– It seems the Dalai Lama has indirectly led to the disappointment of Chinese concertgoers once again. One week before Bon Jovi was to play a three-city tour of China—the band's first-ever shows in the country—two of the shows were mysteriously canceled, the Washington Post reports. This despite Jon Bon Jovi having already recorded a love song in Mandarin for the occasion. Concert promoter AEG Live Asia cited "unforeseen circumstances," but reports are putting the blame on China's Ministry of Culture, which pulled Bon Jovi's permits after seeing a video of the band performing in front of images of the Dalai Lama in 2010 or 2011, reports the Financial Times. However, a 2009 Bon Jovi music video featuring images from the Tiananmen Square protest could also have been problematic, per the Post. Concert organizers are trying to get the decision reversed, but that's unlikely, notes the Times. "No words I've learned could express how crushed I am," one disappointed Chinese Bon Jovi fan posted on social media, per the Post. Chinese Maroon 5 fans know the feeling: Adam Levine and Co. also lost their permits this summer, with a band member's tweet about attending the Dalai Lama's birthday party in California the likely culprit. Taylor Swift likewise ran into trouble for planning to sell merch featuring her initials and 1989 album title; Tiananmen Square took place in 1989, notes the Post.

Expand this summary.

Jon Bon Jovi performing in front of an image of the Dalai Lama in 2011 (YouTube Screenshot)

 This post has been updated.

 Later this month, the American rock band Bon Jovi was due to play its first shows in mainland China, with concerts planned in Beijing, Shanghai, and Macau. The band's namesake singer, Jon Bon Jovi, celebrated the news by recording a famous Chinese love song in Mandarin, a move that endeared him greatly to fans.

 However, just a week before the first concert, promoter AEG Live Asia has announced that the dates in Beijing and Shanghai have been cancelled. The problem? According to a number of sources, the band's performance permits have been pulled. Bon Jovi appears to be the latest American act to run afoul with China's notoriously opaque Ministry of Culture, the body that approves or denies performances and releases by musicians and others.

 One source who works in the Chinese music industry says that the permit problem appears to have stemmed from a 2009 music video that featured imagery from the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

 The same source suggested that a video of a 2011 video that showed Bon Jovi performing in front of images of the Dalai Lama, along with other important figures, may also have caught the Ministry of Culture's attention.

 Bon Jovi's management was unable to provide comment at the time of writing. In a statement, promoter AEG Live Asia, announced that the shows had been cancelled "due to unforeseen reasons" and that there would be a full refund to anyone who bought tickets. "We would like to apologize for the inconvenience and disappointment that this will cause," the statement says.

 The news follows a summer of trouble for Western acts in China. In July, the Los Angeles-based band Maroon 5 canceled shows planned in Beijing and Shanghai in September. There was no official reason given for the change in Maroon 5's plans, but many speculated that permits had been pulled after Jesse Carmichael, the band's keyboard player, attended the Dalai Lama's birthday party in California and tweeted about it. China regards the Tibetan spiritual leader as a separatist due to his calls for autonomy for the Himalayan region.

 Less than a month later, American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift faced scrutiny after planning to sell merchandise featuring her initials and the name of her album,"1989," direct to fans in China. There was no political message intended by Swift's merchandize, but in China the events might be seen as reference to the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests of 1989, where hundreds if not thousands of civilians were killed when the Chinese army moved in to clear the square.

 Western performers in China have sparked political controversies before: In 2008, Icelandic singer Bjork was criticized by the Ministry of Culture after she chanted pro-Tibet slogans at a concert in Shanghai. A number of musical acts, including American singer Bob Dylan and British band Oasis, subsequently had to cancel tours due to their perceived political leanings.

 However, those involved in organizing the events say there seems to have been an unusually high number of events canceled at the last minute this year. “This put the fear into all of us,” Archie Hamilton, a festival promoter in Beijing, told the Associated Press in May. “Everyone’s afraid of getting it wrong and losing a lot of money."

 For some Chinese music fans, the news that yet another act had cancelled their shows hit hard. "I booked flight tickets from Shenzhen to Shanghai in June [when tickets went on sale]," a fan complained on Weibo. "No words I've learned could express how crushed I am." Others complained, perhaps sarcastically, that it was the Dalai Lama's fault.

 "Better go abroad if you want to go to concerts," one exasperated fan wrote. "Too risky in China."

 Xu Yangjingjing contributed to this report.

 More on WorldViews

 Taylor Swift’s next feud might be with the Chinese government

 How Justin Bieber inadvertently stepped into one of the world’s greatest geopolitical controversies ||||| Ageing rock band Bon Jovi has had the plug pulled on its first concerts in China after officials learnt that a picture of the Dalai Lama had featured in a video backdrop in a concert five years ago.

 The abrupt cancellation of two concerts next week in Shanghai and Beijing — with tickets ranging from Rmb480 to Rmb3,880 ($75 to $600) — makes the enduring American rockers the latest musicians to fall foul of Chinese sensitivities.

 The illustrious list includes Icelandic singer Björk and Maroon 5, which had its Shanghai concert cancelled earlier this year. That followed a band member’s tweet about meeting the Tibetan spiritual leader. Twitter is also banned in China.

 The Communist party’s Culture Ministry acted after discovering that Bon Jovi once included a picture of the Dalai Lama in a video backdrop during a concert in Taiwan in 2010, according to people familiar with the matter.

 China’s leaders revile the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader as a “splittist” and a “wolf in monk’s robes”, and accuse him of advocating Tibetan independence from his base in neighbouring India.

 The Chinese government regularly bans artists, academics and political leaders from going to China if they are seen as supportive of the Dalai Lama or the Tibetan independence movement.

 Sino-British relations were put into the diplomatic deep freeze for more than a year after British Prime Minister David Cameron met the Dalai Lama in 2012.

 On Tuesday concert organisers were desperately trying to convince officials to relent on the Bon Jovi concerts but the chances of Beijing overturning the cancellation order are slim, according to people familiar with the matter.

 A representative from AEG, the promoter of the Bon Jovi concerts in China, said it was unable to comment on the cancellation order as it was waiting for more information.

 In an interview with Chinese state media before the Culture Ministry cancellation order, frontman Jon Bon Jovi described the band’s music as being about “individual freedom and expression”. The band’s upcoming album is called Burning Bridges.

 Tibet’s Panchen Lama ‘living normal life’, says China Beijing insists revered Buddhist figure detained aged 6 in 1995 ‘does not wish to disturbed’ Read more

 The issue of Tibet is especially sensitive now as the ruling Communist party holds celebrations, amid extremely tight security, to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region, which came under direct Chinese control in the early 1950s.

 As part of the celebrations, a top Chinese official vowed on Monday to “crack down on separatist forces” in Tibet and “fight a protracted battle” against the “Dalai clique”.

 Björk has been banned from China for life after she chanted “Tibet, Tibet” during her song “Declare Independence” in a concert in Shanghai in 2008.

 Other celebrities who are not welcome in China because of their real or perceived sympathy towards Tibet and the Dalai Lama include Richard Gere, Sharon Stone and Brad Pitt.

 It was unclear whether concertgoers would receive refunds if the concerts do not go ahead. |||||


Summarize this article:

A pregnant woman was held at gunpoint on her way to the hospital after she and her husband refused to pull over their speeding car Tuesday in Fort Dodge, Iowa.

 Rachel and Ben Kohnen sped to the hospital at about 4 a.m. Tuesday morning as Rachel Kohnen was in labor. They drove at 85 mph in a 55 mph zone, police said.

 The Kohnens did not stop the car after an officer pursued them, Manson Police Chief Tom Ritts told the Daily News. The officer called for backup, and police laid tire spikes on the road to stop them.

 Ben Kohnen told NBC13 the spikes blew out all four tires and forced them to come to a halt. The couple was ordered to the ground and held at gunpoint until officers realized what all the rush was about.

 Rachel Kohnen gave birth to the couple’s fourth child, a nearly-10-pound baby named Hazel, about an hour after police escorted her to the hospital.

 Rachel Kohnen holds her newborn baby, Hazel, after police pulled her over on the way to the hospital. (WHO-DT) Hazel Kohnen was born about an hour after the incident. (WHO-DT) Rachel Kohnen, left, and Ben Kohnen, right, spend time with their newborn child, center. (WHO-DT) Ben Kohnen spoke to NBC13 about his experience with police. (WHO-DT) Rachel and Ben Kohnen were driving along Highway 7 to get to the hospital on time. (WHO-DT) Police rushed Rachel Kohnen to a nearby hospital once they realized she was in labor. (WHO-DT)

 Rachel Kohnen said they could not stop the car because the baby was on its way quickly.

 "I think I was screaming, 'Oh, dear God, we can't have the baby in the car," the mother told NBC13.

 The couple tried to call 911 to alert them, but the dispatcher could not understand them, Ritts said.

 "She was in so much pain," he said. "They couldn't make heads or tails out of what she was saying."

 The police chief said the officer did not know why the car would not stop and followed typical protocol for a high speed chase.

 "Normally when you get somebody clocked like that and they fail to pull over, the first thought in my mind is we've got somebody drunk or on drugs," Ritts said.

 No charges have been filed against the couple at this time, Ritts said.

 On a mobile device? Click here to watch video. ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video

 FORT DODGE, Iowa-- Police started to pursue a speeding SUV on Highway 7 near the town of Manson in Calhoun County, but the car's occupants had a good reason for going over the speed limit.

 Ben and Rachel Kohnen were heading to the hospital in Fort Dodge at about 4:00 a.m. Tuesday morning. He admits that he was going about 30 miles over the speed limit when they passed the officer.

 "He starts following me and he turns on his lights an my wife says we can't pull over. The baby is coming now," said the driver, Ben Kohnen of Pomeroy.

 "I did tell him not to stop," said Rachel Kohnen.

 At the time, she was in labor with their fourth child and didn't think they would make it to the hospital in time.

 "I think I was screaming, ' Oh dear God, we can't have the baby in the car,'" said the mother of four.

 The couple says they tried to call 911, but the dispatcher probably couldn't understand Rachel in between her contractions.

 "I know I was crazy lady screaming it into the phone," said Rachel.

 As they approached the outskirts of Fort Dodge, authorities were waiting for them.

 "They had thrown out the tire spikes and so all four tires, I run over those and all four tires go flat," said Ben Kohnen.

 The Kohnens say they were ordered to the ground and held at gunpoint until police realized this was an emergency. Rachel was rushed to the hospital and nearly 10 pound, Hazel, was born an hour later.

 "She's doing really well right now," the couple said.

 Manson Police Chief Tom Ritts says no charges have been filed, but it's up to County Attorney to decide if that remains the case. The Chief says it's a good idea to call ahead for help to avoid situations like this. |||||

– You know that scene in the movies, where the husband drives his wife to the hospital in the nick of time to deliver their baby? Try this for a plot twist, from Iowa's WHO-TV: Cop follows speeding car with lights flashing, but husband doesn't pull over because wife is thisclose to giving birth. Cops lay tire spikes that stop the vehicle, then order both occupants to the ground at gunpoint—before realizing what's going on. Luckily, all ended well, and police got Rachel Kohnen to the hospital in time to deliver 10-pound Hazel. "I did tell him not to stop," Rachel says of husband Ben. At one point during the chase, she tried to call 911 to let police know what was happening, but it didn't work in time. "I know I was crazy lady screaming it into the phone," she recalls. Police in Fort Dodge haven't filed charges, though it's ultimately up to the county attorney. In fairness to the original cop who tried to stop them, the Kohnens blew by him at 85mph at 4 in the morning, notes the Daily News. (Another recent crazy pregnancy story: This woman gave birth hours after finding out she was expecting.)


Write a summary based on this article:

Late last year, when President Obama reviewed the draft of a speech he was scheduled to give on economic inequality, he sent it back with a request: He wanted his speechwriter to add a quote from Pope Francis’s recent letter to the Catholic church.

 “Across the developed world, inequality has increased,” Obama said in the Dec. 4 speech. “Some of you may have seen just last week, the pope himself spoke about this at eloquent length. ‘How could it be,’ he wrote, ‘that it’s not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?’”

 The rhetoric of quotation is subtle, but in this particular round of political name-checking, Francis is the authority brought in to lend credibility to Obama’s policies.

 Compare this to Obama’s relationship with Pope Benedict XVI. At the conclusion of his visit to the Vatican in 2009, Obama reportedly said that he looked forward to “a very strong relationship between our two countries.” Our countries. While it’s true that the pope is the head of the Vatican state, that’s hardly his primary role. In Benedict’s case, Obama acknowledged only political parity, not moral authority.

 With Francis, though, things are clearly different. By quoting him in that December address, Obama deferred to Francis as a moral exemplar—and a model for action of a decidedly temporal nature. This only 50 years after John F. Kennedy, soon to be America’s first and only Catholic president, declared that he wouldn’t take orders from the pope.

 Herein lies the genius of Pope Francis’s papacy: He has persuaded the world he isn’t a politician and, in doing so, has become arguably the most politically influential man in the world.

 Earlier this week, when Secretary of State John Kerry, a Catholic, visited the Vatican, he remarked, “I know that the Holy Father is anticipating the visit of President Obama here, and the president is looking forward to coming here to meet with him.” The two leaders have much in common. Their elections were both historic firsts—Obama as the first black U.S. president, Francis as the first pope from Latin America and the first Jesuit to occupy the throne of St. Peter. Both preside over deeply divided constituencies and institutions that have been plagued by scandal and bureaucratic incompetence. Both were initially media darlings who charted an unlikely path to power, and whose ascension was heralded as ushering in a hopeful new era.

 And yet Pope Francis’s approval rating is more than double that of Obama’s.

 Whenever they do meet—no date has yet been announced—President Obama would be wise to talk politics with Francis. He might be able to pick up a few pointers.

 ***

 Just as Obama began his presidency amid the global financial meltdown, when Francis was elected pope last March, he took the reins during a time of crisis. His predecessor, Benedict, had stepped down after only eight years, becoming the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415.

 Francis "has persuaded the world he isn’t a politician and, in doing so, has become arguably the most politically influential man in the world," writes Moss. | AP Photo

 The challenges facing Francis were manifold: dwindling church attendance in Europe and North America; in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, pressing issues like hunger and persecution; and across the globe, a laity reeling from the pedophilia scandals and deeply divided over the relative importance of moral issues like gay marriage and abortion versus social issues like poverty and the vast gulf separating the rich world from the rest.

 Francis began his papacy by shrugging off the trappings of wealth and privilege. He refuses to live in the luxurious papal apartments, declines to wear the more ornate papal vestments and drives a Ford Focus where Benedict favored a custom-made Renault, a Mercedes and a BMW X5. He instantly became the “People’s Pope,” or, as Obama would put it, “someone who walks the walk.”

 Perhaps even more disruptively, Francis declared himself a sinner—an acknowledgement in keeping with Catholic theology but rarely put so honestly by the church’s leaders—and refused to acknowledge that he even had power over the millions in his flock, much less tried to wield it. His utter lack of conceit has won him a legion of fans. ||||| Candida Moss is professor of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame.

 Late last year, when President Obama reviewed the draft of a speech he was scheduled to give on economic inequality, he sent it back with a request: He wanted his speechwriter to add a quote from Pope Francis’s recent letter to the Catholic church.

 “Across the developed world, inequality has increased,” Obama said in the Dec. 4 speech. “Some of you may have seen just last week, the pope himself spoke about this at eloquent length. ‘How could it be,’ he wrote, ‘that it’s not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?’”

 Story Continued Below

 The rhetoric of quotation is subtle, but in this particular round of political name-checking, Francis is the authority brought in to lend credibility to Obama’s policies.

 Compare this to Obama’s relationship with Pope Benedict XVI. At the conclusion of his visit to the Vatican in 2009, Obama reportedly said that he looked forward to “a very strong relationship between our two countries.” Our countries. While it’s true that the pope is the head of the Vatican state, that’s hardly his primary role. In Benedict’s case, Obama acknowledged only political parity, not moral authority.

 With Francis, though, things are clearly different. By quoting him in that December address, Obama deferred to Francis as a moral exemplar—and a model for action of a decidedly temporal nature. This only 50 years after John F. Kennedy, soon to be America’s first and only Catholic president, declared that he wouldn’t take orders from the pope.

 Herein lies the genius of Pope Francis’s papacy: He has persuaded the world he isn’t a politician and, in doing so, has become arguably the most politically influential man in the world.

 Earlier this week, when Secretary of State John Kerry, a Catholic, visited the Vatican, he remarked, “I know that the Holy Father is anticipating the visit of President Obama here, and the president is looking forward to coming here to meet with him.” The two leaders have much in common. Their elections were both historic firsts—Obama as the first black U.S. president, Francis as the first pope from Latin America and the first Jesuit to occupy the throne of St. Peter. Both preside over deeply divided constituencies and institutions that have been plagued by scandal and bureaucratic incompetence. Both were initially media darlings who charted an unlikely path to power, and whose ascension was heralded as ushering in a hopeful new era.

 And yet Pope Francis’s approval rating is more than double that of Obama’s.

 Whenever they do meet—no date has yet been announced—President Obama would be wise to talk politics with Francis. He might be able to pick up a few pointers.

 ***

 Just as Obama began his presidency amid the global financial meltdown, when Francis was elected pope last March, he took the reins during a time of crisis. His predecessor, Benedict, had stepped down after only eight years, becoming the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415.

 Francis "has persuaded the world he isn’t a politician and, in doing so, has become arguably the most politically influential man in the world," writes Moss. | AP Photo

 The challenges facing Francis were manifold: dwindling church attendance in Europe and North America; in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, pressing issues like hunger and persecution; and across the globe, a laity reeling from the pedophilia scandals and deeply divided over the relative importance of moral issues like gay marriage and abortion versus social issues like poverty and the vast gulf separating the rich world from the rest.

 Francis began his papacy by shrugging off the trappings of wealth and privilege. He refuses to live in the luxurious papal apartments, declines to wear the more ornate papal vestments and drives a Ford Focus where Benedict favored a custom-made Renault, a Mercedes and a BMW X5. He instantly became the “People’s Pope,” or, as Obama would put it, “someone who walks the walk.”

 Perhaps even more disruptively, Francis declared himself a sinner—an acknowledgement in keeping with Catholic theology but rarely put so honestly by the church’s leaders—and refused to acknowledge that he even had power over the millions in his flock, much less tried to wield it. His utter lack of conceit has won him a legion of fans. |||||

– He's known for his humility, his down-to-earth nature, his personal phone calls to the flock, and even his selfies. But is Pope Francis actually a "political genius"? Yes, writes Candida Moss at Politico Magazine. "Herein lies the genius of Pope Francis’s papacy: He has persuaded the world he isn’t a politician and, in doing so, has become arguably the most politically influential man in the world." The thing is, predecessor Benedict said many of the things Francis is saying. But with Francis, because of how he leads his life, more people listen. President Obama would do well to pay attention to this pope, writes Moss. "What other world leader has such clarity of message?" Maybe Obama can't literally get as close to the public as Francis can, but he can take a larger lesson: Francis "shows that even in the informational deluge of the modern age, it’s possible to hold to and embody a few big ideas and persuade people to rally around them," writes Moss. "What American president couldn’t benefit from a reminder of that?" Click for the full piece.


Library of VirginiaArchive-It Partner Since: Sep, 2005Organization Type: State Archives & LibrariesOrganization URL: http://www.lva.virginia.gov The Library of Virginia serves as the Commonwealth's archival agency, the reference library at the seat of government, and as one of the nation's premier research institutions for Virginia history, politics and culture. The library holdings attract researchers from across the country and worldwide to their Richmond location and to their digital resources available on the web. ||||| . . . millions are being spent SMS messaging campaigns. Mobile marketing is becoming increasingly integral advertising tool for small businesses to find new and exciting ways to reach current and potential customers. ||||| Tweet with a location

 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– "They just ran me over, bro." Those words are echoing across social media today after a Border Patrol vehicle was caught on video apparently striking a Native American man and driving away, the New York Times reports. Shot by the man on his phone, the video shows him approaching the SUV on a dirt road in Tohono O'odham Nation, roughly 60 miles southwest of Tucson, Arizona. Instead of slowing or stopping, the vehicle knocks him over. Paulo Remes says he was bruised and taken to hospital, the Arizona Daily Star reports. "I'm doing all right, I'm just a little sore, really," he says. The 34-year-old says he noticed the SUV and walked onto the road, figuring he knew what would happen. "I ran into the dirt road in front of my house, because I know they’ll try and hit me," says Remes. "I think he saw me on the landline and didn’t think I was recording." The FBI, the US Attorney's Office, and the tribe's police department are now investigating. And Indivisible Tohono, an organization that sheds light on border policies, is posting the video on Facebook and Twitter. "This is an example of the fear O’odham have to face everyday because BP ravage our communities & are careless with our lives," the group says in a tweet. Tensions have risen since tribal leaders opposed letting President Trump build a border wall there, and the land became a transit hub for drug traffickers and illegal immigrants.


Article:

In a bizzare incident, a drunk passenger tried to enter the of a Kolkata-bound plane Monday on the pretext of charging his mobile phone, according to a

 Following the incident, which happened when the aircraft was yet to take off, the "unruly passenger" was offloaded and later taken to police station by the He was let off after questioning.

 An said that while an aircraft was on the ground, an unruly passenger tried to enter the stating that his mobile needs to be charged.

 "Following standard operating procedures the operating 6E-395 flight from to (September 24, 2018) had initiated the offloading of the passenger on grounds of security violation," the said in a statement.

 Passengers are prohibited from entering the of a commercial flight.

 An at airport police station here said the person, who was around 35 years old, was taken to police station but was later let off after questioning.

 "He was drunk and wanted to charge his So he moved towards the cockpit. Police did not find any offence against him to charge a case," the said. ||||| A passenger was removed from an Indian aircraft after trying to enter the cockpit to charge his phone.

 The man, who was drunk according to some reports, attempted to enter the cockpit on 24 September as it prepared to leave Mumbai for Kolkata.

 He was thrown off the flight "on the grounds of a security violation" and handed over to police.

 "While an IndiGo aircraft was on the ground, an unruly passenger tried to enter the cockpit stating that his mobile needs to be charged", an airline spokesperson said.

 Image: A passenger tried to open the exit of a GoAir plane, thinking it was the toilet

 "Following standard operating procedures the captain operating 6E-395 flight from Mumbai to Kolkata initiated the offloading of the passenger on grounds of security violation", they added.

 Local media reports say the man, believed to be about 35, was questioned at a police station and later released without charge.

 In another incident this week, an Indian passenger tried to open a plane door in mid-air, apparently mistaking it for the toilet.

 The man, believed to be a first-time flyer, was on a GoAir flight from New Delhi to Patna on 22 September when he tried to open the plane's rear door, the airline said.

 Another passenger noticed what the man was doing and alerted the plane's crew, according to a GoAir spokesperson.

 0:41 Video: Cabin crew aboard the Jaipur bound flight forgot to pressurise the cabin

 The man was handed over to police after the plane landed safely in Patna.

 It is believed he would not have been able to open the door due to air pressure in the cabin.

 In another incident last week, more than 30 passengers were hospitalised with nose bleeds, headaches and ear pain after crew on a Jaipur-bound flight forgot to pressurise the cabin. |||||
What is a summary?

– It's a story that forces Business Standard to state the obvious: "Passengers are prohibited from entering the cockpit of a commercial flight." But what's obvious to most apparently wasn't to one man "offloaded" from a plane in India on Monday after police and airline officials say he tried to bust into the cockpit to charge his cellphone, Sky News reports. An IndiGo spokesperson says the "unruly" passenger, who was also believed to be drunk, caused the ruckus as the plane was getting ready to take off from Mumbai on its flight to Calcutta. The man, said to be around 35, was removed from the plane "on the grounds of a security violation," per the airline rep, and was questioned by local police, then released with no charges. Sky notes another problem passenger in India this week, one on a GoAir flight from New Delhi who tried to pull open his plane's rear door, apparently thinking he was entering the lavatory. That man was removed from the plane upon landing in Patna and taken away by police. AFP notes that more people have been flying in India in the past few years due to less-expensive fares and better connection options, leading to more first-time fliers who may be prone to do things like … this.


Article:
Among journalists, one thing was clear about the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night: It was a lot more energetic than anyone expected it to be.

 On CNN, David Gergen said, “Enthusiasm in the hall is more palpable than the Republican convention.”

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 On CNN, David Gergen said, “Enthusiasm in the hall is more palpable than the Republican convention.”

 (PHOTOS: Scenes from the DNC)

 POLITICO’s Dylan Byers observed, “So, frankly, there is more energy in Strickland’s speech than there was in the entire three days of Tampa…” His colleague Alexander Burns concurred: “Just a huge difference in energy between Tampa and Charlotte convention halls. Makes it easier for non-primetime speakers to sound strong.”

 BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith wrote, “This is exactly the convention people in this room wanted, unlike the RNC, which was aimed at a very specific TV audience.”

 “There’s a kind of confidence to this convention I didn’t expect after all the hand-wringing in the lede-up,” wrote The Atlantic’s Garance Franke-Ruta. “Tampa was a cool convention. This is going to be a hot one.”

 “Republicans did a helluva job lowering expectations for this convention,” wrote CNN’s Peter Hamby. “Text from RNC delegate: ‘I’m officially jealous. The DNC looks way more exciting’”

 NBC’s Chuck Todd wrote, “Passion so far at Dem convo is clearly FOR president. Last week, passion at the GOP convo was less FOR Romney and more AGAINST POTUS.”

 The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart observed, “There is energy here.. Folks want to be here.”

 Salon’s Irin Carmon wrote, “So far it really feels like there’s a lot more raw enthusiasm in this room than in Tampa.” DailyKos’s Markos Moulitsas said, “Damn, lots of energy. Remember when Chris Christie had to beg Republican delegates to stand up?” His colleague Jed Lewison said, “More energy in the Democratic convention in last 72 minutes than in 3 days of the GOP fest.”

 “Energy level seems dramatically different from RNC,” noted Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall.

 Not everyone agrees. Radio host Laura Ingraham tweeted, “The DNC is VERY low energy, not the vibrant, youth allure of 2008. I feel the whiff of death and decay…govt is the father figure here.” ||||| Michelle Obama's Tuesday night speech about her husband and the Obama family at the Democratic National Convention drove 28,003 tweets-per-minute at its peak, nearly double the 14,289 mark reached by Mitt Romney's acceptance speech at the Republican convention last week.

 Obama's speech, intended to illustrate the differences between her husband and his Republican challenger, played well on Twitter. It had plenty of short, snackable lines easily packed into 140 characters or less.

 This tweet, from the Obama campaign, saw more than 2,000 retweets:

 Michelle Obama on POTUS: “He wants every young person to fulfill their promise and be able to attend college without a mountain of debt.” — Obama 2012 (@Obama2012) September 5, 2012

 And this was destined to be the most well-remembered and oft-cited line of the night:

 "Being president doesn't change who you are. It reveals who you are." - @michelleobama #dnc2012 — Mashable US & World (@mashusworld) September 5, 2012

 Millions of people watching or listening to Obama's speech chimed in before, during and after on Twitter, voicing varied viewpoints:

 Inspirational, I love Lady Obama!Transcript of Michelle Obama's speech at the DNC | Fox News fxn.ws/Q40jHD via @foxnewspolitics — Rachel Sevedge (@BityLouHoo) September 5, 2012

 Michelle Obama is killing this speech.. — Jamal Crawford (@JCrossover) September 5, 2012

 I love Michelle Obama. One intelligent woman. — Zarah (@Zarah____) September 5, 2012

 Stomach still aching. RT @twitchyteam Gag line: Michelle Obama says hubby doesn't believe in "us versus them" bit.ly/NbHTCQ — Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) September 5, 2012

 By the end of its first night, the Democratic Convention as a whole had sparked more than 3 million tweets, nearing the 4 million point reached by the entirety of last week's Republican Convention.

 Did you watch and tweet about Obama's speech? Share with us in the comments.

 Read more of Mashable's coverage of the Democratic National Convention: |||||Summary:

– If the election were determined by Twitter, the Democrats would be hard to beat. As night one of the DNC wrapped up, 3 million convention-related tweets had entered the Twitterverse ... compared to the 4 million the GOP racked up over three days last week, reports Mashable. And the tweets were truly flying during Michelle Obama's speech, clocking in at a high of 28,203 tweets-per-minute. Romney's acceptance-speech high last week? 14,289. Meanwhile, the energy level seems to be higher on the ground level, too. Members of the media (including CNN, the Washington Post, and NBC) who found Tampa a drag say the same isn't true in Charlotte, Politico finds. "Just a huge difference in energy between convention halls," wrote Politico's Alexander Burns. "Makes it easier for non-primetime speakers to sound strong." But the buzz may be in the eye of the beholder: "The DNC is VERY low energy, not the vibrant, youth allure of 2008," tweeted conservative radio host Laura Ingraham. "I feel the whiff of death and decay … government is the father figure here."


Article:

Illinois congressman Aaron Schock now faces a possible ethics investigation over his newly-decorated office on Capitol Hill. NBC Chicago’s political reporter Mary Ann Ahern reports. (Published Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2015)

 Washington watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics filed an ethics complaint Tuesday to investigate Rep. Aaron Schock after it was found the Illinois congressman may have used campaign funding to decorate his congressional offices.

 Rep. Schock just recently redesigned his Capitol Hill congressional office with bright red walls and luxurious finishes such as a crystal chandelier and gold sconces, the Washington Post reported.

 The lavish look was inspired by the PBS hit show “Downton Abbey,” Schock’s decorator told the Washington Post.

 Anne Brahler, a downstate Illinois interior decorator, told the publication she was not paid for her services, and this was not the first time she designed Schock’s congressional office.

 Accepting “gifts”, which are defined by the House as any item or service having monetary value, is something that is strictly prohibited by law.

 “Perhaps it’s not totally surprising that the same congressman who spent campaign money on P90X workout DVDs wanted to create a more picturesque setting in which to be photographed, but the rules clearly require him to pay for those renovations himself,” CREW’s executive director Anne Weismann said in a statement. “Again and again, Rep. Schock’s seeming obsession with his image impedes his ability to conduct himself in ethical manner.”

 What makes the office’s “Downton Abbey” theme even more interesting is Congressman Schock repeatedly voted to end federal funding for PBS. His spokesman has told reporters he is not a “Downton Abbey” fan.

 Rep. Schock could not immediately be reached for comment. |||||

 Rep. Aaron Schock’s (R-Ill.) new office in the Rayburn Office Building, which was designed to resemble the dining room of the PBS show “Downton Abbey.” (Ben Terris/TWP)

 The Rayburn House Office Building is a labyrinth of beige offices.

 And then, there’s . . . Rep. Aaron Schock’s new digs.

 Bright red walls. A gold-colored wall sconce with black candles. A Federal-style bull’s-eye mirror with an eagle perched on top. And this is just the Illinois Republican’s outer office.

 “It’s actually based off of the red room in ‘Downton Abbey,’ ” said the woman behind the front desk, comparing it to the luxurious set piece at the heart of the British period drama.

 [March 17: Schock has resigned; get the latest here.]

 This was a bold room. But the confidence was a mirage. For on Capitol Hill, caution is king when it comes to the micromanagement of one’s image, even in the case of how a congressman decides to decorate his office.

 And sometimes, a friendly outsider can inadvertently ruin a communications director’s day.

 A blond woman popped out of an inner office. “Want to see the rest?” she asked.

 She introduced herself as Annie Brahler, the interior decorator whose company is called Euro Trash. She guided me to Schock’s private office, revealing another dramatic red room. This one with a drippy crystal chandelier, a table propped up by two eagles, a bust of Abraham Lincoln and massive arrangements of pheasant feathers.

 Then, my phone rang.

 It was Schock’s communications director, Benjamin Cole.

 “Are you taking pictures of the office?” he asked. “Who told you you could do that? . . . Okay, stay where you are. You’ve created a bit of a crisis in the office.”

 A staff member then came and asked me to please delete the photos from my phone. So started a day of back-and-forths with a congressman’s office about interior design.

 Red walls stand out against the beige, eggshell, light blue, light gray or light yellow walls of neighboring offices in the Rayburn House Office Building. (Ben Terris/TWP)

 House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, right, at the ceremonial swearing-in of Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., left, Jan. 6, 2015 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

 Washington has always been more “Veep” than “House of Cards.”

 Schock, 33, is one of the rising stars of the Republican Party. He’s young, has six-pack abs that landed him on the cover of Men’s Health and is a prodigious fundraiser. He’s also one of the most media-savvy members of Congress, with an Instagram feed that features him surfing, hiking across glaciers, tangoing on the streets of Buenos Aires and smiling next to duck-faced pop star Ariana Grande.

 An office decorated in a unique way would hardly be surprising; it would just be another interesting fact about a congressman who has built a brand as not just another politician. So why was this a crisis?

 “You’ve got a member [of Congress] willing to talk to you about other things,” Cole said on the phone. “Why sour it by rushing to write some gossipy piece?”

 The magnitude of this manufactured PR catastrophe seemed to elude Brahler, who lives and operates her business in Illinois. She was happy to discuss her work, saying she didn’t get why the staff acted so “prickly.”

 Brahler met the congressman in his district years ago, and he was impressed with her work, which he had seen in magazines. She likes to say that she can turn things ready for the trash heap into something beautiful.

 Pheasant feathers on display in Rep. Aaron Schock’s new office. (Ben Terris/TWP)

 A bust of Abraham Lincoln on display in Rep. Aaron Schock’s new office. (Ben Terris/TWP)

 When a member of Congress moves into an office, the bare essentials are provided by the House of Representatives. Furniture and computers are often handed down by other offices. New members are also entitled to a new paint job, although there are only a limited number of available colors — beige, eggshell, light blue, light gray or light yellow — that the House will provide. Additional decorations must come out of the lawmaker’s pocket.

 Brahler offered her services for free, according to Schock’s office, although he had to pay for the objects. She had decorated his old office on the fifth floor of the Cannon House Office Building, one of the least desirable pieces of congressional real estate. While his new office takes a bit of inspiration from “Downton Abbey,” it’s not a replica of what’s seen on the PBS hit.

 “I guess because he’s fresh-minded and forward-thinking, he’s not hung up on doing things the same way as everyone else,” Brahler said. “It’s gotten to where he’s comfortable with everything I do.”

 Except, perhaps, when she gives a tour of his office to a journalist.

 “You see, the congressman hasn’t even seen the office yet,” Cole told me later. “Surely, it wouldn’t be fair for you to write about his office until he has the chance to see it.”

 I told him if I could be there when Schock first saw the office, I would hold off till then. Cole agreed, and we reached the Red Walls Accord of 2015.

 That is, until Schock decided he wasn’t interested in doing a whole story about how his office is decorated.

 “He’s happy to talk to you, just not about the office,” Cole said, sounding very tired of the ordeal. “I’m really sorry and want you to know this is not fun for me.”

 Cole was back in touch later to add one more piece of information relating to Schock and “Downton Abbey”: “I don’t even know if he watches it; I don’t know what shows he watches. But I don’t think he watches much TV.” ||||| Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., speaks outside the state Capitol in Springfield, Ill., on Nov. 3, 2014. (Photo: Seth Perlman, AP)

 Rep. Aaron Schock apparently appreciates a lovely office.

 Schock has spent tens of thousands of dollars from his taxpayer-funded accounts on renovations, leather furniture and even granite countertops, according to congressional expenditure reports.

 The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the Illinois Republican has had his office lavishly redecorated in a bold red theme inspired by the television show Downton Abbey.

 There is no telling how much Schock paid for the renovations of his Capitol Hill suite — the House takes a few months to publicly report current expenses — but in prior years, Schock appears to have spent tens of thousands of dollars on office renovations and furnishings from his taxpayer-funded account.

 Schock's spokesman did not return emails seeking comment or an explanation of the various expenditures, so it is not clear precisely what the expenditures were for.

 In December 2009 he paid $7,400 to an Illinois design/build firm called KBL Design Center, and then another $21,000 to a hardwood floor company, a building contractor and company called Old World Granite and Marble that apparently makes high-end countertops. He then spent $6,600 on an Illinois painting contractor.

 Two months later, Schock spent $79,061 on furniture purchases, including $5,123 from a company called Mulnix Industries that specializes in hardwood podiums.

 Around the same time, Schock spent more than $4,000 with a fine-leather furniture company called Garrett Leather.

 All of the expenditures came out of Schock's taxpayer-funded office account, which lawmakers can use to buy office furniture and pay for renovations.The official handbook for members of Congress says "Ordinary and necessary expenses related to the acquisition of items for use in offices are reimbursable from the applicable office funds."

 Each member of Congress is given a set budget for operating their office each year, including hiring staff and all official travel; any furniture purchases and renovations come out of that budget. Money left over in the office budget at the end of the year can be returned to the treasury.

 The Washington Post story quoted the designer of Schock's Capitol Hill office as saying she provided her design services to Schock for free. That led the liberal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington to file a complaint Tuesday with the House alleging that Schock may have received an improper gift.

 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1DDcekr |||||
What is a summary?

– Rep. Aaron Schock, an up-and-comer previously best known for baring his six-pack on the cover of Men's Health, has a new claim to fame in the form of his interior decor: It seems the Washington Post's Style reporter Ben Terris popped by the Illinois rep's digs in the Rayburn House Office Building, and ran into Schock's interior decorator, who showed him around. Terris describes the outer office thusly: "Bright red walls. A gold-colored wall sconce with black candles. A Federal-style bull’s-eye mirror with an eagle perched on top." "It's actually based off the red room in Downton Abbey," an aide helpfully told Terris of his outer office. The rest of Terris' piece describes Schock's team trying to squash the story. USA Today took the ball and dug back to 2009 and 2010 and found about $118,000 in office expenditures—including $4,000 on fine-leather furniture and $79,061 on other furniture—that Schock billed to a taxpayer-funded account. Which is turning into kind of an upstairs-downstairs conundrum: While it's not yet clear how much the Downton renovation cost, Schock's interior decorator says she worked for free, thus saving the taxpayer—but prompting CREW to file an ethics complaint claiming that Schock illegally received a gift. "Perhaps it’s not totally surprising that the same congressman who spent campaign money on P90X workout DVDs wanted to create a more picturesque setting in which to be photographed, but the rules clearly require him to pay for those renovations himself," says CREW’s executive director, per NBC Chicago. "Again and again, Rep. Schock’s seeming obsession with his image impedes his ability to conduct himself in ethical manner." The other irony being widely noted: Downton airs on PBS, which Schock has repeatedly voted to de-fund. Schock has yet to comment.


Secretary of State John Kerry may not have expected his casual suggestion that Syria avert American military action by giving up its chemical weapons to be taken seriously. But it may have created a diplomatic way out for President Obama, who has insisted that a military strike is the only way to respond after concluding that the Syrian government used poison gas in its civil war.

 Russia, Syria’s arms supplier and ally, immediately embraced Mr. Kerry’s suggestion on Monday and proposed that President Bashar al-Assad do exactly that. “If the establishment of international control over chemical weapons in the country will prevent attacks, then we will immediately begin work with Damascus,” Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister said. “And we call on the Syrian leadership to not only agree to setting the chemical weapons storage sites under international control, but also to their subsequent destruction.”

 Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Syria welcomed the proposal. The swift endorsement of the idea by the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, show how eager the world is to avoid a military showdown when removing the chemical weapons might be a realistic option. Mr. Obama called the proposal “a potentially positive development.” White House officials said it was worth taking a “hard look” at.

 The Obama administration has good reason to be skeptical of any promises made by the Assad regime or its Russian backers. Mr. Assad, who has denied using chemical weapons, could begin by actually acknowledging that he has the weapons, which Western nations say amount to hundreds of tons of nerve gas and blister agents.

 Nonetheless, Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry should pursue this possible solution. The removal and destruction of stockpiles of weapons would ensure greater safety for the Syrian people. And it would have longer lasting deterrent effects than the limited strikes Mr. Obama wants to deliver, without the likelihood of more civilian casualties.

 To have any measure of credibility, Mr. Assad will need to allow monitors into the country immediately. That would be a gesture to the world that his government will abide by international laws against chemical weapons use. The Russians will have to work closely with the United States and the United Nations to create a plan to catalog and verify Syria’s chemical weapons and set forth a specific timetable for the removal and destruction of those weapons under international auspices.

 Russia and the United States should propose a formal resolution by the United Nations Security Council — of which both are members — to condemn the use of chemical weapons in Syria, support this plan and put its full authority behind carrying it out, as well as establish consequences if Syria reneged. It would be impossible to destroy the entire stockpile instantly, but that task must be done with care and speed because those weapons cannot be allowed to fall into other murderous hands in the conflict.

 Mr. Obama, who is expected to speak to the nation on Tuesday night, spent the past week making the case for a limited strike, but he has won little support for his plan internationally, in Congress or with the American public.

 The diplomatic proposal creates at least a pause in the action. It could mean that the United States would not have to go it alone in standing firm against the Syrian regime. And it could open up a broader channel to a political settlement between Mr. Assad and the rebels — the only practical way to end this war. It could also be a boon for Mr. Obama, personally, because he could take credit for pushing Syria and Russia into making this move. |||||

 Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at a 2009 news conference. (DIETER NAGL/AFP/Getty Images)

 Few people depress me these days like Michael Doran. A Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution, Doran has been a leading advocate among thoughtful foreign policy analysts for a more aggressive U.S. intervention to end the conflict in Syria. Agree or disagree with that policy (I'm not sure I do, personally), it's left him especially skeptical of the Obama administration's push for limited strikes against Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons.

 When Russia seized on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's offhand suggestion that Syria could avoid U.S. strikes by giving up its chemical weapons, I reacted, like many, with highly cautious optimism that this could offer a small but significant reprieve for Syrians and success for Obama. But Doran had a very different take: that this is a dishonest ploy by Russia and Syria that boxes in the Unites States and, more importantly, makes any relief for Syria's civil war far less likely.

 Doran made his case against the plan on Twitter, in the form of eight "truths about our new policy of working with Putin" to secure Syrian chemical weapons. Even if you think that Obama should pursue Russia's proposal, Doran raises some important concerns. Key quote: "Obama now needs Assad and Putin. He is their partner in this sham process." Here are his eight hard truths, followed by a short interview I conducted with Doran via e-mail to elaborate on some of his points.

 #1 | Assad will never under any condition truly relinquish his CW. He is a proven liar on issues such as this. — Mike Doran (@Doranimated) September 10, 2013

 #2 | US cannot coerce Assad, b/c for all intents & purposes BHO lost the vote in Congress, even though it never took place. — Mike Doran (@Doranimated) September 10, 2013

 #3 | Putin, recognizing that Obama had boxed himself in, provided him with an excuse to leave the battlefield w/honor. — Mike Doran (@Doranimated) September 10, 2013

 #4| Obama can claim that he "coerced" Assad to give up CW & that he revitalized US deterrent w/out firing a shot. — Mike Doran (@Doranimated) September 10, 2013

 #5| But Obama now NEEDS Assad & Putin. He is their partner in this sham process. — Mike Doran (@Doranimated) September 10, 2013

 #6| When Assad cheats, Obama will make excuses. Otherwise he'd have to do something about it - which he can't do, b/c he lost the vote. — Mike Doran (@Doranimated) September 10, 2013

 #7| A year ago, we were calling on Assad to step down, but now he is our partner, together w/Putin, in a Potemkin disarmament effort. — Mike Doran (@Doranimated) September 10, 2013

 #8| Remember the fiasco, in the 1990s, of using UN to search for Iraq WMD while Russia obstructed. We willingly jumped into that again! — Mike Doran (@Doranimated) September 10, 2013

 WorldViews: Is Obama completely boxed in by Congress and Putin? Does he have any real option now other than what Lavrov proposed?

 Michael Doran: Having dealt himself the hand of working with Russia and Syria, Obama must play it out. But he could play it aggressively, by which I mean making very serious demands of compliance up front, as Kerry did in demanding that Assad hand over his chemical weapons in one week. Or, for example, Obama could demand that Assad sign the international convention banning chemical weapons tomorrow. And that Assad give a full listing of all chemical weapons sites within days and allow U.N. monitors to immediately install monitoring devices there. This would be a way of putting the Russians and the Syrians to the test quickly, and perhaps of dispensing with this charade more quickly.

 But in order to take this approach, Obama would have to be willing to answer the next question, which is, "Then what?" His Syria policy has been incoherent and he would have to do the hard work of developing one that made sense, which to my mind is the kind of thing that Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham are advocating -- gathering an international coalition to build up the Free Syrian Army as an alternative to both al-Qaeda and the Assad regime. This would be a major undertaking. It need not require American boots on the ground, but it would take American leadership, time and effort. Obama's preference from the outset has appeared to be avoiding Syria entirely.

 WV: Kerry's comments obviously opened the door for all of this. Do you think the administration is secretly grateful for the exit he gave them?

 MD: Yes. The president has never wanted to take any action in Syria. His initial "red line" comment, made in August 2012, was an off-the-cuff remark, not a statement of considered policy. The first time he came under pressure to honor it, last April, the administration came out and said that it was arming the opposition. The arms never arrived. This time around he has displayed a similar reluctance. So President Obama is likely grateful to have found a diplomatic path, even if it is a sham. But he is not alone. Many in Congress are relieved. The vote, especially in the House, was going to be a catastrophic failure for the president, and many members did not want to go through with it. They are happy to avoid the whole thing.

 WV: Tell me more about the lessons of the U.N. in Iraq in the 1990s -- keeping in mind that when most people hear the words "Iraq" and "WMDs" they think of a 2002-2003 series of events that went very differently.

 MD: Bear in mind that we had just dealt Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein a catastrophic military defeat in Kuwait. We had no-fly zones in the north and the south of the country. We were, that is to say, putting him under a lot of direct military pressure -- the kind of leverage that is totally absent from our diplomacy with Syria today. Also bear in mind that Saddam agreed to give up his weapons of mass destruction as a result of his defeat.

 Back in the 1990s, we had an agreement, we had leverage, and we had a U.N. team that went around Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction. But still, Saddam impeded the monitors. He lied and cheated. He played a shell game -- moving stuff out the back door of warehouses while the inspectors were pounding on the front door to come in. All the while, in the United Nations, the Russians played lawyer for the defendant.

 You only need to look at the way the Russians have dealt with the chemical weapons issue in Syria to get a taste of what awaits. The intel services of Britain, France, Israel and the United States -- the best intel services in the world -- assess that Assad likely used chemical weapons against the rebels. Russia says no. It says the evidence is lacking. It demands more proof. What awaits us right now is a lengthy three-way negotiation between Washington, Moscow and Damascus over the terms of the inspections. That process alone will likely last weeks, perhaps longer. It wouldn't surprise me if, weeks from now, President Obama were attending the United Nations General Assembly while still holding meetings about a U.N. resolution to compel Assad to give up his chemical weapons.

 I guarantee you that as we speak, Assad's chemical weapons team is frantically pouring bottles of Chanel No. 5, which Hezbollah stole from Lebanon, into missile shells that it will deliver to the U.N. in an elaborate demonstration of compliance with the agreement. We will take one whiff, call it perfume, and cry foul. The Russians will say that the evidence is not conclusive, a U.N. team should run tests. It will have loyal Russian scientists on the testing team, because it will have had a hand in writing the resolution that set up the inspections. The Russian scientists will say that it is not perfume but, rather, deracinated ricin, which has the qualities of Chanel No. 5. This game will eat up months and months and, meanwhile, Assad will have a free hand in slaughtering people.

 WV: Let's take the pessimistic view that Obama now has no choice but to spend months chasing Russian and Syrian promises that will never materialize. Is there any silver lining to this scenario? Maybe, in six months, it will be easier to rally international support?

 MD: President Obama has zigged and zagged so many times in this "crisis" that he has made it impossible to rally international support. If there has been a constant in his Syria policy it has been a concern with domestic policy, not with the position of allies. Consider the position of Francois Hollande, who has been our most reliable partner in the effort to get tougher with Assad. Hollande stood by Obama when Cameron dropped away -- although French public opinion was also wary of a Syria adventure. Today Hollande is being mocked on French satirical programs as Obama's poodle. Will Hollande ever willingly take another political hit in defense of a line that Obama set?

 WV: Let's take the optimistic view that Russia and Syria are sincere -- implausible as it may be -- and Assad gives up his chemical weapons. Would there be any downside to that seemingly best-case scenario?

 MD: First of all, "sincere" and "Assad regime" are not words that any adult with any direct experience with this phenomenon would use in the same sentence. But, working with your thought experiment, yes there is a downside to the scenario. As I mentioned in the tweets, we are now the partners of those powers. What happened to President Obama's other policy of "Assad must step aside"? When we rush to embrace rivals and enemies, what signal does that send, around the Middle East, about our resolve and reliability? Around the world? If you are, say, South Korea today, watching what is happening, this behavior might make you very nervous. There are a lot of jittery allies today in many places where there are very serious stakes at risk.

 (Max here again: I would quibble on North Korea. It's hard to imagine that North Korea would be stupid enough to use chemical weapons against South Korea. North Korea cultivates weapons of mass destruction as a deterrent and as a distraction from its other bad behavior. Despite its rhetoric, it fears another open war with the United States and is extremely careful to avoid anything that might spark it, of which deploying chemical weapons against South Korea is very high on the list. Still, North Korea is one of the world's worst weapons proliferators; it's not unforeseeable that the country could become more willing to ship its chemical weapons abroad.) |||||

Write a summary.

– Might John Kerry's offhand comment lead to a genuine resolution of the Syrian mess? Some of the opinions: It's a 'sham': That's the view of Michael Doran of the Brookings Institution as quoted in the Washington Post. "This is a dishonest ploy by Russia and Syria that boxes in the Unites States and, more importantly, makes any relief for Syria’s civil war far less likely," writes Max Fisher, summing up Doran's view. The worst part is that President Obama must now rely on Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad. "He is their partner in this sham process," says Doran. Later, he asks: "When we rush to embrace rivals and enemies, what signal does that send, around the Middle East, about our resolve and reliability?" Worth pursuing: Be skeptical, yes, but the US "should pursue this potential solution," write the editors at the New York Times. Done right—which means requiring Assad to allow monitors in immediately—this "could mean that the United States would not have to go it alone in standing firm against the Syrian regime. And it could open up a broader channel to a political settlement between Mr. Assad and the rebels—the only practical way to end this war." Desperate times: "It is a long-shot proposal started perhaps by accident, promoted by parties who have regularly lied, and cautiously embraced by a US administration whose policies in Syria have been incoherent by any measure," writes David Rothkopf at CNN. "Regardless of whether it amounts to anything or not, it speaks volumes about how bad our options are." Hail Putin: It's Putin, not Obama, who deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, writes KT McFarland at Fox News, who expects Obama to take full credit for the proposal when he speaks tonight. "It turns out that leading from behind left a big opening up front. Putin stepped right in. And Obama still hasn't figured it out."


Summarize this article:

With a metallic clatter, evidence of an elaborate scheme to enrich a few landed in the receiving room of Richard Walker’s surgical supply firm in South Africa.

 Although the true extent of the caper remains buried in the necks and backs of people scattered around the U.S., it began to unravel that day in 2009.

 Ortho Sol makes precision screws for the most delicate of construction projects: spinal fusion. Doctors around the world drive them into the vertebrae of patients with devastating back injuries.

 The company had repossessed some of its screws after one U.S. distributor – Spinal Solutions LLC – stopped paying its bills. But now, nestled with the returns, the brighter yellow luster of a few screws caught Walker’s eye.

 Testing confirmed his fears. Some were not made of his firm’s medical-grade titanium. Their uneven threads showed potential for backing out or breaking, he said. He feared the laser-etched markings intended to make them look authentic could be toxic to patients.

 Walker’s conclusion: The Southern California firm was knocking off his products.

 The screw in the foreground is a knockoff of South Korean company U&I Corp.’s product. The real screw, with its italic logo, is in the background. Credit: Michael I Schiller/CIR

 Yet it would be two more years before an employee of Spinal Solutions alerted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to the counterfeiting, and even then, the agency didn’t shut down the company.

 By the time Spinal Solutions went broke in 2013, the company had sold millions of dollars in implants to a nationwide network of surgeons, The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

 Now patients are left with more questions than answers.

 The Gist Spinal Solutions, a company that distributed medical hardware to surgeons, is accused of counterfeiting its suppliers’ medical implants.

 One Spinal Solutions insider said the company mixed authentic and counterfeit screws in surgical kits that were sent to doctors across the nation.

 The company wooed doctors as customers with private plane trips, lucrative consulting deals and cash.

 The FDA was alerted about alleged counterfeit operations in 2011, but the company didn't close until 2013 – and then because of crippling debt.

 “What do they do if they find out there are these bogus parts that can come unscrewed?” said Susan Reynolds, a Riverside County, California, woman whose doctor used Spinal Solutions screws on her in 2009, following years of intractable pain. “I’m a walking time bomb.”

 The man at the center of the scandal is a company president who indulged in luxury – private planes, strip club spending sprees, courtside seats at L.A. Lakers games – as the company collapsed into debt. Attorneys lined up to serve him with legal documents now say they can’t find him.

 The company sold its wares to doctors who received consulting deals from Spinal Solutions worth thousands per month, rides on company planes, even bundles of $100 bills, company insiders allege. In turn, the physicians ordered the company’s implants for their surgeries at hospitals in California, Nevada, Texas, Wisconsin and Maryland.

 Surgeons insist they never used subpar implants, and CIR has no evidence the doctors were involved in the scheme. But one former company insider says knockoff screws were mixed in with real ones.

 An elderly machinist finds himself unexpectedly wrapped up in the scandal. In an interview with CIR, he admitted to making scores of copies of surgical screws for Spinal Solutions. The company bargained him down to $65 a screw – less than half of what they usually cost.

 The screws, real or fake, all funneled into what lawsuits claim was a larger scheme to bilk California’s workers’ compensation system, an employer-funded program designed to help those injured on the job. Some hospitals billed insurance carriers as much as $12,500 a screw before a 2012 change in state law shut down the astronomical markups. From that, Spinal Solutions stood to reap several thousand dollars from the sale of a single screw.

 Patients, though, may end up paying the steepest price.

 Derika Moses, a former softball star, lost her job, and then her home, as she grappled with pain and illness after her spinal surgery. Credit: Annie Tritt for CIR

 Patient’s hardware raises questions

 Derika Moses hefted a case of 2-liter soda bottles while setting up a grocery store display in 2007. Her back popped, leaving the former softball star frozen in excruciating pain.

 Nothing helped. In desperation, Moses opted for spinal fusion surgery.

 The procedure offered little relief: Chronic pain and infections plagued her. Five years later, she had most of her spinal hardware removed, convinced that the erector set of metal in her spine was the source of ongoing problems.

 She begged hospital staff to let her keep the rods and screws. She hoped to fashion them into a necklace, she said, as a symbol of the pain she had endured.

 A nurse slipped them under her pillow.

 Moses, 38, of Riverside, had all but forgotten the bag of hardware until she received a letter from an Oakland, California, law firm in March. It suggested she might be the victim of medical fraud.

 “I had to know if I was part of it,” Moses said. “I had to know.”

 Attorneys contacted Moses after finding her name among Spinal Solutions’ sales records. The law firm, Knox Ricksen, is working with other firms to file lawsuits – more than 30 and counting – on behalf of Moses and other patients. The lawyers accuse Spinal Solutions of selling counterfeit implants and doctors of accepting kickbacks in return for using them.

 During spinal fusion surgery, doctors implant screws into the vertebrae of patients with devastating back injuries. Credit: Praisaeng /Shutterstock During spinal fusion surgery, doctors implant screws into the vertebrae of patients with devastating back injuries. ×

 Spinal screws are not Home Depot fare. The implants must fit together precisely to support a body in motion, said UCLA neurosurgeon Dr. Duncan McBride.

 “It’s like building a bridge in the back of someone’s spine. So if you have inferior material, it’s not going to work as well,” he said. “It’s going to be less successful and potentially harmful.”

 CIR showed photos of Moses’ hardware to U&I Corp., the South Korean company whose logo was etched on it.

 Company engineers noted the finishes and lot numbers on some of Moses’ screws and connectors did not match their product. But the dead giveaway was the logo, they said, which lacks the firm’s signature forward-leaning font.

 During an interview at the company’s U.S. office in Orange County, California, General Manager Sung Hwang identified three of Moses’ four screws as fakes.

 “This is obviously not what we did,” Hwang said. “I feel sorry because (patients) got the surgery with improper devices, so they might suffer from it.”

 Hwang said the company first heard about Spinal Solutions’ counterfeiting from plaintiffs’ attorneys in 2012 and is not happy about the matter.

 Moses’ initial reaction on hearing about the apparent scam was fear because a few metal pieces remain in her back. But she says her feelings changed as she learned more from her attorneys about kickbacks that Spinal Solutions is accused of paying to doctors.

 “It always, always turns to anger,” she said, “every time I sit and think about what they did.”

 Moses lost her job, and then her home, as she grappled with pain and illness after her spinal surgery. The flashy businessman who sold her implants, meanwhile, lived a life of luxury.

 The IRS determined that Roger Williams and his wife, Mary, underpaid their taxes by a combined half a million dollars due to fraud in 2009 and 2010, according to court filings. Credit: The Press-Enterprise The IRS determined that Roger Williams and his wife, Mary, underpaid their taxes by a combined half a million dollars due to fraud in 2009 and 2010, according to court filings. ×

 An executive’s lavish lifestyle

 One private plane wasn’t enough for the Spinal Solutions founder. Roger Williams had three.

 Williams spent 16 years in the orthopedic sales business with his father before he went out on his own. He started Spinal Solutions in 1999 and launched a firm selling knee and hip implants three years later. From nothing, he built an $18 million-a-year business based in Murrieta, California.

 By 2008, his planes were shuttling staff and surgical equipment from coast to coast. He also followed the Los Angeles Lakers all over the country.

 He ordered his seven-seat jet painted with stripes of Lakers purple and gold, and he and his wife sat courtside among celebrities, according to interviews with former employees. Sometimes he invited a member of the team onboard.

 “He lived like the richest guy on earth. Like a movie star or something,” said Andreas Leuthold, a pilot who worked for Williams.

 Williams and his wife had a BMW, a Mercedes-Benz, a yacht named “Spare Change” and a 6,300-square-foot Murrieta home, according to court records and interviews.

 He withdrew thousands of dollars from Spinal Solutions’ account to patronize strip clubs like the Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen's Club. When creditors later asked why, he said, according to court transcripts, “Because I felt like it.”

 But Spinal Solutions also racked up big debts with hardware manufacturers and then refused to pay, according to industry executives and lawsuits.

 The company increasingly relied on Lenders Funding LLC, a firm that fronted cash at an interest rate of 35 percent. By 2013, the company owed the lender about $35,000 per month – solely in interest payments – and imploded in debt.

 It remains unclear when Spinal Solutions began to counterfeit surgical implants. And it is nearly impossible to trace each knockoff to each patient or to confirm how many were affected.

 In a line of business built on meticulous order, the inner workings of Spinal Solutions were a study in disorder.

 Take Operations Manager Jeff Fields, whom Williams called “my main guy.” Fields was in charge of the company’s inventory of surgical implants.

 A court declaration from Williams’ brother-in-law says that Fields’ work was “sloppy” and that he’d seen him use methamphetamines on the job. Fields did not respond to letters and Facebook messages. When reached by phone, he said, “I’ve got no interest in speaking to anybody,” and hung up.

 The brother-in-law, Carl Sisler, was Spinal Solutions’ first employee and knows more about the company than anyone else, Williams said in a court filing. Sisler is described as a “Medical/Surgical instrument technician” in his own court declaration.

 But Sisler denied being an instrument technician and told CIR he was in prison for domestic violence for many years of the company’s run. Sisler’s convictions also included making a terrorist threat and indecent exposure, but he was paroled in 2008, according to prison records.

 “I was a nobody there,” Sisler insisted in a telephone interview, during which he slurred his words and acknowledged he was drunk. “I was the gofer guy who made $285 a week cleaning toilets.”

 Williams, meanwhile, accused his bookkeeper of sabotage and embezzlement in a court declaration and said the books never were made right.

 Williams had an especially volatile relationship with his wife, Mary, whom he once described as the company’s chief financial officer. He was convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence in 2013.

 The IRS determined the Williamses underpaid their taxes by a combined half a million dollars due to fraud in 2009 and 2010, according to court filings. The couple’s taxable income topped $5 million each year.

 Mary Williams filed an appeal to the IRS in tax court last year, blaming her “controlling, abusive” husband for the problem.

 She referred CIR to her attorney, who declined to comment.

 The company’s records got caught in the crossfire. In a deposition related to creditors, she described getting law enforcement to open the Spinal Solutions offices so she could take hard drives.

 “Half of the stuff is gone because my wife took it, you know,” Roger Williams said during a bankruptcy-related hearing.

 Pilot Bob Garrison, who used to work for Spinal Solutions, recalls handing off packages of cash to doctors on two occasions. Credit: Will Evans/CIR Pilot Bob Garrison, who used to work for Spinal Solutions, recalls handing off packages of cash to doctors on two occasions. ×

 Flying screws, doctors and cash

 Spinal Solutions could not have raked in millions or spread its products across the U.S. if not for doctors eager to do business.

 Roger Williams lured them with private plane rides, generous consulting contracts and even cash, interviews and records show.

 Williams did not respond to calls, emails or letters from CIR.

 Williams made it clear the consulting deals and free flights were tools to keep doctors hooked on his products, said Quin Rudin, a businessman who poured money into the company when it hit a cash crunch in 2012.

 “He said that many times. ‘In order to do business with these guys, I gotta take care of them,’ ” Rudin recalled from behind thick glass in a downtown Oakland jail, where he landed after pleading guilty in an unrelated fraud case.

 Pilot Bob Garrison enjoyed a bird’s-eye view of the shenanigans, flying screws and doctors and cash.

 “Roger told me ..., ‘These doctors are greedy. They’re so greedy, you can’t believe it. All I do … I take advantage of their greed,’ ” Garrison told CIR.

 On one occasion, Garrison said Williams had him hand one out-of-state doctor an envelope stuffed with $20,000 in cash. On another, Garrison said he handed a doctor a bottle of wine in a canister packed with $100 bills.

 One Spinal Solutions sales representative said he suspected Williams was using perks to woo surgeons.

 “He said that any doctor that I could bring on board would be taken care of,” said Robert Ashcraft, who worked for Spinal Solutions in Nevada. Meanwhile, he said, Williams was pushing a product that was “second-rate crap.”

 One busy spinal surgeon, Dr. Cully White of Pewaukee, Wisconsin, took breaks from his suburban mansion on Spinal Solutions plane trips to the snowy resort town of Vail, Colorado, and the sunny Mexican beach retreat of Cabo San Lucas.

 The doctor’s longtime sales representative, John Sargent, went along for the rides in 2007 and 2008. Sargent said they went skiing in Vail and fishing in Cabo but also talked business. He encouraged White to reimburse the company, he said, but doesn’t know if White did.

 “I was telling (White) for a long time that I didn’t think (Williams) was a very savory character,” Sargent said.

 Williams sold hardware manufactured by a legitimate company, said Sargent, who took a 25 to 30 percent commission. But he did recall that Spinal Solutions once sent a set of implants without labels.

 “When the set came in, I said there’s no way I’m bringing this into the hospital,” Sargent said. “It just didn’t look like what you know it’s supposed to look like.”

 In more than a dozen operative reports from 2010 and 2011, White noted that the screws he put into patients’ backs came from Spinal Solutions, according to documents obtained by CIR.

 Sargent said he didn’t personally see most of the implants White used, but he had a “spider sense” that the doctor never implanted any bogus hardware.

 White’s successful career faltered when he was hit with an unrelated federal indictment and medical board investigation last year.

 White amassed a $22 million fortune, then scammed insurance companies for a little more, prosecutors said. The doctor pleaded guilty to billing for nerve monitoring that didn’t happen and was sentenced in April to six months in prison and six months on house arrest. He didn’t respond to letters sent to his Minnesota prison.

 Wining, dining and flying surgeons used to be commonplace in the medical technology industry, said David Rothman, director of the Center on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University. The practice has faded in recent years, he said, with government scrutiny, new transparency rules and growing awareness that gifts create a psychological obligation to give back.

 “The company that takes you out to dinner is the company that you’re going to favor one way or another,” Rothman said.

 Dr. Randy Davis said he didn’t take any bags of cash or free vacations. The Baltimore-area spine surgeon did once accept a seat close to actor Jack Nicholson at a Lakers game with Roger Williams but told CIR, “I can’t stand basketball ... that’s the worst thing you could bribe me with.”

 Davis said Williams was a fast-talking pitchman who persuaded him to sign up for Spinal Solutions’ implants, which he estimated he used in several hundred surgeries, and for consulting agreements to develop new surgical tools and implants. He was paid $250,000 for one of the agreements, he said.

 The money didn’t affect Davis’ use of the implants, he said. “I really believe that I do not make decisions for patients based on money,” he said.

 The counterfeiting claims don’t ring true to him, either. He said he never received any substandard implants.

 After the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Williams used his planes to deliver needed medical supplies, and Davis traveled with him.

 The doctor believed Williams was doing good things, he said, and thought the ideas he offered as a Spinal Solutions consultant would help patients. But Davis said he grew frustrated by the lack of progress on his projects and eventually ended the five-year relationship in late 2012.

 Another consultant who used the company’s implants, Dr. Paul McDonough of Texas, received at least nine $8,000 checks in 2012 from Spinal Solutions, according to court records. McDonough helped create an implant prototype, but in the end, “nothing happened to it,” Williams said in court testimony.

 McDonough did not respond to repeated phone calls and a list of questions faxed to his Abilene office.

 Consulting deals are common in the medical field and are legitimate if the physician provides a meaningful service for a reasonable compensation. But whistleblowers and prosecutors have gone after top device firms over phony agreements, claiming they amount to kickbacks.

 Williams’ ability to connect with surgeons across the country meant that when counterfeit hardware slipped into the mix, the problem went national, according to one company insider.

 The former sales representative remembers watching another employee pluck a few screws from a tray in the company warehouse for shipping to an out-of-state surgery.

 The screws didn’t look like the other ones, said the sales rep, who declined to be identified out of fear of retribution. He grabbed a few to examine them. Some were blatantly inferior, he said, at times with metal shavings and burrs in the threads.

 “And I saw these screws being shipped all over the United States,” he said.

 South Korean medical hardware company U&I Corp. once supplied screws to Spinal Solutions. Credit: Adithya Sambamurthy/CIR South Korean medical hardware company U&I Corp. once supplied screws to Spinal Solutions. ×

 Employee alerts FDA

 The sales rep grew increasingly disturbed thinking about patients waking up from surgery with what he described as garbage in their spines.

 “To do that to somebody when they’re already experiencing tremendous pain, then to take a counterfeit screw so your (profit) margins are more, especially a poorly crafted counterfeit screw. … It was just so ridiculous,” he said.

 The authorities would surely shut down the operation, he thought, if they only knew.

 After making numerous phone calls, the rep set up a meeting with the FDA in June 2011. He described how he spread out an array of questionable screws for FDA investigator DeJon Harris on a table at Coco’s Bakery Restaurant in Corona, California.

 “I also impressed upon her, you need to go sirens blazing and door-kicking and stop this,” the sales rep said. “Every day you guys don’t do something, some loved one is getting these fucking screws put in their spine.”

 The sales rep said he gave Harris screws to take back to the FDA district office in Ontario, California. “You couldn’t ignore that they were counterfeit,” he said. “It was so blatantly obvious to even the untrained eye.”

 In cases of alleged counterfeiting, the FDA could bring in its Office of Criminal Investigations or call the FBI, spokesman Christopher Kelly said. The agency did not answer questions about whether either happened with Spinal Solutions, citing an ongoing investigation.

 Garrison, Spinal Solutions’ private pilot, said he then reached out to the FDA at the sales rep’s suggestion, telling investigators he delivered screws in plastic bags labeled with felt-tipped pens.

 “Whether they were legal or not … I don’t know,” Garrison said.

 The month after the meeting with the sales rep, Harris and another FDA investigator inspected Spinal Solutions’ headquarters, FDA records show, and encountered a company in disarray.

 The firm was assembling kits with dozens of screws, rods and other components without any formal process or paperwork to indicate what went where, inspection records say. Required systems for setting aside flawed products and preventing mix-ups didn’t exist.

 Federal regulators sent Spinal Solutions a warning letter in early 2012, ordering the company to fix its quality control problems. The company pledged to make changes.

 Around that time, U&I Corp., the South Korean medical hardware firm, alerted the FDA that it was hearing from plaintiffs’ attorneys that Spinal Solutions was counterfeiting hardware.

 “We just reported that these allegations are out there,” said Brian Park, the company’s New York attorney. “Do something.”

 But the FDA allowed Spinal Solutions to continue selling its products while the company tried to shape up, court filings show. If the agency found evidence of counterfeiting, it didn’t mention it in documents provided to CIR under the Freedom of Information Act.

 In spring 2013, Spinal Solutions recalled surgical equipment that wasn’t properly labeled and some implants that didn’t match FDA-approved designs. Then, crippled by debt, it shut down.

 But by then, Spinal Solutions had profited from a 14-year run, and its hardware studded the backs of patients from Los Angeles to Baltimore.

 This counterfeit screw is based on U&I Corp.’s product, a firm manager said. Credit: Adithya Sambamurthy/CIR This counterfeit screw is based on U&I Corp.’s product, a firm manager said. ×

 Machinist’s involvement

 The source of the counterfeits, plaintiffs’ attorneys allege, was 85-year-old machinist William Crowder. He owns a small office park machine shop in Southern California’s Inland Empire. He had experience working on parts for boats, planes and, it appears, the human body.

 In an interview with CIR, Crowder said Spinal Solutions’ operations manager, Jeff Fields, gave him professional-looking medical screws and asked for exact copies.

 “He might want 50 of this size and 40 of these,” said Crowder, who has been named as a defendant in dozens of lawsuits.

 Plaintiffs’ attorneys believe that thousands of counterfeit screws went into unsuspecting patients, though Crowder testified in a recent deposition to making “maybe 500.”

 “I wish I had been making thousands, but I didn’t,” he told CIR.

 A few years ago, Crowder stopped making the screws because Spinal Solutions was unwilling to pay a fair price, he said. His doctor, he added, had been after him for years to quit work anyway.

 A consultant hired by Spinal Solutions to help the company meet FDA requirements also found that Crowder’s machine shop did not qualify as a supplier, in part because his tools were not calibrated.

 Richard Walker, the South African executive who discovered forgeries of his golden screws back in 2009, had toured the machine shop years ago. He wanted to see whether it could repair tools used to implant his firm’s hardware. Walker rejected the shop on appearance alone.

 “It wasn’t conducive to the manufacture or taking care of medical products,” Walker told CIR. “If I had a surgery that used a component from that workshop, I’d be worried.”

 There was some “old stuff” in his shop, Crowder acknowledged, but also modern equipment and a quality control system.

 His memory is faltering these days, Crowder said, but he recalled that a woman from the FDA spent two days in his shop a few years ago. He told CIR that she did not ask for samples of screws or talk about implants.

 “No, she didn’t say nothing about that. No,” he said. “We got a clean bill of health from them.”

 The FDA’s website shows the inspector ended a review on July 30, 2012, and did not call for any changes. CIR filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the report, but the agency has failed to provide it or answer questions about the scope of the review.

 Crowder also said he didn’t etch anything on the screws he made for Spinal Solutions. Instead, that trail seems to lead to another Spinal Solutions contractor, Ryan Zavilenski.

 On his YouTube page, Zavilenski boasts of owning a laser engraver. He also posted photos of spinal implants on his photo-sharing website.

 From behind the screen door of his Santa Rosa, California, apartment, Zavilenski confirmed that he did laser engraving for Spinal Solutions several years ago. He said he engraved only a few screws, however, which he called prototypes.

 The photos Zavilenski posted online included implants with other company markings etched on them. He didn’t engrave those, he said, but instead photographed items he found at Spinal Solutions to demonstrate to potential customers the kind of work he could do.

 A few of the photos he posted included screws bearing the markings of U&I, the South Korean company that once supplied Spinal Solutions. Company engineers examined those photos at the request of CIR and reported that none looked authentic.

 “Font, logo, edge finish, surface finish … everything is different from ours,” said Sung Hwang, the general manager.

 Crowder said the screws in Zavilenski’s photos looked similar to the ones he made, but not quite the same. The ones Crowder recalls making also were prototypes, he believed. Still, he said he would not be worried if they ended up in people’s backs and necks.

 “Why would I be worried?” he said. “If the engineer designed them wrong then … that’s his fault. It’s not mine.”

 Researcher Emily McKellar contributed to this story. It was edited by Amy Pyle and copy edited by Sheela Kamath and Nikki Frick.

 Christina Jewett can be reached at cjewett@cironline.org, and Will Evans can be reached at wevans@cironline.org. Follow them on Twitter: @JewettCIR and @willCIR.

 This story was published with The Daily Beast.

  ||||| LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — More than two dozen plaintiffs have signed on to a massive lawsuit concerning an alleged scheme in which patients received non-FDA approved screws during spine and back surgery.

 “The fraudulent non-FDA conforming devices were installed in people’s bodies at a very low cost to the providers,” attorney Brian Kabateck said Friday afternoon. “They were then fraudulently billing the insurance companies, the worker’s comp carriers, and making thousands and thousands of dollars off of each patient.”

 Officials said 28 new cases were filed at the Los Angeles County Superior Court on Friday, making a total of 32 pending cases.

 Derika Moses, who said she has had 23 surgeries on her back since 2008, is one of the plaintiffs.

 “This has been terrible, worst thing that’s ever happened to me…not knowing if the stuff still in me they couldn’t get out will one day kill me,” Moses said outside of the Stanley Mosk Courthouse on Grand Avenue on Friday afternoon.

 “I was left in extreme physical and mental pain as well as left with permanent disabilities and disfigurements,” she said.

 Several lawsuits filed across the state have also claimed the metal screws were produced in a Temecula machine shop, authorities have said.

 Within the lawsuit, the shop owner and several doctors are listed for taking kickbacks while hospitals profited from selling the fake screws, Kabateck said.

 According to attorneys, Spinal Solutions LLC is the company accused of distributing and inflating the cost of the screws.

 Michael Drobot, the former owner of Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, is accused of overseeing the scheme that included making cheap screws and distributing them to different hospitals, Kabateck explained.

 Drobot’s attorney, Terree Bowers, disputes that claim.

 “Michael Drobot and Pacific Hospital had absolutely nothing to do with allegations concerning the counterfeit screws,” Bowers told KCAL9’s Rachel Kim on Friday.

 Bowers said Drobot has admitted to giving kickbacks to physicians, but said all of those surgeries were medically needed and authorized by insurance companies.

 Right now the plaintiffs’ attorneys say there may be thousands of other victims, and they want justice for those like Moses.

 “Think about somebody other than yourself for once,” Moses said Friday. “All the people’s lives you might have placed in danger.” |||||

– Medical firm founder Roger Williams owned private planes, flashy cars, and a yacht dubbed "Spare Change"; he had courtside seats to see the Lakers and enjoyed spending thousands at strip clubs. But an investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting suggests his $18-million-a-year California company, Spinal Solutions, made its money in part through counterfeiting expensive screws used in spinal surgeries and then distributing the knockoff screws to surgeons. Williams allegedly wooed doctors via lavish vacations, Lakers seats, and containers full of cash. There's no evidence doctors were complicit in the reported counterfeiting, but plenty of them used the screws. A machinist, now 85, tells CIR that he made copies of screws for the company for $65 each, which is about half of their typical price—and far, far less than the $12,500 hospitals once billed for them. Other companies' logos were also falsified on the screws. A whistleblower finally told the FDA about the alleged counterfeiting in 2011, but the company was allowed to continue operation until debts ruined it in 2013. The losers in all this, of course, were the patients, who could face dangers thanks to the substandard equipment. "This has been terrible, worst thing that’s ever happened to me … not knowing if the stuff still in me they couldn’t get out will one day kill me," says one patient. As of last month, 32 lawsuits sought to address the matter, CBS 2 reports; one has more than 20 plaintiffs. (In happier spinal news, a paralyzed man's nose helped him to walk again.)


News article:

Comedian Bill Cosby is not dead despite rumors making rounds on the internet Monday.A simple click of the mouse Monday afternoon revealed, "Bill Cosby died" as the number one trending topic on Twitter and "is Bill Cobsy dead" as the number two "hot topic" on Google Trends, which essentially keeps track of items entered into the search engine.Around 4 p.m. Monday, the 73-year-old took to his Twitter account writing, "Again, I'm rebutalling rumors about my demise."This isn't the first time Cosby has had to deal with news of his supposed demise.In February, he again took to his Twitter account after hearing rumors of his apparent death. In that instance, he wrote, "As you well know, a dead person cannot rebuttal. Therefore, I am rebuttaling to tell you that when I heard the news I immediately began rebuttaling and went into denial."In addition, he acknowledged "rebuttal" wasn't used as a verb, however he added, "I don't care, because I'm alive!" ||||| Add a location to your Tweets

 When you tweet with a location, Twitter stores that location. You can switch location on/off before each Tweet and always have the option to delete your location history. Learn more ||||| Add a location to your Tweets

 When you tweet with a location, Twitter stores that location. You can switch location on/off before each Tweet and always have the option to delete your location history. Learn more |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Bill Cosby is not dead, despite what you might have read on the Internet this afternoon. In fact, the 73-year-old comedy legend is alive, well, and making up words on Twitter, reports WPIX. Using a term he created after a similar false alarm in February, he tweeted today, "Again, I'm rebutalling rumors about my demise." He added, "Emotional friends have called about this misinformation. To the people behind the foolishness, I’m not sure you see how upsetting this is." To learn more about things the web has actually killed, click here.