose members now call themselves "The Knights Templar."

 Mexico still has fewer people displaced by violence than countries like Colombia, according to the Norway-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, which tracks such figures. It estimates about 230,000 people in Mexico have been driven from their homes, often to stay with relatives or in the United States. An estimated 3.6 million to 5.2 million people have been displaced by decades of drug- and guerrilla-war violence in Colombia.

 Buenavista police chief Othoniel Montes Herrera said he has neither the manpower nor the armament to patrol rural areas frequented by drug gangs. Sending ill-armed officers out there "would be certain death, and we're not thinking of putting our personnel at that risk."

 Drug violence has been on the rise in Nayarit, a Pacific Coast state known for its surfing and beach towns. In October, gunmen killed 15 people at a car wash in the capital of Tepic, an attack that police said bore the characteristics of organized crime. The bodies of 12 murder victims, eight of them partially burned, were found on a Nayarit dirt road a year ago. Officials have not identified the gangs fighting there.

 And in Durango state, which borders Nayarit to the north, authorities have been excavating dozens of corpses from mass burial grounds used by drug cartel killers.

 On Thursday, state police reported that two more bodies had been found in the latest excavation, bringing the total of bodies found at a seven lots in the state capital to 223.

 ___

 Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon in Mexico City contributed to this report. ||||| MEXICO CITY—Three days of raging gun battles this week between rival drug gangs in Michoacán state killed an unknown number of people, forced hundreds to flee their homes and raised fresh fears that another major Mexican state has become all but ungovernable.

 Fighting broke out Monday and lasted for three days. But news of the conflict was slow to get out because local media in states like Michoacán have largely stopped covering the carnage on orders from drug gangs.

 View Full Image European Pressphoto Agency A handout photograph made available by Quadratin shows several vehicles after been set on fire during fighting between Mexican armed groups in Tierra Caliente, Michoacán. Hundreds have fled their homes looking for a safer place.

 On Tuesday, a helicopter belonging to the Federal Police was forced to make a hard landing after being shot at by gunmen from a drug cartel, the Federal Investigative Agency, an arm of the Attorney General's Office, said Tuesday. Three federal police were injured.

 The police didn't immediately have a number of casualties in the fighting between the gangs. But the lawlessness echoed the scene in Tamaulipas state, where mass graves have recently been found. In another western Mexican state, Nayarit, a gunbattle this week left 28 dead.

 "Organized crime groups are fighting for control of the area," said Genaro Guizar, the mayor of Apatzingán, the fourth-largest city in Michoacán. "There was panic throughout the place."

 Mr. Guizar said that a total of about 800 people had taken refuge in shelters in the nearby town of Buenavista and in Apazingan, but that the refugees had started to return to their homes Wednesday after fighting eased.

 Michoacán, a large agricultural state known also for its tourist attractions like the colonial state capital of Morelia, is the home turf of the powerful La Familia drug cartel, which specializes in making and trafficking methamphetamines, using the port of Lázaro Cárdenas to smuggle in precursor chemicals.

 The cartel has infiltrated local police forces and city halls throughout the state, experts say, and largely displaced local governments in many areas.

 The situation is so bad that Mexico's three main political parties on Wednesday signed a joint statement saying they were exploring the possibility of fielding a single, unity candidate in November's gubernatorial race in an attempt to set aside partisan bickering and save the state.

 "It's indicative of how badly the wheels are falling off," said James McDonald, an anthropology professor at Southern Utah University who lived for many years in Michoacán and is an expert on it. "I think Michoacán is lost, like Tamaulipas. And it could be the realization that they need to get together on this and deal with it, or else."

 The uptick in violence in Michoacán this week could be related to December's killing of La Familia chief Nazario Moreno, the messianic leader of the cartel who was known as "El Mas Loco," or "The Craziest One."

 But in March, dozens of banners pinned up across the state announced the creation of a new local cartel, dubbed "The Knights Templar."

 More Mexican Drug War Spills to Neighbor

 The Templars are thought to be remnants of La Familia that have regrouped. Mexican police officials believe the Templars are led by a former teacher, Servando Gomez, nicknamed "La Tuta." They believe another surviving La Familia leader, José de Jesus Mendez, known as "El Chango", or the monkey, may be fighting with Mr. Gomez for control of the organization.

 A Mexican police report said that La Familia had retreated to the countryside after the arrest of 13 mayors and other officials on drug corruption charges in 2009, but had regained much of their former positions in the state's towns and cities after prosecutors failed to win prosecution against the detained officials, who were released.

 Drug-related corruption in Michoacán is rampant, analysts say. The current governor's half-brother and former federal congressman Julio Cesar Godoy was accused of being on the La Familia payroll by Mexican federal officials last year. The congressman was impeached and went on the run. He remains a fugitive.

 Raul Benitez, a security analyst at the Autonomous University of Mexico said the federal government is determined not to lose control of Michoacán in part because of its strategic location between Mexico and Guadalajara, the country's two largest cities. "Michoacán is a big problem," said Mr. Benitez, who fears the violence that plagues the state could contaminate the capital and Guadalajara.

 Unlike Mexico's other cartels, La Familia and the Templars have a messianic creed and strive to gain popular support among the local population. This worries Mexican officials who see the drug traffickers taking on some of the characteristics of guerrilla fighters, said Mr. Benitez.

 Indeed, Michoacán is a prime example of why some military analysts and government officials in the U.S. worry Mexico's drugs war could take on the characteristics of an insurgency, where drug gangs try to displace Mexico's government.

 Last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the violence in Mexico was starting to resemble a "narco-insurgency," but her comments were batted down by President Barack Obama days later.

 Some academics think the comparison is not a stretch—at least in places like Michoacán, a state of 4.3 million. "La Familia is the de facto go-to governance system in communities that are largely abandoned by the state. If you need anything, from medicine to loans, they are the ones people turn to," said Mr. McDonald.

 Write to David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com |||||

– Yet another bloody battle in Mexico's drug war has left at least 29 bodies in fake military uniforms lying dead among more than a dozen bullet-riddled vehicles in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit. Investigators believe the highway battle between members of the Zetas and Sinaloa cartels began when gunmen ambushed a convoy of gang vehicles, AP reports. In the nearby state of Michoacan, up to 2,000 people were forced to flee their homes this week by days of fierce fighting between cartel factions, the BBC reports. Officials say the refugees have begun to return their homes after spending several nights in shelters. The conflict between rival factions of the La Familia cartel began Monday but news of the fighting was slow to leak out because local media, on the orders of drug cartels, have largely ceased to cover drug violence, the Wall Street Journal notes.


– President Obama interrupted a round of golf this afternoon, raising concerns because an ambulance was seen at the home where he is vacationing, but all is well with the first family, the Honolulu Advertiser reports. A child vacationing with the Obamas suffered a "run-of-the-mill beach injury," according to a White House spokesman who declined to name the boy. He is a son of Eric Whitaker, who was golfing with the president, the New York Times reports. A motorcade sped away from the Luana Hills Country Club, where Obama had gone to play after speaking about Friday's attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253, and reporters were told the situation involved neither national security nor Obama's safety. "Nobody saw him playing," said the country club's GM. "All of a sudden they just came and left." The president later returned to the course.

Expand this summary.

President Obama interrupted his O'ahu vacation today to make his first statement about the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest Airline flight and to rush off the golf course when the son of one of his friends suffered a slight injury on the beach in Kailua.

 "The first family is fine," said Bill Burton, deputy White House press secretary. "... Eric and Cheryl Whitaker's son was examined and released from the hospital. He is home playing with his friends and just fine."

 Obama had gone to Luana Hills Country Club around 10:40 a.m. following a game of tennis at the Kailua Racquet Club with the first lady — and after his statement at Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

 At the golf course, according to Darren Sumimoto, the club's general manager, "All of a sudden they just came and left. We didn't see anything."

 An administration official told pool reporters that the boy suffered a "run-of-the-mill beach injury" that initially was thought to need stitches. Obama left the golf course immediately to make sure the boy was with his parents and returned to his vacation home "in a very high speed and dramatic motorcade," according to a media pool report.

 After it was determined that the injury was minor, the president returned to the golf course, where he golfed until sundown and did not get a full 18 holes in. The golfing party consisted of several groups and included, among others, Marty Nesbitt, Reggie Love and Ben Finkenbinder.

 Obama was back at the Kailua house at 6 p.m.

 Sources told The Advertiser that the child was treated at the vacation compound and was not transported to The Queen's Medical Center, although Secret Service agents were stationed at Queen's. At least six Secret Service agents and five security guards from Queen's kept media at a distance from Hawaii's major trauma center.

 Obama's fifth day of his annual O'ahu Christmas vacation began with his usual early morning workout at Marine Corps Base Hawai'i's "Semper Fit" gym, followed by a tennis workout with his wife that was barred to the media.

 The president then made his first public remarks since arriving in Hawai'i during a 7-minute press conference at the Marine Corps base's Kane'ohe Klipper Golf Course clubhouse at 10:03 a.m.

 Obama discussed the bombing attempt of the Detroit-bound jet and the government crackdown of protestors in Iran at the Marine Corps Base Hawai'i clubhouse meeting room.

 Before Obama spoke, an aide carefully affixed the presidential seal to a podium backed by the U.S. and presidential flags and temporarily-erected deep blue drapes.

 The motorcade pulled up at 9:59 a.m. and Obama said, "Hey guys. Good morning everybody."

 Wearing a Navy suit and white shirt without a tie, Obama spoke of the steps taken following the bombing attempt.

 Obama also condemned government opposition to protestors in Iran that resulted in at least 15 deaths.

 "The United States joins with the international community in strongly condemning the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens, which has apparently resulted in detentions, injuries and even death," he said.

 Obama, who was accompanied by at least six unidentified people who were not part of his staff, did not take any questions.

 For increasing numbers of Marines at Kane'ohe Bay, Obama's workouts and appearances on base have provided a brush with both the president of the United States and their commander in chief.

 Pfc. Jeffrey Scarmazzi, 22, from Jessup, Md., videotaped Obama's appearance for the base's "combat camera" unit. It was Scarmazzi's first presidential press conference.

 "It was nice being on the inside," Scarmazzi said. The setup for the press conference "ran smooth until they let the press pool in — photographers were springing and hopping all over the place."

 Scarmazzi was taken with Obama's initial greeting to the press.

 "Kind of unexpected informality on his part," Scarmazzi said.

 Lance Cpl. Colby Brown, 20, from Redmond, Ore., got to meet the president in the Anderson Hall chow hall on Christmas Day.

 "I shook his hand," Brown said. "He asked me how I was doing and then he asked me if I was having a good Christmas, and if I had called my Mom and Dad."

 Brown said Obama greeted everyone seated at the chow hall on Christmas — at least 75 Marines, sailors, soldiers and family members.

 "I think it's pretty cool," Brown said. "It's not every day you get to meet your commander in chief. He seemed pretty nice. Seemed like he actually cared." ||||| President Obama was unexpectedly taken away from a golf course in Hawaii on Monday and returned to the beachfront compound where he has been staying because the son of one of his friends had been hurt.

 A White House spokesman, Bill Burton, said that the president and his family were unhurt.

 An official said the person whose son was injured was Dr. Eric Whitaker, who along with other friends of Mr. Obama has been staying in a three-house compound rented in the Kailua area outside Honolulu.

 Mr. Obama, Dr. Whitaker and others had been golfing at the Luana Hills Country Club for about an hour when they suddenly jumped into the presidential motorcade and made a dramatic, high-speed departure. The unexpected move triggered concerns about whether the president was injured, particularly after an ambulance with flashing lights sped to the compound. The White House at first did not explain the incident out of concern for the privacy of the Whitakers, but later sent Mr. Burton to tell reporters the first family was uninjured.

 The ambulance left after about 15 minutes at the compound, followed by a black sedan. Mr. Obama returned via motorcade to the golf course. An administration official said no stitches were needed. |||||


Artificial sweeteners, such as those contained in diet drinks, don’t actually help people lose weight, a new Canadian study suggests. In fact, they appear to be linked to weight gain and an increased risk of diabetes.

 Dr. Meghan Azad and a team of researchers of the University of Manitoba conducted a meta-review of 37 previously published studies that looked at the diet habits of more than 400,000 people.

 The team found no good evidence that regularly consuming artificial sweeteners led to weight loss. In fact, the longer observational studies showed a link between the sweeteners and higher risks of weight gain and obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other health issues.

 The full results appear in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).

 Azad said what her team was most struck by was the lack of good, rigorous studies on artificial sweeteners.

 “Surprisingly, given how common these products are, not many studies have looked at the long-term impact of their consumption,” Azad told CTV News Channel from Lisbon, Portugal.

 She noted that only seven of the 37 studies they reviewed were randomized controlled trials (RCTs), and all were relatively short, following participants for a median period of only six months.

 The other 30 studies were longer and followed the participants for an average of 10 years, but they were observational studies – a form of research that is not as precise as a controlled trial.

 “A lot of the studies we found were observational, meaning they could show a link but they can’t prove a cause-and-effect relationship,” she said.

 Among the seven RCT’s, regular consumption of sweeteners had no significant effect on weight loss. From the other studies, the team found that regular use of sweeteners was associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, and modest increases in weight and waist circumferences.

 “What we found was that at the end of the day, from all of this research, there really wasn’t firm evidence of a long-term benefit of artificial sweeteners. And there was some evidence of long-term harm from long-term consumption,” Azad said.

 As for why artificial sweeteners seem to be linked to weight gain, not weight loss, Azad says no one knows for sure but there are lots of theories.

 One theory is that the sweeteners somehow disrupt healthy gut bacteria. Another theory is that the sweeteners confuse our metabolisms, causing them to overreact to sugary tastes.

 It could be that those who regularly use artificial sweeteners over-compensate for the missed calories from sugar, or they could have otherwise unhealthy diets in conjunction with sweetener use.

 Azad would like to see a lot more research on the long-term use of sweeteners, in particular studies that could compare the different sweeteners, to see if one is any better than another.

 In the meantime, for those trying to cut down on their sugar consumption, Azad says it’s important not to switch from one harmful food item to another.

 “I think the takeaway for Canadians at this point is to maybe think twice about whether you really want to be consuming these artificial sweeteners, particularly on an everyday basis,” Azad said, “because really we don’t have evidence to say for sure whether these are truly harmless alternatives to sugar.” ||||| Consumers may want to think twice about relying on artificial sweeteners, says a Manitoba researcher who found no evidence the sweeteners help with weight loss and some potential health harm beyond the waistline.

 People are increasingly consuming artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose as well as the non-nutritive sweetener stevioside, derived from the stevia plant. The sweeteners are widespread in food and drinks including diet soda, yogurt, sauces and dressings and baked goods.

 Health sciences Prof. Meghan Azad was one of them, reaching for the low-calorie choices until she started researching them in detail.

 "Over 40 per cent of adults are reporting using artificial sweeteners on a regular basis," said Azad. "We know a lot of people are consuming them in foods and not realizing it."

 In Monday's issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Azad and her co-authors scrutinize 30 observational studies that followed more than 400,000 people in the general population for about a decade, as well as seven randomized trials of about 1,000 people with obesity who were followed for an average of six months.

 While those who are obese were trying to use the artificial or non-nutritive sweeteners as part of weight-loss program, Azad found no consistent benefits in helping the needle go down on the scale or slimming the waist.

 No clear benefit, potential for harm

 What's more, studies on those consuming artificial sweeteners routinely suggest the intake may be associated with cardiovascular disease events such as heart attacks and strokes, Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

 "There's no clear benefit and there's potential for harm, so for me, it's worth it to just choose water instead," Azad said.

 While researchers conducting the observational studies took into account factors such as the overall quality of participants' diets and pre-existing health conditions, no cause-and-effect relations can be drawn.

 At her lab, Azad is now studying what happens when people are given artificially sweetened beverages for several weeks. The scientists are collecting fecal samples to analyze gut microbes for metabolic biomarkers.

 The experiment is meant to investigate the hypothesis that artificial sweeteners shift the gut flora in a way that predisposes us to obesity.

 Another possibility, Azad said, is that we compensate and think that drinking a diet pop permits us to enjoy pizza and cake later.

 Another possibility is that our bodies have evolved to metabolize sugars in a way that's triggered not by calories or the sugar molecule but by the perception of sweet taste.

 Azad suggests that consumers who turn to artificial sweeteners on the assumption that they're a healthier choice should to be cautious. More research is needed to understand the long-term effects.

 Diabetes Canada lists Health Canada's approved sweeteners in its guidelines.

 Dr. Sean Wharton, an internal medicine specialist in Toronto who works with patients on weight management and management of diabetes, said he generally tells people to avoid artificial sweeteners. But he's not convinced the sweeteners cause Type 2 diabetes.

 "They may lose weight for a little while and go back up for lots of other reasons, not just because of sugar or sweeteners," said Wharton. "There's psychological issues, there's other medical issues, family issues. These people tend to be at risk in the first place. So we can't use these studies to say that these sweeteners are the problem."

 A taste for the artificial

 Montreal journalist and blogger Marissa Miller isn't fazed by the warnings.

 Over 40 per cent of adults report using artificial sweeteners. (Jenny Kane/Associated Press)

 "I'm a real junkie," Miller said. She uses a variety of artificial sweeteners in her coffee, tea, cereal, on bitter fruit, in smoothies and in baking.

 Miller was raised by health-conscious parents who gave her diet juices. As a child, having sugar felt foreign. Miller said when she tried to quit as an adult, she hated real sugar.

 "Any time I have sugar, I have this overwhelming sense of panic," Miller said.

 To her, artificial sweeteners still offer the best of both worlds of sweetness without the calorie cost. "Everyone has their vices. I don't think this is something to worry about." |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– If you think you're avoiding artificial sweeteners because you don't put them in your coffee or tea, think again. These additives are found in everything from yogurt and baked goods to sauces and diet colas, per the CBC, with "a lot of people ... consuming them in foods and not realizing it," says University of Manitoba researcher Meghan Azad. Azad, the co-author of a new study published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, also notes that 40% of adults report using artificial sweeteners on a regular basis—which may prove pointless when it comes to dropping pounds, as her team has found no evidence that the sweeteners help with weight loss and may even cause other health issues. Azad's team conducted a meta analysis of 37 previously published studies of the diets of nearly 407,000 people, only seven of which were randomized control trials. "A lot of the studies we found were observational, meaning they could show a link, but they can't prove a cause-and-effect relationship," she tells CTV News. Among the seven more-rigorous trials, regular consumption of artificial sweeteners had no significant effect on weight loss, while among the 30 observational studies, regular consumption was tied to a higher risk of Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as "modest" weight gain. Possible reasons for the weight gain, per Azad: Our bodies may metabolize based on sweetness perception (not sugar content), gut bacteria affected by sweeteners may affect obesity, or we may give ourselves permission to eat more sweets after eating diet products. An internal medicine expert says the studies aren't clear enough to cast all blame on artificial sweeteners; Azad says there isn't enough evidence the sweeteners are "truly harmless." (When it comes to higher blood sugar, gut bacteria may play a role.)


Drew Angerer via Getty Images Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month as former clerk Zina Bash hands him a note.

 A few years ago, as she was prepping to interview for a judicial clerkship, a student at Yale Law School received a troubling combination of warning and advice from her professors about one federal judge in particular: Brett Kavanaugh, she was told, liked his female clerks to have a “certain look.”

 Right now Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court hangs in the balance as he faces an accusation that he sexually assaulted a girl in high school.

 The professors proffering the advice are themselves well-known. Both Jed Rubenfeld and his wife, Amy Chua, author of the controversial 2011 book The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, told this woman about Kavanaugh’s preferences. Then, Kavanaugh was simply known as a prestigious judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

 Though neither said the judge did anything untoward regarding the women he worked with, the student found their counsel off-putting.

 “I had mixed feelings,” said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous due to privacy concerns. “On the one hand, it’s a yellow flag; on the other hand, phew, I hadn’t heard anything else.”

 Her first inkling that there might be issues with Kavanaugh came from Rubenfeld in a conversation about various judges with whom she might work.

 Rubenfeld took care to warn her about two judges in particular: First, Alex Kozinski, then a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, was known to sexually harass his clerks, he told her. (Kozinski retired in December amid accusations of harassment.)

 The other was Kavanaugh. Though the judge was known to hire female clerks who had a “certain look,” Rubenfeld told her, he emphasized that he had heard nothing else untoward.

 “He did not say what the ‘certain look’ was. I did not ask,” the woman said. “It was very clear to me that he was talking about physical appearance, because it was phrased as a warning ― and because it came after the warning about Judge Kozinski.”

 On a separate occasion last year, Chua offered more detail, telling a group of students that it’s “not an accident” that Kavanaugh’s law clerks “look like models,” Chua said, according to an account published in The Guardian on Thursday. The comments echoed those told to a group of Yale students over drinks with Chua last year, three of whom spoke with HuffPost.

 The woman who was warned a few years ago said that she had already heard rumors about Kozinski and had ruled out a clerkship with him.

 While she saw the warning about Kozinski as a flashing red signal, the advice on Kavanaugh didn’t stop her from deciding to interview with him.

 That’s when Rubenfeld’s wife stepped in. At Yale, Chua is less known as the “tiger mom” and more sought after for her ability to help students land prestigious clerkships with federal judges ― the sort that can ultimately land a student the ultimate prize, a spot clerking for a Supreme Court justice.

 Indeed, Kavanaugh was once a clerk for Kozinski before nabbing a spot as Justice Anthony Kennedy’s clerk on the Supreme Court. (Kavanaugh has denied knowing about Kozinski’s reputation with women.)

 To the female law student, Chua echoed Rubenfeld’s comments.

 NBC NewsWire via Getty Images "Tiger Mother" author Amy Chua is known for helping students find prestigious clerkships.

 “She advised me to be and dress ‘outgoing,’” the former Yale student said. “She strongly urged me to send her pictures of what I was thinking of wearing so she could evaluate. I did not.”

 At the time the student said she didn’t know if this sartorial advice was about her own look, Kavanaugh’s preferences or Chua’s ideas about what Kavanaugh liked. A friend suggested that the student needed the advice because she was “awkward,” according to a transcript of a Gchat conversation that the Yale student had at the time and that was viewed by HuffPost.

 The woman said she was not sure if Chua was giving this advice to others. “She did, however, say that she offers members of her small group the ‘opportunity’ to send her photos so she can help them figure out what to wear for interviews.”

 “For the more than ten years I’ve known him, Judge Kavanaugh’s first and only litmus test in hiring has been excellence,” Chua told HuffPost in a response to a request for comment from both professors. The statement was sent from a hospital where Chua has been confined with an undisclosed serious illness.

 The statement didn’t deny the student’s account, but it’s glowing in its praise of Kavanaugh, echoing a piece Chua recently wrote for The Wall Street Journal, “Kavanaugh Is a Mentor to Women,” in which she boasts of placing 10 clerks with Judge Kavanaugh, “eight of them women.” Their daughter just accepted a clerkship with Kavanaugh, the statement said.

 “As I wrote in the Wall Street Journal, he has also been an exceptional mentor to his female clerks,” she said in the statement. “Among my proudest moments as a parent was the day I learned our daughter would join those ranks.”

 The statement added that Kavanaugh’s clerks have been a “diverse” group.

 Travis Lenkner, who clerked for Kavanaugh in 2007 and 2008, said the idea that Kavanaugh had a certain look in mind for female clerks is absurd.

 “There’s only one ‘look’ that is a requirement in Judge Kavanaugh’s chambers for men and women,” he said. “And that is that a suit is required every day. It’s a formal chambers in a formal courthouse.”

 “Otherwise, the racial, ethnic and ideological diversity of his clerks is unmatched in the entire federal judiciary, including the diversity of his Yale clerks recommended by professor Chua,” Lenkner said.

 Giving law students advice on what to wear to an interview isn’t terribly odd, but the particular warning about Kavanaugh is unusual, said Vivia Chen, a senior columnist at The American Lawyer magazine who writes about gender and the legal profession. Typically the advice would be more general, like wear a nice suit, she said.

 “It sounds sexist,” Chen said. “If you’re going into that kind of detail, it sounds like the judge has a fetish, frankly, and that the law professors are feeding the fetish.”

 Chen, who knows Chua, suspects the professor was just trying to help her student.

 “I could see her being gossipy and free with her advice. That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Chen said. “In some ways, you want a professor who’s helping with your career to help you.”

 In the end, the law student interviewed with Kavanaugh and said nothing unusual happened, but she wound up clerking for another judge.

 Ashley Feinberg and Paul Blumenthal contributed reporting. This post has been updated to include a report from The Guardian and a similar account told to HuffPost. ||||| Guardian learns Amy Chua said she would advise students on their physical looks to help win post in Kavanaugh’s chambers

 A top professor at Yale Law School who strongly endorsed supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a “mentor to women” privately told a group of law students last year that it was “not an accident” that Kavanaugh’s female law clerks all “looked like models” and would provide advice to students about their physical appearance if they wanted to work for him, the Guardian has learned.

 Amy Chua, a Yale professor who wrote a bestselling book on parenting called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, was known for instructing female law students who were preparing for interviews with Kavanaugh on ways they could dress to exude a “model-like” femininity to help them win a post in Kavanaugh’s chambers, according to sources.

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 Kavanaugh is facing intense scrutiny in Washington following an allegation made by Christine Blasey Ford that he forcibly held her down and groped her while they were in high school. He has denied the allegation. The accusation has mired Kavanaugh’s confirmation in controversy, drawing parallels to allegations of sexual harassment against Justice Clarence Thomas by Anita Hill in the 1990s.

 Yale provided Kavanaugh with many of the judge’s clerks over the years, and Chua played an outsized role in vetting the clerks who worked for him. But the process made some students deeply uncomfortable.

 One source said that in at least one case, a law student was so put off by Chua’s advice about how she needed to look, and its implications, that she decided not to pursue a clerkship with Kavanaugh, a powerful member of the judiciary who had a formal role in vetting clerks who served in the US supreme court.

 In one case, Jed Rubenfeld, also an influential professor at Yale and who is married to Chua, told a prospective clerk that Kavanaugh liked a certain “look”.

 “He told me, ‘You should know that Judge Kavanaugh hires women with a certain look,’” one woman told the Guardian. “He did not say what the look was and I did not ask.”

 Sources who spoke to the Guardian about their experiences with Chua and Rubenfeld would only speak under the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution and damage to their future careers. Some elements of this story were first published by the Huffington Post.

 [Rubenfeld] told me, 'Kavanaugh hires women with a certain look'. He did not say what the look was and I did not ask Anonymous source

 Chua advised the same student Rubenfeld spoke to that she ought to dress in an “outgoing” way for her interview with Kavanaugh, and that the student should send Chua pictures of herself in different outfits before going to interview. The student did not send the photos.

 There is no allegation that the female students who worked for Kavanaugh were chosen because of their physical appearance or that they were not qualified.

 However, the remarks from Chua and Rubenfeld raise questions about why the couple believed it was important to emphasize the students’ physical appearance when discussing jobs with Kavanaugh. The couple were not known to do that in connection with other judges, sources said.

 “It is possible that they were making observations but not following edicts from him,” said one student who received such instructions. “I have no reason to believe he was saying, ‘Send me the pretty ones’, but rather that he was reporting back and saying, ‘I really like so and so,’ and the way he described them led them to form certain conclusions.”

 Kavanaugh is close to Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose retirement from the supreme court left an opening, and Kavanaugh was one of three judges who vetted clerks to serve in Kennedy’s chambers. His role as a so-called “feeder” judge made his clerkships among the most coveted posts for law students across the country, but especially at his alma mater, Yale.

 According to one source, Chua invited a group of students that she mentored to a bar last year to catch up and discuss their plans for clerkships. The conversation turned to a high-profile #MeToo case that was emerging in the news at the time involving a well-known public figure.

 The group began to talk about whether the federal judiciary would ever face similar scrutiny, and, according to a source, Chua said she did not believe it would. She told the students she had known about allegedly abusive and harassing behavior by another judge, Alex Kozinski, who was head of the ninth circuit and was forced to retire from the bench last year after more than a dozen women accused him of harassment.

 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld pictured in 2014. Photograph: Mike McGregor for the Guardian

 The conversation then turned to Kozinski’s protege and good friend Kavanaugh, who one source said was a familiar name even though he had not yet been nominated to the high court. Chua allegedly told the students that it was “no accident” that Kavanaugh’s female clerks “looked like models”. Student reacted with surprise, and quickly pointed out that Chua’s own daughter was due to clerk for Kavanaugh.

 A source said that Chua quickly responded, saying that her own daughter would not put up with any inappropriate behaviour.

 Chua has cancelled her classes at Yale this semester and, according to her office, has been hospitalised and is not taking calls. Rubenfeld sent an email to the Yale Law School community that said his wife had been ill and in hospital and had a long period of recuperation ahead of her.

 The Guardian has learned that Rubenfeld is currently the subject of an internal investigation at Yale. The investigation is focused on Rubenfeld’s conduct, particularly with female law students. Students have also raised related concerns to Yale authorities about Chua’s powerful influence in the clerkships process. The investigation was initiated before Kavanaugh was nominated by Donald Trump to serve on the high court.

 Rubenfeld said in a statement to the Guardian: “In June, Yale University informed me that it would conduct what it terms an ‘informal review’ of certain allegations, but that to preserve anonymity, I was not entitled to know any specifics. As a result, I do not know what I am alleged to have said or done. I was further advised that the allegations were not of the kind that would jeopardize my position as a long-tenured member of the faculty.

 This is the first we have heard claims that Chua coached students to look ‘like models’. We will look into these claims Yale law school

 “For some years, I have contended with personal attacks and false allegations in reaction to my writing on difficult and controversial but important topics in the law. I have reason to suspect I am now facing more of the same. While I believe strongly that universities must conduct appropriate reviews of any allegations of misconduct, I am also deeply concerned about the intensifying challenges to the most basic values of due process and free, respectful academic expression and exchange at Yale and around the country.

 “Nevertheless, I stand ready to engage with this process in the hope that it can be expeditiously concluded.”

 In a statement, Yale Law School said it could not confirm or deny the existence of an internal investigation.

 A Yale Law School official said in an emailed statement: “This is the first we have heard claims that Professor Chua coached students to look ‘like models’. We will look into these claims promptly, taking into account the fact that Professor Chua is currently unreachable due to serious illness. If true, this advice is clearly unacceptable.”

 The official added: “I can assure you that we take allegations of faculty misconduct very seriously.”

 Is Brett Kavanaugh's nomination going to collapse? All you need to know Read more

 Chua and her husband are towering figures at Yale and were described by one student as being the centre of gravity at the elite law school, connecting students to jobs and clerkships, and rewarding loyalty.

 The couple wrote a controversial book together in 2014 called The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America. It said that a mix of feeling superior with some insecurity were two traits that led to success. It also emphasised the need for “impulse control”.

 The couple have hired a well-known crisis communications expert but he did not respond to specific questions from the Guardian about Chua’s remarks or the internal investigation.

 In an emailed statement, Chua told the Guardian: “For the more than 10 years I’ve known him, Judge Kavanaugh’s first and only litmus test in hiring has been excellence. He hires only the most qualified clerks, and they have been diverse as well as exceptionally talented and capable.

 “There is good reason so many of them have gone on to supreme court clerkships; he only hires those who are extraordinarily qualified. As I wrote in the Wall Street Journal, he has also been an exceptional mentor to his female clerks and a champion of their careers. Among my proudest moments as a parent was the day I learned our daughter would join those ranks.”

 The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 The Guardian was assisted in its reporting by Elie Mystal, the executive editor of the Above the Law blog. If you have tips on this story please contact the reporter Stephanie.Kirchgaessner@theguardian.com |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– "Tiger Mom" Amy Chua is in the news again, though not because of her parenting. Rather, she's become ensnared in the latest coverage of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his interaction with women. The Guardian reports that Chua, a Yale professor, "played an outsized role in vetting" the clerks who worked for Kavanaugh, as many of them came from Yale, Kavanaugh's alma mater. The unnamed sources the paper spoke with described receiving advice from Chua and her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, also of Yale, about the "look" Kavanaugh favored. There are no allegations of improper behavior between Kavanaugh and his clerks, but some found Chua and Rubenfeld's "counsel off-putting," per the HuffPost's source, who says the advice she received was "phrased as a warning." The Guardian reports the couple's tendency to raise the issue of looks didn't extend to other judges. One student who was advised by the couple says, "I have no reason to believe [Kavanaugh] was saying, 'Send me the pretty ones,' but rather that he was reporting back and saying, 'I really like so and so,' and the way he described them led them to form certain conclusions." Those conclusions allegedly included Chua telling students it was "no accident" the women who clerked for Kavanaugh "looked like models," and Rubenfeld saying Kavanaugh opted for female clerks "with a certain look." Chua, who is reportedly dealing with a serious illness, said in a statement that the only trait Kavanaugh requires in his clerks is excellence. Yale Law School says it will look into the claims, which it says it had not previously heard.


– They may look pristine, but one in 10 US beaches is ripe with enough bacteria to make you sick. New research shows 10% of coastal and lakefront beaches fail to meet the Environmental Protection Agency's water-safety standards and swimmers could develop a stomach bug, conjunctivitis, pink eye, or even respiratory illnesses and neurological disorders, Time and the Natural Resources Defense Council report. The worst places for pollution? The Great Lakes, the Gulf Coast, and New England. The research from state beach coordinators at nearly 3,500 beach testing locations around the country found most of the pollution comes from stormwater runoff, which picks up garbage, oil, and human and animal waste before it ends up in oceans. But climate change, a lack of federal policies, and hundreds of billions of gallons of untreated sewage pouring into the water isn't helping matters. Time points out that in 2012, nearly 2,000 beaches were closed as a result of pollution—in New York and New Jersey alone.

Expand this summary.

If you swim at 10 different U.S. beaches, you could end up getting a stomach bug, conjunctivitis or even something more serious from one of them. New research from the National Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, has concluded that 10% of the country’s coastal and lakefront beaches fail to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s water-safety standards—in other words, they’re ripe with bacteria.

 Things are particularly bad in New England, on the Gulf Coast and along the Great Lakes, according to the data.

 The major culprit is stormwater runoff, which inevitably ends up in the ocean after picking up garbage, oil and waste products from both humans and animals along the way. Making matters worse are the hundreds of billions of gallons of sewage that go untreated annually, ending up in water and causing 3.5 million Americans to fall ill each year.

 Federal law requires all states to test their beach water for bacteria, and respond accordingly when levels are too high. In 2012, nearly 2,000 beaches were closed in New York and New Jersey alone as a result of pollution. ||||| Posted June 25, 2014

 “Rain, rain go away…” might be popular as a nursery rhyme, but it’s a hugely unpopular sentiment right now in California, as this epic drought puts increasing strain on communities throughout the state. And even though stormwater remains a leading cause of pollution at California’s beaches, hoping for less rain is not a long-term solution.

 Finding a way to reduce pollution is absolutely critical for California’s thriving beach and coastal economy. According to NRDC’s annual beach water report, Testing the Waters: A Guide to Water Quality at Vacation Beaches, released today, 9 percent of water quality samples collected last year at California beaches contained bacteria levels that failed to meet the most protective threshold for swimmer safety set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – putting California, sadly, on par with a 10 percent failure rate for the country’s beaches overall. Far too many of the state’s beaches are failing to meet this benchmark for safe water 20, 30, or 40 percent (and upwards) of the time, putting beachgoers at increased risk of swimming in polluted water that can cause serious waterborne illnesses like stomach flu, pinkeye, and even respiratory ailments and neurological disorders.

 Malibu Beach by the Malibu Pier in Los Angeles County was listed as a "Repeat Offender" for pollution in today's report (Photo: -Scipio-)

 Today’s report, the 24th annual release, collects and analyzes the latest water testing results from the EPA and state beach coordinators at nearly 3,500 beach testing locations nationwide. It examines the various causes of water pollution that plague America’s beaches and identifies opportunities for all of us – government leaders, homeowners and beachgoers – to keep pollution out of our beaches, lakes, and rivers.

 Beaches across the state are polluted by a variety of contamination sources and major environmental stresses, including the largest known source of beach water pollution -- stormwater runoff from our urban and suburban environments. And even though 2013 was recorded as one of the driest years for much of California since the state started keeping records 150 years ago – meaning less rainfall flushing pollution out to our coastal waters – an unacceptable number of California’s beaches saw high levels of pollution last year.

 Hoping it rains even less is obviously not a solution to this problem. Instead, we need to be capturing rain where it falls by using green infrastructure solutions to turn this potential source of pollution into a valuable resource for our communities. Green infrastructure techniques like rain gardens, curb cuts, rain barrels, and porous pavement can help recharge groundwater or harvest rainwater for non-potable uses like landscape irrigation and toilet flushing, saving on both water use and bills.

 However, in addition to dirty runoff, our local waters are threatened by sewage spills, climate change, and a lack of federal policies that could fully protect the streams and wetlands that help sustain clean beaches. Wetlands and small streams help ensure that beaches downstream remain safe for swimming and fishing by removing pollutants from the water that passes through them and by retaining stormwater that often causes pollution problems. Thankfully, the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are working to ensure that tributary streams and wetlands are protected from pollution under the Clean Water Act. The agencies recently proposed a Clean Water Protection Rule, which will help better protect our beaches and the local economies that depend on them. The proposed rule, officially known as the “Waters of the U.S. Rule,” is open for public comment until October 20. By clicking on this link, YOU can take action to make sure the rule fully protects California’s (and the rest of the country’s) beaches.

 In all this, though, there IS good news: despite the pollution challenges we face, California also has a number of world class beaches that are generally safe for swimming, including one, Newport Beach at 38th Street, identified as a “Superstar” Beach in NRDC’s report.

 Newport Beach in Orange County (Photo: flickr/Ken Lund)

 But this means two things: first, people need to make sure they know what’s in the water at the beaches they visit, and to choose their beach carefully. Because California has such clean, healthy beaches right next to others that may be polluted or unsafe for swimming, it’s critical that people check out the beaches they’re visiting to make sure it’s safe to swim. And second, we need to keep working on preventing pollution from reaching our shores in the first place, so that the pollution problem we face doesn’t continue to overshadow what’s good about California’s beaches.

 We need it to rain in California. We need water to flow in our rivers and streams. And we need for our beaches to be safe for everyone when it does.

 Some Details on California’s Beach Water Quality for the 2013 Year:

 In 2013, California reported 729 coastal beaches and beach segments, 501 of which were monitored. Of all reported beach monitoring samples, 9% exceeded the Beach Action Value (BAV) of 60 enterococcus bacteria colony forming units (cfu) per 100 ml marine or estuarine water in a single sample. NRDC considers all reported samples individually (without averaging) when calculating the percent exceedance rates in this analysis. This includes duplicate samples and reported samples taken outside the official beach season, if any.

 The beaches with the highest percent exceedance rates of the BAV in 2013 were Aquatic Park in San Mateo County (64%); Lakeshore Park in San Mateo County (48%); Candlestick Point, Windsurfer Circle in San Francisco County (47%); Inner Cabrillo Beach, San Pedro in Los Angeles County (44%); and Newport Bay, Newport Boulevard Bridge in Orange County (44%). |||||


Local photographer Muhammad Malik was coming out of the subway when he happened upon the immediate aftermath of this morning's deadly shooting near the Empire State Building. He promptly uploaded a photo of one victim, bleeding on the pavement, to Instagram, complete with a crass caption quoting the rapper Nas: " " On Facebook, he added, "MAN DOWN! SHOTS FIRED!"

 Soon after, the news organizations came calling for permission to run the picture. "OMG, reporters are calling me from all over the country!" he wrote. "Making major deals! #chaching." But when reached by Daily Intel to ask about his rate, Malik was more subdued. "Actually to be honest, it's free — I don't even care," he said. "That happened this morning, at this point it's just too much for me." He also insisted he wasn't being offensive. ||||| Notice

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– One of the more widely used images from today's shooting spree near the Empire State Building shows a wounded man on the street being being tended to by a woman. Turns out it was shot by local photographer Muhammad Malik, who immediately uploaded it to Instagram with this not-so-sensitive caption, a play off of lyrics by Nas: "They shoot, aw made you look! No really tho. Dude got popped!" That drew plenty of online criticism, as did his Facebook boasts (complete with hashtag #chaching) about cashing in on the photo. "Let's be clear everyone, I didn't shoot anyone, I just took a photo, don't hate me, hate the actions that caused me to get a picture like that," he wrote in response. "It's cameras that allow all of us to see what's going on in parts that we would never venture into or otherwise wouldn't think twice about." When Daily Intel caught up with him, a "more subdued" Malik said he would "probably not" make any money from the image. "I don't think it was insensitive," he said. "It's New York, I just took a photo." As for that caption, "it was just a comment."