Article:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — If "The story of Jack and Oskar" was pitched as the script for a Hollywood movie, it's a good bet no one would believe it.

 In this Nov. 25, 1979 photo, Jack Yufe, left, and his twin brother, Oskar, look on. Separated soon after birth, Jack Yufe was raised as a Jew in Trinidad while his sibling Oskar grew up in Nazi Germany... (Associated Press)

 Separated sixth months after birth in 1933, Jack Yufe was raised as a Jew in his native Trinidad while his identical twin, Oskar Stohr, grew up in Nazi Germany, where he joined the Hitler Youth movement.

 When the two met again at a German train station at age 21 they discovered they didn't particularly like each other. Not so much because they were different, but because they were so much alike.

 Yufe, who died Monday of cancer in a San Diego hospital, had arrived for that first meeting wearing a white sports jacket, shirt and wire-rimmed glasses. So had his brother.

 "I said, 'Oskar, you are wearing the same shirt and same glasses. Why?'" Yufe, who was 82, recalled in a 1999 BBC documentary. "He said to me, 'Why are you wearing the same thing that I am?'"

 As they got to know each other better they would learn they also walked with the same gait, had the same nervous habits, even liked to play the same practical jokes on people.

 "They both used to wash their hands before and after going to the toilet," recalled Nancy L. Segal, a professor of psychology at California State University, Fullerton, who studied the brothers as part of a landmark study of twins conducted at the University of Minnesota.

 "They both used to like to sneeze loudly in elevators, thinking that was funny," she continued. "If you sat across from them at a table and there was a vase with a rose or something, they would both shove it aside because they couldn't stand that."

 They also shared the same hot temper and competitive drive, which led them to learn not to ever talk politics or religion, Yufe's son, Kenneth, said Wednesday.

 "It was an interesting pair to watch, for sure," he added.

 The two were separated when their parents split and their mother took Oskar to her native Germany while Jack stayed in Trinidad with their father. In his teens, Yufe moved to Israel where he served in the navy before moving to the United States and going into the retail business in San Diego.

 "When he first started he was selling out of a van, and he'd see people who had no shoes or horrible shoes and he'd say, "Here's a pair of boots, give me a dollar a week, that sort of thing," the son recalled. "He'd give credit to people who never had credit before."

 But if the buyer didn't pay that dollar a week, his son recalled with a laugh, he'd demand those boots back.

 "He was very old school, but he really was a wonderful guy."

 It was in San Diego that Yufe's first wife learned of the landmark Minnesota Twins Study and persuaded her husband and brother-in-law to take part. They and others showed remarkable similarities despite growing up apart from one another for decades.

 "As psychologists, it made us really rethink our explanations for behavior," said Segal.

 Yufe and Stohr, meanwhile, came to care deeply for one another, said the psychologist, who got to know both over the 20-year study and wrote about them in her books "Born Together — Reared Apart: The Landmark Minnesota Twin Study" and "Indivisible by Two: Lives of Extraordinary Twins."

 When Stohr died of cancer in 1997, she said, Yufe was devastated but couldn't bring himself to attend the funeral because he looked so much like his brother that he feared it would disturb the family.

 "They had an amazing, what I would call a love-hate relationship," she said. "They were fascinated by one another, fascinated by their similarities, intrigued that the worst traits that they saw in themselves were mirrored in the other one. They were hot tempered and short tempered and impatient, demanding. But their families loved them."

 In addition to his wife, Ruth, and son, Kenneth, Yufe is survived by daughters Anita Yufe, Hovi Reader and Debvra Gregory and stepsons Renee and Enrique Vega. ||||| Although the brothers got to know one another much better through the study and subsequent visits, their relationship never lost its prickly edge. Oskar had the same competitive nature, and the rivalry between them "was just nonstop," Kenneth Yufe said Tuesday, recalling the time the two men even battled to see who had the best technique for cleaning a dirty car window. |||||

 Separated soon after birth, Jack Yufe, left, was raised as a Jew in Trinidad while his sibling Oskar Stohr, right, grew up in Nazi Germany where he joined the Hitler Youth. (Robert Lachman/Los Angeles Times via AP)

 Jack Yufe grew up missing his other half, an identical twin brother from whom he had been separated at six months.

 For years, they exchanged letters and photographs. Then, at age 21, they met at a German train station. The encounter was detailed in psychologist Nancy Segal’s book “Indivisible by Two: Lives of Extraordinary Twins.”

 Yufe and his brother, Oskar Stohr, examined one another as if they were looking at alien specimens, though no likeness could have been more familiar to either of them. Their cultural differences were as immediately apparent as their physical similarities. Casting a wary eye at Yufe’s Israeli luggage tags, Stohr removed them and told his long-lost brother to tell others he was coming from America.

 From this first uneasy exchange in 1954 grew a complex but enduring bond that would bring Yufe and Stohr to the center of discussions about nature and nurture. After all, the differences between the brothers’ upbringings were more extreme than those experienced by most twins separated by circumstance.

 Yufe grew up Jewish in Trinidad and became an officer in the Israeli Navy. Stohr grew up Catholic in Nazi Germany and became an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth.

 Yufe died Monday of cancer in a San Diego hospital, the Associated Press reports. He was 82.

 Stohr passed away in 1997, also of cancer.

 The brothers’ unique relationship was a source of fascination for the researchers behind the landmark Minnesota twin study conducted from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. Seeking to identify how environmental and genetic factors contributed to psychological traits, the study closely examined the behaviors of sets of twins who were separated early in their lives and raised by different families.

 What made Yufe and Stohr an extraordinary case was not only the stark contrasts between the cultures in which they grew up — Nazism versus Judaism — but also the striking similarities in their habits and emotional temperaments.

 In 1933, Yufe and Stohr were born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, to a Romanian Jewish father and a German Catholic mother. According to Segal, it’s not known whether the couple was ever married, and their relationship quickly soured “as a result of [the father’s] ‘roving eyes’ and excessive drinking.”

 The twins’ mother returned to her native Germany with Stohr and an older daughter in tow, while Yufe remained in Trinidad as a British subject. Meanwhile, Stohr became a subject of the German Reich and a member of the Hitler Youth, a cause he took on with enthusiasm.

 The Los Angeles Times reports that Stohr confessed years later to having dreamt of shooting his twin in an aerial dogfight. On the other hand, Yufe had a nightmare about killing his brother with a bayonet.

 Their stark cultural, political and religious differences were what initially made them the stars of headlines such as “Twins: Nazi and Jew” and snapshots that featured the Jewish star printed above one brother and a swastika above the other.

 “But that’s too simple,” Segal wrote of the pair. “That’s not how it was.”

 Once Yufe and Stohr started discovering their shared idiosyncrasies, those seemed even more peculiar than what set them apart.

 The first meeting — when Yufe visited Stohr, his mother and her side of the family in Germany — was awkward. Yufe recalled to Segal, “We saw each other as enemies, neither one of us would change. We looked at each other with suspicion.” Then, on a boat trip they took together on the Rhine River, Jack had hoped to have some private time with Stohr, “but he was so unfriendly, and he was not trying to hide it. He kept covering his eyes with his hand.”

 After six days, they parted ways with just a cold handshake. They wouldn’t see each other for another 25 years.

 It was the Minnesota twin study that ultimately brought them back together. Yufe told the Los Angeles Times in 1979, “I thought it perhaps would be a good idea…to meet in a neutral territory to hash out all this, all the hidden feelings.”

 The revelations began when they met at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. As it so happens, both were wearing the same outfit: a white sports jacket, shirt and wire-rimmed glasses.

 “I said, ‘Oskar, you are wearing the same shirt and same glasses. Why?'” Yufe recalled in a 1999 BBC documentary. “He said to me, ‘Why are you wearing the same thing that I am?'”

 The similarities soon piled on, with startling specificity: both read books from back to front, sneezed loudly in elevators, wrapped rubber bands around their wrists, flushed toilets before and after using them and wore tight bathing suits.

 Segal explains in “Indivisible by Two” that some of these peculiar commonalities could be explained by genetics. The toilet-flushing, for instance, likely had to do with the brothers’ sensitivity to germs.

 In later years, their wives noticed that they walked, and even tripped, in a similar fashion.

 Still, some differences persisted. They could never agree on Israel and Palestine, for instance, or who was responsible for World War II. Segal writes, “Oskar’s repeated reference to German soldiers as ‘we’ infuriated Jack.”

 After a stint in the Israeli army, Yufe eventually settled in San Diego and became the owner of a retail store called “El Progresso.” Stohr stayed in Germany, working as a miner and electrical welder.

 “They had an amazing, what I would call a love-hate relationship,” Yufe’s wife, Ruth, told the AP. “They were fascinated by one another, fascinated by their similarities, intrigued that the worst traits that they saw in themselves were mirrored in the other one. They were hot-tempered and short-tempered and impatient, demanding. But their families loved them.”

 Yufe’s son, Kenneth, described his father to the AP as “very old school,” but a “wonderful guy.”

 Yufe is also survived by daughters Anita Yufe, Hovi Reader and Debvra Gregory, as well as stepsons Renee and Enrique Vega.

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What is a summary?

– A California man named Jack Yufe died this week at age 82, and his life story is so fascinating that the AP likens it to a Hollywood script nobody would believe; the Los Angeles Times draws a comparison to a "tabloid headline." The reason? Yufe was born in Trinidad along with an identical twin brother, but their parents split after 6 months. Yufe grew up as a Jew, even serving a stint in the Israeli navy. Brother Oskar Stohr, meanwhile, went to Germany with his Catholic mom and grew up as a Nazi, becoming a member of the Hitler Youth. They managed to stay in touch and met again at age 21. The weird part? Despite their incredibly different backgrounds, they were alike in nearly every way. They dressed the same (both showed up to their first meeting in a white sports jacket and wire-rimmed glasses), walked the same, wore the same mustache, and had the same temperament and quirks. They both liked to sneeze loudly to scare people as a joke, and "both used to wash their hands before and after going to the toilet," says Nancy Segal, a professor of psychology who studied the pair as part of a well-known study of separated twins at the University of Minnesota. The brothers' story eventually rose to "the center of discussions about nature and nurture," notes the Washington Post. Though the brothers didn't much like each other at first, that changed over the years. When Stohr died of cancer in 1997, a devastated Yufe didn't attend the funeral, however, notes AP. They looked so much alike he was afraid it would upset loved ones. (A survivor of the Nazi death camps' only mass escape also recently died.)


Are anti-NSA pranksters invading people's privacy?

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 Full Episode

 Civil liberties groups in the US say the National Security Agency's surveillance program amounts to illegal spying on innocent citizens. And now, a group of anonymous anti-NSA pranksters is trying to make a point about the surveillance of ordinary people by doing it themselves.

 Over the past year, they've hidden dozens of mini tape recorders under tables and benches around New York City, secretly taping people's conversations. This week, they launched a website where they've posted some of their recordings. They range from the mundane, like a woman at a gym talking about her plans for the evening, to the intimate, like a man at a restaurant talking about his lover's fetishes.

 The people behind this project claim to be contractors working for the NSA, even though their website links to the ACLU's instructions on how to urge Congress to repeal part of the Homeland Security Act. They say they've launched a new "pro bono" pilot program on behalf of the agency - despite not having been asked by the NSA to do this. We talk to one of the project's creators about what they're trying to achieve, and ask how recording and posting unsuspecting people's conversations without their consent can be justified. We agreed to withhold his identity at his request.

 This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

 Why have you asked us not to reveal your identity?

 Well, our operatives can really complete our mission with much greater efficiency if our identities are not known.

 Are you worried about legal repercussions for yourself and for the project?

 No. Our agents are not.

 But to be clear, what you're doing is against the law New York State, because to record a conversation, one person needs to give their consent to being taped. So why are you doing this?

 If people were really bothered by this type of surveillance, we imagine that they would be sending their their feelings towards their government representatives to respond to the NSA's tactics. And certainly what we've been hearing over and over again is, "I'm not saying or doing anything wrong, so it's really fine if I am listened in on." So since we've heard the overwhelming response to the NSA's actions, we figured that we would step in and help with the NSA's actions. These people aren't doing anything wrong. They really have nothing to be concerned about and there should be no element of being surprised or hurt by an invasion of privacy.

 I think I understand the point you're trying to make about mass surveillance and about the NSA. But you're essentially trying to make that point by doing the same thing, which is violating people's privacy.

 You're certainly welcome to process it that way. We look at it as we're trying to keep the country and the world at large safe. Part of the freedoms that we're trying to protect are not just the freedoms of people's physical wellbeing, but people's freedoms to show dissent and speak up to power. We've given people a place at the site to express their dissatisfaction with with this type of surveillance. So if this type of surveillance really bothers them, there's really a way for people en masse to let their voices be heard and have this type of surveillance and data mining be stopped.

 And so as you go about conducting this "surveillance," what are you doing to protect people's identities?

 We have not released anybody's first and last names on the recordings. Through our data collection, we have heard people give their bank account numbers to their customer service representatives at their banks. People talk about passwords to different services that they use online and we've deleted those and not made those public. We have not released anything that would compromise any particular individual.

 But you list the exact location of where the recorder was hidden and you're posting pictures of the locations too. Couldn't someone figure out who that person was, at a location talking about a specific thing?

 It's very interesting you say that, because the NSA can actually put together your whereabouts past, present and future with much less information than that. The NSA uses many, many, many third party contractors and we consider ourselves to be one of them, albeit in a freelance, pro bono non-official way.

 A not asked way.

 No, no one has asked us yet, but we feel pretty confident that the NSA would approve of our actions, since we're really trying to aid them in their efforts.

 What if someone hears themselves on your website wants you to take the clip down? What are you going to do?

 Well, there is an email address. So far, we haven't had that response. Our agents would have to really go over that and work on that on a case-by-case basis. So far, we haven't received any emails asking that to happen. And again, we have a place where people can vent their frustration to people much more powerful than us. We're a small organization. There's a big conversation happening and a debate and laws being changed on the Hill this week. So it would be a really good time for people to weigh in with their voices.

 There has been a long debate over privacy and the N.S.A. and CSIS, our spy agency here in Canada. What are you hoping that it's adding to the conversation?

 What we're hoping to add to the conversation is people to have an awareness of how even the most mundane conversation reveals quite a bit about your life, your patterns of behavior. But it seems that there are people who are aware of that, because they've said quite loudly, as I've said before, "As long as I'm not doing anything wrong, I don't see why people have a problem with governments and their third party vendors that they work with knowing who I speak to, how often I speak to them, where I speak to them." And in some cases, you don't even really need to know and hear the conversation to know what you're speaking about. If the NSA understands that you're calling a doctor's office and a particular type of doctor over and over again, they don't need to listen to the details in the granular piece of those conversations to figure out what's going on in your life.

 What's most interesting thing that you've heard on these tapes?

 I don't think you have the security clearance to hear the most interesting pieces. And what's interesting to one might not be to another. So, that's really a judgment call that I'm not in a position to make.

 Okay you're helping the NS. do their job is what you're saying.

 Oh, absolutely. And we consider it a really important mission. But If the tactics and them completing their mission were deemed illegal or unconstitutional, we would immediately stop.

 Aren't you deceiving people? Your tape recorders actually say "Property of the NSA."

 Well, we feel since we're working on behalf of the NSA, that we took the liberty to say that we're working for their mission, that this would be the best way to identify our devices. And if someone were to find one, we hope that they can just drop it in the mailbox somewhere and it would be delivered to the NSA and then that way, we can get our information even quicker to the NSA, rather than having to go to our website and listen to what we found they can get ahold of it that way.

 How would you feel if you were on the other side of this and one of your private conversations ended up online?

 I assume my private conversations are being listened to by many. That's an assumption that most people should make, that their private comings and goings are not are not completely between the people that they think they're having them with. ||||| A woman at a gym tells her friend she pays rent higher than $2,000 a month. An ex-Microsoft employee describes his work as an artist to a woman he's interviewing to be his assistant—he makes paintings and body casts, as well as something to do with infrared light that’s hard to discern from his foreign accent. Another man describes his gay lover’s unusual sexual fetish, which involves engaging in fake fistfights, “like we were doing a scene from Batman Returns."

 These conversations—apparently real ones, whose participants had no knowledge an eavesdropper might be listening—were recorded and published by the NSA. Well, actually no, not the NSA, but an anonymous group of anti-NSA protestors claiming to be contractors of the intelligence agency and launching a new "pilot program" in New York City on its behalf. That spoof of a pilot program, as the prankster provocateurs describe and document in videos on their website, involves planting micro-cassette recorders under tables and benches around New York city, retrieving the tapes and embedding the resulting audio on their website: Wearealwayslistening.com.

 A note, tape recorder and USB drive anonymously sent to WIRED's New York office. The USB drive contained a video showing one of the recorders being stealthily planted under a table.

 "Eavesdropping on the population has revealed many saying 'I’m not doing anything wrong so who cares if the NSA tracks what I say and do?' Citizens don’t seem to mind this monitoring, so we’re hiding recorders in public places in hopes of gathering information to help win the war on terror," reads a message on the project's website. "We've started with NYC as a pilot program, but hope to roll the initiative out all across The Homeland."

 Another page of the project's website embeds the audio from five of those surreptitious recordings of New Yorkers' conversations, including the ones described above. The group likely has many hours more of surveillance tape from the low-tech spy bugs they've scattered around the city.

 The project’s creators have chosen to remain anonymous, no doubt in part to avoid the legal controversy surrounding secret recordings of private conversations under New York law. But they tipped off WIRED to their work in an encrypted email a day ahead of their project’s launch Wednesday. They say they've planted dozens of the microcassette recorders around New York over the last year. "The NSA employs many 3rd party contractors, [and] we consider ourselves to be contractors of this nature, albeit in a unpaid and unsanctioned capacity," reads the email. "We can attest to the fact all people recorded are NOT actors and are not knowingly involved in the project in any way."

 That anonymous email was followed by an envelope sent to WIRED’s New York office containing a single page with the printed words “We’re listening as you read this,” along with the group's website url. Inside the envelope was also one of the group's tape recorders (without a tape) and a USB stick containing the video below, which shows one of the recorders being surreptitiously planted under a restaurant table, marked with the words "PROPERTY OF NSA."

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxJgK0ND2DY&feature=youtu.be

 A link on the We Are Always Listening site makes clear the project's larger political purpose: The word "Angry?" in the site's menu connects to a page on the ACLU's website that asks Americans to protest the renewal of Patriot Act, whose deadline looms on June 1. The ACLU page asks voters to petition Congress in particular to allow the 215 Section of the law to sunset, which would end the bulk collection of metadata about Americans' communications, revealed in the first published leak of classified material by NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

 A spoofed NSA logo created by the group. Its latin translates to "We Are Always Listening."

 Despite that link, ACLU spokesperson Stacy Sullivan tells WIRED that the group isn't affiliated with the people behind the eavesdropping prank, though the ACLU did grant them permission to link to the group's petition page. Sullivan wouldn't say whether she knew the creators' identities. The NSA didn't immediately respond to WIRED's request for comment.

 The recordings posted to the site don't name any of the eavesdropped speakers. But they do include the locations where the recordings were made, which could provide just enough information to identify some of those speakers. And regardless of anonymity, the prank is likely illegal: Secretly recording a conversation in New York requires the consent of at least one of the people recorded—a tape recorder planted under a table and retrieved later certainly doesn't qualify.

 Of the five recordings published on the project's website so far, three of the recorders used to get them remain in place, and an untold number of others could still be planted around the city. So, careful what you say in public, New Yorkers—unless, of course, you have nothing to hide. |||||

Write a summary.

– Spending time in New York City these days? You might peek under the table or bench you're using to see if there's a tape recorder marked "PROPERTY OF NSA"—which was placed there by anti-NSA activists trying to make a point, the Guardian reports. The activists won't identify themselves, but have posted recordings (which they claim are authentic) on WeAreAlwaysListening.com. Some are kinda embarrassing, too, like the students who brag about tricking a roommate into leaving, the Asian men who mock other Asians for speaking in an Asian manner, or the guy whose gay lover liked acting out fight scenes as part of sex. It was "like Batman Returns," he says. "Bam! Boom! Kazam. Ah you got me!” The point, of course, is political: Anyone upset by the tapes can send "their feelings towards their government representatives to respond to the NSA's tactics," one of the activists tells the CBC. Some NSA supporters have said they approve of domestic surveillance because they're not doing anything wrong, he notes, and suggests these recordings will put that to the test. Their website links the word "Angry?" to an ACLU page where people can oppose the renewal of the Patriot Act, which is due to end June 1, Wired reports. For the record: What the activists are doing violates state law, and the ACLU says it isn't affiliated with them, but did allow the link. Meanwhile, "careful what you say in public, New Yorkers—unless, of course, you have nothing to hide," says Wired.


Article:

Wolfman, The HORROR: United States, 2010 U.S. Release Date: 2010-02-12 Running Length: 1:45 MPAA Classification: R (Violence) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving, Geraldine Chaplin, Art Malik Director: Joe Johnston Screenplay: Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self, based on the 1941 screenplay by Curt Siodmak Cinematography: Shelly Johnson Music: Danny Elfman U.S. Distributor: Universal Pictures Subtitles: none

 All of the great Universal horror movies from the 1930s and 1940s have now been remade: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Wolf Man. Over the years, there have been numerous cinematic encounters with lycanthropy, but The Wolf Man is to werewolves what Dracula is to vampires. He is unique. Since Lon Chaney Jr. cast aside the mantle of Lawrence Talbot following his run-in with Abbott and Costello in 1948, no one has picked it up... until now. In accepting the part, Benicio Del Toro isn't playing a werewolf; he is playing the werewolf. For most long-time horror fans, Chaney's portrayal of the tortured Talbot and his vicious alter-ego is as iconic as can be found in the annals of the "monster movie." Del Toro's lack of success, therefore, may be unwelcome but it is not entirely unexpected. It's hard to work in the long shadow cast by the likes of Karloff, Lugosi, or Chaney, but unavoidable when re-making one of their movies.

 The root problem with The Wolfman is that it's a hybrid. It tries to fuse the gothic storytelling of the original with the violence and gore associated with modern horror. Its wedding of traditional makeup with CGI is uneasy. Director Joe Johnston wants this movie to be the bridge between the restrained, atmosphere-soaked Universal horror classic and the grotesque likes of An American Werewolf in London and The Howling. It doesn't work. Parts of The Wolfman - even those that were effective in the original - have been recreated in a fashion that seems more Monty Python than unsettling. More disappointing is the makeup provided by veteran Rick Baker (the go-to man for this sort of work), which looks inexcusably campy. The fangs look like they were purchased at a Halloween costume store and, during the big werewolf-on-werewolf clash, I was reminded of Bigfoot from The Six Million Dollar Man. One has to wonder whether Baker's decision to remain true to the general appearance of the original Wolf Man is the right one. Nostalgia isn't always the best barometer by which to make creative decisions.

 The action, which elects to retain a period piece flavor rather than time-shift the story, takes place in the 1890s on the moors of rural England. There stands the estate of Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins), whose son Ben has disappeared. The other Talbot heir, Lawrence (Benicio Del Toro), now a touring stage actor, answers a plea from his brother's fiancé, Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt), to come home and search for the missing man. By the time Lawrence reaches Talbot Hall, a mangled body has been found and a funeral has been arranged. Lawrence, determined to find the beast responsible for his brother's death, begins a hunt that leads him to a gypsy camp. While there, he is attacked by a half-man/half-wolf. The gypsy woman Maleva (Geraldine Chaplin) sutures the wound, but pronounces Lawrence to be cursed: "Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright." Indeed, at the time of the next full moon, Lawrence is transformed and goes on a bloody rampage.

 In his portrayal of Talbot, Del Toro pays homage to Chaney, almost to the point of imitation. Unfortunately, this results in a neutered and muted character. Like Chaney's Talbot, Del Toro's interpretation is that of a man tortured and filled with self-loathing. However, the emotional connection is not there. As a human being, Talbot generates no empathy; the character fails to excite our emotions. The filmmakers have surrounded Del Toro with a respectable supporting staff, but it amounts to a waste of talent. Anthony Hopkins, in his second classic horror remake (he was Van Helsing in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula), pops up now and again looking malevolent, but Sir John is more a necessity of the plot than a legitimate character. Emily Blunt's thankless role as the "love interest" limits her screen time and her opportunity to look fetching in 19th century garb. With the exception of one scene, she functions as underused eye candy. As a Scotland Yard inspector assigned to investigate the killings, Hugo Weaving defines superfluous.

 The Wolfman had been searching for a director for some time before Johnston was brought on board. His experience with Jumanji and Jurassic Park III convinced the producers he could handle a film with a high number of special effects sequences and a sizeable budget. At best, the results are mixed. 20 years ago, the effects work in The Wolfman might have been hailed as revolutionary; today, it looks dated. The violence is bloody and graphic but it doesn't make the movie better, merely R-rated. Attempts to re-create the original's haunting atmosphere are middling - something is lost in the transition from black & white to color.

 Even more so than Coppola's Dracula, Branagh's Frankenstein, and Sommers' The Mummy, The Wolfman seems unnecessary. Although not coming close to the level of a misfire that represented Van Helsing, this production nevertheless illustrates that it takes more to remake a beloved classic than re-working the story and taking a by-the-numbers approach. There are enough little details to indicate that the filmmakers were familiar with the original. Such familiarity did not result in a better product and the well-publicized re-shoots didn't save the movie from the graveyard of mediocrity into which its unintentional campiness and underwhelming special effects have consigned it.

 Discuss this topic in the ReelViews Forums. ||||| Ghostly clouds drift across a haloed moon; dry twigs snap in a darkening wood; a covey of woodcock bolts from the undergrowth—startling, for a moment, a solitary traveler. He takes a deep breath. It turns out to be his last. Yes, that furry face seen in an almost subliminal flash was the feral beast lurking within "The Wolfman," a film that begins in an eerie gothic mist of suggestion—and turns into a toothless exercise in the obvious.

 This updating of the old Universal horror franchise is among the more visually beautiful fright films ever photographed, and all the more disappointing for it. Directed by Joe Johnston ("Hidalgo," "October Sky," "The Rocketeer"), the movie is scary only as regards all its wasted potential—the color-drained, unnerving look; the inky black accents; the deliberate pacing; the occasional hint that the director understands the potency of implication. It's all here, in grains and drams. So is an accelerating sense of inanity, as all the movie's elements are reduced to a gruesome fondue, accessorized by actorly ham and studio cheese.

 It may be that this "Wolfman"—which revives a storyline based more on Hollywood mythology than any particular ethnic fable—was misshapen from the cradle. The usually admirable Benicio Del Toro, portraying Victorian stage actor/lycanthrope-to-be Lawrence Talbot, is the worst casting choice in recent memory: Too old and plush to play the Byronic hero, he's also burdened with a modified Moe Howard haircut and a voice that loses us at "Hello"—a greeting that Mr. Del Toro delivers with all the authority and resonance of the Kim Jong Il marionette in the South Park team's "Team America." (I'm sorry; I can't get him out of my mind). Mr. Del Toro's Talbot, returning to his family's ancestral mansion in 1891 Blackmoor, finds that his missing brother's shredded corpse has been discovered in a drainage ditch and that his father (Anthony Hopkins) has apparently been dipping into the laudanum cabinet. As his fellow Blackmoorites, fueled by vigilante instincts and invective from the pulpit, pursue the "local lunatic," Lawrence transitions from hunter to hunted: A bite from the marauding creature dooms him to a future as a hairy homicidal maniac, one who can remove the limbs, heads and even hearts of his pursuers so quickly he can barely be seen.

 Universal Pictures Benicio Del Toro as 'The Wolfman.'

 Eventually, the Wolfman, like his movie, slows down—what good is state-of-the-art makeup and effects if no one gets to study them? Unlike the succession of glass plates used in 1941's "The Wolf Man," through which we viewed the moon-induced metamorphosis of Lon Chaney Jr., it is computerized orthopaedics that accomplish Lawrence's transition from man to wolf: His limbs contort, his face is twisted into a befanged grimace, his fingers sprout claws the size of fish knives. In keeping with wolfish tradition, it's an agonizing process, which may account for the creature's ill temper upon becoming fully lupine: He doesn't kill to feed any need besides bloodlust, and his eviscerations are graphic, grotesque and largely unnecessary—although when Mr. Del Toro is seen chowing down on some villager's liver, it may be intended as an homage to his somnambulistic co-star Mr. Hopkins (hold the fava beans).

 There are other allusions—to waterboarding, during a scene in which Lawrence is subjected to the primitive therapies of an asylum quack; to religious extremism, when the local preacher ascribes the crimes of the Wolfman to divine retribution for unspecified sins. Emily Blunt, who ought to be perplexed finding herself in a movie so unhinged, is the only human element here that's remotely convincing, plausible or attractive; she's sexier than ever as the dead brother's fiancée, and gives a subtle performance amid a din of dramatic braying. Ultimately, though, "The Wolfman" is a horror thriller that couldn't have been made any worse by the addition of Abbott & Costello. "Sometimes, the way of fate is a cruel one," mutters "The Wolfman's" standard-issue, Maria Ouspenskaya-inspired creepy gypsy woman (a befossiled Geraldine Chaplin). No kidding, lady. Despite a solid conceit, a rather Brontë-esque Ms. Blunt, and sufficient computer effects to amuse James Cameron, this "Wolfman" is enough to make your hair fall out.

 'Valentine's Day'

 Speaking of horror, director Garry Marshall's latest atrocity, "Valentine's Day," might be described as a Repression-Era Special—an econo-pak of Hollywood second- and third-stringers, a couple of genuine stars (Anne Hathaway, Julia Roberts), and a couple of annoying movie kids brought together by a poverty of ideas and a director whose only apparent instruction to his cast was "Act like the people in TV commercials." With enough sticky sweetness to make your teeth ache, "Valentine's Day" deploys every rom-com cliché, minus the com—there's isn't a laugh in the movie, unless you count a fleeting sequence featuring comedian Larry Miller, who's also probably the least prominent member of the cast (which includes Bradley Cooper, Emma Roberts, Jessica Alba, Patrick Dempsey, Shirley MacLaine, Hector Elizondo, Queen Latifah and George Lopez).

 Warner Bros. Pictures Jennifer Garner plays Julia Fitzpatrick in 'Valentine's Day.'

 If that lineup wasn't frightening enough, Ashton Kutcher and Jennifer Garner are the ostensible leads, she a schoolteacher blissfully unaware that her boyfriend (Mr. Dempsey) is married; he a flower-shop owner who has just proposed, bedside, to his girlfriend (Ms. Alba), who apparently has someone do her hair while she sleeps. The foreshadowings are like billboards: When a movie woman looks thoughtful rather than delirious at the sight of an engagement ring, things don't bode well for the match. Neither does an affiancing that arrives so early in the story. As each character negotiates his/her own rocky road to romance, each of the interlocking episodes inflicts its own particular kind of pain on the viewer, who will wonder how any of this happened. So might the performers, who will have a few questions for the gods, and their agents: Taylor Swift, the multiple-Grammy-winning singer, is nothing short of mortifying as a ditzy high-school student in love with another Taylor ("Twilight's" Mr. Lautner). Jamie Foxx continues his post-"Ray" slide into self-parody. Topher Grace makes the world safe for innocuous ingénues. Director Marshall, grand poobah of the puerile and pandering, creates a shameless movie world for which no actor had to travel too far from home in Beverly Hills/Brentwood, no one seemed to have worked more than a day to complete his or her abbreviated role, and where Jessica Biel can't get a date. Right. Red, the hue that dominates this movie's palette, is the color associated with both Valentine's Day and the devil. And there's something vaguely satanic about "Valentine's Day."

 'Ajami'

 Enlarge Image Close coming Fouad Habash as Nasri in 'Ajami.'

 If a movie can ever be perfect, it may be so only in its particular moment. This is "Ajami"'s moment. An Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, this Arab-Israeli drama set on the mean streets of Jaffa is an urgent, immediate, jarring-but-fluid, multicharacter portrayal of Arab life in an Israel ghetto (the 'hood of the title), where a drive-by killing provides the overture to a city-wide opera of revenge, death, drugs and star-crossed love. The co-directors/co-writers, Palestinian Scandar Copti and Israeli Yaron Shani, possess a Tarantino-esque blitheness about startling violence, and employ a "Pulp Fiction" approach to narrative-as-mosaic. But they also advance the technique of fracturing time, using the backward glances into their sad, sad stories as a way of revealing details that enrich and alter the viewer's perspective on what's happening among the movie's largely Arabic population. While the disposability of life on screen mirrors the disposability of life on the Ajami streets, one's immediate impulse is to describe the film as apolitical: Its conflicts, after all, are largely tribal, insular and produced by the Arabs' own pressure-cooker mentality. But, of course, nothing could be more political.

 'Red Riding Trilogy'

 It may lack vampires and blue people, but the already much-discussed "Red Riding Trilogy" is perhaps the moviegoing event of the year. Adapted by Tony Grisoni from David Peace's four novels based on the '70s-'80s Yorkshire Ripper murders, it's an all-star showcase for contemporary British/Irish acting and the gifts of Julian Jarrold, James Marsh and Anand Tucker, who directed parts one, two and three, respectively. Terrific performances are turned in by leads Paddy Considine (part 2) and David Morrissey (part 3), but it is Andrew Garfield—as the young reporter who suspects that the Ripper case is being used as a cover for a child-sex ring involving the entirety of a sordid Yorkshire constabulary—who establishes himself as one of the more gifted young actors around.

 Reminiscent of the best British TV crime series ("Prime Suspect," to name one), "RRT" delves far deeper into the heart of darkness than its predecessors have ventured, or where most contemporary filmmakers dare to go. Produced by and aired last year on the U.K.'s Channel Four, it is taut, disturbing, wonderfully awful and, at 307 minutes, epic. "Red Riding" will eventually wend its way back to the small screen, but can continue to be seen in the proportions it deserves at the IFC Center in Manhattan, or, beginning today, at the Nuart in West Los Angeles.

 —John Anderson contributes film criticism and coverage to a variety of publications. Joe Morgenstern is on vacation.

 DVD Focus 'The Wolf Man' (1941) The first in Lon Chaney Jr.'s string of Wolf Man appearances features the formidable cast of Claude Rains, Ralph Bellamy, Bela Lugosi and, of course, Maria Ouspenskaya, who basically tells Chaney's Larry Talbot that he's doomed. The story is by the German-born Curt Siodmak, several of whose novels ("Donovan's Brain," "The Beast With Five Fingers") were turned into movies and whose "Wolf Man" script extrapolated from a number of legends, and employed the famous verse, "Even a man who is pure in heart / And says his prayers by night / May become a Wolf when the Wolfbane blooms / And the Moon is full and bright." 'An American Werewolf in London' (1981) Among the many werewolf knockoffs ("I Was a Teenage Werewolf," "The Werewolf," "Werewolf Woman") is this quasicomic take from John ("Animal House") Landis, in which a backpacking American tourist (David Naughton) is bitten by a creature that none of the locals will admit exists. All the songs titles, by the way, contain the word "moon" ("Bad Moon Rising," "Moondance," "Blue Moon," etc). 'Wolf' (1994) Casting Jack Nicholson as a wolfish man doesn't seem much of a stretch, but director Mike Nichols, working from a script by Jim Harrison and Wesley Strick, created an extended metaphor for American business and American manhood by moving the werewolf legend into the publishing world. There, traditionalist book publisher Will Randall (Nicholson) is under siege by a ruthless media mogul (Christopher Plummer) and an underhanded rival (James Spader). Under siege, that is, until a werewolf bite turns Will into a corporate cutthroat, sexual beast and type AAA personality. John Anderson

 —John Anderson ||||| AwROOOOoooo! What are dignified, award-worthy thespians like Benicio del Toro, Emily Blunt, and Sir Anthony Hopkins doing in a piece of old-school hokum like “The Wolfman’’? Having the time of their lives while trying to keep a straight face. The movie is by no means good but it’s surprisingly enjoyable: a misty, moody Saturday-matinee monster-chiller-horror special that hits the same sweet spot for moviegoers of a certain age (cough) as those snap-together Frankenstein model kits from the late 1960s. You can practically smell the Duco cement.

 Of course, the Wolfman was always the poor relation of the Universal Studio horror crew. The Frankenstein monster and Dracula got there first and had defining stars in Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi; 1935’s “Werewolf of London’’ had the dull-as-dirt Henry Hull. (Nifty transformation scene, though, and points for inspiring Warren Zevon.) It was only with 1941’s “The Wolfman’’ that movie lycanthropy got a face: poor, hulking Lon Chaney Jr., who always suggested a football player who’d been forced to take over the family watchmaking business. That first “Wolfman’’ isn’t a very good movie, either, so it’s not like the new one is sullying hallowed ground.

 On the contrary, director Joe Johnston (“Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’’) and writers Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self, working from Curt Siodmak’s 1941 script, treat the hairy old cliches with reverence. Set in 1891 in the fictional hamlet of Blackmoor, England, the new “Wolfman’’ lets the fog machines rip from frame one, and every time an offscreen wolf howls you may find yourself giggling uncontrollably.

 In an inspired casting touch, Benicio del Toro stars as Lawrence Talbot, a traveling actor returning to his ancestral manse to bury his brother (Simon Merrells) and confront the family demons. Since del Toro already looks like the missing link - he has a hairline lower than Butch Patrick on “The Munsters’’ - this gives the makeup team only half the work to do.

 Hopkins staggers merrily around as the unfathomably decadent Sir John Talbot, cradling a gun as if he were re-enacting his post-stroke scenes from “Legends of the Fall.’’ With tremulous conviction, Blunt plays Gwen Conliffe, the brother’s fiancée who’s drawn to the tormented Lawrence after he’s bitten one eldritch evening and starts staring fixedly at her neck. Since the original film’s Maria Ouspenskaya is long dead - not that that would have stopped her from chewing the scenery - Geraldine Chaplin has been drafted to play the aged Gypsy woman Maleva, issuing dire warnings and asking Gwen, “Vill you condemn him or vill you set him free?’’

 One caveat: Because this is the 21st century and the multiplex circus demands blood, the new “Wolfman’’ is trendily gory. The violence erupts in brief, visceral spasms rather than prolonged wallowing, and I was cheered to see the Wolfman tear loose a victim’s liver in one scene, like a dog going straight for the Liv-a-Snaps. Mostly, though, Johnston busies himself with atmosphere and mood; this is a more faithful updating of Universal horror tropes than the recent “Mummy’’ desecrations, and it has its very real, if goofy, pleasures.

 The transformation scenes come courtesy of makeup effects legend Rick Baker, who doesn’t dwell on the details as he did in 1981’s “An American Werewolf in London.’’ They’re shown off best in the movie’s strongest scene, in which Talbot is trussed to a chair in a medical amphitheater, surrounded by Victorian doctors curious to see what happens when the full moon rises. (The payoff is delicious - for Lawrence.) As with all monster movies, though, the more you see the sillier it gets, and the climax of “The Wolfman,’’ with two Oscar-winning actors in fur masks going at it tooth and talon, plays like a tussle at the pound.

 Del Toro, sadly, is a bit of a dud in the title role, reciting his ornate period dialogue in an embarrassed monotone. Or maybe he’s just channeling Lon Chaney Jr. Hard to say. “The Wolfman’’ knows the old horror classics had pure pulp running through their veins, and it honors those cheap thrills with gusto. This isn’t a great movie - it’s just a good dog.

 Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com. For more on movies, go to www.boston.com/movienation.

 © Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company. |||||
What is a summary?

– Critics aren’t exactly howling over the new remake of The Wolfman starring Benicio del Toro, giving it mostly mediocre or failing marks. Here’s what they’re saying: “The movie is pungent with atmosphere, laying down a thick fog of creepy Victorian murk,” writes Kyle Smith of the New York Post, but the story is toothless, centering on a mystery “so simple that even Marmaduke could have sniffed it out.” “The movie is scary only as regards all its wasted potential,” laments John Anderson of the Wall Street Journal. There are good elements here, but they’re “reduced to a gruesome fondue, accessorized by actorly ham and studio cheese.” The filmmakers obviously loved the original Wolfman, but “nostalgia isn't always the best barometer,” writes James Berardinelli of ReelViews. The makeup is “inexcusably campy,” and scenes from the original are “recreated in a fashion that seems more Monty Python than unsettling.” But Ty Burr of the Boston Globe had fun. “The movie is by no means good,” he writes, “but it’s surprisingly enjoyable: a misty, moody Saturday-matinee monster-chiller-horror special.”


Summarize this article:

(CNN) The shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh -- in which the death toll now stands at 11 -- is believed to be the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the US, the Anti-Defamation League said.

 "It is simply unconscionable for Jews to be targeted during worship on a Sabbath morning, and unthinkable that it would happen in the United States of America in this day and age," the Jewish organization, which tracks anti-Semitic incidents, said in a statement

 Until now, the deadliest attack specifically targeting Jews happened in 1985 when a Seattle lawyer Charles Goldmark was bludgeoned and stabbed to death, along with his wife, Annie, and their two sons, the ADL said. David Morse Rice, a drifter and unemployed steelworker, was found guilty of those killings.

 Anti-Semitic incidents and online harassment rising, ADL says

 The ADL said the attack Saturday comes at a time when both anti-Semitic incidents and online harassment are on the rise.

 Jewish people were the victims of more reported hate crimes than any other religious minority in 2016, according to the most recent year of FBI statistics.

 In that year , 684 anti-Jewish incidents were reported. That's more than the rest of religiously motivated hate crimes combined, records reveal.

 Tracking such crimes can be nuanced and difficult. The motivations aren't always clear, and the crimes are often not reported by victims and police.

 Robert Bowers, 46, faces 29 charges in all, including 11 counts of using a firearm to commit murder and multiple counts of two hate crimes: obstruction of exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death and obstruction of exercise of religious beliefs resulting in bodily injury to a public safety officer.

 "The crimes of violence are based upon the federal civil rights laws prohibiting hate crimes," US Attorney Scott W. Brady and Bob Jones, FBI special agent in charge of Pittsburgh office, said in a statement.

 The FBI, which calls an offense a hate crime when there's an added element of bias, is leading the investigation into the attack.

 Bowers told a SWAT officer that he wanted all Jews to die and also that Jews were committing genocide to his people, according to CNN affiliate WTAE, citing a police criminal complaint filed Saturday evening in Pittsburgh.

 Last year, The Anti-Defamation League reported, anti-Semitic incidents rose almost 60% , the largest single-year increase on record.

 The ADL found 1,986 cases of harassment, vandalism or physical assaults against Jewish people or institutions in 2017. It found 1,267 in 2016.

 "We're definitely in a period in our country where there's a general decrease in civility," Aryeh Tuchman, associate director for the ADL's Center on Extremism, said when the ADL released its findings in February. "People in the past who have tamped down their anti-Semitic proclivities may feel more liberated to express them than before."

 'An escalating scourge of hate-based violence'

 In a statement condemning the Pittsburgh attack, the Rabbinical Assembly said the shooting was a reminder that anti-Semitism "is on the rise in America at a rate unprecedented in decades."

 "This vicious hate crime, perpetrated against innocent people at prayer is but the latest in an escalating scourge of hate-based violence in America," it said.

 Moishe Bane, president of the Orthodox Union, expressed heartbreak for "the senseless murder of our fellow Jews and all victims of vicious hate crimes."

 "We condemn the dangerous rhetoric that foments such senseless violence and we stand with the Tree of Life Congregation and the whole Pittsburgh community at this terrible time," he said.

 Rabbi Elazar Muskin, president of the Rabbinical Council of America said "fringe elements of society" had become "emboldened by speech which is often disrespectful and hateful."

 FBI says reports of hate crimes have increased

 The FBI showed an overall increase in reported hate crimes of more than 4% from 2015 to 2016.

 Anti-Islamic (anti-Muslim) crimes accounted for 307, up 19% from the previous year. That was the biggest percentage rise.

 The FBI also tracks religiously motivated crimes against Eastern Orthodox Christians, other Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and Buddhists.

 In race categories, African Americans were targeted the most -- in about half of the reported 3,489 racially driven incidents in 2016.

 The FBI said 1,200 incidents were motivated by bias against victims based on sexual orientation or gender identity. ||||| The FBI investigates after an active shooter situation at the Tree of Life Congregation on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018, in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh. A shooter opened fire at the synagogue,... (Associated Press)

 The FBI investigates after an active shooter situation at the Tree of Life Congregation on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018, in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh. A shooter opened fire at the synagogue, killing multiple people and injuring others in one of the deadliest attacks on Jews in U.S. history.... (Associated Press)

 PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Latest on a deadly shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue (all times local):

 7 a.m.

 Police say the suspect in the deadly mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue told officers that Jews were committing genocide and that he wanted them all to die.

 Pittsburgh police said in an arrest affidavit made public early Sunday that Robert Gregory Bowers killed eight men and three women in the Tree of Life Synagogue before a tactical police team tracked him down and shot him.

 A Pittsburgh police officer says in the warrant that Bowers was being treated for his injuries when he said Jews were "committing genocide to his people."

 Bowers is charged with 11 counts of criminal homicide, six counts of aggravated assault and 13 counts of ethnic intimidation.

 The police affidavit says calls began coming in to 911 just before 10 a.m. Saturday, reporting "they were being attacked."

 ___

 12:30 a.m.

 A gunman who expressed hatred of Jews exploited a vulnerability common in so many houses of worship across the country — doors that are unlocked for worship — to target a Pittsburgh synagogue.

 Officials say Robert Bowers was armed with a rifle and three handguns when he walked inside the Tree of Life synagogue during Sabbath services Saturday morning and opened fire, killing 11 people and wounding six in what is believed to be the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.

 Police swarmed the building and traded gunfire with the gunman, who was shot multiple times but survived.

 Four police officers are among the wounded.

 Bowers faces 29 federal counts, including weapons offenses and hate crimes.

 Law enforcement officials plan to discuss the massacre at a news conference Sunday morning. ||||| A crowd gathers at the intersection of Murray Ave. and Forbes Ave. in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh during a memorial vigil for the victims of the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue where... (Associated Press)

 A crowd gathers at the intersection of Murray Ave. and Forbes Ave. in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh during a memorial vigil for the victims of the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue where a shooter opened fire earlier in the day Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) (Associated Press)

 PITTSBURGH (AP) — During the week, anyone who wanted to get inside Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue had to ring the doorbell and be granted entry by staff because the front door was kept locked. Not so on Saturday — the Jewish Sabbath — when the building was open for worship.

 A gunman who had expressed hatred of Jews exploited that vulnerability, so common in so many houses of worship across the country, in a singularly horrific way.

 Armed with a rifle and three handguns, Robert Bowers walked into the synagogue during Saturday morning worship and began shooting, killing 11 and wounding six before police took him into custody, officials said. It was the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history, according to the leader of the Anti-Defamation League.

 Bowers traded gunfire with police and was shot multiple times but survived. He was charged late Saturday with 29 federal counts, including weapons offenses and hate crimes. Law enforcement officials planned to discuss the massacre at a news conference Sunday morning.

 Four police officers were among the wounded.

 The nation's latest mass shooting drew condemnation and expressions of sympathy from politicians and religious leaders of all stripes. With the midterm election just over a week away, it also reignited a longstanding and bitter debate over guns. President Donald Trump said the outcome might have been different if the synagogue "had some kind of protection" from an armed guard, while Pennsylvania's Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, up for re-election, noted that once again "dangerous weapons are putting our citizens in harm's way."

 Calling the shooting an "evil anti-Semitic attack," Trump ordered flags at federal buildings throughout the U.S. to be flown at half-staff in respect for the victims. He said he planned to travel to Pittsburgh, but offered no details.

 In the city, thousands gathered for a vigil Saturday night. Some blamed the slaughter on the nation's political climate.

 "When you spew hate speech, people act on it. Very simple. And this is the result. A lot of people dead. Senselessly," said Stephen Cohen, co-president of New Light Congregation, which rents space at Tree of Life.

 The shooting raised immediate alarm in Jewish communities around the country. Authorities in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia and other cities sent extra patrols to synagogues and other houses of worship.

 Little was known about Bowers, who had no apparent criminal record but who is believed to have expressed virulently anti-Semitic views on social media. Authorities said it appears he acted alone.

 Worshippers "were brutally murdered by a gunman targeting them simply because of their faith," said Bob Jones, head of the FBI's Pittsburgh office, though he cautioned the shooter's full motive was not yet known.

 Scott Brady, the chief federal prosecutor in western Pennsylvania, pledged that "justice in this case will be swift and it will be severe."

 It wasn't clear if Bowers had an attorney to speak on his behalf.

 The gunman targeted a building that housed three separate congregations, all of which were conducting Sabbath services when the attack began just before 10 a.m. in the tree-lined residential neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, about 10 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh and the hub of Pittsburgh's Jewish community.

 The synagogue door was unlocked on the Sabbath "because people are coming for services, and the bell would be ringing constantly. So they do not lock the door, and anybody can just walk in," said Marilyn Honigsberg, administrative assistant for New Light. "And that's what this man did."

 Michael Eisenberg, the immediate past president of the Tree of Life, said synagogue officials had not gotten any threats that he knew of before the shooting. But he said security was a concern, and the synagogue had started working to improve it.

 "You know, you're always worried that something would happen," said Myron Snider, head of the cemetery committee for New Light. Snider just got out of the hospital on Thursday and missed Saturday's service.

 "But you never dream that it would happen like this," Snider added. "Just never ever dream that it would happen like this."

 Zachary Weiss, 26, said his father, 60-year-old Stephen Weiss, was inside the synagogue but was unharmed. Weiss said his father told him that he and Tree of Life's rabbi helped congregants take shelter and follow the active shooter response training they'd received months earlier. Stephen Weiss made it out of the building and used a janitor's cellphone to call his family at home.

 The attack, his son vowed, "will not define our congregation and will not define our city."

 ___

 Breed reported from Raleigh, North Carolina, and Lauer reported from Philadelphia. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Mark Gillispie and Gene Puskar in Pittsburgh, Eric Tucker and Michael Balsamo in Washington, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Michael Rubinkam in northeastern Pennsylvania.

 ___

 For AP's complete coverage of the Pittsburgh synagogue shootings: https://www.apnews.com/Shootings |||||

– The Anti-Defamation League says the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh is thought to be the deadliest attack specifically targeting Jews ever in the US—by far. CNN reports the previous attack to have that label occurred in 1985, when Seattle lawyer Charles Goldmark, his wife, and two sons were killed. (The Washington Post notes it "was actually a case of mistaken religious identity," as the family was not Jewish.) The toll in Saturday's shooting stands at 11. The AP reports police on Sunday said the victims were eight men and three women. In an arrest affidavit made public, police say that while treating alleged shooter Robert Gregory Bowers for injuries he sustained after being shot by police, he said Jews were "committing genocide to his people" and that he wanted them all to die. The AP separately reports on a "vulnerability" the shooter took advantage of: an unlocked door. While the Tree of Life synagogue required guests to ring a bell to gain access during the week, on the Jewish Sabbath the building was open to all guests for Shabbat services. The Post quotes the FBI special agent in charge as saying it was "the most horrific crime scene I’ve seen in 22 years." Federal hate crime charges were filed against Bowers on Saturday: 29 charges in all, including 11 counts of using a firearm to commit murder. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports Pittsburgh police also filed charges on Saturday: 11 counts of criminal homicide, six counts of attempted homicide, six counts of aggravated assault, and 13 counts of ethnic intimidation. (Read what President Trump had to say about the shooting here.)


The discovery of remains belonging to a new species of horse-sized dinosaur is shedding light on how Tyrannosaurus Rex (T. Rex) became one of Earth's top predators, according to scientists.

 The remains were unearthed in northern Uzbekistan and are now said to be providing insights into how a family of small-bodied dinosaurs evolved over millions of years to become fearsome giants.

 The study shows the dinosaurs - known as tyrannosaurs - developed huge body sizes rapidly towards the end of the age of dinosaurs, and that their keen senses, which evolved earlier in much smaller species, enabled them to climb to the top of the prehistoric food chain.

 Little has been known about how tyrannosaurs became the giant, intelligent predators that dominated the landscape about 66 million years ago.

 A team of palaeontologists, led by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, studied a collection of tyrannosaur fossils found in the Kyzylkum desert.

 Photo: Todd Marshall/University of Edinburgh/PA

 Scientists said the newly-discovered species, named Timurlengia euotica, lived about 90 million years ago and the remains fill a 20-million-year gap in the fossil record of tyrannosaurs.

 The species' skull was much smaller than that of T. Rex, suggesting it did not grow to the same enormous size.

 But key features of Timurlengia's skull reveal its brain and senses were already highly developed, the team said.

 "The ancestors of T. rex would have looked a whole lot like Timurlengia, a horse-sized hunter with a big brain and keen hearing that would put us to shame." Dr Steve Brusatte

 Timurlengia was about the size of a horse and could weigh up to 250kg. It had long legs and a skull studded with sharp teeth, and was likely a fast runner, researchers added.

 The first tyrannosaurs lived around 170 million years ago and were only slightly larger than a human.

 But by the late Cretaceous period - around 100 million years later - tyrannosaurs had evolved into animals like T. Rex and Albertosaurus, which could weigh more than seven tonnes.

 Photo: Todd Marshall/University of Edinburgh/PA

 The fact the new species was still small some 80 million years after tyrannosaurs first appeared indicates that huge size developed only at the very end of the group's evolutionary history, researchers concluded.

 Dr Steve Brusatte, of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, who led the study, said: "The ancestors of T. Rex would have looked a whole lot like Timurlengia, a horse-sized hunter with a big brain and keen hearing that would put us to shame.

 Photo: Steve Brusatte/University of Edinburgh/PA

 "Only after these ancestral tyrannosaurs evolved their clever brains and sharp senses did they grow into the colossal sizes of T. Rex. Tyrannosaurs had to get smart before they got big."

 The work was carried out in collaboration with researchers at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg State University and the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, US.

 Professor Hans Sues, of the museum, said: "Timurlengia was a nimble pursuit hunter with slender, blade-like teeth suitable for slicing through meat.

 "It probably preyed on the various large plant-eaters, especially early duck-billed dinosaurs, which shared its world."

 The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ||||| Todd Marshall

 Brains came before brawn for tyrannosaurs. The iconic Tyrannosaurus rex, the star of Jurassic Park, emerged as a huge and cunning predator some 80 million years ago. But how it evolved has long been a mystery, because of a gap in the fossil record that began 100 million years ago.

 Now, new remains that include a skull fragment show that this dinosaur started out smaller, the size of a bear, and evolved its big brain before its huge stature.

 The first tyrannosaurs evolved about 170 million years ago, when they split from the group of feathered predators that later gave rise to birds. But they remained in the shadows of larger beasts, such as allosaurs and spinosaurs. They emerged as giants during a 20-million-year gap in the fossil record, when the dinosaur age was coming to an end.

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 A tyrannosauroid fossil called Timurlengia euotica dating back 90 million years fills that gap, helping us understand how T. rex was able to become so big and so dominant, says Stephen Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh, UK.

 The vital clues emerged two years ago when Alexander Averianov of the Russian Zoological Institute in St Petersburg showed Brusatte a braincase that was among many fossils his group had collected in the remote Bissekty formation of Uzbekistan.

 “I’ve studied a lot of tyrannosaurs and a lot of braincases, and after a while I recognised it as a tyrannosaur,” Brusatte says. On further scrutiny, the team concluded it was a new species.

 CT scans

 CT scans revealed that Timurlengia’s brain was large for a dinosaur and that it had structures in the inner ear used for balancing and for hearing low-frequency sounds. Earlier tyrannosaurs lacked those traits, which could have helped T. rex in its niche as an apex predator.

 Yet with a body mass of some 200 kilograms, Timurlengia was much smaller than T. rex, which could weigh over 5 tonnes.

 The fossils support earlier proposals that T. rex evolved “head first” – brain before bulk.

 But how it took over as apex predator remains unclear, although Brusatte says it may have taken advantage of the mysterious disappearance of other large predators. “It looks like the allosaurs go out and tyrannosaurs opportunistically take over,” says Brusatte.

 “This is cool stuff,” says Thomas Holtz of the University of Maryland in College Park. But he notes that the remains of Timurlengia are too fragmentary to reveal other details like the length of its arms. He hopes further fossil discoveries will fill in the gaps.

 The number of tyrannosaur species known has more than doubled in the past 15 years, says Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. “It’s a great time to be working on tyrannosaurs.”

 Other Uzbek fossils collected by Averianov’s team have already yielded important insight into other dinosaurs. They include the oldest horned dinosaurs and the first duck-billed dinosaurs, both of which lived alongside T. rex, says Holtz.

 Read more: Rise and fall of a dinosaur hunter; The making of T. rex

 Journal reference: PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1600140113 |||||

Write a summary.

– Though one of the most well-known dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex is actually somewhat of a mystery, having suddenly emerged as a fearsome beast some 80 million years ago. As a 20-million-year gap in the fossil record preceded T. rex, paleontologists have known little about its evolutionary path—until now. The discovery of 90-million-year-old fossils belonging to a previously unknown relative shows T. rex likely developed brains before size, reports New Scientist. Discovered in Uzbekistan in 2012, Timurlengia euotica's large brain and ears used for balancing and hearing low-frequency sounds were "almost identical to T. rex," which also shared certain bone features, researcher Stephen Brusatte tells the BBC. Yet Timurlengia was only "the size of a horse" and weighed less than 500 pounds. "Only after these ancestral tyrannosaurs evolved their clever brains and sharp senses did they grow into the colossal sizes of T. rex," weighing over five tons, Brusatte tells the Telegraph.Timurlengia was "evolving features that would eventually allow T. rex to become this super-dominant top-of-the-food-chain animal," he adds. "Tyrannosaurs had to get smart before they got big." Researchers still don't have a full picture of Timurlengia after uncovering 25 sections of its skeleton—they don't know the length of its arms, for example—but say the "nimble pursuit hunter" had long legs and was a fast runner. Timurlengia also had "slender, blade-like teeth suitable for slicing through meat" and "probably preyed on the various large plant-eaters, especially early duck-billed dinosaurs," an expert says. (One creature alive today has teeth like T. rex.)


ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — After two days of intense lobbying, President Obama left a summit with world leaders Friday with some expressions of support for a strong U.S. response to Syria's alleged use of chemical weapons, but well short of an international coalition that might help persuade reluctant lawmakers.

 The president had hoped to use the meeting of the Group of 20 nations to build pressure on Congress as it considers whether to authorize missile strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad's government.

 Before leaving for Washington, Obama said at a news conference that he will make his case in an address from the White House on Tuesday, an acknowledgment that his plans remain divisive both abroad and at home.

 "This is not something that I think a lot of folks around the world, you know, find an appetizing set of choices," he said. "But the question is, do these norms mean something? And if we're not acting, what does that say?"

 The president had to settle for a carefully worded statement backed by representatives of 10 countries that said Assad should be held accountable for an alleged nerve gas attack on the Damascus suburbs two weeks ago, but did not explicitly support military action or promise participation. Among the leaders who did not endorse the statement was the summit's host, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is Assad's closest ally.

 Obama and Putin pulled up two chairs in a corner and talked for more than 20 minutes Friday, almost entirely about Syria. The leaders have exchanged harsh words, but Putin called the talk "friendly" and Obama said it was "candid and constructive." But it did not break their impasse over how to respond to the suspected chemical weapons attack or how to end the 21/2-year-old Syrian civil war.

 "We both remained unconvinced by each other's opinion," Putin said at a news conference. "But there is a dialogue. We hear each other, we understand arguments, but we don't agree with them."

 Putin added that Russia will continue to supply weapons to Assad in his battle against the rebel opposition. Local news reports said three Russian ships and possibly a fourth were headed to the eastern Mediterranean, where the United States has four guided missile destroyers and an amphibious ship with 300 Marines.

 At a dinner that stretched into morning hours Friday, world leaders vigorously debated Obama's plan, with many saying the president should wait for the United Nations to complete a report on the Aug. 21 attack and sanction a response. Obama argued that the U.N. Security Council was paralyzed by disagreement. Russia and China, which have veto power, have blocked efforts at the Security Council to put pressure on Assad.

 Obama's plan for what he stresses will be "limited and not open-ended" strikes also remains unpopular in the United States. The statement and the heated discussion was a reminder of what Obama has called "a heavy lift" as he seeks to sell lawmakers and the American public on the need for a military response.

 Jon B. Alterman, the director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the problem for Obama isn't whether he has international support but American support. "The people who matter right now are Americans," he said. "If he can't convince them, it's catastrophic for his presidency."

 The Senate could take the first vote on the issue as soon as Wednesday, but the House should "expect a robust debate" and a vote in the "next two weeks," Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said.

 Although the Senate Foreign Relations Committee quickly approved a resolution this week, the already challenging politics have since become more complicated. Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who opposes the resolution, was consulting his colleagues on a proposal for a nonmilitary response.

 In the House, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said the Senate resolution, which aims to shift the momentum in the civil war toward the opposition, "opens up a Pandora's box." "I think the administration runs an incredible risk, if they try to placate those who want to expand American military intervention in Syria, because they risk losing support of the overwhelming majority of members," he said after meeting with Vice President Joe Biden.

 The Obama administration had resisted intervention in the war, but switched course after the alleged chemical weapons attack, which U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded killed more than 1,400 people.

 On Friday, Obama compared his bid for action to humanitarian intervention in Kosovo in 1999 and the U.S. failure to stop the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. He cast the international division as the result of war-weary leaders "rationalizing not making tough choices." The United States alone, he said, shoulders the burden of enforcing international agreements on human rights and chemical warfare.

 "There are times where we have to make hard choices if we're going to stand up for the things that we care about. And I believe that this is one of those times," Obama said.

 But Obama did not persuade a single ally to endorse a specific action. Immediately after he spoke, the White House released the joint statement from Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain and Turkey, as well as the United States. It found that evidence "clearly points" to Assad's government as responsible for the attack, called for a "strong international response to this grave violation of the world's rules and conscience" and asserted that "the world cannot wait for endless failed processes."

 The statement did not specifically endorse military action, but concluded, "We support efforts undertaken by the United States and other countries to reinforce the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons."

 A White House official, however, said there was no question what that implied. "The president has been very clear about how he intends to do that with tailored military action," a senior administration official said.

 Still, the support was largely symbolic. The British Parliament has voted against participation in a military campaign. French President Francois Hollande, who offered the earliest support for Obama's plan, said Friday that his country will not engage in any action until after U.N. inspectors issue their report on the attack.

 Obama's last-minute decision to ask Congress to vote to approve the use of force gave world leaders little reason to risk supporting a mission that may not occur. The president has insisted that he does not need congressional authorization, but reiterated Friday that it would make a U.S. response "more effective and stronger."

 Obama would not say whether he will launch missiles even if he loses the vote. Pressed on the issue, Obama was blunt. "You're not getting a direct response," he said. "I'm not going to engage in parlor games."

 In his absence from Washington on Friday, Biden, Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Chief of Staff Denis McDonough worked the phones; U.S. officials briefed members of Congress; and Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, gave a speech at a think tank, arguing, "The use of limited military force can strengthen our diplomacy and energize the efforts by the U.N. and others."

 When Obama returns to Washington, he will oversee one of the most momentous lobbying efforts in his tenure. He promised that his administration would "systematically" reach out to every member of Congress.

 "I do consider it part of my job to help make the case and to explain to the American people exactly why I think this is the right thing to do," he said, acknowledging that "it's conceivable that, at the end of the day, I don't persuade a majority of the American people that it's the right thing to do."

 kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

 sergei.loiko@latimes.com

 Hennessey reported from St. Petersburg and Loiko from Moscow. Times staff writers Michael A. Memoli, Christi Parsons and Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report. ||||| WASHINGTON President Barack Obama told his war-weary country on Saturday that America needs to use limited military force in Syria to deter future chemical weapons attacks, but said he did not want to enter into another costly and protracted war.

 "This would not be another Iraq or Afghanistan," Obama said in his weekly radio and internet address, previewing arguments he will make in a nationally televised address on Tuesday.

 "Any action we take would be limited, both in time and scope - designed to deter the Syrian government from gassing its own people again and degrade its ability to do so," Obama said.

 A week ago, Obama said he felt limited strikes in Syria were needed, but added he wanted to ask Congress to authorize the use of military force.

 Neither Democratic nor Republican lawmakers have been enthused about the prospect, partly because Americans strongly oppose getting involved in another Middle Eastern conflict.

 A Reuters/Ipsos poll on Tuesday said 56 percent of Americans believed the United States should not intervene, while only 19 percent supported action.

 "I know that the American people are weary after a decade of war, even as the war in Iraq has ended, and the war in Afghanistan is winding down. That's why we're not putting our troops in the middle of somebody else's war," Obama said in his recorded address.

 Obama and his top officials plan an intensive lobbying effort on Capitol Hill next week, scheduling meetings with undecided lawmakers.

 Obama said failing to respond to the August 21 attack that Washington blames on President Bashar al-Assad's government and that killed hundreds of children and more than 1,400 people in total, would threaten U.S. national security by increasing the chance of future chemical attacks from the Syrian government, terrorist groups, or other nations.

 "We are the United States of America. We cannot turn a blind eye to images like the ones we've seen out of Syria," he said.

 (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Peter Cooney) |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– President Obama didn't exactly return from the G20 summit with a ringing international endorsement to take action against Syria, but he continued making his case before his own nation this morning via his weekly radio address. Obama hit familiar themes, ones he will surely revisit in his speech to the nation Tuesday night, reports Reuters. "This would not be another Iraq or Afghanistan." "Any action we take would be limited, both in time and scope—designed to deter the Syrian government from gassing its own people again and degrade its ability to do so." "I know that the American people are weary after a decade of war, even as the war in Iraq has ended, and the war in Afghanistan is winding down. That's why we're not putting our troops in the middle of somebody else's war." As for the G20 summit: Obama got the backing of 10 countries for a statement that says Bashar al-Assad should be held accountable for using chemical weapons, but the statement pointedly fell short of calling for military action, notes the Los Angeles Times, which concludes that the president "fell well short of an international coalition that might help persuade reluctant lawmakers."


Write an article based on this summary:

– As Venezuela gears up for its presidential election Sunday, the economic and social turmoil there continues. But for one American, trapped in the Helicoide prison in Caracas, the stakes are especially high. NPR and CNN report on the plight of Utah's Joshua Holt, a Mormon missionary jailed there in 2016 with his wife, Thamara Candelo, a Venezuelan Mormon Holt met online before heading to Venezuela to marry her. They were waiting on paperwork for Candelo so they could move back to the US, along with her two young daughters, when they were detained in an anti-gang raid in June 2016 and hit with weapons charges. Now, prisoners are rioting in the Helicoide, and Holt, 26, is using social media to plea for help. "The prison where I am at has fallen the guards are here and people are trying to break in my room and kill me. WHAT DO WE DO?" he posted on Facebook Wednesday. Holt's trial on the weapons charges was set to start Tuesday, but he and his wife were never brought to the courthouse, per the AP. "They want to kill me and paint the walls with my blood," he added in another post, begging the US to help him and noting Venezuela's intelligence agency said it won't let him go "as long as my government continues attacking this government." He also uploaded two short video clips making similar pleas, saying, "I've been begging my government for two years. They say they're doing things but I'm still here." On Thursday, the US Embassy in Venezuela tweeted that it's concerned about the situation at the Helicoide and that Holt and other Americans there are in peril. "The Venezuelan government is directly responsible for its security and we will hold it responsible if something happens to them," the embassy added. (The "illegal" closing of a Kellogg factory there.)

'Please Help Me!' American Caught In Venezuelan Prison Riot Pleads On Video

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Fernando Llano/AP Fernando Llano/AP

 Joshua Holt — a Mormon missionary from Utah jailed in Venezuela's most notorious prison — has uploaded an emotional video plea for his freedom, saying that his life is under threat amid an ongoing riot by fellow inmates.

 Holt, 26, who traveled to Venezuela in 2016 to marry Thamara Candelo, a woman he met online, has spent the past two years in the El Helicoide prison without charge after police said they found weapons in the couple's Caracas apartment.

 As we reported last year:

 "After their honeymoon last year, the couple settled into Candelo's apartment in a housing project on the outskirts of Caracas. They had planned to move to the U.S. with Candelo's two young daughters, and were waiting for approval for her U.S. visa. But on June 30, an anti-gang police squad burst into Candelo's apartment, where agents claimed to find an AK-47 assault rifle and a grenade. Holt and Candelo were hauled off to jail."

 In two 20-second videos shot on a cellphone and posted on his Facebook page, Holt says he has "been begging my government for two years. They say they're doing things but I'm still here."

 "Please, my fellow Americans don't allow me to continue suffering in Venezuela," Holt said in a written message, also posted on his Facebook page. "I am not a political pawn I am a human being a child of God and I just want to live happy with my wife and children. I have NEVER done anything wrong in my life. Please help me!"

 Although the extent of the unrest was not known, in another Facebook post, Holt says, "the prison where I am at has fallen and the guards are here and people are trying to break in my room and kill me. WHAT DO WE DO?"

 Chief Prosecutor Tarek William Saab announced in a tweet that he had sent a commission to the prison and that the parties had expressed a "willingness to carry out the respective coordination ... in order to resolve the situation."

 The Associated Press reports: ||||| (CNN) Inmates have revolted and taken control of a notorious prison in Venezuela, as the volatile country braces for presidential elections decried as illegitimate by regional leaders.

 Men identifying themselves as prisoners posted videos online saying they had taken over a detention center in the Helicoide ("the Helix"), the headquarters of intelligence agency Sebin in the capital, Caracas, because of torture and human rights violations.

 The US embassy in Venezuela expressed concern over the incident, after an American political prisoner Joshua Holt, a former Mormon missionary from Utah , posted a video on social media saying he feared for his life.

 ALERT If the United States does not promptly rescue Joshua Holt he could be lynched by Maduro's regime agents on next hours. Keep in mind, the rule of law DOES NOT exist in Venezuela... @POTUS @VP @SecPompeo pic.twitter.com/fNAGyGOnmA

 Venezuelan authorities later said they had "normalized" the situation at the prison, but inmates refuted the claim.

 Venezuelans will head to the polls Sunday to elect a new president as the country is roiled by an economic and social crisis, with millions suffering food and medicine shortages, hyperinflation and growing insecurity.

 In a statement released on Monday, representatives from 10 Latin American countries along with Spain and the United States reiterated their "condemnation of the authoritarian regime" of President Nicolas Maduro. The group also issued a final request for the government to suspend the elections.

 There have been repeated calls from leaders in the region to suspend the election because it is "illegitimate" and lacking in "credibility."

 The Helicoide prison's inmates include jailed opponents of Maduro, as well as US citizen Holt, many of whom have expressed fears over their safety and asked to be freed in postings on social media

 "Joshua Holt and other political prisoners are in danger," the embassy tweeted on its verified account . "The Venezuelan government is directly responsible for their safety and we will hold them responsible if anything happens to them."

 Estamos muy preocupados por el motín en El Helicoide. Joshua Holt y otros ciudadanos estadounidenses están en peligro. El gobierno de Venezuela es directamente responsable por su seguridad y le haremos responsables si algo les sucede. — US Embassy, VE (@usembassyve) May 16, 2018

 Venezuela's Attorney General Tarek Saab later stopped short of claiming the government had regained full control of the detention center in the capital, saying the situation had "normalized".

 Speaking to CNN Espanol , Saab said the uprising was "a protest on behalf of the prisoners" and that he had sent a delegation to hold dialogue with the prisoners, which had reached a "positive agreement".

 Saab rejected prisoner claims of torture, extortion and minors being held inside the center.

 Prisoners, speaking to CNNE, denied that the authorities were in control.

 "Inside the prison, all the prisoners are in control. And at that this moment, the people from the government who have approached us have not offered any solutions, none," Daniel Ceballos, a prisoner and former opposition mayor said, adding they were all resisting and asked that for the public to resist alongside them.

 Todd Robinson, US Embassy charge d'affaires in Venezuela, told reporters outside the country's foreign ministry Wednesday: "The truth is we don't know anything and it seems like the authorities don't know anything either." |||||


– Get ready for the Tiger Woods comeback, coming to a golf course near you this spring. A source tells Radar that’s when Woods plans to return to the PGA tour, when his sex rehab program is over—but it remains to be seen whether he’ll be ready for the Masters, which begins April 5. "Tiger is totally devastated," the source says. "He wants to show everyone that he intends to change." He’s spending six weeks in a private room at a rehab center in Mississippi—where wife Elin Nordegren has (shocker!) not visited him, Radar adds.

Expand this summary.

Tiger Woods is planning to return to the PGA tour in the Spring, RadarOnline.com has learned.

 By that time he will have completed rehab for sexual addiction and hopes to have his life back on track, a source close to the situation told RadarOnline.com exclusively.

 PHOTOS: Tiger Mistress Rachel Uchitel In A Bikini

 As RadarOnline.com reported January 15, Tiger is at Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

 He is in a six-week program at the clinic, which is directed by Dr. Patrick Carnes, who has pioneered treatment for sexually compulsive behavior.

 PHOTOS: Tiger’s Wife Elin

 “Tiger is totally devastated,” the source told RadarOnline.com. “He wants to show everyone that he intends to change.”

 Tiger Mistress Caught In Lie Over Nude Photos Of Him

 Still, he’s already planning his comeback and is aiming to be back on the PGA tour by Spring.

 The Masters begins April 5 but it is not yet known if Tiger will attempt to be ready for that high-profile tournament, which he has won four times.

 Tiger is not publicly revealing his plan to return to golf this Spring but the source told RadarOnline.com that the golfing great believes going through rehab will help him convince everyone – including corporate sponsors – that he has changed.

 News organizations scoured Hattiesburg the past few days looking for Tiger Sightings but his rehab is a closed facility. Two local media outlets also reported that Tiger was receiving treatment in town.

 EXCLUSIVE: Tiger In Sex Rehab

 Tiger’s wife Elin has not been wearing her wedding ring but also has not filed for divorce.

 He has been romantically linked to at least 14 women during his marriage. His most recent affair was with Rachel Uchitel and was uncovered by the National Enquirer. Shortly after that story was reported Tiger drove into a fire hydrant and tree in the early morning hours after Thanksgiving and has not been seen since in public.

 Click Here for All Tiger Stories ||||| EXCLUSIVE: Tiger Woods Wife Has Not Visited Him In Rehab

 Tiger Woods' wife has not visited him while he's been in sexual addiction rehab, RadarOnline.com is reporting exclusively.

 Tiger is receiving treatment at Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services in Hattiesburg, Miss., a story broken by RadarOnline.com on Friday.

 PHOTOS: Tiger's Wife At the Gym

 Now we've learned exclusively that wife Elin has stayed away from the facility and not seen her husband since he was admitted, as speculation continues to mount about the future of the marriage.

 PHOTOS: Tiger and His Family Through the Years

 Tiger has no roommate while in the facility - at his request.

 The clinic features one of the best sex addiction treatment centers in the country and is directed by Dr. Patrick Carnes, who has pioneered treatment for sexually compulsive behavior.

 SEXY PHOTOS of Tiger Mistress Jaime Grubbs

 Tiger has been linked to more than 14 women in extra-marital affairs and sources tell RadarOnline.com that there are lots more that have not been revealed.

 His affair with Rachel Uchitel was exposed by the National Enquirer and led to the revelation of the golfing great's secret life of serial cheating.

 TOPLESS PHOTOS of Tiger Mistress Rachel Uchitel

 Hattiesburg local reports have placed Tiger at the clinic.

 Tiger and Elin have two children. She has been photographed not wearing her wedding ring but has made no public statement about the future of their marriage.

 Jennifer Mitchell / Splash News |||||


Article:
Focused crawls are collections of frequently-updated webcrawl data from narrow (as opposed to broad or wide) web crawls, often focused on a single domain or subdomain. ||||| Romney, Huckabee, Palin Lead GOP Field For 2012

 Despite votes in the 2010 contest still being counted, polls for 2012 are already pouring out. They're largely meaningless.

 Doug Mataconis · · 7 comments

 It didn’t take long for Scott Rasmussen to come out with the first post-midterm poll of 2012 candidates:

 OK, the election’s over, and the message from most voters was that they didn’t care much for President Obama’s agenda. Now the focus is on the race for the presidency in 2012. On the Republican side, it’s a dead heat between the ex-governors – Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Sarah Palin of Alaska, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely GOP Primary voters. Asked who they would vote for if the Republican presidential primary were held today, 20% say Romney, 19% Huckabee and another 19% Palin. (…) Rounding out the list of seven candidates chosen by Rasmussen Reports for the question, with their levels of support, are former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (13%), Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (6%), Texas Congressman Ron Paul (5%) and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (3%). Seven percent (7%) prefer some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided.

 At this point, of course, these polls are little more than a popularity and name recognition contest, and Palin, Romney, and Huckabee have been leading the field in these polls for months now. Considering the fact that four years ago Rudy Giuliani was leading in these same types of polls for the 2008 nomination, they can’t really be said to be a great predictor of how the nomination fight, which hasn’t even started yet, will turn out. Moreover, even in the heat of the battle, it isn’t the national polls that matter, but the state polls in places like Iowa and New Hampshire. Give this six months or so, and we’ll start seeing numbers that really matter.

 UPDATE (James Joyner): Taegan Goddard summarizes a CNN survey of Republicans in three early states:

 Iowa: Romney 21%, Huckabee 21%, Palin 18%, Gingrich 7% New Hampshire: Romney 39%, Gingrich 19%, Palin 18%, Huckabee 11% South Carolina: Palin 25%, Huckabee 24%, Romney 21%, Gingrich 20%

 I agree with Doug that these mostly measure name recognition and have little bearing on what will happen more than a year from now. They give us some idea of where candidates are starting but that’s it.

 My gut tells me that Romney is the frontrunner and Palin the strongest challenger. I can’t imaging Huckabee beating Palin, although he has a track record of hanging around long after his defeat is inevitable and could serve as a spoiler. Gingrich has way too much baggage.

 My hope is that someone who didn’t run in 2012 — a governor like Gary Johnson, maybe — emerges. But it’s going to be difficult because this race will get started quickly and the winner will need enough money to choke a horse.

 I suppose there’s always Marco Rubio — he’ll be more experienced than Obama was in 2008 and he’s got a huge fan base and boatloads of charisma. But I suspect he’ll wait a little longer. |||||Summary:

– It’s been almost an entire week since the 2010 election, which means it’s time to start speculating about 2012! Here’s the buzz on all the GOP’s presidential hopefuls, courtesy of The Week: Mike Huckabee: The governor-turned-Fox host’s “aw shucks” style has made him the early favorite—he came out on top in CNN’s latest poll, is strong in Iowa, and beat President Obama by eight points in a hypothetical poll match-up. But Rob Port at Say Anything complains that he’s “a big-government Republican nanny statist.” Mitt Romney: He finished just 1% behind Huckabee in the aforementioned poll, and a lot of 2010 winners owe him a favor. "My gut tells me Romney's the frontrunner," says James Joyner at Outside the Beltway. The problem? The health care plan he championed in Massachusetts looks a whole lot like ObamaCare. Sarah Palin: She’s really popular with the base, but the rest of the country hates her. Unlike Huckabee and Romney, she trails Obama in head-to-head polling. Even George W. Bush doesn't approve. Newt Gingrich: The ex-House speaker runs strong against Obama, and he’s won over the Tea Party base with his constant extreme rhetoric. Still, Port doesn't think voters will want “a tired old retread more interested in selling books.” Click here for the scoop on hopeful No. 5.