Here is a news article: Just as George Zimmermans attorney pushes the envelope of accepted legal practices by launching a social media operation for his client, another site has popped up that belonged to the controversial former neighborhood watch volunteer who now faces a murder charge.

 This one is a 7-year old Myspace page called only to be king again that makes disparaging comments about Mexicans. The Web page, which his attorney confirmed Tuesday is legitimate, makes reference to 2005 criminal cases and a brush in court with a woman who Zimmerman called his ex-hoe.

 There are several photos of Zimmerman on the page, and in one of them he appears to be wearing the same orange polo shirt that he donned in his 2005 police mug shot. Zimmerman used the name Joe G. on the site, and posted a biography that mentions he grew up in Manassas, Va., had recently opened an insurance business and missed all his friends.

 Last month, a Zimmerman Myspace page under the username datniggytb was taken down.

 The Joe G page includes a missive written in street slang.

 I dont miss driving around scared to hit mexicans walkin on the side of the street, soft ass wanna be thugs messin with peoples cars when they aint around (what are you provin, that you can dent a car when no ones watchin) dont make you a man in my book, the 2005 Myspace page said. Workin 96 hours to get a decent pay check, gettin knifes pulled on you by every mexican you run into!

 Another line suggested his friends went to jail and did not rat him out. They do a year and dont ever open thier [sic] mouth to get my ass pinched.

 The pictures posted on the page including several with an ethnically diverse group of friends. The blog section boasts about having two felonies knocked down to misdemeanors and describes a court battle with an ex-girlfriend. Zimmerman faced two felonies in 2005 for obstructing justice and battery on a law enforcement officer, but the cases were reduced to misdemeanor simple battery, and he was left with no criminal conviction on his record.

 Zimmermans attorney, Mark OMara, confirmed the page was his clients, and that it was abandoned in 2005.

 The site was the latest discovery in an ongoing social media battle in the Zimmerman case. The Feb. 26 shooting of Miami Gardens teen Trayvon Martin received its first groundswell of attention on social media platforms, which were later used to portray the victim in a negative light. Now the defense is embracing Twitter, Facebook and a blog to provide forums for discussion  and to raise money.

 Trayvon Martins family took to the Web to raise funds and to gather petitions to demand criminal charges against Zimmerman. His killers lawyer uses the medium to raise funds, post articles and announcements, and dispel rumors.

 We are not surprised to discover that our decision is controversial, OMara posted on his site, gzlegalcase.com. Some have called it unethical, and some have called it brilliant; however, we believe much of the controversy is about the medium, not the message.

 Last week, OMara said he ordered his client to wipe his Internet presence clean. Zimmerman took down his website, a Twitter account and any other social media accounts. Any remaining, OMara said, were fakes.

 But once the defense attorney realized how much money Zimmerman had raised on the Web, he quickly set up a more-polished website with a link to a professionally administered legal defense fund. OMara said he had agreed to take the case for free, but reconsidered once he learned he could be paid using web donations.

 OMara hired Shawn Vincent of Orlandos Digital Marketing Revolution to manage a Facebook page as well. Within hours of the page going up, hundreds of people had posted comments both for and against the defendant, and a few people with fake user names shared harsh opinions of Trayvon Martins family. One commenter on OMaras Facebook page said Trayvons mother was mooching off white peoples money.

 Within 24 hours, the site was changed so that users must submit comments for review before they are posted. Insults were deleted. About 1,800 people have liked the page so far.

 Jayne Navarre, a South Florida consultant who devises social media strategies for lawyers, said OMaras use of social media will almost certainly taint a jury pool and compromise Zimmermans shot at a fair trial. She said OMara also may be violating American Bar Association rules that prohibit a lawyer from helping third parties make prohibited extrajudicial comments.

 While use of social media has risen exponentially in the legal field, what we have not seen is a criminal-defense attorney host social media channels on behalf of their client, Navarre said. I would not be surprised to learn that members of the Bar are shocked and even disgusted.

 Under American Bar Association rules, a lawyer can speak publicly on a case as long as it does not prejudice a potential jury. The association is revamping its rules to address social media, she said.

 Lawyers usually use social media to advertise, educate, network or recruit employees, she said. Some lawyers and judges have been sanctioned for inappropriate use of social media.

 Until now, Navarre said, the most unusual case of a law firm using social media was in 2010, when the Massachusetts-based class action firm Sokolove Law Inc. launched the first known niche social networking site devoted to engaging potential and current class members in online discussions about the birth control pill YAZ. But the site was considered advertising and was deemed in compliance with ABA rules, she said.

 The tactic certainly was cutting edge, and I dont think the Bar saw any writing on the wall, Navarre said. I find in my social media consulting practice that many lawyers are still dragging their feet for various reasons . . . Others find it unprofessional, period. ||||| Tweet with a location

 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| There is a common misconception that if you are not a millionaire there is no need to undergo estate planning. Somehow people have developed the notion that it only serves to help the super-rich. This could not be more wrong. Many states have laws in place that allow taking over and administrating the sale and disbursement of everything you own in cases where there is no will in place at the time of death. This can leave your estate in probate court for years and limit what your family receives. This article strives to show the importance of complete estate planning.

 What Is an Estate Plan?

 Estate plans are a set of legal documents that lay out a plan of action in how your material wealth and health will be handled if you become seriously ill, or die. These documents normally include a will, advance directive, and your choice of executors that will handle everything from making the hard medical decisions, distribution of any cash left behind to the individuals of your choice, and seeing that any material possessions end up in the hands of the people you have chosen and placed in the will.

 Lack of proper estate planning can end up pitting one relative against another, which will cause the process to get hung up in a probate court for years. Lack of estate planning has literally ripped entire families apart. This is especially true when estates are valued at large sums of money and assets. Nothing can cause more immediate strife in a family than financial arguments. It can cause feuds that will last for many years to come.

 Exercise Control with Your Estate

 Taking the time to sit down with a estate planning lawyer and carry out complete estate planning is your chance to exercise complete control over what happens with your money, and possessions while you are in sound condition to do so. It is an act of kindness that will make your passing less stressful for all involved. Every detail down to the funeral arrangements can already be planned and ready to put into action.

 Estate planning allows you to be very specific in the details of how personal items, money, stocks, bonds, cars, homes, paintings, jewelry, and anything of value is distributed. You can decide who would best manage your estate. You can feel confident that every decision going forth is set in stone long before you pass away. You can even have them interface with your personal injury lawyer. No one will be left struggling making the tough decisions.

 Continue reading The Importance of Estate Planning |||||
A summary of this is?

– George Zimmerman now has a legal site, a defense-minded Twitter feed, and a 7-year-old MySpace page that's causing some fresh trouble. The Miami Herald unearthed the page, which has been confirmed as authentic by his lawyer, and reports on the less seemly details contained within. Most notably: not-so-nice comments about Mexicans. Sample lines: "I dont miss driving around scared to hit mexicans walkin on the side of the street, soft ass wanna be thugs messin with peoples cars when they aint around (what are you provin, that you can dent a car when no ones watchin)." "Workin 96 hours to get a decent pay check, gettin knifes pulled on you by every mexican you run into!" The page, which was abandoned in 2005, also talks about Zimmerman's "ex-hoe," references jailed friends, brags about getting two felonies reduced to misdemeanors, and mentions that he misses his friends in his hometown of Manassas, Va. The Herald notes that he also posted several photos, including one in which he appears to be wearing the infamous orange polo from his 2005 mugshot.


WOBURN, Mass. (AP) — The highly-anticipated opening of a time capsule that been hidden in the head of a lion statue atop a historical landmark for more than a century yielded at least one surprise Thursday: a hardcover book.

 FILE - In this Sept. 14, 2014 file photo, a lion statue is removed from atop the Old State House on Washington Street in Boston. The Bostonian Society on Thursday Oct. 9, 2014 hopes to delicately remove... (Associated Press)

 The Bostonian Society had expected the time capsule to include letters, newspaper clippings and other items from 1901, the year it was placed in the statue on the Old State House. Papers were found, along with the red book inside the copper box roughly the size of a modern shoebox. The book had no visible markings, and nothing was taken out of the box because of the items' fragile condition. So, the contents of the book remain a mystery, for now.

 The inside of the box and its contents — there was no mold or water damage — thrilled society President Brian LeMay.

 LeMay said he was "absolutely delighted" with the conditions inside the box.

 The time capsule was sealed inside the lion's head since 1901 and then forgotten — until recently. Rumors of its existence were confirmed last month when the statue was taken down from the Old State House for refurbishing.

 The delicate removal of the box took place at a sculpting studio in suburban Woburn.

 Robert Shure, owner of Skylight Studio, first removed a crown atop the copper and gold-leaf lion's head, cut cables holding the box in place inside the head, and removed the rectangular box, which weighed between five and 10 pounds and measured 8-by-12 inches in length and about 6 inches deep, according to Shure.

 The society, which manages the Old State House, first learned about the possible existence of the time capsule years ago from the great-great-granddaughter of Samuel Rogers, a craftsman who had worked on building renovations and was believed to have placed the time capsule in the lion's head and catalogued its contents. A 1901 article from The Boston Globe surfaced later, alluding to contents of a copper box "which will prove interesting when the box is opened many years hence."

 Elizabeth Roscio, the Boston Society's archivist, said the box will be brought to an environmentally-controlled setting where the contents can be carefully removed and studied. They will be put on public display at a later date.

 One of Boston's most popular tourist attractions, the Old State House has a storied history. It was once the seat of English rule in the northern colonies, and the original lion statue and an accompanying unicorn statue symbolized the unification of England and Scotland.

 It was just outside the building that British regulars opened fire on a crowd of protesters in 1770, killing five people in what would become known as the Boston Massacre.

 In the summer of 1776, the newly-signed Declaration of Independence was read for the first time to Bostonians from a balcony of the building, which would later serve as the first seat of Massachusetts government.

 The plan is to put a new time capsule in the lion's head, this one made of titanium. The society is currently soliciting suggestions of what to put in it, but said one item will be a medal from the ill-fated 2013 Boston Marathon. ||||| Updated October 9, 2014, 4:30 pm

 Onlookers were rapt this morning, as a century-old time capsule that sat inside the lion statue on top of the Old State House was opened during a ceremony in Woburn.

 The Bostonian Society, the nonprofit that maintains the Old State House in Boston, said in tweets that their archivist was surprised by the great condition of the items inside, and, in a slightly anticlimactic end to the ceremony, that they would go through the contents later in a “controlled environment.” (We’ll update when we know more about the contents.)

 We do, however, know what to expect. A Boston Globe report from 1901 provided details as to what was placed inside — photographs and autographs from top government officials, a population map, a letter from local reporters assigned to cover City Hall, old newspapers, and William McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt campaign buttons.

 But the Bostonian Society said on Twitter that a red book was also found, which was not expected. They did not explain further.

 The lion and another statue, of a unicorn, both dating back to 1901, were removed from their perches on top of the Old State House at the corner of Washington and State streets for repairs last month.

 To gain access to the time capsule, artist Bob Shure of Skylight Studios, who is tasked with refurbishing the statues, removed the lion’s crown and cut the copper bands that were holding the capsule in place inside the lion’s head.

 The Bostonian Society is asking the public to suggest what should be left inside a new time capsule using the hashtag #lionandunicorn on social media.

 Suggestions so far range from Fenway Park dirt, the new iPhone and a miniature version of the “Make Way for Ducklings” sculpture, to unpaid city parking tickets and Big Dig architectural renderings.

 Brian LeMay, the president of the Bostonian Society, told WBUR the organization is already planning to include a Boston Marathon medal, as well as images and documents from the present day.

 LaMay says no matter what else ends up going into the new time capsule, his organization has one requirement: “I think one thing we are going to do is make it a little bit easier to get the time capsule out than the one that is in there now.”

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 Most Popular Expand ||||| Back in 1901, the Superintendent of Boston’s Public Buildings commissioned Samuel D. Rogers, a carpenter, to complete repairs and alterations on the Old State House. In the midst of that job, Rogers also became involved in organizing the contents of the time capsule placed in the head of the building’s lion statue. This Thursday, Oct. 9, Skylight Studios will remove the capsule from the lion’s head, providing a snapshot of what life was like in turn-of-the-previous-century Boston—and, for one Idaho woman, offering some insight into her own family history.

 Heidi Rogers Grundhauser, of Chubbuck, Idaho, is Rogers’s great-great granddaughter and a self-proclaimed “genealogy addict”; she learned about the time capsule when her own father passed along Rogers family heirlooms to her, including Samuel’s letters about the capsule. In 2011, Grundhauser reached out to the Bostonian Society to see if it had ever been opened.

 Up until last week, however, the existence of a capsule in the lion’s head was disputed. The Freedom Trail Foundation wasn’t convinced it was there. But for the Bostonian Society, the letters written by Samuel Rogers were all the confirmation they needed. Elizabeth Roscio, the Library and Archives Manager of the Bostonian Society, said that in his letters, Rogers details the newspapers, photographs and autographs that he added to the capsule.

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 “Samuel left a complete list of what was added but I am hoping there will be a few surprises even for myself,” Grundhauser said. “What I’m most looking forward to seeing is the life sketch Samuel placed in the box as well as the 200-year history of the Rogers family. I love the detective work, I love piecing together the triumphs and the heartache of my ancestors from the pieces of information left behind.”

 Grundhauser’s detective work has already paid off. Her research discovered that Samuel Rodgers was born in 1840, had four children from two wives, served as the superintendent of construction projects ranging from schoolhouses to prisons and served twice in the Civil War. Grundhauser hopes that some of the remaining missing links in her family history will be connected when her great-great grandfather’s capsule contributions are revealed.

 (Courtesy of Rogers/Grundhauser family)

 Grundhauser hopes to attend the opening ceremony of the time capsule with her daughter and father, but traveling to Boston from her home in Idaho may prove expensive and difficult. That won’t stop her from enjoying all this moment in time has to offer for her family.

 “I have great pride in my family,” Grundhauser said. “I stand on their shoulders and benefit from their hard work. I love all of the stories and Samuel’s war time history. I think that Matt Damon needs to produce a movie about them.”

 Note: Due to an editing error, an incomplete draft version of this story was published prematurely. ||||| Historians opened the 113-year-old time capsule inside the Old State House’s golden lion statue Thursday, and were surprised by what they found: a mystery red book resting on top of the box’s contents.

 Onlookers at a press-only unveiling gasped when the sealed box was pryed open. Library and Archives Manager at the Bostonian Society Elizabeth Roscio had every intention of assessing each content in the box, but decided not to remove the items once she noticed the box was so tightly packed.

 Items won't be removed. But all seems in "remarkably good condition." No mold, no yellowing of paper. pic.twitter.com/3xPFZXpmmt — Lara Salahi (@BostonLara) October 9, 2014

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 As much of the contents of the box we'll be seeing today... (Mystery red book!) pic.twitter.com/fr3noPhQkb — Lara Salahi (@BostonLara) October 9, 2014

 Instead, the items will be sorted in a clean and controlled environment, Roscio said.

 A 1901 Boston Daily Globe article listed the many items that were placed in the box, including photographs of political leaders, letters, and newspapers of the time. But a red book was not mentioned.

 Roscio speculated that the book could be the family history of Samuel Rogers. Indeed, the 1901 Globe article says a “History of the Rogers and Fernald families, deposited by S. D. Rogers, who did the alteration work on the old state house, 1901” was placed in the capsule, but does not say the color of the book.

 Bob Shure, the president of Skylight Studios in Woburn, where the statue is undergoing repairs, took off the crown of the lion statue and took the shoebox-sized time capsule out of its head.

 A new time capsule with modern day items will replace the extracted box, the historians said.

 Some items the public has suggested to the society include an iPhone 6, a photo of Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, and a Mike’s Pastry cannoli, Roscio said.

 Brian LeMay, president of the Bostonian Society, told Boston.com he would like to see photos of items from the opened time capsule put into the new one that will be created, which the society plans to do. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– New York City opened an old time capsule today that turned out to be ... kind of boring. Boston, on the other hand, has itself a mysterious red book, reports WBUR. Historians today removed a copper box that was placed inside the lion atop the Old State House back in 1901 and were surprised to find the hard-cover book on top, apparently in great condition. The curious will have to wait a little longer, however, because officials didn't open the book or anything beneath it inside the box—they'll do that later in a controlled environment to make sure nothing gets ruined. Expect old photos, letters, newspapers, and similar memorabilia. But as for the book, no mention of it was made in a newspaper article of the time about the time capsule. An official with the Bostonian Society guesses that it might be a family history of a carpenter named Samuel Rogers, reports the Boston Globe. Rogers worked on the building and helped prepare the time capsule, notes a separate Globe story. And while he did reportedly pop a family history inside, there's no account of it being in a red book. Eventually, all the items will go on public display, and a new time capsule will go back inside the lion. One thing for sure that will be included: a medal from the 2013 Boston Marathon, the one hit by bombs, reports AP. (Click for more on a time capsule that was opened 40 years late.)


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– Django Unchained actress Daniele Watts says she was handcuffed by police for kissing her white boyfriend in a car, but the responding officer says that's simply not true. "She is lying," LAPD Sgt. Jim Parker tells the Hollywood Reporter, adding that he recorded the entire incident. He says police received a public-nudity complaint; the caller said Watts and Brian James Lucas were having sex in a car near CBS Studios. "[Lucas] was in the passenger seat with his legs outside," according to the caller, an Art Directors Guild office employee, Parker says. He claims that at least one person took a picture, and TMZ apparently got its hands on that picture—and the gossip site notes that it certainly does look "like sex." Parker says Watts and Lucas were no longer doing whatever it was they had been doing by the time he arrived—Watts was on the phone, standing outside the car. "People having sex in the car, no biggie. No one wants to arrest anybody," Parker says, but he did ask Lucas for Watts' ID. "And he [Lucas] said, 'Oh, I have her passport,'" which is when Watts started getting upset, Parker says, adding, "Quite frankly, I don't need to see her ID, but she does have to ID herself." He says Watts walked away, and he didn't want to engage in a physical confrontation, so he requested a female officer to come and bring Watts back. That's when the two officers he sent after her brought her back in cuffs, saying, "She's being difficult." As for Lucas, he was never cuffed, Parker points out. "I asked her, 'Why are you in handcuffs? He's [Lucas] been here this whole time not in handcuffs.'"

'Django' Actress We Got the Pictures And It Looks Like Sex

 'Django Unchained' Actress -- We Got the Pictures ... And It Looks Like Sex

 EXCLUSIVE

 The "" actress who cried racism against the LAPD ... claiming they harassed and hurt her because she was just making out with her white boyfriend in a car -- has some explaining to do, because we obtained pictures that seem to show A LOT more than sucking face.The pictures were taken Thursday outside the CBS lot in Studio City. You seestraddling BF Brian -- their hands steadying themselves around the sunroof.An eyewitness who saw Daniele and Brian as he worked in a nearby office tells TMZ ... Brian was sitting in the passenger seat with his feet on the curb and Daniele was straddling him with her shirt pulled up -- breasts exposed. The eyewitness says she was grinding on top of him, rocking back and forth.Someone from the office went down and asked Daniele and Brian to stop because everyone in the office could see them but they continued.The eyewitnesses say Brian then began "horizontally bongoing her boobs back and forth." He says she eventually reached into the center console, grabbed a tissue, wiped him down and then herself and tossed it on the grass.Someone from the office called the cops and made an indecent exposure complaint. TMZ obtained police audio when the cops came out, and Daniele played the race and fame cards. ||||| Sgt. Jim Parker refutes the account of the actress, contending that he recorded the incident from the moment he got out of his car

 The Los Angeles police officer involved in a confrontation with Django Unchained actress Daniele Watts is emphatically defending himself against any charges of wrongdoing.

 "She is lying," LAPD Sgt. Jim Parker tells The Hollywood Reporter, contending the actress is making "malicious and false statements."

 Watts, who is African-American, says the police accused her of prostitution because she was being publicly affectionate with her white boyfriend, Brian James Lucas.

 “Today I was handcuffed and detained by 2 police officers from the Studio City Police Department after refusing to agree that I had done something wrong by showing affection, fully clothed, in a public place,” Watts wrote on her Facebook page on Thursday. "When the officer arrived, I was standing on the sidewalk by a tree. I was talking to my father on my cellphone. I knew that I had done nothing wrong, that I wasn’t harming anyone, so I walked away. A few minutes later, I was still talking to my dad when 2 different police officers accosted me and forced me into handcuffs," adding that her wrists were "bleeding in pain."

 But Parker refutes Watts' account, saying he was already near the location to meet up with two other LAPD officers at Starbucks when he got a call about public nudity at the corner of Radford Avenue and Ventura Boulevard, near CBS Studios. Parker tells THR that he recorded the incident from the moment he got out of his car to when it ended.

 "They were f—ing. He was in the passenger seat with his legs outside," Parker says, paraphrasing a call from someone at the Art Directors Guild office, complaining about employees watching a couple having sex in a car in broad daylight with the door open, complete with a description of the make and license plate of the car and description of the couple and what they were wearing. He says at least one witness took a photo. "People don't make this shit up."

 Parker says he didn't plan on arresting the couple, who he says were no longer engaged in intercourse, and standing outside the car; she was on the phone. "People having sex in the car, no biggie. No one wants to arrest anybody," Parker says. "And he [Lucas] said, 'Oh, I have her passport.' He was wearing two tourist bags around his neck and I assumed he had hers. She was feigning disinterest, but I could tell she was listening in. Then as you hear on the recording, she starts making a fuss, and quite frankly I don't need to see her ID but she does have to ID herself."

 The recording, which was made public by TMZ on Monday, features a woman's voice saying, "Do you know how many times the cops have been called because I'm black? Just because I'm black and he's white?" Later, she says, "You can say I'm resisting arrest," and put her father, who she was speaking with on her cellphone, on speaker to talk to the police, saying, "It's my right to stand on the street corner and make out with my boyfriend."

 But cops say they were doing more than making out.

 "There's no resisting; you're just interfering," a policeman is heard saying. LAPD sources tell THR that TMZ's recording is authentic.

 Parker says he knew the other officers were nearby when Watts walked away from him as the situation escalated, but he didn't want to chase after her or physically confront her. "I've been here before, I'm not touching her. I don't want to be accused of anything. So I requested a female officer and said, 'Hey guys, grab that female on the phone and bring her back to me.'"

 "I'm thinking, 'God, it's taking a long time to bring her back to me,' Parker continues. "They [two other officers] said, 'She's being difficult.' They have her handcuffed, because that's what they do. It's too far to walk, so they drove her back. And I said, 'You have to give me your ID or tell me your name.' She's crying."

 Watts, who is also on the FX show Partners, told CNN on Monday that the LAPD "accosted me and forced me into handcuffs," and repeated what she had said on the recording, that the cops alleged "I had done something wrong by showing affection, fully clothed, in a public place." She also told CNN she felt disrespected when police asked Lucas for her ID instead of asking her directly.

 "She had no idea I was recording. So I asked her, 'Why are you in handcuffs? He's [Lucas] been here this whole time not in handcuffs. Tell me if someone has been disrespectful,'" Parker says he asked the actress when she returned, handcuffed and distressed, adding that the recording exonerates the LAPD in this situation. "Police officers can record surreptitiously without consent. The other officers also had their recording on. It helps the police department."

 The LAPD confirmed it is conducting an internal investigation because of the widespread publicity surrounding the incident. If he hadn't made the recording, Parker says, "The three of us would be relieved of duty right now."

 Watts' agent did not immediately return an email for comment.

 Email: Soo.Youn@THR.com

 Twitter: @lalasoo |||||


Write a summary based on this article:

The United States has gained tremendously from globalisation, but has squandered the benefits by not spreading the rewards throughout society, Alibaba Group executive chairman Jack Ma said on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

 He also urged the world to give Donald Trump time before passing judgment on how he might shape the future course of Sino-US trade relations.

 Don’t blame globalisation for world’s ills, Xi Jinping tells Davos

 Ma’s comments at the forum in Switzerland come after Trump threatened on the presidential campaign trail to slap punitive tariffs on Chinese exports to the US after accusing Beijing of adopting unfair trade practices and manipulating its currency.

 Trump’s election victory and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union have also sparked an international debate over whether there is a political backlash against free trade and the benefits of globalisation.

 “American international companies made millions and millions of dollars from globalisation,” Ma, the founder of Alibaba, the world’s largest online retailer, told the forum in Davos. “The past 30 years, companies like IBM, Cisco and Microsoft made tonnes of money.”

 Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.

 The problem, he added, lay in how the US has spent the wealth.

 Chinese president presses pro-trade message in Switzerland before landmark Davos address

 “In the past 30 years, America has had 13 wars at a cost of US$14.2 trillion,” he said.

 “What if they had spent part of that money on building up their infrastructure, helping white-collar and blue-collar workers? You’re supposed to spend money on your own people.

 “It’s not that other countries steal American jobs,” said Ma, echoing criticisms made by Trump of China’s economic and trade policies. “It is your strategy – that you did not distribute the money in a proper way.”

 Ma met with Trump in New York earlier this month and said he told the incoming US president he was still optimistic about globalisation, even though there were areas that should be improved.

 He told also Trump that both the US and China could benefit from a more inclusive form of globalisation where the gains were more widely shared.

 “I believe globalisation is good, but it needs to be improved. It should be inclusive globalisation.”

 Ma added the world should give Trump more time to sort out how the US will deal with China in its trade relations.

 “He’s open minded and he’s listening,” Ma told the forum.

 Alibaba offers Trump 1 million US jobs, builds bridge for Sino-US ties

 The Chinese internet tycoon said the consequences of a trade war between the world’s biggest and second-largest economies would be too grave for both countries to bear and they should do everything to avoid it.

 “It’s so easy to launch a war. It’s so difficult, almost impossible sometimes, to terminate that war,” he said. “The Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, are those finished?”

 Ma gave an indirect reply when asked who initiated his meeting with Trump in New York.

 He said there were “some people” who asked if he wanted to meet Trump and he initially declined because he did not know what to discuss with the president-elect.

 But after others asked him a few days later, he replied in an email that he was ready for the meeting and believed Trump would be happy to meet him, too.

 China’s Xi calls for a world without nuclear weapons

 “At least I think president-elect Donald Trump would be happy to hear what I want to talk about so I went,” he said.

 Ma said the meeting with Trump had gone better than he expected.

 “We spoke about how we can help small American businesses sell their products in China and Asia through our network, which can create a lot of jobs for them,” he added. ||||| Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, the CEO and founder of ecommerce giant Alibaba Holdings (BABA), spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on the U.S. economy in relation to China.

 Last week, Ma met with President-elect Donald Trump in New York to discuss Alibaba’s commitment to help American small businesses by bringing more U.S. companies onto its sites. As one of the world’s most powerful businessmen, the Alibaba CEO expressed his belief in the importance of empowering small businesses to drive global economic prosperity. (See also: Alibaba’s Jack Ma Meeting Donald Trump Serves Both Parties.)

 Throughout the campaign, Trump repeatedly badmouthed China, criticizing U.S. firms for “sending jobs abroad,” and assuring his constituents that they will see a lot more “Made in America” tags. More recently, Trump’s jargon has circled around various threats including a new tariff on Chinese imports.

 Ma’s Diagnosis

 When asked by CNBCs’s Andrew Sorkin about Trump’s proposed policies that would negatively impact China, Ma said the U.S. is misunderstanding the cause of its job problem. He suggests lower wages and disappearing jobs are not because other countries steal jobs from the U.S. but rather because of the distorted distribution of money, in which the government allocated $14 trillion to war over the past three decades. Ma indicates the funds could have been used to fix America’s failing infrastructure.

 The Alibaba CEO instead deemed outsourcing as a byproduct of globalization a “wonderful” strategy. "The American multinational companies made millions and millions of dollars from globalization," Ma said. "The past 30 years, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, they've made tens of millions—the profits they've made are much more than the four Chinese banks put together ... But where did the money go?"

 Corporate Hoarders

 Ma is speaking to the billions of dollars in corporate cash that U.S. multinational companies, primarily big tech companies, are hoarding overseas. Ma uses U.S. corporate cash piles abroad as an example of how globalization, which he sees as fundamentally beneficial, is disproportionately servicing the wealthy few. (See also: Big Tech Is Sitting on $1.77 Trillion.)

 While Trump’s proposed policy includes a huge one-time corporate tax cut on repatriated cash, many disagree on whether the proper incentives and regulations are in place to make sure the profits get distributed more broadly. ||||| Alibaba founder Jack Ma fired a shot at the United States in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

 Ma was asked by CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin about the U.S. economy in relation to China, since President-elect Donald Trump has been talking about imposing new tariffs on Chinese imports.

 Ma says blaming China for any economic issues in the U.S. is misguided. If America is looking to blame anyone, Ma said, it should blame itself.

 "It's not that other countries steal jobs from you guys," Ma said. "It's your strategy. Distribute the money and things in a proper way."

 He said the U.S. has wasted over $14 trillion in fighting wars over the past 30 years rather than investing in infrastructure at home.

 To be sure, Ma is not the only critic of the costly U.S. policies of waging war against terrorism and other enemies outside the homeland. Still, Ma said this was the reason America's economic growth had weakened, not China's supposed theft of jobs.

 In fact, Ma called outsourcing a "wonderful" and "perfect" strategy.

 "The American multinational companies made millions and millions of dollars from globalization," Ma said. "The past 30 years, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, they've made tens of millions — the profits they've made are much more than the four Chinese banks put together. ... But where did the money go?"

 He said the U.S. is not distributing, or investing, its money properly, and that's why many people in the country feel wracked with economic anxiety. He said too much money flows to Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Instead, the country should be helping the Midwest, and Americans "not good in schooling," too.

 "You're supposed to spend money on your own people," Ma said. "Not everybody can pass Harvard, like me." In a previous interview, Ma said he had been rejected by Harvard 10 times.

 Along those lines, Ma stressed that globalization is a good thing, but it, too, "should be inclusive," with the spoils not just going to the wealthy few.

 "The world needs new leadership, but the new leadership is about working together," Ma said. "As a business person, I want the world to share the prosperity together."

 — CNBC's Anita Balakrishnan contributed to this report. ||||| Alibaba has bagged a big Olympic deal.

 For 12 years, the Chinese e-commerce giant will supply technology to the International Olympic Committee to help organize the Games, support a new shopping platform for merchandise and run a Chinese version of the Olympic internet TV channel.

 Jack Ma, the founder and executive chairman of Alibaba (BABA), announced the deal at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, alongside IOC President Thomas Bach.

 Ma called it a "historic day for Alibaba."

 "This is a long term agreement, we are the first Chinese company to engage in an agreement like this, and we are hoping we can empower the Olympic movement even more," Ma said.

 Alibaba will create a global e-commerce platform that will sell official Olympic products to fans.

 "All our 206 national Olympic committees will be able to connect better with fans looking for Olympic-licensed products," said Bach.

 Related: Jack Ma warns of 'disaster' if Trump doesn't work with China

 The deal will last until the 2028 summer Olympics, covering the next six games -- three winter, three summer.

 Alibaba will support the organizers of each games, and in return receive rights including advertising and promotional use of Olympic marks and imagery from the Olympic Games, as well as marks from the National Olympic Committees.

 Neither Alibaba nor the IOC would comment on the financial value of the deal.

 Alibaba has also become a partner of the "Olympic Channel," launched after the 2016 Rio Olympics to show Olympic content all year round online and on iOS and Android mobile apps.

 Bach said the deal was first discussed a year ago. "[Ma] inspired me from the very first moment...now we are here to announce this exciting partnership," he said.

 One area of potential friction is counterfeits on Alibaba's platforms. (The U.S. just returned Alibaba to its "notorious markets list" for pirated goods.) The IOC and national organizing committees go to great lengths to protect Olympic trademarks.

 Ma pledged to do more to tackle the problem. He said Alibaba is spending more than one billion yuan to fight the problem, but admitted there was no easy answer.

 "We are listing more than 1.2 billion products on our site, this is a huge world, governing and managing a world like this is not easy," he said. "This is something that I am gonna fight for... we are confident that by working together [with the IOC], we are going to create a masterpiece," he said. |||||

– Tempted to blame China for your economic woes, America? Take a look in the mirror instead. That was the message of Alibaba founder Jack Ma Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he wagged a finger at the US for blowing $14 trillion on war efforts over the past three decades while letting US infrastructure languish, CNBC reports. "It's not that other countries steal jobs from you guys," Ma said, instead citing an error in US strategy, per the South China Morning Post (which is owned by Alibaba). While globalization has enriched us, the country ends up funneling money to Wall Street and Silicon Valley instead of to Main Street USA and people "not good at schooling," he said, adding "not everybody can pass Harvard like me." He also asked where billions of dollars made by major multinational corporations like Microsoft and IBM has gone, which Investopedia sees as a reference to the cash they've squirreled way abroad. Ma's comments come in the wake of campaign warnings from Donald Trump that the US could hit China with tariffs on its exports here, though Ma says he's met with Trump sees him as "open minded and … listening," per SCMP. In other big Alibaba news, an Olympic-sized announcement: CNN reports the Chinese e-commerce company has made a deal to supply technology and other services for the next six Olympic Games. (Here's what else Ma and Trump talked about.)


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"To the world, Chernobyl and Fukushima seem like dangerous places, but for the people who live there, that danger is simply a fact of life," says photojournalist Michael Forster Rothbart, who spent two years cataloging the lives of people living in the shadow of nuclear accidents. These images are the result.

 "Most photojournalists distort Chernobyl. They visit briefly, expecting danger and despair, and come away with photos of deformed children and abandoned buildings," Forster Rothbart says in his new book, Would You Stay? "This sensationalist approach obscures more complex stories about how displaced communities adapt and survive."

 Forster Rothbart's book is about the relative normalcy of people's lives near Chernobyl and Fukushima. But he does find a lot of danger and despair, of course. Would You Stay? is full of people living with cancer. The towns around Chernobyl are depressed, and lacking opportunity. Young people leave if they get the chance. Many of the residents are older, with more invested in the area. In Fukushima, where the disaster happened more recently, people are living in a state of limbo, not knowing when, or if, they might be able to return to their homes.

 Authorities ringed Chernobyl with four zones following the 1986 nuclear disaster. Nearest the site is the Exclusion Zone, where people are not supposed to live at all (though about 400 "self-settlers" do, and there's all kinds of "smuggling, research, farming, tourism, poaching" going on, Forster Rothbart says). Then come three further zones where "evacuation was merely encouraged, not mandatory." They contain 2,293 villages with about 1.6 million inhabitants.

 Up to 3,800 people still work at the Chernobyl plant, "not doing very much." The site, which had three other reactors, stopped producing electricity in 2000. But workers have to stay while decommissioning is completed—a process that could take years due to chronic under-funding.

 Forster Rothbart has seen the effects of environmental damage in Bhopal, India, Azerbaijan, and the Canadian Arctic. What separates Chernobyl and Fukushima, he says, is the insidiousness of the contamination. Nobody quite knows how it will affect them:

 "When your home gets washed away, the damage you see is immediate and obvious," he says. "When you are hit by radiation, the consequences are never so clear. It’s all a game of probabilities. How much? How dangerous? How soon will it affect me?"

 The people living around Chernobyl are still unsure about the risks 27 years after the fact. And now the same thing is happening Fukushima, though residents have access to daily radiation reports:

 Says Forster Rothbart: "What I saw in Fukushima is that many evacuees are living in a state of limbo, still staying in temporary housing, waiting to learn if they’ll be able to return home, waiting for more answers that never seem to come." ||||| SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email

 Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

 Ukraine’s looking toward the sun to put a radioactive wasteland back into business.

 Thirty years after atomic fallout from the Chernobyl meltdown rendered an area the size of Luxembourg uninhabitable for centuries, Ukraine is seeking investors to develop solar power near the defunct Soviet reactors.

 Sunshine is one of the only things that can be harvested from Chernobyl’s 1,000 square mile exclusion zone, where long-lasting radiation makes farming and forestry too dangerous. Save for the guards and workers who maintain the roadblocks and barriers, the area about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Kiev remains devoid of productive activities.

 “The Chernobyl site has really good potential for renewable energy,” Ukraine’s environment minister Ostap Semerak, 44, said at an interview in London. “We already have high-voltage transmission lines that were previously used for the nuclear stations, the land is very cheap and we have many people trained to work at power plants.”

 The move to solar at Chernobyl may also help Ukraine move closer toward the European Union and influence public opinion in conflict zones along the Russian border.

 “We have normal European priorities, which means having the best standards with the environment and clean energy ambitions,” said Semerak. “We want to be a successful Ukraine, to show people in the conflict zone that life is better and more comfortable with us.”

 Ukraine’s government remains in an uneasy cease-fire with Kremlin-backed rebels in the eastern region of Donbass along the Russian border. Both sides have struggled to implement obligations outlined under the Minsk Accords and international monitors still report outbreaks of violence, which has left thousands dead and displaced from their homes.

 Until recently, Ukraine was heavily dependent on natural gas imported from Russia. The government has been weaning itself from over-reliance following consecutive winters when Russia threatened to withhold supplies because of payment disputes. Last year Ukraine more than halved consumption from its eastern neighbor, according to Ukrtransgaz PJSC.

 With solar resources better than Germany’s, which has almost 39 gigawatts of panels installed, Ukraine is increasing its focus on renewables. The government’s initial 1 gigawatt solar target could cost about 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion).

 Source: Solargis

 The environmental ministry has received expressions of interest for its Chernobyl solar complex from two U.S. investment firms and four Canadian energy companies, Semerak said. Ukrainian developers plan to install 4 megawatts of panels on the site by year-end.

 The European Bank for Reconstruction & Development is also considering financing, though the talks are at early stages.

 “We can consider such projects like all other renewable projects subject to there being credible and viable investment proposals and all other environmental issues and risks can be addressed to our satisfaction,” said Sevki Acuner, the EBRD’s director for Ukraine.

 If the project takes off, it may evolve into a bigger initiative that leverages the transmission lines with 4 gigawatts capacity that are already onsite -- a legacy of the nuclear plant.

 Watch Next: Capturing Iceland's Winds ||||| Before the fire, the vomiting, the deaths and the vanishing home, it was the promise of bumper cars that captured the imagination of the boys.

 It will be 30 years ago Tuesday that Pripyat and the nearby Chernobyl nuclear plant became synonymous with nuclear disaster, that the word Chernobyl came to mean more than just a little village in rural Ukraine, and this place became more than just another spot in the shadowy Soviet Union.

 Even 30 years later – 25 years after the country that built it ceased to exist – the full damage of that day is still argued.

 Death toll estimates run from hundreds to millions. The area near the reactor is both a teeming wildlife refuge and an irradiated ghost-scape. Much of eastern and central Europe continues to deal with fallout aftermath. The infamous Reactor Number 4 remains a problem that is neither solved nor solvable.

 But on the night before their world changed, nothing seemed more important to the boys than shiny blue and yellow cars, with actual steering wheels, almost ready for a 10-year-old to drive.

 They knew they would have to wait till May 1, 1986, for the bumper cars to be turned on – a seemingly impossible-to-live-through week away. So Alexandr Sirota and his friends couldn’t resist sneaking into the new park after dark, beneath the deep shadows of the yet-unblinking new Ferris wheel, and under the inky dark of what would soon be the electrified roof over the bumper cars.

 “We’d sit in the cars and make car noises,” recalls Sirota, who’s now 40. “It was everything we could imagine wanting in life at that time. As young boys, our lives seemed perfect.”

 It wasn’t just the new bumper cars, or the new amusement park. Their hometown, Pripyat, had been swampland 30 years before. Now it was a city built to serve the future. And the driver of that future was visible southeast of town, the four massive reactors of the Lenin Nuclear Power Plant, which in common parlance was called Chernobyl, for a village some 9 miles distant.

 As the boys sat in the bumper cars, dreaming of the future, they knew what had to happen next. An adult would flip switches and draw some of the plentiful electricity a mile down the wires from the station, probably Reactor Number 4, as that was the nearest. The rest would be magic. Life would be magic.

 Those were the thoughts that consumed Sirota’s dreams as he went to bed on April 25, 1986, and after he woke on April 26 and rushed off to School No. 1. Looking back ,it was the death of this dreamlike childhood that would come to haunt him – as much as the months of hospitalizations, as much as the Geiger counter that became his most common clothing accessory, as much as watching his mother’s beautiful, long, blond hair fall out in clumps.

 For Sirota, the worst nuclear accident in history didn’t begin dramatically. That morning, he sat in class and contemplated how to best glue colored paper to a jar as a May Day gift for his mother.

 We knew, with certainty, with arrogant certainty, that we were in control of the power we were playing with. This was the day . . . we learned we were wrong. Sergiy Parashyn, Chernobyl engineer

 “Someone came in the room and called our teacher, said it was an emergency meeting in the teachers’ meeting room,” Sirota recalls. “We were told to study quietly. Of course we didn’t. The teachers were gone forever. For more than an hour we sat around. I suppose they were trying to figure out what to do, and it wasn’t an easy discussion. Something was wrong, but we didn’t know exactly what.”

 Slowly word filtered through the school that the meeting was about problems at the plant. The kids pressed their noses against the glass of the classroom windows to watch as, across the street, on the manicured lawn of the city’s new hospital, the first military helicopters landed. They were soon surrounded by a jumbled chaos of emergency vehicles.

 The kids opened windows and started shouting questions to those milling about on the street below. “What happened?” “Have you seen it?” “Is that the army?” But the adults didn’t know much more. It was a fire at the nuclear plant. Someone used the word “avariya,” meaning “accident.”

 The aspen, birch, fir and oak trees in the small strip of forest outside the windows blocked their view, but the students knew there was a bridge just a short run away from which they could peer at the accident without obstruction.

 “To kids, it was too tempting to pass up,” Sirota recalls.

 He grabbed his jar, some paper and glue – evidence that he intended to work on the gift – and sprinted toward the plant.

 Sirota wasn’t the first to reach the small bridge, which ran over rail lines on the south side of town, but he remembers that it wasn’t yet crowded, either. He remembers running up to the railing, half throwing himself in the way that boys do, eyes wide, hoping to see excitement.

 Instead, he saw smoke, and not enough to hold the attention of a 10-year-old for long.

 “It looked more like fog than fire,” he recalls. “We were looking at the reactor, but we couldn’t see any destruction.”

 The bridge they were standing on wasn’t yet known as “The Bridge of Death.” That would come later.

 [SEKTOR 2]

 Panic sets in at Reactor Number 4

 Early that morning, just after 1 a.m., while those in Pripyat dozed, the engineers who’d spent the previous 24 hours putting Reactor Number 4 through a stress test were getting nervous. The readings weren’t right. The radiation levels were climbing too high.

 But the Soviet mindset at 1 a.m. on April 26, 1986, was very different from what it would be 24 hours later. In fact, the global perception of nuclear power was about to change.

 “We knew, with certainty, with arrogant certainty, that we were in control of the power we were playing with. We could make the forces of nature bend to our will. There was nothing we could not do,” recalls Sergiy Parashyn, who’d been an engineer at the plant since 1977 and had arrived there within the hour. “This was the day, of course, when we learned we were wrong.”

 Parashyn, who later would become the director of the complex and remains one of Ukraine’s foremost experts on nuclear energy, says that as the dials indicated problems, the safe approach would have been to shut down the test.

 “If we had, all would have been well,” he says. “That was not the course chosen.”

 Later reports would call the staff inexperienced, poorly trained. But that was not how they perceived themselves, Parashyn recalls. In their own minds, they were the best and the brightest, leading the way into a glorious future where power was abundant and life would have no limits. Their plant, after all, was only 16 years old.

 So as the radiation levels climbed, instead of stopping the test, those in charge ordered it to continue. They would find the limits and learn from that. And when they reached that limit, and the temperature inside the sealed reactor began to climb, and climb beyond expectations, Parashyn says they did what seemed prudent: They hit what he calls “the shut-down button.”

 We knew, with certainty, with arrogant certainty, that we were in control of the power we were playing with. This was the day . . . we learned we were wrong. Sergiy Parashyn, Chernobyl engineer

 It turned out to be a huge mistake.

 “Imagine you are driving a car, quite fast, and you see an obstacle in the road,” he explains. “Naturally, you hit the brakes to slow down and avoid the obstacle. But now imagine that the brakes have been wired incorrectly, and touching the brakes actually acts as an accelerator. When you try to slow down, you speed up, into the obstacle.

 “Chernobyl was built with this mistake. Had the operators done nothing, it would have been fine – it would have corrected itself – but they had no way to know this, until this moment.”

 Even 30 years later, nuclear physicists familiar with the disaster disagree on what went wrong. The only area of agreement appears to be that somehow when the engineers attempted to slow the nuclear reaction by inserting control rods into the reactor core, the process actually sped up.

 It was a known flaw. Something similar had happened three years earlier during tests in Lithuania, and a warning had gone out, recalls Georgi Kopchinsky, who on April 26, 1986, was a director of the Soviet central committee on nuclear energy. As he talks about Chernobyl, he wrings his hands, smokes nervously and admits it’s a very tough topic for him.

 “We knew this,” he says. “Three years earlier we’d sent out a warning to all plants with reactors with these absorbers, warning of this problem. But no actions had been taken. This was our arrogance at the time. We believed we were the masters of the atomic reactions. It was a horrible mistake.”

 When Chernobyl’s operators raised the control rods into the reactor to absorb the flying neutrons and slow down the reaction, the action took only about 15 seconds to complete. But in those seconds, the reaction, instead of slowing, sped up and the temperature inside the reactor reached 3,000 degrees, turning the water used to cool the uranium into steam.

 In the sealed environment of the reactor, the steam had no place to expand. That’s when the roof blew, and an estimated 10 tons of the 200 tons of enriched uranium blasted into the atmosphere.

 After the roof blew, the walls collapsed and the superheated uranium melted and consumed all that fell into it. The long-term problem was forming, a 2,000-ton mass of metal, concrete and uranium that was pooling below the reactor.

 But that was a long-term problem. The more immediate concern was the 10 tons of enriched uranium streaming into the atmosphere above Chernobyl, and spreading out in all directions over northern, eastern and central Europe. Eventually, a scientific report commissioned by the European Parliament would estimate that, to some extent, Chernobyl radiation contaminated 40 percent of Europe.

 The time was 1:23 a.m. The world had changed. But those sleeping just downwind had no idea.

 [ Sektor 3]

 The Bridge of Death

 It was about 9 a.m. when Sirota got bored and decided to leave the bridge.

 Earlier, in the dark, the bridge had been crowded with adults watching the multicolored flames of burning graphite from the reactor. They’d “oohed” and “aahed.” It was beautiful. They’d also been soaking up a radiation dose determined to be about 500 roentgen, or two-thirds of a fatal dose. The legend is that none of those who stood on the bridge that morning survived.

 Sirota says that isn’t true. He survived. He saw others who survived. Still, as he left the bridge, he was leaving behind many who would soon die agonizing deaths.

 All told, about 4,000 people would eventually die from the accident, according to a report by the World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

 Others say those numbers are wildly low. Alexey Yablokov, a former environment adviser to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, estimated the global death toll to be 1.44 million. Other reports placed the cancer death totals at 30,000 to 60,000. Belarusian physicist Georgiy Lepin, a vice president of the association of liquidators of Chernobyl, the men brought in to fight the fire and clean up, estimated that within a few years, 13,000 rescue workers had died and another 70,000 were left unfit for work. The official number of disabled Chernobyl rescue workers today in Ukraine is 106,000.

 A United Nations study says that “5 million people currently live in areas of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine that are contaminated with radionuclides due to the accident; about 100,000 of them live in areas classified in the past by government authorities as areas of ‘strict control.’ ” About 4,000 people, mostly children, developed thyroid cancer from the radiation, the U.N. says; the survival rate for the cancer is 99 percent.

 Sirota, of course, knew none of this that morning.

 Clutching his jar, his glue, his colored papers, and knowing that school was out, he did what any 10-year-old boy would as the world was collapsing. He ran home to see whether he could find his mom.

 She found him. She was dressed for the office, her long blond hair perfect, falling across her shoulders, as always. He noted that she wasn’t happy. She scolded him for his dirty school clothes. She asked if he’d been anywhere near the plant. He lied and said the students had been cleaning the schoolyard, a lie she would not learn about for a decade.

 We knew, with certainty, with arrogant certainty, that we were in control of the power we were playing with. This was the day . . . we learned we were wrong. Sergiy Parashyn, Chernobyl engineer

 She worked for the Pripyat Palace of Culture. She oversaw the city’s literary needs, bringing in books and writers, and organizing a “Workers Writing Program.” That day she was hosting a poetry reading.

 It was hard to imagine that the news from the plant was bad. The city looked normal.

 “She told me to stay inside until she got home, just in case,” he recalls.

 Their apartment was on the southern edge of town, and faced the reactor. From a higher floor, above the trees, he could have looked at it. As it was, he opened the window and straddled the sill, talking with the friends below who had managed to get away from school and then back outside.

 They’d talk, then run off and gather another tidbit of information and run back to shout it at him. It became a game.

 When his mom returned, it was with the news that they’d need to prepare for a three-day evacuation. As the sky outside his window glowed red, she put him to bed in his coat and boots. He woke to loudspeakers: “Attention, attention, dear comrades. . . . In the interest of the safety of the people, which is a priority to us, there is reason to evacuate.”

 The announcement warned that they were to leave at 2 p.m. Buses would be provided, and they’d be taken to their evacuation locations. They were told not to worry. Police would watch their homes and make sure there was no looting.

 “Only take what is necessary and vital documents,” the loudspeakers repeated, over and over.

 “We were going away for a few days. It seemed like a picnic, like an adventure,” Sirota recalls. He filled a little suitcase with two changes of clothes, some pajamas. His mom made room in her bag for a few of his favorite toys. “It never occurred to me that we wouldn’t be coming back, that this life was over.”

 Pripyat, after all, was an ideal place to live. One propaganda poster told residents, “Let the Atom be a Worker, not a Soldier.” The medians dividing fresh new streets were thickly planted with flowers. The towering apartment blocks were still unchipped. The bay cut into the Pripyat River was perfect for swimming in the summers and boating much of the rest of the year. The city hadn’t even had time to install the obligatory statue of Vladimir Lenin on the pedestal awaiting it in the central square. Everything was new and the future promising.

 Twenty years before, this was a region of small and poor farming villages. By 1986, it housed the Soviet version of yuppies. Education levels were high. Wages were high. Parents videotaped kids’ parties, just as they would have in the United States. In those videos, the kids looked eerily similar to how they would have looked in Kansas City or Charlotte, from the style of their clothes and haircuts to their broad smiles and constant laughter.

 So as the bus pulled out of town, heading toward Kiev 60 miles south, Sirota wasn’t worried. He and his mom were off to spend a couple of nights with his aunt. But he’d be back soon enough.

 Those days became weeks, then months, then, after the studies were complete, the official verdict was that people could return to live in Pripyat in 3,000 years.

 It became clear he’d left more than clothes and toys behind. He’d never been sick a day in his life before. He was proud of that. His mother bragged about that.

 But he spent most of the rest of 1986 in the hospital. He would not be cured, however. Doctors would tell him it was psychosomatic, and the official Ukrainian medical diagnosis for many who complained of radiation-related illnesses after Chernobyl was “radiophobia.” The so-called “Chernobyl victims” were more afraid of what had happened than actually sick, went the official line. They should be fine, or at least suffering no more than anyone else.

 Sirota would continue to return to the hospital for stays of a month or more every year, at least once, until recently.

 “Who knows better what I need now than me?” he asks. “They give me the medicines and the needles. I take care of myself now.”

 His eyes tear up, though, when he looks at photos of his mother’s beautiful hair.

 “Most of her hair fell out,” he explains. “She cuts what’s left very short.”

 [ Sektor 4 ]

 Calling for help

 Kopchinsky, the Soviet nuclear official, remembers the first phone call coming in at about 2 a.m. He was in Moscow at the time.

 “Something had happened at Chernobyl, and it was something bad. That was what we knew.”

 Immediately, calls went out for Soviet nuclear experts to gather in Moscow and discuss what to do next. At about the time the sun rose, he says, they got their first indication that “it was very serious.” By 11 a.m. they’d dispatched a planeload of scientists to the site to make a quick assessment.

 Something had happened at Chernobyl, and it was something bad. That was what we knew. Georgi Kopchinsky, Soviet nuclear official

 On the scene it was chaos, recalls Parashyn, the Chernobyl engineer. “We had no idea what we were looking at, the depth of the disaster, that first morning,” he says. “We had meetings, loud meetings, where we tried to figure it out.”

 What they figured out was the worst nuclear-energy disaster in human history, far worse than the explosion at Kyshtym nuclear complex in 1957 in what was then the Soviet Union, which released 70 tons of radioactive material into the air, or the 1957 fire at the Windscale Nuclear Reactor in northwestern England, which forced a ban on milk sales for a month, or the Three Mile Island disaster in Pennsylvania on March 29, 1979, where a cooling malfunction led to a partial meltdown.

 All of central and eastern Europe was at risk. Even today, in Bavaria in southern Germany, wildlife officials warn hunters not to eat the meat of wild boars, which continue to show high levels of radiation contamination.

 Across Europe, children were advised to stay indoors that April and May. In East Berlin, shoppers were astonished to find grocery shelves teeming with fresh lettuce, which usually would have been sent across the wall for wealthier West Berliners. But West Berliners didn’t want the tainted stuff, so East Berlin had salad.

 Chernobyl changed the way nuclear engineers viewed nuclear power. “Safety culture” – the idea that protecting the people and the environment should be emphasized over all other goals – became the watchword.

 Helen Rycraft, a senior nuclear safety officer at the IAEA in Vienna, calls the Chernobyl accident as “a complete watershed.”

 “The entire industry changed,” she says.

 “Safety culture had not been properly instilled in nuclear power plants in the USSR prior to the Chernobyl accident,” the IAEA report concludes. “Many of its requirements seem to have existed in regulations, but these were not enforced. Many other necessary features did not exist at all. Local practices at nuclear plants, of which it may be assumed that practices at Chernobyl were typical, did not reflect a safety culture.”

 After Chernobyl, Rycraft says, the regime of secrecy and competition that had been the norm among nuclear nations began to erode. “It taught us we need to learn from each other.”

 “It was the first major accident where organizational issues were identified as a key factor,” she says. “The Soviets called safety culture ‘the ghost in the machine.’ It’s the healthy questioning behind every aspect, every detail, of a nuclear program.”

 [Sektor 5]

 Life in the exclusion zone today

 Despite the health problems, Pripyat remained a fundamental part of Sirota’s dreams. He would next see the city six years later, in 1992. He and a friend sneaked in to take a look around at their old home. He remembers being most surprised by the fact that very little had changed.

 They’d been told to leave their furniture and most of their clothes behind because officials knew it would all be radioactive. Special teams had come and emptied the contents of the apartments into the streets to be burned, and buried.

 But poor and opportunistic Ukrainians had arrived to pick through their belongings before they were destroyed. They found a city filled with treasures, often guarded by nothing more than a threat that seemed less real than a free couch, refrigerator or wardrobe of clothes.

 When he recounts what happened 30 years ago, Sirota can vividly recall the details, not because they were wildly dramatic, but because on his visit to his home nothing looked out of place. Windows hadn’t shattered in a nuclear wind. Foundations hadn’t shaken from exploding atoms. The earth didn’t bake in escaping radioactivity.

 They say it’s just the warm water that gets them so big. But I don’t think you should eat the fish. Alexandr Sirota

 Yet what had been a perfect childhood, in what seemed like a perfect town, and in what they were told was on the edge of a perfect future, had ended, abruptly.

 Sirota had hoped beyond reason to gain it back when a few years ago he bought a small house at the end of a gravel lane just outside the the exclusion zone imposed around the old reactor. Move the modest but sturdy house across the pasture and it would be inside an area identified as unsafe for human habitation for the next 3,000 years.

 There are several reasons he moved back to the area. For one, his house, on a decent plot of land, cost the equivalent of just $125. Even in poor rural Ukraine, that’s cheap.

 It would be even cheaper inside the exclusion zone. Ukrainian officials are known to have turned a blind eye to a small group of very poor, and illegal, residents who returned to the homes standing inside the forbidden zone. Officials estimate that 197 squatters hide there. And for short spells, workers can live inside the zone. There’s even a hotel for overnight visits.

 The wildlife is tough to beat. Wolves and bears and big cats, even wild horses, thrive inside the perimeter. In a field across the road from Sirota’s house, he points to the wild Przewalski’s horses. Originally from Central Asia, they’re endangered, wiped out in many of their former ranges. They seem to thrive around his house.

 Still, he’s painfully aware that the radiation settled into the soil, from which it’s drawn into the roots of trees and grass and mushrooms.

 “I don’t eat the mushrooms from here,” he says. “I avoid eating the game. That’s what they tell us: We’re safe as long as we don’t.”

 But many do. At the tiny grocery in his 600-resident village of Dytyatky, he points out a freezer of local cuts of meat. The cuts are roughly done, uneven, hunters’ cuts of meat, not a butcher’s clean, even meat packages.

 When 70-year-old Maria is asked whether she worries about the health risks of food coming from so close to Chernobyl, she waves a hand and spits: “Ach, radiation. I can’t see it. Why should I worry?”

 Sirota worries, but he’s drawn to this place. He lives with a Geiger counter around his neck. He carries a second one in case the first malfunctions.

 The constant clicking as the Geiger counter measures the local radiation serves as a soundtrack to his life. The faster the clicking, the higher the radiation levels. When the clicking goes into overdrive, he moves on, to find a place where the levels are safer.

 Even at home, resting or cooking, the clicking is constant, click . . . click . . .click.

 His work these days is showing visitors around the irradiated area. A couple of days a week he passes through the heavily guarded gates into the contaminated zone. It’s how he earns a living.

 “People want to see this,” he explains. “I can understand the curiosity, but there isn’t much to see.”

 Then, in what used to be the plant’s lagoon running along the edge of the Pripyat River, he shows off the 9-foot-long catfish. In the summer, he’ll toss loaves of bread and watch their long bodies spiral over one another in the muddy water as they dine.

 “They say it’s just the warm water that gets them so big,” he explains. “But I don’t think you should eat the fish.”

 His Geiger counter has gone from fast clicks to a solid buzz (clickclickclickclick).

 [Sektor 6]

 A million years of problems

 When the steam burst through the roof of Reactor Number 4 in 1986, it took with it 5 percent of the enriched uranium. That means 10 tons vanished. It also means 95 percent, or 190 tons, remained. They’re still there.

 After the blasted reactor partially collapsed into the nuclear material, it created a radioactive blob of uranium, concrete, steel and assorted junk weighing about 2,000 tons. Ideally, Ukraine would remove the material. Sergiy Parashyn grabs a pen and paper as he talks about the problems with that.

 “We do not know how to do this,” he explains. “We do not have the technology to do this. It must be something new.”

 He sketches the blob, then makes a quick drawing of a tractor with a scoop on one side and a large rotating blade on the other. He smiles at the crude drawing, then shrugs.

 “One problem is that the material is decaying and is brittle, and when we cut it up to transport it to disposal bins, it will very likely fill the air with radioactive dust,” he explains. So the tractor has to be able to operate in a radioactive environment, it has to be able to control and eliminate any dust and it has to operate in an area that will not be at all safe for humans. “Maybe something like this would work, maybe it wouldn’t. We don’t know. That’s a problem.”

 It’s a problem because while 5 percent of the radioactive material caused problems that continue 30 years later and will continue to cause problems for eons to come, the other 95 percent of the material could represent about 20 times the problems.

 For instance, if mistakes are made and the brittle material is released into the atmosphere, they’re back to square one. If the material gets into the Pripyat River, it will flow into the Dnieper River. The Dnieper River is the water source for Kiev. The Dnieper is the primary water source for much of Ukraine.

 Clearly, nothing man made is more than temporary, and therefore it isn’t adequate. Detlef Appel, geologist

 This is why Ukrainian officials are counting on what they call a sarcophagus to contain the site, a massive structure that looks like a Quonset hut being assembled behind a wall that is intended to deflect radiation from the decaying plant from workers.

 When finished, it will be rolled across the crumbling concrete of the surrounding ground to cover and further seal the dangerous reactor. The work is expected to be completed in 2018, though that is just a guess. It’s expected to last 100 years. It’s not nearly long enough.

 Reactor Number 4 today is essentially an unplanned nuclear-waste dump. To serve in that role requires it to last for 3,000 years. That means the area surrounding Chernobyl will be safe to inhabit by people again in the year 4986.

 How likely is that? To get an idea of what it means to contain and control a deadly and potentially devastating radioactive pile in Ukraine for 3,000 years, consider what the world looked like 3,000 years ago:

 The Iron Age was beginning. The Trojan War was fairly recent news. Egypt had Pharaohs. King David was succeeded by his son, Solomon. Canaanites were the big world traders. Christ was 1,000 years from showing up. Muhammad was 1,500 years away.

 The legendary founding of Rome, of Romulus and Remus and the wolf, wouldn’t take place for 300 years.

 It’s not simply that a lot has changed in the last 3,000 years, it’s that almost everything has.

 And yet, Detlef Appel, a geologist who runs PanGeo, a Hamburg, Germany, company that consults on such nuclear storage issues, notes that 3,000 years probably isn’t long enough. He suggests that truly safe radioactive waste storage needs to extend a million years into the future. Think back to when man’s earliest relative began to walk the Earth.

 “We can trust human endeavor, perhaps, for a few hundred years, though that is doubtful,” he said. “Storage implies a way to retrieve the materials. It requires trained personnel, maintenance, updating and security. Clearly, nothing man made is more than temporary, and therefore it isn’t adequate.”

 Even the continents will have moved in a million years.

 Tetiana Verbytska, an energy policy expert at the National Ecological Center of Ukraine, worries that people are far too easygoing about Chernobyl. Among government officials right now, mindful of the 30-year anniversary, there is a movement to shrink the radius of the highly contaminated no man’s land from 18 miles to 6.

 “The move to reduce the highly contaminated zone has nothing to do with science and everything to do with public relations,” she says. “In Ukraine, each April we make wonderful speeches about our commitment to dealing with this problem, and the rest of each year we hope the problem will just go away.”

 There are other reasons to worry. Ukraine is creaking under a civil war against insurgents backed by Russia and scraping by with an economy that in the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been looted by a series of oligarchs. It doesn’t have the money to fund an educational system that can be expected to create legions of top scientists and engineers.

 Officials speak very proudly of the new sarcophagus roof that is being put into place. But the finish date on that has been repeatedly backed up, and there’s no guarantee that its 2018 date won’t be moved again.

 A variety of disasters could still strike. The site’s existing covering, built in haste after the accident, could collapse, shattering the brittle mix of radioactive materials below and sending nuclear dust into the atmosphere to mix with rain. There could be an earthquake. The entire site is fragile.

 Olga Kosharna, the lead scientist at the Ukrainian Department of Energy and Nuclear Safety in Kiev who oversaw safety at Chernobyl in the 1990s, recalls walking the roof above the shattered reactor and being horrified to find holes that had been burned through the concrete.

 The shoes she wore that day were highly contaminated and had to be destroyed.

 Alexandre Polack, a spokesman for the European Union, notes in an email that the date to begin removing radioactive material from the site is still 20 to 30 years away. “The current shelter covering destroyed Reactor 4 was reinforced in recent years and seems stable,” he writes. “However it was built in haste after the accident and never intended as a long-term solution.”

 Verbytska emphasizes that the mass of uranium debris inside Reactor Number 4 is now a mess that goes beyond human ability to clean up. Others dismiss the situation as a problem, but one that technology can fix.

 “We don’t have the technology to fix the problem,” she says. “We don’t have the process to develop the technology to fix the problem, and we don’t have the money to support the process to develop the technology to fix the problem. The solutions for our Chernobyl problems are very much ‘seal it for now.’ We will have smart children and smart grandchildren who in 100 years or so will figure out what to do.”

 [Sektor 7]

 A modern Pompeii

 After the disaster, radiation burned off the tops of the trees. Soviet officials ordered the trees cut down and buried deep. But they failed to properly encase the buried wood. As a new forest grew unchecked above the radioactive remains of the old forest, the new wood was also highly radioactive. The whole thing will have to be dug up and encased and buried again, properly.

 Still, Sirota burns it for warmth, though he acknowledges that is probably unsafe.

 Sirota’s tour takes him across the Bridge of Death, which looks just as remote and harmless today as it did to him that morning, and on into Pripyat, which remains a modern Pompeii, a city abandoned in an instant, the trappings of what had been daily life left where they lay.

 The difference is that while Pompeii is carefully managed for tourists, Pripyat is still very much an outlier on the tourist map: perhaps Pompeii were Vesuvius still erupting.

 The roads remain wide, though they’re overgrown today, vividly, eerily green. Trees grow out of old manholes, and through cracks in the old parade ground. The lichen on the trees is long, spindly, beautiful and eerie. There is a plastic baby doll in the doorway of an old administrative building. Sirota notes the doll is clearly Western in style and that it appears to have been left by a photographer trying to add emotional impact, to conjure memories of the children who once lived and played here.

 “If you need to see the children who were once here, I’m here,” he explains.

 In his old school, a textbook remains on a desk. It is open to pages decorated with drawings of missiles and tanks and warplanes, the Cyrillic words reminding readers, “The stars of the Kremlin shine everywhere. . . . The children have a beautiful homeland. A better one does not exist.”

 Sirota’s eyes often develop red rims as he talks about his old home, though he wipes away the tears before they run down his cheeks.

 “Obviously, I’m drawn to Chernobyl,” he explains. “It’s the source of the greatest sadness of my life, but that’s also because it was the source of my greatest joy. I feel that the accident at the plant stole a perfect childhood, a perfect life, from me. I know this isn’t rational, but I stay here, hoping that someday I might get it back.” ||||| Chernobyl's exclusion zone to be revived with solar

 The Ukrainian government has announced plans to use Chernobyl's nuclear wasteland for solar energy generation. Meanwhile in Belarus, a 22.3 MW PV plant is already under construction in Brahin district, around 20 miles from Chernobyl.

 Flickr/thisisbossi One time European PV power plant leader, Ukraine is turning back to solar in unlikely places.

 30 years after the Chernobyl accident, the Ukrainian government aims to give a new renewable life to thousands hectares of the exclusion zone in the northern part of the country. While long-lasting radiation makes the area unfit for human habitation, agriculture or forestry, its cheap land and remaining electric transmission facilities can be used for solar power generation.

 “Land and transmission line connection are the most expensive parts of any solar project, and we have both of them here,” general director of the Chernobyl plant Igor Gramotkin told local news outlets in April, when the country was commemorating the 30th anniversary of the nuclear disaster.

 At the end of June, Ukraine's minister of the environment and natural resources Ostap Semerak presented country's plans for the revival of the exclusion zone at Canada-Ukraine Business Forum in Toronto. After the forum, he announced that a number of Canadian investors are looking at developing solar and biofuel power plants near Chernobyl.

 Semerak also noted that the implementation of such projects requires new legislation in terms of allocation of land in the exclusion zone. “We expect that this issue will be fully settled by the end of the current session of Parliament. In early June, the corresponding bill already passed a first reading,” the minister said.

 In a recent interview Semerak has confirmed that the ministry of environmental and natural resources was already negotiating with two U.S. investment firms and four Canadian energy companies interested in the Chernobyl's solar potential. Ukrainian developers plan to install a 4 MW project at the site by the end of the year, Bloomberg reports.

 According to the ministry of environmental and natural resources, 34 solar power plants with the total capacity of over 120 MW are scheduled to be completed in Ukraine in 2016. Despite the political and economic difficulties facing the country, Ukraine is aiming to increase the share of renewables in its energy mix up to 11% by 2020, the ministry reports.

 As recent developments demonstrate, after several years of stagnation, international solar developers have begun showing renewed interest in Ukraine. Yesterday, a 4 MW PV plant was successfully connected to the grid in Vysokopillya, a southern part of the country. According to the developer, the German-based Work Team, heavy rainfall, snow, and freezing rain have frequently posed challenges for solar developers in the area. China-based PV-inverter manufacturer Sungrow supplied its SG60KTL inverters for the PV plant.

 Belarus' PV plan for Chernobyl

 Belarus, Ukraine's northern neighbor, has its own solar plans for the land affected by the Chernobyl disaster. In April this year, the telecommunications company Velcom, a subsidiary of the Austrian company Telecom, announced an investment of more than €23 million ($ 25.3 million) for a 22.3 MW PV plant in Brahin district, located at the Ukrainian border, next to the nuclear wasteland.

 Velcom is planning to sell the generated electricity, as well as use it for the company's needs. “We expect the solar plant to cover about 50% of the company's energy needs and pay itself off in four to five years”, Velcom CEO Helmut Duhs said at a press-conference in Minsk. He added that the company had chosen this particular area not only because of its southern location but also because of the cheap price land prices.

 According to the company, the solar facility in Brahin district will be comprised of 85,000 PV panels installed across the area of 56 hectares. The construction works are scheduled to be completed by the end of this summer. |||||

– If anything, the land in the 1,000-square-mile exclusion zone left largely untouched since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 is cheap. After all, studies suggest it won't be inhabitable until the year 4986, reported McClatchy DC in April, and pretty much nothing can be harvested from it. But now Ostap Semerak, Ukraine's environment minister, is drumming up foreign interest in solar power projects across the wasteland, which he says is uniquely, if a bit ironically, suited to renewables, reports Bloomberg. PV Magazine reports that Igor Gramotkin, today the general director of the Chernobyl plant, in April pointed out that "land and transmission line connection" are the most expensive elements of a solar undertaking. Lucky then, that "we already have high-voltage transmission lines that were previously used for the nuclear stations," says Semerak. "And we have many people trained to work at power plants" (thousands still work at Chernobyl). Plus there's all that inexpensive land. Ukraine's interest in renewables is partly politically motivated given the fragile cease-fire with Kremlin-backed rebels near the Russian border, not to mention increasing friction with the Putin camp over natural gas bills. Semerak says four energy companies from Canada and two investment firms from the US have expressed interest in a solar complex at the Chernobyl site, while Ukrainian developers intend to install panels there before 2016 is through. (Apparently human habitation is worse for wildlife than radiation, according to this exclusion-zone activity.)


Here is a news article: Friends fear the worst as the search continues for a University of Minnesota sorority member who went missing after a night of bar hopping.

 Jennifer Houle, 22, was last seen early Friday morning at an off-campus Irish pub, and cops later discovered her purse about three blocks away in the middle of the street, authorities said.

 The business student and sorority sister of Pi Beta Phi was out with a friend in the Dinkytown neighborhood when they were separated at Blarney Pub & Grill.

 “A lot of us think that she might have tried to walk home from Blarney and foul play may be involved,” the friend, Brooke Laven told KSTP. “And that’s what’s really, really scary about the situation and why we’re all really worried.”

 Jennifer Houle’s purse was found in the street about three blocks from a Minneapolis, Min., bar where she was last seen early Friday morning. (Facebook) Jennifer Houle, 22, went missing after a night of bar hopping in the Dinkytown neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minn. (Facebook) Jennifer Houle, a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority at the University of Minnesota went missing on Friday, police say. (Facebook) Jennifer Houle, 22, was last seen early Friday morning at a Minneapolis, Minn., bar. (Facebook)

 The two friends ran into Houle’s ex-boyfriend earlier in the night, and that “kind of set off some emotions,” Laven said.

 Police have spoken to the ex-boyfriend and people who were at the bar that night, the station reported.

 Houle was last seen between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., cops said.

 Jennifer Houle, 22, was wearing a green blouse (shown), black leather jacket, black leggings and boots when she went missing on Friday in Minneapolis, police say. (Minneapolis Police Department)

 The blond business student is 5 feet 5 inches tall and was wearing a green blouse, black leather jacket, black leggings and boots when she disappeared.

 Her sorority sisters have plastered missing posters across the neighborhood and spread her picture online.

 “Our sister, Jen Houle is still missing.” the sorority posted on Facebook, adding “We need all the help we can get to find this warm-hearted, beautiful person.”

 A missing University of Minnesota was last seen Friday at Blarney Pub & Grill in the Dinkytown section of Minneapolis, Minn., police say. (Google Maps Street View)

 The university is working with cops to help in the search, a spokesman said.

 “We remain hopeful that Ms. Houle will be found safe and sound,” Minnesota Dean of Students Danita Brown said in a statement.

 A prayer vigil was planned for Sunday night at Houle’s old high school in Stillwater.

 ON A MOBILE DEVICE? SEE THE VIDEO HERE ||||| Updated: 03/29/2015 10:09 PM

 Created: 03/28/2015 12:40 AM KSTP.com

 More than 200 friends and family members of Jennifer Houle—a missing University of Minnesota student—gathered for a prayer vigil outside Stillwater High School Sunday night.

 Houle grew up in Lake Elmo and graduated Stillwater High four years ago.

 Cathy Arnfelt, a family friend, told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS, "Prayer is the most powerful thing we have. I have two sons myself and I cannot imagine what Diane and John (Houle's parents) are going through."

 Jim Kuchar's wife taught with Houle's mother. He said, "We are here to support the family. We have two daughters and one of them is Jennifer's age and if this were to happen to us, we would be heartbroken."

 Police continue to seek help in finding 22-year-old Houle, who was reported missing on Friday. She was last seen at Blarney Pub and Grill in Dinkytown on Friday around 1 a.m., according to the Minneapolis Police Department.

 Houle has long blonde hair and blue eyes. She is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 140 pounds. She was last seen wearing a black leather jacket, green blouse, black leggings and black boots.

 According to a tweet sent by the Minneapolis Police Department, Houle's purse was found Friday at 3 a.m. on the 1100 block of 4th Street SE.

 Minneapolis Police are investigating Houle's disappearance and urge anyone with any information concerning Houle's whereabouts to contact them immediately.

 Houle is a senior studying business at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, and is a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority. She will be graduating this spring from the Carlson School of Business within the university.

 The sorority Houle is a member of issued a statement via its Facebook page requesting any information regarding her whereabouts and encouraged those with information to contact the police.

 Danita Brown Young, Ph.D., vice provost for student affairs and dean of students issued a statement Sunday morning:

 "The University of Minnesota is working with local law enforcement to help find Jennifer Houle, a Carlson School of Management student and Pi Beta Phi sorority member, who has been missing since Friday, March 27.

 During this time of need, we want to offer support and counseling to any University members who need it. Students are encouraged to contact Boynton Health Service or University Counseling & Consulting Services if they need assistance.

 Lastly, we ask that the public respect the privacy of Ms. Houle’s friends, family and sorority sisters as the situation continues to evolve. Please give them the space they need to process this challenging event.

 We remain hopeful that Ms. Houle will be found safe and sound."

 __________

 Anyone with any information about this case is asked to call 9-1-1 or send a text to 847-411(tip 411), enter MPD and the tip or call the tipline at 612-692-TIPS(8477).

 Stay with KSTP for more updates on this story.

 Purse belonging to Jen Houle was located Friday/3:00 am. She also was wearing black leather jacket and boots. Rest of description is correct — Minneapolis Police (@MPD_PIO) March 28, 2015 ||||| The seed for Wide00014 was:

 - Slash pages from every domain on the web:

 -- a ranking of all URLs that have more than one incoming inter-domain link (rank was determined by number of incoming links using Wide00012 inter domain links)

 -- up to a maximum of 100 most highly ranked URLs per domain

 - Top ranked pages (up to a max of 100) from every linked-to domain using the Wide00012 inter-domain navigational link graph |||||
A summary of this is?

– A sad development in the case of a missing University of Minnesota student last seen around 1am Friday at the Blarney Pub & Grill: CBS Minnesota reports that police last night secured video footage that apparently shows Jen Houle entering the Mississippi River via a bridge located a few blocks from the bar, which is located in the Dinkytown neighborhood. Police are apparently not looking for suspects, and the investigation has shifted to a water recovery mission. KSTP notes that officials didn't specify whether she may have jumped or fallen; it earlier reported her purse was found in the street around three blocks away from the bar and a block away from her sorority house. Pi Beta Phi members previously issued a plea online and plastered a Minneapolis neighborhood with fliers seeking help finding Houle, a business student who had been due to graduate in May. The 22-year-old had been out with a friend, but they became separated at the off-campus bar, according to the New York Daily News. Reads a Minneapolis Police Department statement: "We extend our deepest condolences to the Houle family and all of Jennifer's many friends. The Minneapolis Police Department and the family of Jennifer Houle wish to thank the many people who provided support, assistance, and information since Jennifer's disappearance." Counseling is being offered to students at the school.