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 / Updated By Maggie Fox

 A pineapple pesticide that made its way into milk in Hawaii also made its way into men’s brains, and those men were more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease, a new study finds.

 It’s the latest in a very long series of studies linking various pesticides to Parkinson’s, which is caused by the loss of certain brain cells.

 And the study also seems to support a mystifying observation: smokers seem to be protected against Parkinson’s.

 For the study, Dr. Robert Abbott of the Shiga University of Medical Science in Otsu, Japan, and colleagues studied 449 Japanese-American men living in Hawaii who were taking part in a larger study of aging. They gave details of how much milk they drank as part of a larger survey, and they donated their brains for study after they died.

 “For people living with Parkinson's, understanding the impact of environmental factors is crucial."

 The men who drank more than 16 ounces of milk a day had the fewest brain cells in a part of the brain called the substantia nigra, which is damaged in Parkinson’s, they reported in the journal Neurology.

 The researchers also looked for the pesticide heptachlor, which was taken off the market for most uses in the U.S. in 1988.

 "Among those who drank the most milk, residues of heptachlor epoxide were found in nine of 10 brains as compared to 63.4 percent for those who consumed no milk," the researchers wrote.

 It’s known the milk in Hawaii was contaminated, probably from the feed given to the cattle. "The researchers could not test whether the milk the men drank was contaminated with pesticides (heptachlor, in this case), and no one knows how long or how widespread the contamination was before being detected," the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation said in a statement on its website.

 "The potential link between drinking milk, pesticides and development of Parkinson’s disease needs further investigation," the foundation said.

 The men who smoked and who also drank milk showed none of the brain cell loss.

 "This study is unique because it brings together two critical but different pieces of information — environmental exposure and physical changes in the brain — to understand potential contributors of Parkinson’s disease," James Beck, vice president of scientific affairs at the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, said in a statement.

 “The potential link between drinking milk, pesticides and development of Parkinson’s disease needs further investigation.”

 "For people living with Parkinson's, understanding the impact of environmental factors is crucial as nearly 85 percent have no idea why they developed Parkinson’s. There is no clear genetic link," Beck said.

 The Parkinson's Disease Foundation estimates that 1 million Americans have the condition, marked by tremor, rigid muscles and problems with movement. There is no cure, although early treatment can delay the worst symptoms.

 "For scientists, the opportunity to study brains generously donated by the participants of this study was crucial to establishing a potential link between different environmental exposures and Parkinson’s, and will be crucial to solving the disease overall," Beck said. ||||| A pesticide that was present in milk in the early 1980s may be linked to signs of Parkinson's disease that are showing up in people today, according to a new study.

 The researchers looked at Japanese-American men in Hawaii, where the pesticide was frequently used, and found that those who drank more than two cups of milk daily at the start of the study had 40 percent fewer brain cells in an area of the brain called the substantia nigra 30 years later, on average, compared with similar men who drank less than two cups of milk per day.

 The loss of brain cells in this area of the brain may be an early sign of Parkinson's disease, and can start decades before any visible symptoms of the disease occur, the researchers said. The study included men whose average age was 54 at the start of the study.

 The link between the higher consumption of milk and the loss of cells in this brain area was not found among the men in the study who had ever smoked cigarettes, the researchers noted. Previous research has shown that people who smoke cigarettes may have a lower risk of developing Parkinson's disease, the researchers said. [10 Things You Didn't Know About the Brain]

 The researchers also found that residues of the pesticide, called heptachlor epoxide, were present in the brains of 90 percent of the men who drank the most milk, compared with 63 percent of those who did not drink any milk.

 High levels of the pesticide were found in the milk supply in the early 1980s in Hawaii, where the chemical was used for insect control in the pineapple industry. The commercial sale of the pesticide in agriculture was banned in the United States by 1988, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. However, a related compound can still be used today for controlling fire ants in electrical grid machinery, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry.

 The researchers noted that they do not have direct evidence that the milk the men drank contained the pesticide. However, they "just have no other explanation for how heptachlor epoxide found its way into the brains of men who consumed milk," said study author Robert D. Abbott, of the Shiga University of Medical Science in Otsu, Japan.

 In the study, researchers followed about 450 Japanese-American men for more than 30 years until they died, and then performed autopsies on them. They looked at the cells in the substantia nigra, and also measured the amount of the pesticide residue in 116 of the men's brains, according to the study, published today (Dec. 9) in the journal Neurology.

 The findings suggest that diet may play a role in the development of Parkinson's disease, the researchers said. However, the new results do not show a cause-and-effect relationship between the pesticide or milk and Parkinson's disease. Rather, they show there is an association between these factors, they said.

 "The vast majority of milk consumers do not get Parkinson's disease," Abbott told Live Science.

 But Abbott recommended that people should generally be vigilant about eating food that may contain pesticides.

 Dr. Honglei Chen, of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, who was not involved in the study, said that the association found in the study could potentially be explained by mechanisms other than this pesticide actually causing the brain changes.

 Chen, who wrote an editorial on the findings that is also published today in the journal, noted that the men's milk consumption was measured only once at the start of the study. The study assumes that "this measurement represented participants’ dietary habits over time," but this may not have been the case, he said in a statement.

 Follow Agata Blaszczak-Boxe on Twitter. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science. ||||| TIME Health For more, visit TIME Health

 Studies have found a connection between the consumption of dairy products and a higher risk of developing Parkinson disease, the neurodegenerative disorder that affects motor neurons in the brain. While researchers speculated that chemicals found in cows’ milk might be responsible, there was little evidence to detail how dairy products like milk and cheese might be affecting people’s risk of the disease.

 Now, scientists may have uncovered a promising clue. Reporting in the journal Neurology, Robert Abbott, from Shiga University of Medical Science in Japan, and his colleagues took advantage of an environmental scandal in Hawaii in the 1980s to investigate the connection. At the time, an organochlorine pesticide used by pineapple farmers made its way into the milk supply when cows were fed a gruel made in part from the pineapple debris. Coincidentally, there was also a study of heart disease among Japanese-American men begun then that involved more than 8,000 men who were followed from mid-life to death. All provided detailed information about what they ate, including how much milk they drank, and some agreed to donate their brains for research upon death.

 MORE: Diabetes Drugs May Offer Hope for Parkinson’s Disease Treatment

 Abbott and his team studied 449 brains and recorded the density of neurons in specific areas of the brain known to be affected by Parkinson’s. They found that men who reported drinking more than two glasses of milk a day (16 oz) showed the thinnest nerve networks in these areas, suggesting compromised function of these nerves, compared to men who drank little or no milk. The milk drinkers also had residues of specific organochlorines called heptachlor epoxide.

 TIME Health Newsletter Get the latest health and science news, plus: burning questions and expert tips. View Sample Sign Up Now

 Interestingly, by measuring when cells in motor nerve regions died, they also learned that the accumulation of heptachlor epoxide occurred before the cells were damaged, strongly hinting that the chemical was responsible for triggering the changes associated with Parkinson’s.

 MORE: Taking Care: An Intimate Look at How Parkinson’s Disease Has Changed 1 Family’s Life

 Abbott says that he and his team did not have samples of the milk the men drank, so can’t say for sure that the contaminated milk was the source of the pesticides they found in the mens’ brains, but it’s a reasonable explanation. “We don’t have all the data yet, but we are close to finding the smoking gun here,” he says. “It’s not complete, but it’s very suspicious.”

 Heptachlor epoxide is no longer used as an insecticide in the U.S. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, “nearly all registered uses of heptachlor epoxide have been canceled.” But it tends to be persistent, remaining in soil and water for many years. Abbott also notes that it’s been found in goat and cow milk in Ethiopia and that other organochlorines have been detected in the milk supply in Italy.

 MORE: Here’s Which Produce Has the Most Pesticides

 The data certainly don’t mean that anyone who drinks several cups of milk a day is putting themselves at risk of developing Parkinson’s. What it does mean is that diet and lifestyle risk factors should be considered more deeply. “This adds to the literature that diet may indeed play a role in Parkinson’s,” says Abbott. “But it also tells us that there is more to food than just its nutritional value. There’s contamination, and what’s on that food.”

 For now, there’s no reasons to stop drinking milk. (“I drink a cup of milk every day,” says Abbott.) But he hopes his findings fuel the continued careful look at how chemicals in the environment might be affecting our health, even in indirect and not always obvious ways. |||||

– Scientists are urging people to watch what they eat—and drink—in a new study linking a pesticide with Parkinson's disease. Researchers note that, for a time, cattle in Hawaii were likely fed a gruel containing traces of heptachlor, used by American pineapple farmers before it was banned in 1988, per Time. The cows' milk was contaminated, but "no one knows how long or how widespread the contamination was before being detected," the Parkinson's Disease Foundation says, per NBC News. To test the possible effects, researchers studied the brains of 116 Japanese-American men in Hawaii who had given information about their milk-drinking habits before they died. They found men who consumed more than two glasses of milk, or 16 ounces, daily had 40% fewer brain cells in the substantia nigra, an area that shows damage in Parkinson's cases, compared to men who drank less than two cups per day. Some 90% of heavy milk drinkers also had heptachlor residue in their brains, compared to 63% of those who didn't drink milk. Researchers dated the cell damage to after the accumulation of heptachlor, which suggests the chemical was responsible for the changes. The team couldn't test milk samples, but they "have no other explanation for how heptachlor epoxide found its way into the brains of men who consumed milk," a study author tells Live Science. He notes "the vast majority of milk consumers do not get Parkinson's disease," but "this adds to the literature that diet may indeed play a role." The study also backs others suggesting smokers enjoy protection against Parkinson's: Milk drinkers who smoked showed no brain cell loss. One critic notes participants divulged how much milk they drank some 30 years before they died, so their consumption perhaps changed. (This pesticide has been linked to Alzheimer's.)


Article:

DONETSK/KIEV, Ukraine Pro-Russian protesters seized state buildings in three east Ukrainian cities on Sunday, triggering accusations from the pro-European government in Kiev that President Vladimir Putin was orchestrating "separatist disorder".

 The protesters stormed regional government buildings in the industrial hub of Donetsk and security service offices in nearby Luhansk, waving Russian flags and demanding a Crimea-style referendum on joining Russia.

 Protesters also later seized the regional administrative building in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, Interfax news agency reported. All three cities lie close to Ukraine's border with Russia.

 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov vowed to restore order in eastern Ukraine without using violence and also accused Ukraine's ousted president Viktor Yanukovich, whose political base was in Donetsk, of conspiring with Putin to fuel tensions.

 "Putin and Yanukovich ordered and paid for the latest wave of separatist disorder in the east of the country. The people who have gathered are not many but they are very aggressive," Avakov said in a statement on his Facebook page.

 "The situation will come back under control without bloodshed. That is the order to law enforcement officers, it's true. But the truth is that no one will peacefully tolerate the lawlessness of provocateurs."

 Acting President Oleksander Turchinov called an emergency meeting of security chiefs in Kiev and took personal control of the situation, the parliamentary press service said.

 Mainly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine has seen a sharp rise in tensions since Yanukovich's overthrow in February and the advent of an interim government in Kiev that backs closer ties with the European Union.

 Russia has branded the new government illegitimate and has annexed Ukraine's Crimea region, citing threats to its Russian-speaking majority - a move that has sparked the biggest standoff between Moscow and the West since the end of the Cold War.

 REFERENDUM DEMAND

 Around 1,500 people protested in Donetsk on Sunday before breaking into the regional administration building, where they hung a Russian flag from a second-floor balcony, a Reuters witness said. Protesters outside cheered and chanted "Russia! Russia!".

 In the Luhansk protest, Ukrainian television said three people had been injured. Police could not confirm the report.

 Talking to the crowd over a loudspeaker, protest leaders in Donetsk said they wanted regional lawmakers to convene an emergency meeting to discuss a vote on joining Russia like the one in Ukraine's Crimea region that led to its annexation.

 "Deputies of the regional council should convene before midnight and take the decision to carry out a referendum," one of the protest leaders said, without identifying himself.

 A local Internet portal streamed footage from the seized building, showing people entering and exiting freely. Soviet-era music was being played over loudspeakers outside.

 The building houses the offices of Serhiy Taruta, a steel baron recently appointed by the interim government in Kiev as governor of a region with close economic and historical ties to Russia.

 "Around 1,000 people took part (in the storming of the building), mostly young people with their faces covered," said Ihor Dyomin, a spokesman for Donetsk local police.

 "Around 100 people are now inside the building and are barricading the building," he added.

 In Luhansk, Reuters television showed images of hundreds of people outside the state security services building and a policeman in riot armor being carried away on a stretcher.

 Ukrainian television said the Luhansk protesters were demanding the release of people detained by security services in recent days as well as a referendum on joining Russia.

 "We don't want to join the EU, we don't want to join NATO. We want our children to live in peace," an unnamed woman told Ukraine's Channel Five in Luhansk.

 Ukraine's state security services said on Saturday they had detained 15 people in Luhansk suspected of planning to overthrow the authorities and had confiscated hundreds of rifles, grenades and petrol bombs.

 Pro-Russian demonstrators have held rallies in recent weeks in several eastern Ukrainian cities, not far from a border where Moscow has assembled tens of thousands of troops.

 (Writing by Thomas Grove; Editing by Gareth Jones) ||||| KIEV (Reuters) - Protests in eastern Ukraine in which pro-Russian activists seized public buildings in three cities are part of a plan to destabilize Ukraine and bring in Russian troops, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Monday.

 Saying Russian troops were within a 30 km (19 mile) zone from the Ukrainian border, Yatseniuk told a government meeting: “An anti-Ukrainian plan is being put into operation ... under which foreign troops will cross the border and seize the territory of the country.

 “We will not allow this,” he said.

 Pro-Russian protesters in the east seized official buildings in three cities - Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk - on Sunday night, demanding that referendums be held on whether to join Russia.

 A similar move preceded a Russia-backed takeover of Crimea in March followed by annexation of the peninsula by Russia.

 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on Monday the main regional administration building in Kharkiv had been cleared of “separatists”.

 But police said protesters occupying the state security building in Luhansk had seized weapons and highway police had closed off roads into the city.

 “Unknown people who are in the building have broken into the building’s arsenal and have seized weapons,” a police statement said. Nine people had been hurt in the disturbances in Luhansk.

 Mainly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine has seen a sharp rise in tension since Moscow-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich’s overthrow in February and the advent of an interim government in Kiev that wants closer ties with Europe.

 Russia has branded the new leadership in Kiev illegitimate and has annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region, citing threats to its Russian-speaking majority - a move that caused the biggest standoff between Moscow and the West since the end of the Cold War.

 YANUKOVICH CALL

 The protesters appeared to be responding in part to Yanukovich, who fled to Russia after he was ousted and who on March 28 issued a public call for each of Ukraine’s regions to hold a referendum on its status inside the country.

 A pro-Russian protester stands inside the seized regional administrative building in Kharkiv April 6, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer

 Separately, Ukraine’s defense ministry said a Russian marine had shot and killed a Ukrainian naval officer in Crimea on Sunday night.

 The 33-year-old officer, who was preparing to leave Crimea, was shot twice in officers’ quarters in the locality of Novofedorovka. It was not clear why the Russian marine had opened fire.

 Yatseniuk said that though much of the unrest had died down in eastern Ukraine in the past month there remained about 1,500 “radicals” in each region who spoke with “clear Russian accents” and whose activity was being coordinated through foreign intelligence services.

 But he said Ukrainian authorities had drawn up a plan to handle the crisis.

 “We have a clear action plan,” he said, adding that senior officials would head to the towns concerned.

 Avakov on Sunday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of orchestrating the “separatist disorder” and promised that disturbances would be brought under control without violence.

 Russia has been pushing internationally a plan proposing the “federalization” of Ukraine in which regions of the country of 46 million would have broad powers of autonomy.

 Slideshow (9 Images)

 Ukraine, while drawing up its own blueprint of constitutional changes for ‘de-centralization’ in which smaller municipalities would be able to develop their own areas by retaining a portion of state taxes raised, says the Russian plan is aimed at breaking up the country.

 Referring to the Russian plan, Yatseniuk said: “It is an attempt to destroy Ukrainian statehood, a script which has been written in the Russian Federation, the aim of which is to divide and destroy Ukraine and turn part of Ukraine into a slave territory under the dictatorship of Russia,” he said.

 “This is not going to happen,” he said.

 “I appeal to the people and the elites of the east. Our common responsibility is to preserve the country and I am sure that no-one wants to be under a neighboring country. We have our country. Let’s keep it,” he said. ||||| KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Pro-Russian separatists who seized a provincial administration building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on Monday proclaimed the region an independent republic in a move echoing the run-up to Russia's annexation of Crimea.

 Pro-Russian activists with Russian national flags storm the Ukrainian regional office of the Security Service in Luhansk, Ukraine, Sunday, April 6, 2014. In Luhansk, 30 kilometers (20 miles) west of the... (Associated Press)

 The Interfax news agency said the activists demanded that a referendum be held no later than May 11 on the breaking away of the Donetsk region, which borders Russia.

 In footage uploaded to the Internet, an unidentified pro-Russia activist in the provincial government headquarters in Donetsk asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to send peacekeeping troops to the region.

 "Without your support, without the support of Russia, it will be hard for us to resist the Kiev junta on our own," he said, referring to the interim authorities that took power after the overthrow of Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovych in February.

 Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk earlier in the day accused Russia of being behind the unrest that broke out in the country's eastern provinces Sunday and of seeking to sow instability as a pretext for dispatching troops across the border.

 "The plan is to destabilize the situation, the plan is for foreign troops to cross the border and seize the country's territory, which we will not allow," he said, adding that people engaged in the unrest have distinct Russian accents.

 Yatsenyuk said Russian troops remain stationed within 30 kilometers (19 miles) of the frontier.

 Eastern Ukraine was the heartland of support for Yanukovych, who fled to Russia in February after months of protests. About half of the region's residents are ethnic Russians, many of whom believe Ukraine's acting authorities are Ukrainian nationalists who will oppress Russians. Ukraine's interim authorities deny they are infringing the rights of the ethnic Russian population.

 Since Crimea held a secession referendum and then was annexed by Russia in March, calls for similar votes in Ukraine's east have emerged. ||||| Gallery 12 photo Gallery © EPA/ROMAN PILIPEY Situation in Donetsk

 KIEV, April 7. /ITAR-TASS/. The council of recently proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic turned to the Russian president, asking him to introduce a temporary peacekeeping contingent.

 The lawmakers unanimously supported the address of the Republican Council of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

 Earlier, the deputies of the Donetsk regional council proclaimed the state sovereignty of the Donetsk People’s Republic. The corresponding bill was read at the council’s session.

 “The territory of the republic within the recognized borders is indivisible and inviolable,” the council said. The legislators also passed a decision on holding a referendum on whether or not the region should join the Russian Federation. It will be held no later than May 11.

 On this background, residents of the city of Donetsk were holding an action of protest in front of the building of the Regional State Administration. The gathering was chanting ‘Russia, Russia!’ and waving the Russian flags.

 In the meantime, a Russian tricolor that was hoisted on a mast in front of the building Sunday has been replaced with a larger one.

 Mass meetings in support of Ukraine’s transformation into a federation were held under Russian flags in Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk Sunday.

 The Russian tricolor standard was installed on the building of the Kharkiv Region administration Monday. Prior to the action, the demonstrators removed the Ukrainian national flag from the roof.

 In Donetsk, the protesters seized the building of the regional administration and the regional branch of Ukraine’s Security Service.

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 On Monday, supporters of turning the country into a federation put up barricades in front of the entrance to the Kharkiv Region administration. They used automobile tires among other ‘construction materials’.

 In Luhansk, unidentified people who had entrenched themselves in the building of the Security Service’s regional branch seized the room where service guns were kept.

 On using Russian Armed Forces on the territory of Ukraine

 March 1, 2014, Russia’s Federation Council gave its consent to the president for using the armed forces on the territory of Ukraine. The relevant decision was unanimously adopted by the upper house of Russian parliament at an extraordinary session. Earlier, Vladimir Putin submitted to the Federation Council an address on using the armed forces of Russia on the territory of Ukraine until the normalization of the socio-political situation in that country. This initiative was proposed with regard to a plea by Ukraine’s legitimate president Viktor Yanukovych.

 Later the Ukrainian leader said that the address to Vladimir Putin regarding the use of armed forces was triggered by the bout of armed delinquency in Ukraine. “I’ve done it for a reason, because I became target of the criminals. Armed gangs started to cruise around the country. In particular, they pursued me on the territory of Ukraine,” he said. ||||| MOSCOW — Under the attentive eye of Russian state television, several hundred pro-Russian demonstrators in the city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, declared on Monday that they were forming an independent republic and urged President Vladimir V. Putin to send troops to the region as a peacekeeping force, even though there was no imminent threat to peace.

 The actions in Donetsk and two other main cities in eastern Ukraine, which included demands for a referendum on seceding from Ukraine and joining Russia, seemed an effort by the activists to mimic some of the events that preceded Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea. However, there were no immediate indications that the Kremlin was receptive to the pleas.

 While widely regarded as political theater supported if not directed by the Kremlin, the protests could help promote what analysts say is Russia’s primary goal of destabilizing the shaky government in Kiev, preventing it from drifting further into the West’s orbit and giving Moscow leverage over the country’s future ahead of presidential elections in May.

 The turmoil in eastern Ukraine also makes it extremely difficult for the provisional government in Kiev to begin putting in place an array of austerity measures and financial overhauls required by the International Monetary Fund as a condition for an $18 billion loan package that the country desperately needs to avert a financial default. |||||
What is a summary?

– Crimea first, eastern Ukraine next? Pro-Russia protesters last night seized government buildings in the cities of Kharkiv, Luhansk, and Donetsk in Ukraine's largely Russian-speaking east, waving Russian flags and demanding a referendum on joining Russia, reports Reuters. In Donetsk, separatists have dubbed the region an independent republic, and have called for the sovereignty referendum to be held by May 11, the AP reports, noting that Crimea did much the same before Russia annexed it. These self-proclaimed lawmakers have also asked Vladimir Putin to send peacekeeping troops, according to Russia's state-run ITAR-Tass news agency. Acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov has canceled a trip abroad to deal with the unrest, and the country's interior minister, who blames the protests on Vladimir Putin and ousted Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovich, says the turmoil will be dealt with non-violently. He added that "separatists" had been removed from one building in Kharkiv as of today. More: Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk today emphasized those Russian fears, saying that country's troops were roughly 20 miles from the border and asserting that "an anti-Ukrainian plan is being put into operation ... under which foreign troops will cross the border and seize the territory of the country." Reuters reports that in Luhansk, protesters occupying the state security building have reportedly taken hold of weapons. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that a Ukrainian military officer in Crimea was last night killed by a Russian soldier who fired an automatic weapon at the unarmed man. The death apparently resulted from a confrontation between a number of Ukrainian and Russian troops, and occurred in a military dorm. Some Ukrainian military personnel remain in Crimea to facilitate the transition, notes the Times.


Article:

It's obviously no secret that there is a huge gender gap (in general but also) in how we respond to what celebrities wear. Women's appearances are always subject to critique while men's wardrobes are hardly judged in comparison. One TV show host decided to test that double standard by wearing the same knock-off Burberry suit for a year straight. Not surprisingly, no one said a damn thing.

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 Karl Stefanovic is an Australian TV personality, co-host of Aussie morning news show Today. His co-presenter Lisa Wilkinson constantly faces criticism and generally unsolicited fashion advice from viewers. Frustrated with this, Stefanovic decided he was going to try a little experiment. For one year, save a couple instances, he wore the same exact cheap suit (with a different shirt and tie) just to see if anyone would say anything. Via Sydney Morning Herald:

 "No one has noticed; no one gives a shit," Stefanovic tells Fairfax Media. "But women, they wear the wrong colour and they get pulled up. They say the wrong thing and there's thousands of tweets written about them. "Women are judged much more harshly and keenly for what they do, what they say and what they wear."

 "I've worn the same suit on air for a year – except for a couple of times because of circumstance – to make a point. "I'm judged on my interviews, my appalling sense of humour – on how I do my job, basically. Whereas women are quite often judged on what they're wearing or how their hair is ... that's [what I wanted to test]."

 Only his cohost Lisa Wilkinson and another Today member knew about his experiment. As hilarious and interesting as this is, he simply proved something we all already know, the double standard women deal with on a day-to-day basis.

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 Here's hoping he washed that suit at least semi-regularly. ||||| Karl Stefanovic might have been excited to reveal he had been wearing the same suit for a year, but he probably wasn't expecting the tsunami of social media support that comes from tackling sexism head on.

 Stefanovic revealed this weekend he had worn the same outfit every day on air in what became a year-long protest-prank against the double standards his female colleagues face.

 The Today Show host told Fairfax Media he came up with the idea while reflecting on the constant criticism and unsolicited advice received by his co-host Lisa Wilkinson and Samantha Armytage, the host of rival breakfast program Sunrise.

 "I've worn the same suit on air for a year – except for a couple of times because of circumstance – to make a point," Stefanovic said. "Women are judged much more harshly and keenly for what they do, what they say and what they wear."

 "I'm judged on my interviews, my appalling sense of humour – on how I do my job, basically. Whereas women are quite often judged on what they're wearing or how their hair is ... that's [what I wanted to test]."

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 Stefanovic described the grand total of zero complaints or comments about his navy suit as evidence of the double standards for female presenters, and by extension, all women.

 Almost 24 hours after the story was published, hundreds of tweets and comments were streaming onto social media sites. The vast majority are positive, the streams peppered with the less than glowing responses to the prank.

 Karl Stefanovic has outed himself as a feminist after a year-long prank.

 Brilliant. @karlstefanovic exposes sexism by wearing same suit for a year on @TheTodayShow. No complaints: http://t.co/F54ydMRa95 @Ladyjmo @karlstefanovic I loved this so much! Bloody double standards, well played Karl xx — Mrs Woog (@Woogsworld) November 15, 2014

 Stefanovic's experiment has been picked up globally, covered by news groups such as the BBC, the Irish Independent, the New York Daily News and large American commentary site Jezebel.

 Many in the Australian feminist community have welcomed the prank, describing it as a breakthrough message that translates the issues facing women to huge audiences.

 Author and outspoken feminist commentator Van Badham described Stefanovic's suit prank as part of a growing movement of men making meaningful contributions to feminism.

 "This act is not trivial. It's an example of a genuine human empathy that recognises when conditions are unfair and acts upon it," Ms Badham told Fairfax Media.

 "Yeah, it's a suit. But it's one human being showing another that they have come to empathise with their disadvantage, and this is actually the recognition that exists in the heart of all meaningful social change."

 Facebook's large and robust feminist online community Destroy the Joint's praised Stefanovic for "taking one for team, the team of women" on their Facebook page. The group has more than 48,000 followers, many of whom were debating the merits of his endeavours beneath the original post.

 "Remember when Julia Gillard first started to wear glasses and after an interview with that Karl man, he and Lisa and the other hosts all put on glasses and mocked her. Haven't watched that morning fluff show since then," wrote a Destroy the Joint member.

 "I don't buy it as a victory for feminism either. It is a stunt: the discussion of feminism seems to be locked in superficial terms surrounding whether it is ok to comment on someone's outfit (I think it is) or whether it is ok to comment on their weight (I do not think it is). In the meantime, men and women who need to rely on social security payments are being threatened with horrible spending control in the form of budget cards. This blow to equality in our country is real and it is imminent, I'll be willing to bet Karl hasn't discussed that yet," wrote one community member. ||||| Destroyers, another woman is dead, another victim of violence against women. Our sad record honouring all known deaths in 2017 now stands at 12.

 An unnamed woman (38) was rushed to hospital last Tuesday evening after being stabbed at a unit in Gilberton, South Australia, and sadly died of her injuries two days later on Thursday April 20. An unnamed man (41) believed unrelated but known to the woman, has been charged with her murder. No further details are available at present....

 http://tinyurl.com/metoxfn

 We extend sincere condolences to family and friends.

 Destroyers, we know there is often speculation in the media about the circumstances of sudden death and we are currently monitoring several deaths, some of which date back over months and years. We try to be accurate in our record, and we will not publish without a high degree of certainty, but we can't know the full circumstances of each death until court cases or coronial hearings are finalised. Police inquiries must necessarily be painstaking and often agonisingly slow, and details can be withheld in order to ensure that justice is served.

 Our yearly registers date back to 2012. We can only record the deaths of which we are made aware – those which merit a mention in police reports and media, and which are confirmed as resulting from violence targeted against women. Destroyers, if you know of any facts which may add detail to our record, please send us a **personal message**. Personal messages only, please – we delete all comment and speculation from our public wall and from comment threads. We have no wish to prejudice the outcome of court proceedings.

 Women from all backgrounds are counted but we make no assumptions about a woman's culture, lifestyle or circumstances. We often do not even know a name: this may be out of respect for cultural traditions, or because of a court order. We add updated information to our 2017 Register as soon as it is received. You can access updated Notes here:

 http://tinyurl.com/mrk59pj

 *Please note:* We do not confine our count to only deaths attributed as domestic or family violence, as we believe all violent deaths targeted against women are the result of societal misogyny. Most of these cases are subject to court proceedings but we do know that in at least 75 per cent of the cases reported from 2012 to 2015, the victim knew her alleged killer. We include women killed by other women (lateral violence). Their relatively small but equally sad number confirms that most violence against women is perpetrated by men.

 -------------------------------------------------------

 If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, domestic or family violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au.

 In an emergency, call 000.

 For information about local services, download the DAISY app for iPhone and Android |||||
What is a summary?

– An Aussie TV personality has worn the same suit on-air for a full year, and not because he likes the smell. Karl Stefanovic, a presenter on Australia's morning news show Today, says he kept wearing the blue Burberry knock-off to make a point: "No one has noticed; no one gives a s--t," he says. "But women, they wear the wrong color and they get pulled up. They say the wrong thing and there's thousands of tweets written about them." And Stefanovic has seen co-host Lisa Wilkinson—with whom he's had an admittedly rocky relationship—raked over the coals because her outfit happens to offend a few fans, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. Unlike Wilkinson, "I'm judged on my interviews, my appalling sense of humor—on how I do my job, basically," Stefanovic says. He was particularly offended when the Telegraph ran old photographs of a female co-host on a rival morning show, dressed in comfortable clothes while running errands. "She's a mate and she was hurt by that," says Stefanovic, who offered her his support. "And I can understand." Hundreds of tweets (mostly favorable) reacted to Stefanovic's well-worn suit, The Age reports, with comments like "I loved this so much! Bloody double standards, well played Karl xx" and "absolutely brilliant stuff." Others, not so much: A member of a feminist Facebook page called the suit experiment "superficial," while an analyst on Jezebel saw nothing new: "As hilarious and interesting as this is, he simply proved something we all already know, the double standard women deal with on a day-to-day basis," Isha Aran writes. (Another recent viral video shows a woman getting 108 catcalls in 10 hours while walking around New York City.)


Here is a news article: A former Tesla process technician, Martin Tripp, is tweeting internal emails, photos and vehicle identification numbers that he says are evidence of flawed manufacturing practices at Tesla's battery factory, and of product sold by Tesla that is imperfect, and could put drivers' lives at risk.

 Tesla has characterized Tripp as a disgruntled ex-employee and saboteur in the past.

 Tripp, in previous interviews, said that Tesla's Gigafactory took dangerous manufacturing shortcuts, and that Elon Musk had direct knowledge of these but failed to intervene.

 The tweets were posted to Tripp's account Wednesday. However, Tripp took down his Twitter account by Thursday morning, his lawyer told CNBC.

 The lists of vehicle identification numbers, which he wrote in the tweets, refer to specific cars that received batteries containing damaged cells that never should have been installed.

 Tripp also tweeted pictures that he claims prove Tesla is storing waste or scrap in open parking lots and trucks at the Gigafactory, rather than temperature-controlled warehouses. He also shared screen shots of graphics that he says show a high volume of waste at the factory. ||||| Cristina Balan posing with the prototype of an electrochromatic windshield she designed and showed to Elon Musk in 2014. Business Insider

 In early August, a former Tesla process technician, Martin Tripp, countersued the company.

 Tripp claims that Tesla, which filed a lawsuit against him in June, falsely accused him of hacking into the company's operating system. He also alleges Tesla waged a smear campaign against him in order to silence his claims of poor part quality and waste at the company.

 For another former Tesla employee, Cristina Balan, Tripp's story feels familiar.

 Balan began working for Tesla as an engineer in 2010. In a series of interviews with Business Insider, Balan said she was pushed out of Tesla four years later.

 Balan says this happened shortly after she and her seven-member interior-design team shared concerns with their superiors about poor part quality and waste they observed on the job. Balan sued Tesla alleging discrimination, retaliation, and other issues. A multiyear arbitration ensued.

 Business Insider reviewed emails, testimonies, text messages, and other information from Balan's tangle with Tesla.

 Here's how a once celebrated Tesla engineer — who used to work on top-secret projects for Tesla's top brass and whose initials were actually carved onto the battery of the Model S — says she wound up on the wrong side of the company.

 It could be a cautionary tale for what Tripp is about to face.

 If you are a Tesla employee or customer who has a story to share about a car or experience with the company, give me a shout at llopez@businessinsider.com.

 A Saturday venting session spirals: 'I feel like a sheep in a slaughterhouse'

 In March 2014, Balan and her interiors team had brewing concerns about Tesla.

 They worried about design flaws in the cars and felt their concerns were being overlooked or mishandled by managers.

 According to internal emails and testimony from the arbitration, Balan's team had every intention of taking its issues straight to Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk.

 Musk had, after all, told employees that Tesla was not a hierarchical company. They should feel free to approach him whenever they deemed it necessary.

 Before she scheduled a meeting with Musk though, Balan reached out to one of the heads of her department, Chris Porritt, who was Tesla's vice president of vehicle engineering. Porritt asked to meet with Balan and the team about their concerns.

 Business Insider

 The team met with him on a Saturday for about two hours.

 There, they described an aggressive, high-pressure atmosphere, as well as a version of business as usual at Tesla that was full of part defects, opaque relationships with suppliers, and waste.

 The engineers said they felt frustrated because they believed their immediate bosses might have been shielding them from contacting suppliers, making it difficult for the interiors team to finish projects thoroughly and correct design flaws.

 Balan said she suspected this bottleneck was really just a way for her bosses to hide mistakes. For instance, her concern about a so-called rat hole — a gap she had found in the design of the Model S's roof headliner that separated the roof from the rest of the car — had been met with what Balan saw as clear resistance from her managers.

 Tesla, she claimed, ultimately stuffed a piece of Styrofoam in the gap of the $100,000 car to fix it. And while the DIY-sounding solution didn't present a safety issue, Balan said it created a rattling noise in some of the vehicles that customers later complained about.

 Where the "rat hole" would be, according to Balan. Business Insider At the Saturday meeting, members of the group shared instances when they felt their attempts to fix faulty Tesla car parts were thwarted by management.

 One engineer said he had wanted to fix a problem with the Model S's driver's seat floor mat since 2012. As designed, the floor mat could interfere with the brake, the engineer claimed.

 But he said that when he tried to investigate the issue with the supplier, his managers stopped him and either demanded to take over or asked him to focus on something else.

 The engineer told the group that the still unfixed floor mats were a safety issue, even as Tesla had tens of thousands of cars on the road. Porritt agreed. Porritt also lamented that the company might have to scrap $90,000 worth of defective parts.

 Tesla ignored repeated requests for comment on this exchange.

 Porritt agreed with just about everything the team said during that long Saturday meeting. He listened when the employees complained about what they said was bullying by managers. He thanked them for meeting and said that what was happening on their team was certainly not "the Tesla way." He also said the team could trust him, and he promised to help find a solution.

 Instead, in the following days, the team members were pulled into meetings with their bosses and pressured to recant their statements, according to text messages, emails, and arbitration documents seen by Business Insider.

 "I feel like a sheep in a slaughterhouse," one engineer wrote in a text to teammates.

 Another engineer who attended the meeting later testified that he felt pressured to deny his attendance at the meeting with Porritt and any complaints about the team's superiors. He said he felt that if he didn't, he might lose his job, and he claimed the rest of the team felt the same way.

 Balan's final days

 Tesla handled Balan differently from her colleagues.

 In emails dated April 2, 2014, her managers and a member of Tesla's human-resources team discussed how to deal with her going forward, and, according to emails viewed by Business Insider, they did not see much of a future for her at Tesla.

 Balan understood she had become an increasing headache to her immediate superiors she constantly clashed with, so superiors and HR discussed a plan to either coach her or determine other paths for her, according to an email.

 They decided to check in with Balan about her health rather than any work-performance issues; she had expressed concern about it to a superior months before and had health issues during her first stint at Tesla. Then they would decide the best way forward, according to their correspondence.

 "If for any reason we are unable to substantiate the health issue, we will need to then set a different plan of action," Tesla's HR wrote in the email to Balan's managers and Porritt.

 Tesla ignored repeated requests for comment on this email exchange.

 Balan ultimately left Tesla on April 16, 2014, less than a week after Tesla's counsel told her via email that she was the only person on her team who "accused" her managers "of wasteful spending and the covering up of that wasteful spending."

 "You were the only one who made the accusation to Chris," Tesla's counsel said in an email. "You were the only one who made such an accusation to HR. Thus there is no reason for me to speak to the others who complained to Chris."

 Balan said it felt as though Tesla wanted to go on as if the Saturday meeting with Porritt never happened and none of her colleagues had ever spoken up at the company.

 Electric culture shock

 In the arbitration that followed Balan's departure, Tesla claimed that Balan resigned in 2014 because she didn't get along with her bosses and couldn't get work done.

 Tesla's lawyers argued that she complained often and was concerned with only her own designs.

 A former colleague familiar with the situation who felt Balan was a "creative," capable engineer also said she was overly excitable and too intense.

 But Balan maintains a belief that her resignation was prompted by a campaign to "push" her out of Tesla after she and her team complained about quality issues with cars.

 Balan said she believes that even in the subsequent arbitration, Tesla found ways to continue to discredit and silence her.

 Balan recorded conversations with her colleagues while at Tesla, but the former San Francisco Superior Court judge who presided over the arbitration would not allow any to be used in the case.

 The arbitrator found that Tesla underpaid Balan by misclassifying her as an employee below her talent level. But he did not find that there had been any gender discrimination or that Balan was a whistleblower.

 The defects she was concerned about, like the "rat hole," were simply not a safety risk to the arbitrator, and Tesla's witnesses also denied that the defects were severe.

 Balan said she was offered to settle with Tesla "seven or eight times" and the money would have allowed her to stop working for at least a decade. But Tesla wanted Balan to sign away her right to speak about her experience, and she found that troubling, so she never agreed.

 "We are living in an era of autonomous driving and artificial intelligence," Balan told Business Insider. "We cannot afford to have engineers on that level being afraid to speak up" when they see mistakes, she added. "We cannot afford this."

 2 Teslas. Same Tripp.

 To Balan, her story is a tale of two Teslas.

 During her first stint at the company, Balan worked in the battery department. There, she said, everything was about pushing creativity and innovation and saving every penny the fledgling company could find.

 But her experience on the interiors team felt different.

 "As soon as the Model S came out the door and Elon realized how cool he'd become, everything went down the drain," she said.

 She said she felt Tesla went from a scrappy startup with high integrity to one engulfed by Silicon Valley hype.

 When a company becomes the hot company to work for and rich with funding, the type of people who flock to work there can change. Priorities sometimes change. And culture can change too.

 "The reason Tesla is what it is is because it transformed from a company of innovation to a company of sales," Balan said. "The only thing they care about is how many cars they come up with per week. It doesn't matter what the quality is."

 This opinion is perhaps why Balan saw so much of her story in Tripp, the former technician countersuing Tesla.

 Like Balan, Tripp is trying to claim whistleblower status after he pointed out perceived issues with Tesla's production process to Business Insider.

 He claims in his filing that the quality of Tesla's battery manufacturing is low — to the point of being dangerous — and that he fears batteries could overheat and go into what's known as thermal runaway. He also claims that Tesla's production process is so wasteful that it's not living up to its environmental mission.

 Also, like Balan, he claims that now the company is trying to intimidate him into silence.

 "I think they are just too full of themselves," Balan said of Tripp's situation. "They think Tesla can get away with everything. And it worked — up until now." ||||| John Moore / Getty Images

 Editors Note: Martin Tripp's Twitter account has been taken down; the images he tweeted are no longer available.

 "Are you ready," Martin Tripp tweeted on Wednesday evening, before sending out dozens of photos that he alleges came from inside Tesla.

 Tripp told Business Insider he thought the photos were central to his legal battle with the electric-car maker. A former process technician at the company's Nevada Gigafactory, Tripp claims the photos support allegations he has made about the safety and quality of Tesla's parts, specifically the batteries that power Tesla's vehicles.

 "I decided to send this info out because I have been humiliated by Tesla and Elon Musk," Tripp told Business Insider.

 Tesla sued Tripp in June, accusing him of hacking the company and transferring secret information to third parties.

 Earlier this month, Tripp filed a countersuit. He denies Tesla's claim that he's a hacker and says the company intimidated and harassed him after he was fired.

 "As we've said before, these claims are false and Mr. Tripp does not even have personal knowledge about the safety claims that he is making," Tesla said in a statement to Business Insider. "No punctured cells have ever been used in any Model 3 vehicles in any way, and all VINs that have been identified have safe batteries. Notably, there have been zero battery safety issues in any Model 3."

 If you are a Tesla employee or customer who has a story to share about a car or experience with the company, give me a shout at llopez@businessinsider.com. ||||| Photo: Getty

 Martin Tripp is currently embroiled in a nasty legal dispute over claims he’s made about his former employer, Tesla. On Wednesday evening, Tripp began tweeting out details and photos about his time at Tesla and found himself suspended faster than you can say, “Infowars was an inside job.”

 A former technician for the electric vehicle company, Tripp was fired by Tesla earlier this year and he was accused by Elon Musk of being a “saboteur.” A subsequent lawsuit filed by the company accused Tripp of hacking into “the company’s confidential and trade secret information and transferred that information to third parties,” and giving false information to media outlets. Tripp took his claims to the SEC and filed a whistleblower tip. He then filed a $1 million defamation lawsuit against Tesla. There’s a lot of bad blood between these two parties.

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 Earlier tonight, Tripp took to his personal Twitter and began posting photos that he claims help back up some of the assertions that Tesla has denied. “Are you ready,” he asked his followers and proceeded to upload photos of what he claimed to be improperly handled cooling tubes, proof of damaged battery cells being reworked and installed in cars that were sold, and graphics about a high volume of scrap waste. Tripp made many other allegations but what might be his most jaw-dropping disclosure was a listing of Teslas that he claims were sold with “punctured / dented / damaged” batteries.

 If you’re a Tesla owner, you might want to make your way here, here, here, and here to check out the VIN numbers of models that are allegedly carrying hazardous batteries.

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 But not all of Tripp’s tweets are still on his page. He told Gizmodo that he’s been slapped with a twelve-hour suspension by Twitter and some tweets were deleted. In a direct message (he can still use DMs) he told us that he believes it was because at least one photo contained “an email [address] with Elon’s name.” We can confirm that one photo did appear to show what may be Elon Musk’s email address. Tripp showed us a screenshot of the notification Twitter sent him, and it does list the reason for his temporary suspension as violating its policies against posting private information: “You may not publish or post other people’s private information without their express authorization and permission.”

 Here’s the image that contained Musk’s name beside an email address with the address redacted:

 Screenshot: Martin Tripp

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 Whatever the veracity of Tripp’s claims, you have to give him credit for just laying his case out there for all to see. We contacted Tesla for comment and a spokesperson told us:

 As we’ve said before, these claims are false and Mr. Tripp does not even have personal knowledge about the safety claims that he is making. No punctured cells have ever been used in any Model 3 vehicles in any way, and all VINs that have been identified have safe batteries. Notably, there have been zero battery safety issues in any Model 3.

 Tripp also finds himself as an example of how quickly Twitter is capable of responding to a violation of its policies while the social networks CEO is doing publicity 24/7 to explain how hard it was to suspend Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist host of Infowars who is being sued for claiming the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax and inspiring his followers to harass and dox the victims’ families. When asked for comment on this story, Twitter did not immediately reply.

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 It definitely appears that Tripp violated Twitter’s terms, and the fact that the company responded in a matter of a couple of hours sets a new gold standard for which we should all hold the company accountable. We’re more than curious to find out if its capable of evaluating violations so quickly when the personal information belongs to someone who’s not a billionaire.

 [ht Lora Kolodny/CNBC] |||||
A summary of this is?

– A former Tesla technician continues to cause headaches for CEO Elon Musk. "Are you ready?" Martin Tripp tweeted Wednesday before unleashing internal documents and photos he alleges show scrap piles, "bent" cooling tubes, and "reworked" M3 battery modules at Tesla's battery factory in Nevada, backing his claims of dangerous practices, per Business Insider. (His Twitter account was down as of Thursday morning, with Gizmodo reporting he had received a 12-hour suspension, ostensibly after tweeting Elon Musk's email address.) Before his account was suspended, Tripp also shared dozens of vehicle identification numbers of cars built with what he says are "punctured/dented/damaged" battery cells, allegedly the result of a robot that malfunctioned in February. "This is how @elonmusk and his business operates. He's taking money and fooling everyone," added Tripp, who is suing his former employer for defamation. "As we've said before, these claims are false," a Tesla rep tells CNBC. "No punctured cells have ever been used in any Model 3 vehicles in any way, and all VINs that have been identified have safe batteries." Yet Tripp isn’t the only ex-employee making such claims. Per Business Insider, former Tesla engineer Cristina Balan says she was silenced and left the company in 2014 after airing concerns about design flaws, part defects, and waste. "As soon as the Model S came out the door and Elon realized how cool he'd become, everything went down the drain," she says.


BRUNSWICK, Ohio -- A man police say is a suspect in connection with the deaths of three women in North Royalton was taken into custody early Tuesday morning after a standoff of more than eight hours.

 The 45-year-old suspect was led out of a house in Brunswick just before 5:30 a.m.

 Brunswick Police Lt. Robert Safran said police subdued the man, who was armed with a handgun, with a Taser after gaining entry to the house through the unlocked front door.

 "That was some good work by our tactical officers," Safran said.

 The standoff at the home in the 3300 block of Valley Forge Drive began at about 9 p.m. after officers became aware that the man was at the home. The owner of the home, a female, was able to walk out unharmed.

 The suspect refused to leave the home for more than eight hours, and officers could be heard talking to him through a loudspeaker beginning at about 2:30 a.m.

 Residents on the street were told by police to remain in their homes during the standoff. A section of Valley Forge was blocked off as the standoff continued.

 Police say the suspect is wanted for questioning in the deaths of Suzanne Taylor, 45, and her daughters Taylor Pifer, 21, and Kylie Pifer, 18, who were found dead Sunday evening at their North Royalton home.

 To comment on this story, go to the cleveland.com comments section. ||||| A mother and her two adults daughters were found dead Sunday night in their North Royalton, Ohio, home in what police are calling a targeted attack, PEOPLE confirms.

 The body of 45-year-old Suzanne Taylor was found in her bed beside the bodies of her daughters, 21-year-old Taylor Pifer and Kylie Pifer, 18, on Sunday night, North Royalton police tell PEOPLE.

 Get push notifications with news, features and more.

 The three bodies were under covers, almost as though they’d been tucked into bed, detective Dave Loeding tells PEOPLE.

 Investigators believe the killings were specific — not random — but they do not have a suspect and they have not made an arrest, Loeding says, describing the case as “tragic.”

 Police received a 911 call from Taylor’s boyfriend on Sunday night, Loeding says, claiming one of the girl’s boyfriends called him after finding their bodies.

 Upon arrival, investigators noticed there appeared to be no signs of forced entry, Loeding says. Police suspect the daughters were killed elsewhere in the home before their bodies were moved to their mother’s bed.

 • Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

 Suzanne Taylor (center) with her daughters, Kylie (left) and Taylor (right) Facebook

 According to Loeding, Taylor appeared to have died after sustaining a knife wound while her daughters’ causes of death remain unknown. They did not appear to have “obvious signs of death,” but police believe both daughters were homicide victims.

 Forensic evidence collected from the scene is currently being investigated, Loeding says. Autopsies are also being conducted.

 “[We] feel confident that all the things we’re doing are going to turn into a positive outcome,” he says.

 On Monday, the girl’s stepmother told local TV station WJW that the family was blindsided. “They were great kids,” she said. “Taylor and Kylie were great students. Taylor was majoring in fashion design, while Kylie was involved in theater and was majoring in forensic science.” ||||| Police say a woman and her two daughters were found dead in a North Royalton home Sunday night.

 According to North Royalton police, a family friend found the mother and her daughters dead in the bedroom of a home located in the 11400 block of Ridge Road around 8 p.m. Sunday.

 Police identified the women as Suzanne Taylor, 45, and her two daughters, Taylor and Kylie.

 Their bodies were found by Taylor's boyfriend, Dale Koster, according to a 911 call. Kostar called and told the mother's boyfriend, Scott Plymale, who then called 911.

 "He (Kostar) said they didn't open the door, he picked the lock and went in and he said the bedroom door is closed and opened the bedroom door and he said there's a body in here," said Plymale.

 #Update Officers confirm with me these are the daughters found dead in North Royalton home, mom also found dead in home @cleveland19news pic.twitter.com/WyK81N8nf8 — Alyson Bruner (@AlysonBruner) June 12, 2017

 Sonya Pifer, a woman who claims to be the stepmother of the younger victims, told Cleveland 19 that Taylor, 21, attends Kent State University and Kylie, 18, attends Bowling Green. According to the stepmother, Taylor and Kylie's father has been estranged from the girls since they became adults.

 Police said one of the victims was stabbed to death. The cause of the other women's death is still under investigation.

 "A knife was used in one death. I cannot tell you on the others because there's not a visible sign of how death occurred," said North Royalton Det. Dave Loeding.

 A motive for the murders remains unclear.

 Crime scene unit loading truck. No arrests made or motive at this time. 3 found dead in home onRidge Road @NorthRoyaltonPD @cleveland19news pic.twitter.com/mECM6Tl2aP — Alyson Bruner (@AlysonBruner) June 12, 2017

 There have been no arrests made in connection to the deaths, but police say there are "persons of interest."

 "Let police work take its course. I know people need answers. I'd like to give you answers. There's a lot of pathology and a lot of evidence that needs lab," said Det. Loeding.

 Police and officials from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation are still investigating the incident. Detectives remained on the scene overnight and into Monday morning.

 Download the Cleveland 19 News app and First Alert Weather app.

 Copyright 2017 WOIO. All rights reserved. |||||

Write a summary.

– A suspect in custody in Brunswick, Ohio, is believed to be linked to the disturbing murders of a woman and her two adult children over the weekend. Police tell People that 45-year-old Suzanne Taylor and daughters Taylor Pifer, 21, and Kylie Pifer, who would have been 19 on Sunday, were discovered dead under covers in a bed, as if they had been tucked in. Police say at least one of the victims was stabbed. The mother's boyfriend, Scott Plymale, is believed to have called 911 Sunday evening after Taylor Pifer's boyfriend, Dale Koster, found the bodies in the North Royalton home and called him, Cleveland.com reports. A suspect identified by Cleveland 19 News as George Brinkman was taken into custody early Tuesday after an all-night standoff. The 45-year-old was led from a home in handcuffs around 5:30am, Cleveland.com reports. The homeowner, a woman, was able to get out unharmed, but Brinkman refused to leave for at least eight hours. Police could be heard negotiating through a loudspeaker with Brinkman, who was apparently drinking whisky during the standoff. Police say he was armed with a handgun, but officers were able to take him down with a Taser after entering the home through the front door.


Here is a news article: Six hundred miles away from Wichita, a Houston man playing video games in an online group apparently heard the gunshots that killed a Wichita man and his mother this past weekend.

 This is his story:

 It was a Saturday night video game with three to four players engaging online up to thousands of miles apart, with one in Canada. They could hear, but not see, one another.

 One of the players dipping in and out of the gaming that night was Cody Ha, a 23-year-old Wichita man, who lived with his mother, 62-year-old Huong Pham. Another player was Ashley Martinez of Houston, Texas. The players are friends.

 Never miss a local story. Sign up today for a free 30 day free trial of unlimited digital access. SUBSCRIBE NOW

 It was around 10 when Martinez said he and the others heard popping noises, so loud it hurt his ears under the headphones. The players started asking one another whether they were gunshots. They heard at least two shots from what sounded like a handgun.

 They thought they might be overreacting, “because you don’t expect to hear that,” Martinez said.

 The players called Ha’s number. The could hear it ringing and ringing.

 SHARE COPY LINK Wichita police identified Huong Pham, 62, and Cody Ha, 23 who were found dead late Saturday on the 7500 block of East Huntington. McClatchy

 Martinez said he could hear Ha’s sister finding the bodies. “She was panicking. … she was on the phone. She said she didn’t want to touch them. She said she didn’t feel safe.”

 Early the next morning, Martinez said, he and a friend had a online chat with a Wichita police detective so they could share what they heard. “We told him exactly what we heard on our end.” The detective said he would let them know if investigators needed anything else.

 A second person who frequently played video games with Ha said that sometimes Ha’s playing was interrupted by someone at the front door.

 Tommy Ong, a longtime friend of Ha’s, said Ha told him during the games that people traveled to the house on Huntington to buy prescription drugs.

 Police said that Ha’s sister returned home late Saturday night, and found her brother and mother covered in blood and unconscious. Police have not disclosed a possible motive and are seeking tips to help solve the crimes.

 Neighbors who live near the house where Pham and her son were slain said they noticed different cars frequently arriving and leaving from the house. “There was definitely more traffic there than anywhere else in the neighborhood,” one neighbor said. The neighbors asked not to be identified, citing safety concerns.

 The house is on the south edge of the Rockwood neighborhood, a tightknit neighborhood north of Towne East mall that is known for its oak-lined streets, private swim club and neatly kept mid-century homes.

 Ha – the 23-year-old son – is listed in property records as the owner of the home, in the 7500 block of East Huntington. The house is appraised at $233,500. The son, the daughter and their mother have lived at the address for at least 10 years, court records show.

 Ha worked days at his mother’s dry cleaning business and played video games through the night, said Ong, Ha’s longtime friend.

 The two young men joined in video games through an online group. The men played from different locations, but through the audio, Ong sometimes heard the doorbell ring at Ha’s house.

 Ha would stop playing long enough to go to the front door. “Just give me a few minutes,” Ha would say, according to Ong.

 Ha would say it was someone wanting to buy prescription meds or tablets, Ong said. It happened as recently as last week. Ha said his mother gave him a share of the proceeds, Ong said.

 Ong said that he and Ha had been friends since they were children. Ha went to Southeast High School and worked in the family business, which has multiple dry-cleaning stores, Ong said. Ha mainly worked at the store on Harry near Hillside, Ong said.

 Ong described Ha as easy-going. “Never seen the guy get mad.”

 But Ha’s mother, Pham, has had conflicts with other people, according to Sedgwick County District Court records. It’s not clear whether those conflicts, described in court documents, had anything to do with her and her son’s deaths.

 In February 2014, Pham received a temporary protection-from-stalking order when she alleged that another woman threatened her “after I talked about the money owed my family” and that the woman “hired somebody to cause me harm for $2,000.” Around the same time, someone broke windows in the family’s stores and slashed tires on her son’s car, Pham wrote in a petition.

 A couple weeks before Pham sought her protective order, the woman Pham had accused alleged in a separate stalking petition that two men said “Huong Pham sent them … looking for me & and my husband. … I tried to contact Huong Pham to tell her I didn’t owe money.”

 Both women’s petitions were dismissed within a couple months after no more violations were alleged, court records show.

 In 2009, Pham was accused of stalking a woman, but a judge found insufficient evidence. In 2008, Pham had accused the same woman of stalking her. ||||| Wichita police have identified a mother and son found dead in their home. Their bodies were found late Saturday night in east Wichita.

 Officers were called around 11 p.m. to a home in the 7500 block of East Huntington – near Douglas and Rock. A woman says she came home from work and found her mother, 62, and her brother, 23, dead. They had been shot.

 Police on Monday identified the victims as Houng Pham, 62, and Cody Ha, 23. Both lived at the home.

 Those who knew the victims said they are in shock over their deaths.

 He's (Cody) always been one of the nicest, inclusive, down to earth persons I've ever met," said Cody's friend Tommy Ong. "If I knew a person that would never get upset, It'd have to be him, because he'd always keep a cool temper."

 Police said someone went to the victims' home on Saturday night and shot them. Ha's friends were on a group call with him when they heard the commotion.

 "We just talk to each other late at night just to catch up with each other. We all share like similar interests. It so happened that Cody was just doing something. He answered the door and that's when it happened."

 While police search for clues, friends hope for answers.

 "I'm hoping that his father and his sister especially...may they recover from this. May they be able to move on."

 Anyone with information is asked to call Wichita police or Crime Stoppers at (316) 267-2111.

 Pham's and Ha's deaths were Wichita's 29th and 30th homicides of the year. The city's 31st and 32nd occurred the following day. Read more on those stories via the links below.

 Wichita man arrested for alleged murder of girlfriend

 Pizza delivery driver found dead in car trunk in east Wichita |||||
A summary of this is?

– Cody Ha may have been 600 miles from his friend in Texas, but the 23-year-old Kansas man sounded as though he were in the same room via the microphones and headphones the pair used to communicate while playing video games online with others Saturday. Then, around 10pm, Ashley Martinez of Houston heard at least two loud popping noises that hurt his ears, reports the Wichita Eagle. Ha didn't speak again, and when players called his phone, they heard only the unanswered ring through his microphone, Martinez says. An hour later, they heard something else: Ha's sister arriving at the Wichita home to find her brother and 62-year-old mother, Huong Pham, covered in blood, dead of gunshot wounds, per KAKE. "She was panicking," Martinez recalls. "She said she didn't feel safe." Another friend tells the Eagle that people often visited the family's home to buy what Ha described as prescription drugs. He suggests Pham sold the drugs and gave Ha a cut of the proceeds. Court records show that Pham had prior conflicts with others: In 2014, a woman accused Pham of sending two men "looking for me and my husband" over a money dispute. Pham later said the woman "hired somebody to cause me harm for $2,000 … after I talked about the money owed my family." Pham said someone broke windows of a family business and slashed the tires of her son's car around the same time. Police, who've named no suspects, are investigating whether the Saturday shooting death of a Pizza Hut delivery driver three blocks from Ha and Pham's home is related, per the Washington Post.


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A $1 million lawsuit filed by a Dallas pet-sitting company against a Plano couple who wrote a one-star review has been dismissed.

 Prestigious Pets and its owner filed the lawsuit against Michelle and Robert Duchouquette, accusing them of defamation, business disparagement and a breach of contract after the couple posted the negative review on Yelp.

 Thompson & Knight, the law firm representing the Duchouquettes, said in a prepared statement that a Dallas County district court granted the couple's motion to dismiss the case Friday.

 The Duchouquettes argued the case should be dismissed based on the Texas Anti-SLAPP statute, meant to allow judges to dismiss frivolous suits filed against people who speak out about a matter of public concern.

 Prestigious Pets sought between $200,000 and $1 million in damages, up from an initial $6,700, which Bill Richmond, the attorney for the company, said was made to reflect a loss in business.

 Richmond said Prestigious Pets is reviewing its options and may consider appealing the decision.

 "The pets and this business mean everything to the company and its owner," he said in a statement. "They remain confident that Texas law supports enforcing their contract, including the non-disparagement clause, particularly given the proof presented that Prestigious Pets never agreed to care for the fish, was not paid or hired to care for the fish, and the fish was never harmed."

 He said the company tried to resolve the issues before taking legal steps, but "it is unfortunate that those efforts were ignored in favor of the Defendants' ongoing media campaign."

 The Duchouquettes hired Prestigious Pets in October 2015 to watch their two dogs and betta fish, Gordy, while they were on vacation, according to court documents.

 In the Yelp review, the Duchouquettes said their betta fish's tank looked murky in a video feed, the billing was messed up and the company tried to charge to return the keys to the family.

 "The one star is for potentially harming my fish, otherwise it would have been 2 stars," the review stated.

 The family said in the review that the care for their dogs "was fine."

 Prestigious Pets said the Duchouquettes violated a nondisparagement clause in their contract by posting the review, and that their statements were false and defamatory.

 In the complaint, Prestigious Pets and its owner Kalle McWhorter said the family did not initially tell the company it had a fish and that the sitter agreed to feed the betta for free after the Duchouquettes "demanded" it. The sitter did not agree to clean the fish bowl or change the water and was told to feed it less, according to court documents.

 Documents provided by Richmond, the company's attorney, show only two pets on the contract -- dogs Bogey and Barley.

 The complaint also said McWhorter and her husband "have had to deal with numerous rape and death threats" and other forms of harassment.

 The Duchouquettes' review is still up on the page, which has an average of 4.5 stars, but the Yelp page for the company now features a consumer alert reminding reviewers that they have a First Amendment right to express their opinions.

 The business "may be trying to abuse the legal system in an effort to stifle free speech, including issuing questionable legal threats against reviewers," the alert states.

 On Twitter:

 @clairezcardona ||||| The six-month saga of the Texas petsitter who sued a customer for up to $1 million in damages over a negative Yelp review appears to have come to an end, with a judge agreeing to dismiss the case that made national headlines.

 Just to backtrack, in case you’ve somehow had more important things to read about than petsitter-related litigation in the Lone Star State.

 A couple in Plano, TX, hired a local petsitting company to look after their dogs and fish while they were on vacation. The customers weren’t terribly thrilled about the quality of service they received and shared their feedback publicly on Yelp in Oct. 2015.

 The petsitting company not only responded to that write-up, but followed it with a cease-and-desist notice directing the customers to remove their review. When they did not take their Yelp post down, the petsitter filed a lawsuit in justice of the peace court for around $6,700, accusing the couple of violating a non-disparagement clause in the petsitter’s customer agreement.

 Non-disparagement clauses are questionably legal conditions inserted into contracts and agreements that try to prohibit consumers from freely expressing their opinion on a transaction. California recently outlawed such clauses and a bipartisan bill that would make them illegal nationwide is waiting for Congress to return for a vote.

 After the initial lawsuit made national headlines, the petsitter dropped that complaint and re-filed their case in a state district court, expanding on the allegations to include defamation and upping the damage request to as much as $1 million.

 By this point, the case had attracted the attention of advocates for consumers and free expression. Attorney Paul Alan Levy from Public Citizen took on the task of asking the court to dismiss the case, arguing that the petsitter’s complaint is a frivolous SLAPP. That’s a “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation”; in other words, a lawsuit filed in the hopes of getting the defendant to shut up.

 The Texas Citizens Participation Act is an example of a so-called “anti-SLAPP” statute, allowing the defendants in cases involving issues of speech to seek a dismissal if the plaintiff can’t “establish by clear and specific evidence a prima facie case for each essential element of the claim in question.”

 READ MORE ABOUT SLAPPs & ANTI-SLAPP STATUTES

 The judge heard from all parties involved in this mess in late July and today issued an order [PDF] dismissing the petsitter’s lawsuit.

 In accordance with the Texas anti-SLAPP law, the defendants are also now entitled to recover court costs and reasonable and necessary attorney fees from the petsitter.

 Levy says that by “seeking to silence negative criticism,” the petsitters may have ended up risking the future of their entire company.

 “Not only did the company lose business when customers were disgusted over the non-disparagement lawsuit, it now is responsible to pay attorney fees and sanctions,” he explains.

 In a statement, the couple expressed their relief and gratitude regarding today’s ruling.

 “We should all have the opportunity to express our opinions without the fear of a lawsuit,” reads the statement. “We are so grateful for the attorneys who have supported us through the case. It took lots of hours and many smart minds spending too much time talking about Gordy the betta fish. Thank goodness they did not lose sight of the real issue: the threats posed by non-disparagement clauses to our right to free speech.”

 In response to the petsitter story and other dubious lawsuits filed against Yelp users, the reviews site recently began publicly flagging certain companies that were believed to be making “questionable legal threats” over online reviews.

 “Consumers don’t necessarily know that these threats are sometimes empty or meritless (and often both!), so the threat of legal action is enough to scare them into silence,” wrote Yelp Sr. VP Vince Sollitto earlier this summer. “We don’t think that’s right.” ||||| Public Citizen | Litigation Cases ***Search other cases***

 Prestigious Pets LLC v Michelle and Robert Duchouquette (Dallas County Court at Law and District Court) Topic(s): Internet Free Speech - Miscellaneous

 Documents: Order of Dismissal (08/30/2016)

 Reply Brief (07/26/2016)

 Motion to Dismiss (06/02/2016) Related Press Releases: 08/30/2016

 06/02/2016 Description: A Dallas pet-sitting company brought a small claims proceeding against a couple in Plano, Texas, after one of them posted a somewhat critical review of the company’s policies on Yelp, alleging both that the review was defamatory and that the posting violated the non-disparagement clause in the standard contract that the poster’s husband had signed. After the lawsuit received broad coverage in the media, and the couple filed an anti-SLAPP motion, the company dismissed its small-claims proceeding and sued in state district court alleging that the broader attention that had been brought to the controversy had hurt the company’s business, warranting an award of up to a million dollars in damages as well as an award or attorney fees. Public Citizen then entered the case on behalf of the reviewer and her husband, filing both an appeal from the implicit denial of the anti-SLAPP motion in small-claims court, and a new anti-SLAPP motion in the Texas district court. The trial court dismissed both the libel claim and the non-disparagement clause claim with prejudice, and held that the Duchouquettes would be awarded their reasonable attorney fees as well as sanctions to deter future such lawsuits.

  |||||Summary:

– A petsitting company's attempt to sue for $1 million over a one-star Yelp review got zero stars from a Dallas County district court, which firmly rejected the lawsuit. The court also decided that Michelle and Robert Duchouquette, the couple being sued by Prestigious Pets, "would be awarded their reasonable attorney fees as well as sanctions to deter future such lawsuits," according to Public Citizen. The Duchouquettes posted the bad review after hiring the company to look after their two dogs and betta fish during a trip to Texas, and returning to find that the betta fish had apparently been overfed. The company initially sued for nearly $7,000, but later filed a suit for the higher amount, claiming the couple had violated a non-disparagement clause in their agreement. The Duchouquettes filed an anti-SLAPP—Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation—motion, which allowed the court to strike down what it viewed as a frivolous lawsuit aimed at quashing the couple's right to free speech, the Dallas Morning News reports. "We are so grateful for the attorneys who have supported us through the case," the couple said in a statement, per Consumerist. "It took lots of hours and many smart minds spending too much time talking about Gordy the betta fish. Thank goodness they did not lose sight of the real issue: the threats posed by non-disparagement clauses to our right to free speech." (This woman was sued after posting a bad review about a law firm.)


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– Paul Ryan looks to be backing off his controversial plan to scrap Medicare entirely—the one Newt Gingrich famously derided as "right-wing social engineering," reports the Hill. Instead, the GOP congressman and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden will unveil a new strategy tomorrow that would allow the program to remain but force it to compete against private plans. Seniors would have the choice of which route to take. But even if it manages to get through, the proposal would not take effect until 2022 or affect any seniors currently in the program, notes the Wall Street Journal. “We want to demonstrate that there is an emerging consensus developing on how to preserve Medicare," Ryan tells the Washington Post. "This program’s got to be reformed to be saved. The country's at stake." The shift will complicate Democratic plans to go after Republicans as Medicare-killers in the upcoming election, notes the Hill.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan is set to unveil a new approach that would preserve the 46-year-old federal health program in its current form. (Joshua Roberts/BLOOMBERG)

 House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, who has been castigated by Democrats and hailed by Republicans for his plan to privatize Medicare, will on Thursday unveil a new approach that would preserve the 46-year-old federal health program.

 Working with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the Wisconsin Republican is developing a framework that would offer traditional, government-run Medicare as an option for future retirees along with a variety of private plans.

 Seniors would still receive a set amount of money from the government to buy insurance, as they would under the Medicare proposal Ryan included in the budget blueprint that passed the House last year. But the new approach would let that subsidy, known as premium support, rise or fall along with the actual cost of the policies — creating more protection for seniors and saving potentially far less in the budget.

 Wyden is the first elected Democrat to publicly endorse Ryan’s premium support plan, and their unusual alliance could complicate election-year politics for both parties on an explosive issue. In recent days, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has embraced the Ryan privatization plan, and GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich has offered qualified support. Democrats, meanwhile, have been gearing up to challenge the GOP across the board on the issue, accusing Republicans of pushing to “end the Medicare guarantee.”

 Ryan and Wyden said in an interview Tuesday that they joined forces in hopes of lifting the Medicare debate above the divisive political rhetoric and forging a genuine compromise that could save the program along with the government’s solvency. Since unveiling his premium support plan last spring, Ryan has been working with Democrats to modify the idea to build bipartisan support.

 “We want to demonstrate that there is an emerging consensus developing on how to preserve Medicare. We want to move that consensus forward,” Ryan said. “This program’s got to be reformed to be saved. The country’s at stake.”

 Wyden said that adding traditional Medicare to Ryan’s premium support plan combines the best ideas of both parties, creating “the opportunity for progressives and conservatives to come together and address the real challenges” of the federal entitlement program: rising health costs and an aging population.

 “There’s a lot to work with here in terms of trying to find common ground,” Wyden said. “This doesn’t end Medicare as we know it. People can go to bed knowing that traditional Medicare will be there for them for all time.”

 The pair said they would not draft legislation. With Congress at an impasse over more immediate deadline matters, such as the extension of a temporary payroll tax cut, Ryan said he does not expect action on major issues such as Medicare until a new Congress is seated in 2013.

 “There’s no point in drafting legislation if you know it’s not going to pass,” Ryan said.

 Ryan and Wyden, a longtime advocate for seniors, plan to release their proposal at a breakfast Thursday morning hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, one of many players in the year-long debate over the national debt. The center formed its own debt-reduction committee, chaired by former senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and former Clinton budget director Alice Rivlin, who has also worked with Ryan on his premium support approach to Medicare.

 The avenue Ryan and Wyden have chosen, which would take effect for new retirees beginning in 2022, closely parallels that advocated by Rivlin. It would not only preserve Medicare but would add catastrophic coverage with a cap on out-of-pocket costs.

 And where Ryan’s initial plan would have tied the amount of the government subsidy to inflation — regardless of the cost of the policies — he and Wyden adopted Rivlin’s recommendation to let the subsidies grow slightly faster than the overall economy. That’s the same standard for Medicare spending set last year by President Obama’s health legislation.

 Ryan and Wyden acknowledged that their plan might not bring in more savings than under the current law. But they said that by forcing private insurers to bid to provide Medicare coverage and encouraging beneficiaries to choose the plan with the lowest costs, the measure could drive costs down lower than the price controls that the current law would impose on the private sector. If costs continued to rise nonetheless, beneficiaries would not have to bear the burden, the lawmakers said; Congress would be required to take further action.

 In a paper to be presented Thursday, the lawmakers stressed their commitment to providing government health coverage for people older than 65 — a stark contrast to the views of some in the GOP presidential field who have questioned the constitutionality of the federal entitlement.

 “As representatives of hard-working Americans in Oregon and Southern Wisconsin, we realize our absolute responsibility to preserve the Medicare guarantee of affordable, accessible health care for every one of the nation’s seniors for decades to come,” the lawmakers wrote. “We are two Members of Congress who firmly believe in the iron-clad guarantee of the Medicare program, and this belief has informed our understanding of the unacceptable risk to our seniors’ health and retirement security if we do not come together as a country and take action to save and strengthen Medicare,” they said.

 The plan also makes no mention of the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature health-care legislation, which Ryan and other Republicans have vowed to repeal.

 “We’re basically saying we’re not going to debate the ACA,” Wyden said. “That will drive everybody off into their corners.” ||||| Paul Ryan moves away from controversial Medicare reform plan

 By Sam Baker -

 Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is moving away from his controversial plan to end traditional Medicare, putting forward a new proposal with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) that would keep the federally funded program in place.

 The plan, which Ryan and Wyden plan to unveil Thursday morning, would give Medicare beneficiaries a choice between today's Medicare and private health plans.

 Ryan’s first Medicare plan would have converted the entire program into subsidies for seniors to buy private insurance.

 That proposal became a political lightning rod after it was released. Democrats argued that Republicans wanted to end Medicare and said they would use the issue as a weapon against the GOP in the 2012 elections.

 All of the Republican candidates running for the White House have had to stake out positions on Ryan's plan. Newt Gingrich, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, had to apologize to Ryan after calling his budget "right-wing social engineering."

 The new approach from Ryan and Wyden has been championed by former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Alice Rivlin, who led the White House budget office under President Clinton.

 Although the change is a significant departure from Ryan’s earlier proposal, Wyden’s involvement could also muddy Democrats’ campaign message of preserving Medicare against the threat of privatization.

 “We want to demonstrate that there is an emerging consensus developing on how to preserve Medicare. We want to move that consensus forward,” Ryan told the Washington Post.

 Ryan and Wyden are scheduled to release their proposal Thursday morning at an event hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

 —This post has been updated.

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 Republican Rep. Paul Ryan unveiled a new Medicare proposal Thursday that would give future seniors the choice of purchasing private insurance coverage or staying in the traditional federal plan.

 The concept, which is backed by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, steps back from the House budget chairman's previous plan to end the traditional fee-for-service Medicare program for future retirees and replace it with subsidies starting at $8,000 that seniors would use to purchase private health plans.

 That subsidy wasn't guaranteed to keep pace with the rate of ... |||||