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 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 ||||| It’s been one year to the day since Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel to investigate "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump."

 Mueller’s appointment came in the wake of Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, who was then heading the investigation. Allegations had also surfaced that Trump had asked Comey to scale back the probe into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Mueller was granted the authority to prosecute any federal crimes he uncovered.

 Mueller served in the Vietnam War as a Marine, receiving a Purple Heart. Following a career in both the public and private sectors, including several years as a federal prosecutor, Mueller served as FBI director from 2001 to 2013. He gave up his position with the law firm WilmerHale to take the special counsel appointment.

 In its first year, the Mueller investigation has remained tight-lipped about its activities, except when it comes to indictments and plea deals. The investigation has obtained five guilty pleas, plus indictments numbering in the double digits. The team has done this while coming under attack by Trump and his allies, who allege partisan bias and decry it as a "disgusting, illegal and unwarranted witch hunt."

 Meanwhile, the investigation’s endgame could involve complicated legal decisions about whether presidents can be subpoenaed or indicted, and whether Trump can fire Mueller or use pardons to stymie the probe.

 Who’s on Mueller’s team?

 The Special Counsel’s office had made public the identities of 17 attorney staff members, spurring Trump to criticize the investigators are largely "hardened Democrats."

 Through public records, we were able to independently confirm that at least 12 people on Mueller’s staff are registered Democrats. Two others are registered to vote but have not chosen a party affiliation. We were unable to independently confirm the status of two other staff members.

 Mueller, though, is registered as a Republican in the District of Columbia and was appointed to offices by Republican presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, as well as by Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

 In addition, Mueller was appointed by Rosenstein, who was nominated for deputy attorney general by Trump himself, and who previously was appointed as a U.S. Attorney by George W. Bush (and later kept on by Obama).

 It’s worth noting that other FBI or Justice Department personnel are assisting the investigation in certain capacities, but the names of investigative and office support personnel have not been made public.

 Mueller was prevented from considering political affiliation when putting together his team by both Justice Department policy and the Civil Service Reform Act. Moreover, the career attorneys on the Mueller team are bound by professional codes to pursue justice and rise above partisanship.

 What has the investigation produced so far?

 Within a month of his appointment, Mueller began looking into the question of whether Trump obstructed justice.

 On Oct. 30, 2017, Paul Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates — two former senior officials with the Trump campaign — were indicted on 12 counts related to their political consulting business, including money laundering. Also on that day, George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign aide, pled guilty to making false statements to the FBI.

 On Dec. 1, 2017, Flynn pled guilty to making false statements to the FBI about conversations he’d had with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

 On Feb. 16, 2018, Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities on charges related to the 2016 election.

 Days later, Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan pled guilty for lying to the FBI about his dealings with Gates and another unnamed person. He was later sentenced to 30 days in prison.

 On Feb. 22, Mueller upped the ante against Manafort and Gates with 32 new financial charges. Within days, Gates pled guilty to conspiracy and lying to the FBI. Manafort, however, has continued to fight his charges.

 Beyond these official acts, the Mueller investigation has publicly announced little about what it is doing, and leaks from its own ranks have been scarce to nonexistent. So its activities remain largely hidden.

 Can Mueller subpoena Trump?

 Most legal experts told PolitiFact that being president doesn’t offer blanket protection against a subpoena, as Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani has claimed. But there are enough gaps in the legal precedent that Trump’s team could raise legal challenges that the courts would have to take seriously.

 In a case involving President Bill Clinton, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a civil suit could go forward against a sitting president, rather than having to wait until their term was over. Given that the court green-lighted a presidential interview in a civil suit such as this one, it might be even more likely to do so in a criminal investigation, experts said. But the reality is that no one knows how the high court would rule in a criminal case related to Mueller’s investigation.

 Meanwhile, in the Watergate-related case United States vs. Nixon, special prosecutor Leon Jaworski wanted tapes of President Richard Nixon talking to his aides. Nixon, citing executive privilege, refused to hand them over. But the high court unanimously sided with the prosecution.

 This decision suggests that presidents are not exempt from subpoenas in a criminal investigation. That said, it may depend on the nature of the subpoena. The court today could decide that a subpoena for in-person questioning -- rather than documents or tapes -- could be overly broad, or that some potential subpoena requests fall too far outside the scope of Mueller’s investigation.

 Can Mueller indict Trump?

 Officially, there has never been a binding judicial opinion on this question.

 "It is unresolved," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California-Irvine. "The Watergate grand jury in 1974 named Richard Nixon an ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ because they did not know if they could indict a sitting president."

 That said, there is a widespread assumption among legal experts that courts would rule against the idea of prosecuting a sitting president.

 This is primarily due to a pair of opinions by the Office of Legal Counsel, the closely watched office within the Justice Department that advises presidential administrations on the legality of taking certain positions or actions.

 The office looked at this question in 1973 and 2000, concluded on both occasions that a president could not be criminally prosecuted. Criminal prosecution, the office determined, would undermine the executive branch’s ability to perform its functions. Ultimately, "only the House of Representatives has the authority to bring charges of criminal misconduct through the constitutionally sanctioned process of impeachment," the office wrote in 2000.

 Can Trump fire Mueller?

 Over the course of the year, Trump has mulled, privately and publicly, whether he should remove Mueller.

 Mueller’s potential removal falls into a legal gray area that involves Justice Department regulations, congressional statutes and constitutional law.

 Under Justice Department regulations, only the attorney general can fire Mueller. In this instance, Rosenstein, who’s acting as attorney general in place of Attorney General Jeff Sessions for this purpose, would have that authority. (Sessions recused himself from the investigation.)

 The regulations also state that in order to fire Mueller, there has to be a good reason — specifically "misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest, or for other good cause, including violation of departmental policies."

 Under this scenario, Trump could order Rosenstein to fire Mueller, but Rosenstein could refuse if he believed that there had been no misconduct by Mueller.

 Alternately, the president could fire Rosenstein, and then continue firing Justice Department brass until someone was willing to fire Mueller. But the official who ultimately carried it out could face enormous public blowback.

 A third possibility is that Trump could seek to rescind the Justice Department regulations. However, this would require a lengthy process that would allow Mueller to continue operating in the meantime.

 What if a court decided that Mueller’s appointment — and firing — was governed by congressional statute rather than the Justice Department rules? That would allow Trump to fire Mueller directly, since the congressional statute contains no requirement for misconduct before a firing.

 However a firing was carried out, Mueller would have standing to challenge it in court.

 A more promising course for Trump than firing Mueller might be convincing Sessions to narrow the scope of his recusal. If Sessions agreed to do that, he could curb the scope of Muller’s probe.

 Could Trump use pardons to get around Mueller?

 As early as July 2017, news reports suggested that the White House and its legal advisers were weighing whether and how to use the president’s power.

 Can the president pardon himself? Even legal experts who are skeptical acknowledge that no one knows for sure.

 The Constitution doesn’t explicitly prohibit a self-pardon, except in the case of impeachment. However, experts said there are several more circumstantial arguments that, collectively, make a strong case that a self-pardon would be impermissible.

 The Constitution uses the word "grant," which ordinarily means giving to someone else, said Harold H. Bruff, an emeritus University of Colorado law professor. Going back to its English monarchical origins, a pardon has long been conceived as an act of mercy. Neither of these suggest something that can be done to oneself.

 In addition, Bruff said that when the Constitution was being written, "a background value everywhere in the air was that no one should be a judge in their own cause." This notion, sometimes referred to in Latin as "nemo judex in causa sua," is a longstanding common-law principle, he said.

 It’s worth noting a downside of a president pardoning themself: It’s a tacit acknowledgement that they had committed a crime, which could supercharge impeachment efforts.

 Pardoning presidential associates could be more effective, but that would not be a cure-all for Trump, either.

 "A pardon would not end an investigation into any one person as the investigation is about the Russian interference with the election," Robenalt said. "The fact that someone may be pardoned or dead matters not to an investigator who is trying to connect dots."

 To truly shut down the probe using pardon power, a president would either have to separately pardon a multitude of individuals by name — a rolling game of "Whac-a-Mole," as Bruff put it — or else issue a blanket amnesty. While such blanket amnesties have been implemented before, none have been enacted to protect a presidency.

 CORRECTION, May 17, 2018, 12:00 noon: This version corrects the number of guilty pleas obtained by Mueller. It is five, not four. |||||Summary:

– Thursday is the one-year anniversary of the start of Robert Mueller's investigation, and President Trump is among those marking the occasion. His tweet, however, drips with sarcasm. "Congratulations America, we are now into the second year of the greatest Witch Hunt in American History ... and there is still No Collusion and No Obstruction," he writes. "The only Collusion was that done by Democrats who were unable to win an Election despite the spending of far more money!" In another tweet, he calls the investigation "disgusting, illegal and unwarranted" and said his administration has nonetheless had "the most successful" first 17 months of any White House, "by far!" Related coverage: The basics: Mueller was appointed special counsel to investigate "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump," explains PolitiFact. Mueller quickly expanded his investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice, notably by firing FBI chief James Comey. The piece hits other nuts and bolts of the investigation.


Facebook intends to launch its long-rumored music service next month with Spotify, MOG and Rdio as three of the company's launch partners, Mashable has learned.

 The music and media platform will be announced at Facebook's f8 developer conference on Sept. 22. It will allow users to listen to music from within Facebook.com. Evidence of Facebook's music platform first surfaced in the code of Facebook's video chat service.

 According to two sources familiar with the matter, Facebook will not directly host or stream any music or media. Instead, it will rely on partners to provide the content. This is in contrast to Apple, Google and Amazon's strategy of hosting music content on their servers. Facebook's plan is to become a platform for media content in the same way it is a platform for applications and games.

 One of our sources specifically mentioned three music services as launch partners: Spotify, Rdio and MOG. It's unclear whether Facebook has lined up other launch partners for its music platform or whether Facebook will open up its platform to other developers. One of our sources noted, however, that Facebook doesn't like playing favorites, so our bet is that Facebook will open up its music platform to other third-party developers.

 We've also heard whispers that Facebook intends for this platform to go beyond music — for example, it's possible that Netflix could stream movies through Facebook. However, we don't know if Facebook will go beyond the music platform announcement at f8.

 Update: "There's nothing new to announce," a Facebook spokesperson told us. "Many of the most popular music services around the world are integrated with Facebook and we're constantly talking to our partners about ways to improve these integrations." ||||| The Facebook logo is shown at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California May 26, 2010.

 NEW YORK (Reuters) - Facebook is putting finishing touches to new features on users' home pages that deeply integrate music services from partners including Spotify, MOG, Rhapsody, Slacker and Rdio, according to people familiar with the plans.

 The music platform is expected to be unveiled at Facebook's developer conference, which kicks off on September 22.

 Facebook was not immediately available for comment.

 Though Facebook is the world's most popular social networking services with more than 750 million users, its founder Mark Zuckerberg is keen to increase the amount of time users spend in the Facebook environment.

 Music is said to be just one aspect of the strategy to improve Facebook's 'stickiness' and it is also expected to partner with other media content owners like movie studios.

 "They are working on a platform for music where the goal is to create a connective tissue for fans," said one person familiar with the talks who asked not to be named as the plans are confidential.

 Facebook has declined to comment on its new music platform before, but in July several technology blogs reported a software engineer had uncovered programing code for a Facebook product called 'Vibes' for music downloading.

 Facebook could give an important boost to its fledgling music streaming partners as they try to compete in a digital music sector dominated by Apple Inc's iTunes's download store. Apple is also readying a streaming service called iTunes Match expected to launch this fall.

 The largest music subscription service, Rhapsody, has about 800,000 paying users after nearly 10 years. The next largest in the United States is believed to be Slacker, which claims some 400,000 subscribers, while more recent start-ups like MOG and Rdio are estimated to have significantly less than that.

 London-based Spotify, which launched in the United States in July, has more than 1 million paying subscribers and some 10 million users registered to its free access service across Europe. Spotify is believed to have partly benefited from its early integration into Facebook's platform.

 The most popular music app on Facebook is currently BandPage, a service from RootMusic that enables artists to market their songs, videos and tour dates. It has over 250,000 artists and 30 million active users monthly. Last month it raised $16 million in Series B funding.

 While all the existing music services can already be used on Facebook, the deeper integration will enable Facebook users who are subscribers to a service to share songs and playlists seamlessly with each other and to see what friends are listening to, and more.

 The digital music services hope Facebook users will sign up with them after seeing friends sharing playlists that require subscription.

 Another senior executive close to the talks said social networking is important to help overcome one of the key challenges for digital music companies: how to help fans discover new music rather than just search for artists and songs they already know. "Your friends are engaging with you on Facebook, he said. "It's the new form of radio or TV."

 Though the prospective business partners have high hopes for Facebook, combining social networking and digital music hasn't always been a guarantee of success.

 In 2008, Myspace -- then still a leading social network -- created a music service in partnership with major labels. It had early traction, but not enough to save Myspace's popularity from collapsing.

 (Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Gary Hill) |||||

Write a summary.

– Facebook plans to join forces with Spotify, MOG, and Rdio to launch its long-rumored music service later this month, sources tell Mashable. Facebook won’t unveil the project until the Sept. 22 f8 developer conference, but it’s been a poorly kept secret—evidence of it was found hidden in the code for Facebook’s video chat. Unlike Apple, Google, and Amazon, Facebook won’t actually host any music, one source said—it’ll just be a platform for the aforementioned partners. While Mashable reports it's not clear if other music purveyors will be included at launch, one source noted that Facebook doesn’t like to play favorites, and will likely open the music platform to third parties, much as it does with applications and games. To wit, Reuters adds that Rhapsody and Slacker are also involved. Another rumor: that the platform could one day be expanded to stream video as well. Facebook, however, wouldn’t confirm the report, saying, “There’s nothing new to announce.”


Write a summary based on this article:

0 JSO: Body believed to be missing Jacksonville woman found; coworker arrested

 PHOTO GALLERY: Memorial quickly growing at site where body found

 A body believed to be the remains of missing Jacksonville woman Savannah Gold were found late Saturday, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said.

 Related Headlines Government shutdown: Trump signs bill to temporarily reopen government

 The body was found in a pond off Club Duclay Road — near Blanding Blvd. — in west Jacksonville.

 Gold’s coworker at Bonefish Grill, manager Lee Rodarte, 28, became a suspect after discrepancies were found in his story, JSO said.

 Traffic tickets issued to Rodarte in 2006 show that he once lived on the same street where the body was found.

 Rodarte appeared in court Sunday after being booked on charges including murder and tampering with evidence. A judge said he is being held without bond on the murder charge.

 Judge ordered Rodarte be held without bond on the murder charge. He's also accused of tampering with evidence in Savannah Gold's death pic.twitter.com/PrALgdTb3r — Brittney Donovan (@brittneydonovan) August 6, 2017

 Lee Rodarte, suspect in Savannah Gold's murder, just had his first appearance in #Jacksonville pic.twitter.com/YYNHf83eBE — Brittney Donovan (@brittneydonovan) August 6, 2017

 RAW INTERVIEW: Gold's father, friend make emotional plea

 JSO said Gold got into Rodarte’s car in the parking lot of the restaurant on Wednesday evening before her shift.

 They apparently had a fight. The two had an off-and-on relationship, JSO said.

 A struggle ensued, JSO said, and Rodarte appeared to take an object and slash the tire of Gold’s car. After a few minutes, he drove away in his own car, JSO said.

 Confirmed Lee Rodarte will make his first court appearance this afternoon. He's charged with murder and evidence tampering. @ActionNewsJax pic.twitter.com/qaDj9HfJfy — Christy Turner (@ChristyANJax) August 6, 2017

 Rodarte was arrested at the Mandarin restaurant located just off I-295 on Saturday night.

 According to JSO, Rodarte admitted to killing Gold and disposing of her body in the pond at the end of Club Duclay Road.

 Rodarte led police to the body, JSO said. An autopsy is pending to confirm the remains are that of Gold and to determine cause of death.

 JSO said video surveillance showed a possible struggle inside Rodarte's car. On the video, JSO said, Rodarte could be seen walking to Gold's car, opening a door and looking inside.

 JSO said Rodarte returned to his car and drove off at 6:04 p.m. Gold was never seen exiting the car, JSO said.

 The company that owns Bonefish Grill released a statement Sunday:

 "We are deeply saddened by the loss of Savannah and will miss the joy and happiness she brought to work every day. Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with family and friends during this difficult time, including the people she worked with here at Bonefish Grill."

 The restaurant put a sign on their door Sunday that said they were closed.

 Gold was quickly reported missing Wednesday after she didn’t show up for her shift at Bonefish Grill on San Jose Boulevard.

 About 30 minutes after Gold was supposed to be at work, her father Daniel said he got a text from Gold’s phone. It had misspelled words and said she was running away with a great guy she met and would call them later.

 That was the moment Gold’s parents said they knew something was wrong.

 “He showed it to me and I immediately knew that it wasn’t her," Sharon Gold said. "We text each other all day and every day … and this was not from my daughter. It was from someone else."

 Gold's aunt created a GoFundMe account Sunday to raise money for funeral expenses.

 UPDATES ON THIS STORY: Get the free Action News Jax app

 FACEBOOK LIVE: JSO's Steve Gallaher announces discovery of body:

 Gold's coworker was arrested after he admitted to killing her and dumping her body in a pond several miles away https://t.co/XgDmERaoPw — Brittney Donovan (@brittneydonovan) August 6, 2017

 © 2019 Cox Media Group. ||||| Shortly after Savannah Gold headed to her job at the Bonefish Grill restaurant in Jacksonville last Wednesday, her family began receiving strange text messages from her phone.

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 “Hey i just wanted to tell you and mom i met a really great guy and we’re running away together,” she texted her father, according to a missing persons report. “I love him and we’re leaving tonight i’ll call you later when we get to where we are going.”

 Her family instantly became suspicious. “The spelling was all whacked out,” her father, Daniel Gold, told WSB-TV. “It looked really strange.”

 Gold never made it to work that day — but her car was found in the parking lot. “Her car was outside with a slashed tire and her purse, with her ID, credit cards and money [were] in the car with it unlocked,” Daniel Gold told the news station. “That really got us concerned.”

 Savannah Gold/Facebook

 The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office interviewed 28-year-old Lee Rodarte Jr., a Bonefish Grill culinary manager who allegedly had an on-again, off-again relationship with the 21-year-old Gold.

 “The suspect when interviewed by police admitted to being in the Bonefish Grill parking lot with the victim, killing her, and disposing of her body” in a nearby lake, the Sheriff’s Office alleged in a statement. “Rodarte led police to remains that were located by the JSO Dive Team and we believe the remains to be Savannah Gold.”

 Lee Rodarte Jacksonville Sheriff's Office

 The sheriff’s office says that they’re waiting for the medical examiner to officially identify the remains.

 Surveillance video at the restaurant shows Gold getting into Rodarte’s car. Police say that there was a “possible struggle” in the car before Rodarte drove off.

 Gold’s family told News4Jax.com that Rodarte spoke to them after her disappearance and expressed his concerns. They also say that he helped hand out missing persons flyers before speaking to police.

 Authorities believe that Rodarte was the one who sent the texts after Gold’s death, Jacksonville Sheriff Lieutenant Steve Gallagher told reporters.

 Rodarte has been charged with murder and evidence tampering. He is jailed without bond at the Duval County Jail. He has not yet entered a plea, and it is unclear if he has retained an attorney. |||||

– A Florida man murdered a co-worker and then used her phone to send a text to her parents, police say. The parents of 21-year-old Savannah Gold say their suspicions were immediately aroused by the "really strange" message they received after she left for work at the Bonefish Grill in Jacksonville last Wednesday, People reports. "Hey i just wanted to tell you and mom i met a really great guy and we’re running away together," one message to her father said. "I love him and we're leaving tonight i'll call you later when we get to where we are going." "He showed it to me and I immediately knew that it was someone else," mother Sharon Gold tells Action News Jax. "We text each other all day ... and this was not from my daughter." Says father Daniel Gold, "The spelling was all whacked out." After Gold's car was found in the restaurant's parking lot with a slashed tire and her purse still inside, authorities identified manager Lee Rodarte, 28, as a suspect because of inconsistencies in his story. Police say Rodarte, who was in an on-again, off-again relationship with Gold, eventually admitted killing her and led them to her body, which he had dumped in a lake. Investigators believe Rodarte was the one who sent the text to Gold's parents. Her parents say after the disappearance, he told them he was worried about her and even helped hand out missing-person flyers. He has been charged with murder and evidence tampering and is being held without bond.


The corpse found in cement overshoes in the waters off Brooklyn over the weekend has been identified as a member of a notorious local mob family, police said Tuesday.

 The body of Carmine Carini, 35, was found Saturday near East 58th Street and Avenue U near his residence in Mill Basin — with a cinder block bound to his legs with an electrical cord and his body wrapped in a blue tarp sealed with duct tape.

 “It was right out of ‘GoodFellas,’ ” a law enforcement source said.

 NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said at a press conference Tuesday, “The victim was a reputed mobster’s son. His father had the OC [organized crime] ties, not him. Right now, we’re in an active investigation to see who was in his life at the time.”

 Carini died from blunt-force trauma to the head but had also been stabbed, police sources said. He was identified through fingerprints.

 Carini’s dad — also named Carmine — is an associate of the Colombo crime family, a police source said.

 Carmine Sr. spent nearly a quarter-century behind bars for the 1983 killing of a Bay Ridge record shop owner.

 He was later freed in a plea deal after two mob turncoats revealed his cousin Vinnie was the actual killer — only to wind up back behind bars a year later after he was busted posing as a cop to commit home-invasion robberies.

 Vinnie and another cousin, Enrico, later famously botched a hit on a former Mafia prosecutor and ended up paying the ultimate price.

 They were recruited by Colombo boss Carmine Persico to assassinate William Aronwald, a former prosecutor on the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Strike Force — but inadvertently offed the prosecutor’s elderly dad instead. The bungling wiseguys were found dead in Sheepshead Bay a few months later.

 The younger Carmine Carini had his own rap sheet.

 He was arrested for robbery in 2003, 2004 and in June last year and also had a drug-possession charge in 2010, according to police records.

 He spent five years in the slammer for the 2003 robberies, in which he committed 10 muggings in an hour by driving around Bergen Beach, Sheepshead Bay and Gravesend in a van and threatening strangers for money with a machete or a bat, according to a report at the time.

 He was released in 2009 but was back behind bars again in 2011 and 2014.

 He was most recently released in 2015, and his dad was freed from federal prison in July this year.

 Additional reporting by Ruth Brown ||||| A man whose body was found tied to a cinder block and floating near a dock over the weekend in Brooklyn was the son of a Mafia associate, the police said Tuesday.

 The body of Carmine Carini, 35, was discovered in an inlet near his home in Mill Basin on Saturday, three days after he was last heard from, the police chief of detectives, Robert K. Boyce, said at a monthly news conference.

 Mr. Carini was identified through fingerprints, and investigators say they think he had been in the water since Friday night because witnesses said they had seen the tarp he was wrapped in, Chief Boyce said. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, the medical examiner’s office said.

 The police were still trying to figure out why he was killed and his body dumped using a Mafia-style technique. A five-pound bag of drywall compound was also tied to his body, Chief Boyce said. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. |||||

Write a summary.

– The case of a body dumped in waters off Brooklyn using a "Mafia-style technique," as the New York Times puts it, seems to indeed have Mafia elements. The body found attached to both a cinder block and 5-pound bag of drywall compound on Saturday has been identified as Carmine Carini, 35. "It was right out of GoodFellas," a police source tells the New York Post, which says the cinder block was secured to Carini's legs via an electrical cord; a blue tarp was duct-taped around his body. "The victim was a reputed mobster's son," said Police Chief of Detectives Robert K. Boyce on Tuesday, specifying, "His father had the OC [organized crime] ties, not him." The Post says those ties were to the Colombo crime family, while the New York Daily News says he's a Gambino family associate. The younger Carini did have his own troubles with the law, including five years spent in prison in connection with at least 10 muggings he committed in 2003 in the span of an hour. The Daily News reports Carini was last seen on Aug. 30, with Boyce saying police "believe he was in the water Friday night." He reportedly suffered a skull fracture and had been stabbed in the arm and leg; a fingerprint identification was made.


Justin Bieber I'm Retiring

 Justin Bieber -- I'm Retiring

 Breaking Hearts

 is done with show biz ... so he says -- thing is, we don't believe him.Justin was atin L.A. today, and said after his next album drops he's retiring. The album comes out next week.We talked to people in Bieber's camp and they said he was joking. As one source put it, "The kid's got ambition."Since Justin appeared at The Laugh Factory last Friday, apparently he thinks he's on a comedy roll.He already needs new material. ||||| Justin Bieber says he is 'retiring.' (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

 Is Justin Bieber retiring?!

 The 19-year-old pop star sat down for an interview with Big Boy for Los Angeles' Power 106 station and made a statement that probably shocked lots of those Beliebers.

 "New album ... uh ... I'm actually retiring, man," Bieber said. "I'm retiring, yeah."

 "I'm glad you announced that," the host responded. "I'm not gonna even play nothing else but that."

 "I'm retiring, yeah," he added, keeping a straight face. "I'm taking a ... I'm just gonna take some time. I think I'm probably gonna quit music."

 Apparently, it was all just one big joke, according to Gossip Cop.

 "Of course it's not true," a source told E! News of Bieber's supposed retirement plans.

 Although it's highly unlikely he will leave the biz for good, Bieber is looking to change some things up in his career.

 "I want to grow as an artist and I'm taking a step out, I want my music to mature"-@justinbieber #JustinBigBoy106 — Power 106 (@Power106LA) December 17, 2013

 The teen singer headed to the station Tuesday to discuss his new work, "Journals." "Journals" is comprised of 10 previously released songs from his "Music Mondays" promotion, according to Billboard. The collection also features five unreleased songs, videos and the "Believe" theatrical release trailer.

 "Journals" is priced at $13.99 and is available on iTunes from Dec. 16 through Jan. 2, 2014.

 His "Believe" concert documentary hits theaters Christmas Day.

 Related on HuffPost: |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– It's a Christmas miracle: Justin Bieber told an LA radio station yesterday that he's retiring after his new album comes out next week, the Huffington Post reports. "I'm actually retiring, man," Bieber said. "I'm just gonna take some time. I think I'm probably gonna quit music." But, bah humbug, members of his entourage tell TMZ the singer was joking. "The kid's got ambition," says one of Bieber.


“Wonder Woman” won over critics and audiences alike during its $100 million domestic debut last week, and it looks like it’s going to take more than an army of Egyptian gods and Tom Cruise to dethrone the DC Comics superhero. Gal Gadot’s comic book adaptation from Warner Bros. is easily on track to triumph over Universal’s intended tentpole “The Mummy” in its opening weekend.

 Patty Jenkins’ DC Extended Universe savior took in another $16 million from 4,165 theaters on Friday. That number will climb to an expected $53 million by end of day Sunday, giving “Wonder Woman” a domestic cume of $192 million in just two weeks. The female-led film had already surpassed $300 million worldwide prior to this weekend.

 While the summer box office season has officially begun, Cruise seems to have lost control of the Dark Universe. “The Mummy” was expected to be the equivalent of Marvel’s “Iron Man” or DC Comics’ “Man of Steel,” but Universal’s $125 million movie will have to settle with second place. The reboot of the Brendan Frasier franchise earned only $12 million from 4,035 screenings on Friday, projecting a dead-on-arrival domestic debut of just $30 million.

 “Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie” from Fox falls from No. 2 to No. 3 this week. The Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, and Thomas Middleditch animated comedy is expected to make a further $13 million this weekend after pulling in $3.5 million from 3,529 locations on Friday. Those numbers will add up to a two-week total of $42 million for “Captain Underpants.”

 Despite two weeks in the top 3, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” has officially walked the plank to No. 4 in the box office. Johnny Depp’s Disney vehicle pillaged $3 million from 3,679 locales on Friday, meaning the fifth film in the Jack Sparrow series will see $10.5 million for the three-day. However, similarly to what can be expected of “The Mummy,” “Pirates'” global total is much more impressive at $384.5 million compared to its $133.5 domestic draw.

 Also in its first frame, psychological horror film “It Comes at Night” from A24 is performing particularly well off a $2.4 million budget. The Joel Edgerton and Riley Keough thriller is expected to take in $6.5 million by weekend’s end. “It Comes at Night” scared up about $2.5 million from 2,533 theaters on Friday, despite its shockingly low D CinemaScore.

 “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” “Baywatch,” “Megan Leavey,” “Alien: Covenant,” and “Everything, Everything” round out the top 10. ||||| NEW YORK (AP) — "Wonder Woman" wrapped up Tom Cruise's "The Mummy" at the weekend box office, pulling in an estimated $57.2 million in North American theaters.

 Universal's "The Mummy" looked it age, selling a relatively feeble $32.2 million in tickets in its debut weekend.

 That couldn't compete with Warner Bros.' "Wonder Woman" in its second weekend. The Gal Gadot superhero film has quickly earned more than $205 million domestically in two weeks.

 The poor opening for "The Mummy," which cost an estimated $125 million to produce, meant a weak start for Universal's ballyhooed "Dark Universe." ''The Mummy" is intended to launch a new connected franchise of monster movies.

 The A24 thriller "It Comes at Night" aimed for more discerning horror fans. It sold a modest $6 million in tickets in its debut weekend. |||||

Write a summary.

– Wonder Woman wrapped up Tom Cruise's The Mummy at the weekend box office, pulling in an estimated $57.2 million in North American theaters. Universal's The Mummy looked its age, selling a relatively feeble $32.2 million in tickets in its debut weekend, reports the AP. That couldn't compete with Warner Bros.' Wonder Woman in its second weekend. The Gal Gadot superhero film has quickly earned more than $205 million domestically in two weeks. In third place was Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie from Fox, which is expected to pull in $13 million, per Variety. (The reviews for The Mummy were pretty bad, while the opposite was true for Wonder Woman.)


Summarize this article:

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 MIDDLESEX COUNTY, Va. -- Middlesex Sheriff's Major Michael Sampson said it was too soon to say whether or not missing mother TerriLynn St. John was abducted from her Mill Wharf Road home. This, as the search for the 23-year-old Middlesex County mother of two extended into its second day.

 "This is a missing person, under suspicious circumstances," Major Sampson said during a Wednesday afternoon update.

 Investigators have interviewed four persons of interest about St. John's disappearance.

 "A person of interest could be acquaintances, whether they be personal acquaintances -- friends, family," Major Sampson said. "Miss St. John had a boyfriend at the time. He is obviously a person of interest."

 Those persons of interest have been cooperative and submitted DNA samples to investigators, Sampson said.

 That evidence was sent to the crime lab in Richmond where it is being tested.

 A K9 unit and air surveillance joined the search for St. John after she was reported missing Tuesday morning.

 When family members were notified St. John never showed up for work, they went to her home and discovered her children -- ages three and one -- unharmed, but home alone.

 Family members said they believed St. John struggled with someone in her front yard, near her car, around 7:30 a.m. Tuesday.

 "They looked through the woods and you could definitely tell there has been a struggle beside my daughter's car," her father Terry St. John said. "Jewelry was all around, like it had been broken off, her cell phone was found in the bushes."

 Investigators hope someone was up early Tuesday morning, noticed something unusual, and will call in a tip.

 "We're hoping someone can come up and say something that they did not think about at the time," Sampson said. "This is a tight community. Our community works together."

 He also asked those in the community to stop trying to solve the missing person's case on Facebook.

 "Social media, for us, is a little bit of a double edged sword," he said. "We get a lot of information there that we can follow up on, but people need to be mindful of what they put on there because when they put up something, we have to investigate."

 That, he said, sometimes takes investigators away from the primary investigation.

 "Before you put it on social media, please give us a call," he said.

 TerriLynn is described as a white female, 5'6" tall, 130 pounds, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing a blue Outer Banks hoodie.

 Anyone with information was asked to call the Middlesex Sheriff's Office at 804-758-5600. Witnesses can send news tips here. ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video

 MIDDLESEX COUNTY, Va. -- Investigators have identified persons of interest in the disappearance of a Middlesex County mother from her front yard, according to Crime Insider sources.

 Those sources confirm those persons are being questioned.

 Early Tuesday morning, at a corner house on Mill Wharf Road, family members believe someone was watching TerriLynn St. John, 23, prepare her car to take her kids to daycare.

 The mom was last heard from around 7:30 a.m., when she went to her car in her front yard.

 That’s when family members believe there was a struggle.

 "They looked through the woods and you could definitely tell there has been a struggle beside my daughter's car," her father Terry St. John said. "Jewelry was all around, like it had been broken off, her cell phone was found in the bushes."

 Even more troubling, St. John’s two children were seemingly abandoned.

 "My granddaughter is three and my grandson is one,” said Terry.

 The children were found by their grandparents, alone in the house.

 Family members said there was no way TerriLynn would leave her kids alone.

 "We’re definitely treating it as suspicious," said Maj. Michael Sampson.

 From the start, Middlesex County investigators said they knew the mystery of the missing woman was serious.

 "We've contacted family and friends. We've done searches throughout the area by air and on foot, and we've called neighboring jurisdictions out to assist with K9s," said Sampson.

 "We know it is all over social media right now and if anybody has any information about this to please call the sheriff's office," said Sampson.

 "I know I've got to keep myself together and do my best, so they can find TerriLynn," said her father.

 TerriLynn is described as a white female, 5’6’’ tall, 130 pounds, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She has multiple tattoos including R.J.M. on her right wrist, a princess crown on her left wrist, and a cross on her ring finger.

 TerriLynn was last seen wearing a blue Outer Banks hoodie as seen in the photo below. Family members believe she was wearing the same hoodie when she disappeared Tuesday morning.

 The search for TerriLynn will resume Wednesday morning.

 Crime Insider sources say Virginia State Police are on stand-by if Middlesex deputies need more manpower.

 If you have any information about the whereabouts of TerriLynn St. John, contact the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office.

 Please share and spread the word!

 37.604011 -76.525701 |||||

– A Virginia community is imploring anyone with information about the disappearance of a young mom to come forward after she vanished while getting ready to go to work Tuesday. ABC7 reports that 23-year-old TerriLynn St. John never showed up to her job that day, and when her father was notified, he went to her home in Wake and found a disturbing sight: the front door open, St. John's 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son alone inside the house, and no sign of St. John, per Maj. Michael Sampson of the Middlesex County Sheriff's Office. "You could definitely tell there [had] been a struggle beside my daughter's car," Terry St. John tells WTVR. "Jewelry was all around, like it had been broken off, her cellphone was found in the bushes." Her car was still in the driveway. The younger St. John, last heard from around 7:30 that morning, was going to drop her kids off at day care before heading to work, Sampson says, per ABC7. Although he notes it's too soon to say if St. John was abducted, Sampson says at least four persons of interest have been questioned. "This is a missing person, under suspicious circumstances," he said Wednesday, per WTVR. St. John is described as 5-foot-6 and 130 pounds, with blond hair, blue eyes, and several tattoos, including "RJM" on her right wrist. She's believed to have last been wearing a blue Outer Banks hoodie. Wesley Moody, IDed by WRIC as the father of St. John's children, has his own theory on her disappearance. "There's no way it was just one person," he says. Meanwhile, her dad clings to hope. "Hold on, girl, we're going to find you," he says, per the Rappahannock Record. (Read about the mysterious disappearance of a CDC doctor.)


Archaeologists will this week test if the Bayeux Tapestry correctly depicts Harold II’s death, when they scan a graveyard to investigate whether he in fact survived the Battle of Hastings.

 The same survey team used to find the remains of Richard III under a Leicester car park is now searching for the remains of England’s last Saxon king in the grounds of Waltham Abbey Church in Essex.

 History books currently record he was wounded in the eye by a Norman arrow and then hacked down by four Norman knights at a turning point of British history on October 14, 1066.

 But an amateur historian funding the ground scan believes Harold Godwinson may have survived and lived for another 40 years as a hermit.

 Peter Burke says the alternative history is found in a 12th century document called Vita Haroldi, which is kept in the British Museum.

 He told the Independent on Sunday: “We have the Norman story put through the Bayeux Tapestry – the English story is a different one.

 "You put things together and it begins to build a picture that is quite solid. If everything backs you up in history, you should look at it. You shouldn't just leave it.”

 A re-enactment of the 1066 Battle of Hastings in East Sussex (Rex)

 Mr Burke, 64, who has investigated the theory while researching his own historical novels, believes the scan will find the body of Harold, but potentially it will be the body of an old man, rather than a young king killed in battle.

 In that case historians will have to rewrite the history books he believes.

 He said: “I'm very hopeful we will find something. I've always thought you should question things. You shouldn't just take history at face value.

 "[The Battle of Hastings] is one of the biggest events in English history. Whether it will go as far as rewriting history books, I suppose they'll have to," he said. ||||| THE wait is nearly over for a moment that could change history as we know it.

 A geophysics scan will take place in Waltham Abbey on Tuesday October 14 in a bid to settle once and for all the question of King Harold’s last resting place.

 Harold is said to have been brought to Waltham Abbey to lie at rest.

 Author Peter Burke, who has written a series of novels about the last Saxon king of England, has finally got the permission needed to carry out the search in the grounds of the Abbey.

 Mr Burke believes Harold may have escaped death by an arrow through the eye at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

 Oval Films, the production company involved in the discovery of Richard III two years ago have teamed up with Mr Burke on the project.

 He believes the scan may reveal Harold lived until 1090, being taken to Winchester to receive treatment.

 An unknown headless knight could have been identified by Harold’s wife Edith to lie in the grave to conceal the fate of the defeated king.

 A ceremony is held at the grave in the Abbey Gardens as part of King Harold Day every year. ||||| Could King Harold have been buried at Waltham Abbey years after escaping his supposed death at the Battle of Hastings and fleeing to Germany? A ground scan may be about to find out

 © Wikimedia Commons

 Peter Burke initially believed that the notion of King Harold escaping thebloodbath, in which he is commonly thought to have been dismembered and even shot in the eye, was far-fetched.A historian who has lived within 200 metres of Waltham Abbey for the past 29 years, Burke’s investigation began unwittingly while he was planning his latest book.“I was researching for the,” he says.“I am a stonemason by trade and was interested in how some of the church and surrounding walls were constructed.“Knowing stonework as well as I do, I've seen so many constructions old and new and their style can reveal the skills - and sometimes the lack of skills - of masons in the past, as well as anomalies.“I found some interesting stonework around the Abbey at Waltham, and learned of a tale of a king who escaped the slaughter at Hastings, which I wove into my story.“What surprised me was that, when I researched further into what I accepted at first as a fanciful tale, I began to realise there was possibly a story with some basis, in fact.“I found an interesting manuscript called theand felt compelled to look deeper into this, as a part of the tying up of loose ends for my books.“As I studied I became fascinated by the logical and simple manner of this work.“Four years later, having thoroughly researched the histories available and pondered on the characters and their actions at the time, and the dates of the walls being constructed, I have concluded that the story of Harold's escape from the field of battle at Senlac Hill could actually be the true, English version: that although terribly wounded, Harold was nursed back to health and made his escape to Germany two years later.”A licence has been granted for a scan in the Abbey gardens, supported by a geophysics team. It could be filmed by the crew responsible for a television documentary on the discovery of Richard III’s remains in 2012.“Well, it’s being discussed,” says Burke, who is due to have talks with two production teams.“There could, of course, be nothing where we are set to look, but I felt strongly enough that it was worth the £2,000 – the cost for the scan to at least look.“The place we are examining using ground penetrating radar is where I have seen something.“There are, I believe, three possibilities that lie under the ground at Waltham Abbey: the body of a brutally hacked to death soldier, a collection of bones belonging to a Saxon knight who is not Harold, a cask containing ash or bones - possibly Harold - or the remains of an old man, 6 foot 1, with scarring to his temple and cheek.“If we find the latter then we will need a DNA test and history, as we have understood it for 950 years, may have to change.” ||||| The geological survey company used to find the remains of Richard III is launching a search for the body of King Harold II in the grounds of Waltham Abbey Church in Essex, where the fallen monarch was supposedly given a burial.

 The scan, to be performed by the Stratascan team on Tuesday, the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, will be filmed for a documentary exploring an alternative theory of Harold's death.

 The history books record that on 14 October 1066, Harold was brutally hacked to death by four Norman knights, after being struck by an arrow to his eye. The scenes of Harold gripping the arrow were later depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry.

 Archaeologists will now explore a claim that the king survived the battle and lived as a hermit until he died of natural causes in his eighties – about 40 years after the battle.

 The alternative explanation, contained in a 12th-century document housed in the British Library called Vita Haroldi, is championed by Peter Burke, an amateur historian from Waltham Abbey who has been studying an alternative English version of events for the past five years.

 "We have the Norman story put through the Bayeux Tapestry – the English story is a different one," said Mr Burke, 64. "You put things together and it begins to build a picture that is quite solid. If everything backs you up in history, you should look at it. You shouldn't just leave it," he said.

 Mr Burke, who is a stonemason and fiction author, said that he was "absolutely convinced" that the scan would find King Harold's body and he has funded the search with £2,000 of his own money.

 He will lead the scan to a site near the east wall where there are thought to be some symbol markings. This site is roughly 15 yards away from King Harold's reputed tomb at the High Altar.

 English Heritage granted permission for a ground-penetrating radar to scan the area. Debbie Priddy, the inspector of ancient monuments in the East of England, said they "were happy to give consent for this work which involves no disturbance to the nationally important archaeological remains of the abbey church".

 If the scan does provide evidence, excavation may still be a while off due to the consecrated nature of the site. English Heritage would need to advise the Secretary of State to consent to excavation, in an effort to "conserve archaeological remains for future generations".

 "I'm very hopeful we will find something," said Mr Burke. "I've always thought you should question things. You shouldn't just take history at face value. [The Battle of Hastings] is one of the biggest events in English history. Whether it will go as far as rewriting history books, I suppose they'll have to," he said.

 Although Mr Burke said that he expected criticism over the search, members of the Waltham Abbey Historical Society have said the king's remains are unlikely to be found because the site has been frequently disturbed for building works.

 The account by Guy, Bishop of Amiens, of the East Sussex battle, which delivered a decisive Norman victory, says that Harold was killed by four knights, probably including Duke William II of Normandy, and his body dismembered. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– King Harold II's death is immortalized in the Bayeux Tapestry, which shows England's final Anglo-Saxon king taking an arrow to the eye during the Battle of Hastings on Oct. 14, 1066; Norman knights then were said to have hacked him to pieces. Now, a team is tugging on the tapestry's threads to see if that story holds. The same geological survey company that unearthed Richard III under a parking lot will tomorrow (that's the 948th anniversary of the death) scan the ground where Harold is supposed to be buried in an investigation of an alternate tale: that the king actually survived and lived another four decades as a hermit. That theory was penned in a document called the Vita Haroldi in the 12th century, and amateur historian Peter Burke believes it to be true, so much so that he's funding the scan at Essex's Waltham Abbey Church. King Harold is said to be buried in a tomb at the High Altar there, but Burke suspects he's actually interred about 45 feet away, near the east wall. "We have the Norman story put through the Bayeux Tapestry—the English story is a different one," he tells the Independent. As the Telegraph reports, Burke hopes the scan will reveal Harold's body—and that it will prove to be the remains of an elderly man, indicating the king did indeed regain health and then fled to Germany two years later. Should the scan surface "old man, 6 foot 1, with scarring to his temple and cheek ... then we will need a DNA test," Burke tells Culture24. Who would be in the tomb then? The Hertfordshire Mercury reports Harold's wife, Edith, could have IDed a headless knight as her husband in order to hide the truth. (Another big discovery relates to Alexander the Great.)


Summarize this article:

In the course of one week, the burning of copies of the Koran by U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan has set off a deadly chain of events that has not only inflamed tensions but possibly exposed a crippling weakness in the American strategy to wind down the war.

 The emerging U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is built around plans to replace large NATO combat formations with small teams of advisers who will live and work alongside their Afghan partners.

 But the killing of two high-ranking NATO officers by an Afghan security official — and the subsequent decision by the top NATO commander in the country to recall his personnel from top Afghan ministries — has spurred doubts about whether Afghan security forces can be relied upon to provide for the protection of their Western partners. The consequences of that erosion of confidence, former U.S. officials and analysts say, could be devastating.

 “If the trust, ability and willingness to partner falls apart, you are looking at the endgame here,” said Mark Jacobson, who served until last summer as the NATO deputy senior civilian representative in Kabul.

 The killing of the U.S. officers on Saturday occurred two days after a man wearing an Afghan army uniform fatally shot two American troops in eastern Afghanistan, the latest in a string of incidents in recent months in which local security forces have turned against NATO personnel.

 Some of the killings have been perpetrated by Afghan troops whose loyalties lay with the Taliban. But, in most cases, the attacks have been the result of tensions between U.S. forces and Afghans who felt as though they had suffered an insult to themselves or their faith.

 On Sunday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who initially responded to the Koran burnings with outrage, sought to stem the latest wave of violence by issuing a plea for calm and blessing the withdrawal of NATO advisers from his ministries as a justifiable measure.

 But protests continued, including in the northern city of Kunduz, where Afghan demonstrators opened fire and tossed a grenade at a U.S. base, wounding seven American troops. The Afghan defense and interior ministers canceled a long-planned trip to Washington to focus on curbing the violence, which has claimed 25 Afghan lives.

 “We remain committed to a partnership with the Afghan government and people,” the U.S. ambassador to Kabul, Ryan C. Crocker, told CNN on Sunday, promising that American service members and civilians would continue to work with their Afghan allies.

 For now, though, much of the cooperation between U.S. advisers and their Afghan partners is on hold. And even though the decision to withdraw the advisers is probably temporary, it is not clear how U.S. troops will be able to reestablish trust with Afghan security forces.

 “This is not going back to business as usual,” an Army officer who works as an adviser in Kabul said Sunday. “The threat is still higher than normal.”

 Once advisers return to the ministries, the officer said, some will probably have to shorten their visits, instead of remaining there for six- to 10-hour shifts, to reduce risks.

 Senior Obama administration officials have sought to reassure a war-weary American public that the NATO combat mission in Afghanistan would draw to a close by the middle of next year. These officials have implied that the change to an advisory mission would not only mean fewer U.S. service members in Afghanistan, but also less risk for the noncombat troops who remain behind.

 Military experts, however, say that the smaller U.S. advisory force might be more exposed to fratricidal attacks than conventional military units. Such attacks — which were exceptionally rare in Iraq — often stem from a cultural chasm between U.S. and Afghan troops.

 Carter Malkasian, who served as a State Department adviser in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province in 2010 and 2011, said one way to mitigate that risk is for advisers to build closer relationships with their Afghan partners. But the risk will always be there.

 “The most effective advisers will be with their Afghans all the time, and that certainly does involve additional risk,” Malkasian said.

 Unlike a typical infantry platoon, which consists of more than 35 heavily armed soldiers, the advisers work in teams of as few as a dozen troops. Some military and civilian advisers working in Afghanistan said Sunday that the risks associated with their jobs were still manageable and that they believed that they would soon be able to return to their work.

 “I hope [the ban] is lifted soon,” said a State Department adviser working at a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan. “Maybe I am complacent. I know we face all kinds of threats, but we have a job to do.”

 Current plans call for the U.S. force in Afghanistan to fall from a peak of 100,000 troops to about 68,000 by the end of the summer. Further reductions are likely later this year and in 2013. All NATO combat troops are expected to be withdrawn by the end of 2014.

 In an article in the upcoming issue of Foreign Affairs, Malkasian and Kael Weston, who served a multiyear stint as an adviser in southern Afghanistan, estimated that NATO could hold off the Taliban and keep the Afghan government and security forces functioning with as few as 25,000 advisory troops.

 The Afghans would rely on the NATO advisers to call in airstrikes if their position was about to be overrun by a larger Taliban force. The advisers would ensure that their Afghan partner units were receiving ammunition, food and fuel from their headquarters. The Westerners also would help control the most damaging and overt acts of corruption.

 To be effective, these troops would have to live without large American bases, expensive dining facilities and intensive quick-reaction forces.

 “The more willing advisers are to accept risk,” Malkasian said, “the more effective they will be.”

 Special correspondent Javed Hamdard in Kabul contributed to this report. ||||| Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit www.djreprints.com

 KABUL—America's plan to hand over responsibility for securing Afghanistan faced unprecedented strains, as the U.S. and its allies withdrew hundreds of military and civilian advisers in Kabul following a string of deadly attacks by Afghan soldiers on American troops.

 The U.S., Britain, Germany and France temporarily pulled out the advisers helping the Afghan government on Sunday amid a wave of unrest triggered by the burning of Qurans last week at the Bagram U.S. military base.

 The broad adviser pullout not only deprives Afghan ministries of expertise in managing their affairs but also sends a pointed signal that the international community ... |||||

– Afghanistan has roiled with violence for the past week over the Koran burnings at Bagram, leading to questions of whether the American exit strategy will actually work as planned. The US, Britain, Germany, and France temporarily removed hundreds of advisers from Afghanistan over the weekend in the wake of several retaliatory attacks—four US troops have been killed by Afghan comrades since the protests began—and some fear that Afghan security forces will not be able to protect the few Western advisers who will remain in Afghanistan after the withdrawal is complete. One adviser says he expects that upon their reinstatement, shifts will have to be shortened for the advisers' protection. Recent months have seen a number of incidents involving Afghan security forces turning on NATO personnel—and only some out of those incidents arose out of loyalty to the Taliban, the Washington Post notes. Most involved Afghan troops who felt insulted in some fashion, such as after the Koran burning came to light, and military experts think there could be an even higher risk of such attacks after the military withdrawal. A former US Army Ranger tells the Wall Street Journal that Americans are wary of sending advisers "to a country where those trainers and advisers are liable to be targeted by the very people they are training and advising."


These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| from Wikipedia Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist.Swartz was involved in the development of the web feed format RSS, the organization Creative Commons,[4] the website framework web.py and the social news site Reddit, in which he was an equal partner after its merger with his Infogami company. Swartz also focused on sociology, civic awareness and activism.[6][7] In 2010, he became a research fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Research Lab on Institutional Corruption, directed by Lawrence Lessig. He founded the online group Demand Progress, known for its campaign against the Stop Online Piracy Act. ||||| Watch your back, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter! Another 2012 Republican candidate’s attempt at making sweet music has appeared on the internet, and it’s a doozy– introducing Sunday Morning*, a gospel album recorded by former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain. Precious little is know about the 13-track album, which appeared on the internet today, but the soulful baritone crooning is certainly worth a listen.

 Cain had certainly not mentioned anything about a past life as a gospel singer, but a few tracks off of Sunday Morning made their way online today via the Daily Caller. It’s mostly standard gospel fare and mostly slow tracks at that, with one standout single: “This is the Day,” a fast-paced track reminiscent of “Footloose” that certainly wins the prize for funnest danceable track on the album.

 It is worth noting that it not yet 100% certain this is Herman Cain– Dave Weigel notes that the Cain campaign has yet to comment on the album, but “it’s real, it was published 15 years ago by GLC Music, Selah Sound Production & Melodic Praise Records, and it is not being distributed now by the Cain campaign.” With McCotter on guitar, Cain on vocals and maybe some keytar work by Jon Huntsman, we’ve got ourselves a band!

 Below the Daily Caller’s song widget (Weigel found a couple of more in downloadable format). Really, give “This is the Day” a listen!:

 *not to be confused with the Maroon 5 song of the same name.

 Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Just when you thought the Republican presidential contest couldn’t get any stranger, we have breaking news: Herman Cain has a gospel album. That’s right, the Daily Caller today discovered an album online bearing the GOP hopeful's distinctive baritone. Cain's camp hasn’t commented, but Dave Weigel of Slate has confirmed that “it’s real, it was published 15 years ago … and it is not being distributed now by the Cain campaign.” The six-track offering is entitled Sunday Morning, and believe it or not, it’s actually pretty decent. “It’s mostly standard gospel fare,” says Frances Martel of Mediaite, but it has “one standout single: ‘This is the Day,’ a fast-paced track reminiscent of 'Footloose' that certainly wins the prize for funnest danceable track on the album. … Really, give ‘This is the Day’ a listen!”


Buffalo, NY (WIVB) - In the three years that Darnell Barton has been driving a Metro bus, he's met all kinds of people, but he will never forget a young lady who he came upon one recent Friday afternoon.

 Driving the Elmwood 20 bus southbound toward Buffalo State College the on-bus surveillance video shows the lady standing on the narrow ledge outside the railing over the Scajaquada Expressway.

 "It didn't seem real because what was going on around, traffic and pedestrians were going by as normal" said Barton. The driver pulled up alongside of her and opened his doors shouting from the drivers' seat, "ma'am are you okay".

 When she didn't answer he walked toward her. "She was distraught, she was distant, she was really disconnected. I grabbed her arm and put my arm around her and said 'Do you want to come on this side of the guardrail', and that was actually the first time she spoke to me she said yes."

 Darnell actually lifted her from the outside of the railing to the safety of the sidewalk. "It was meant to be. I was supposed to be there for her at that moment and I was. I wanted to convey that whatever it was, I'm going to help you through and it's not as serious as jumping onto the 198."

 After he sat on the sidewalk and talked with her for a few minutes, a corrections officer who had seen her from the Scajaquada walked up the embankment. he was joined by another good Samaritan who said she counsels people as part of her job.

 Darnell thinks most of his co-workers would've done the same thing. His co-workers call him 'Big Country', a big man with a big heart, and after he did what he did, the passengers gave him a round of applause.

 "I feel like I did what I was supposed to do at the time. I'm a football guy so when you sit the bench and the coach calls your number, you gotta go in there make a play, do what the play calls for, and I think that's what I did." ||||| Bus driver Darnell Barton had just picked up 20 McKinley High School students eager to get home on a recent Friday afternoon.

 They had to wait a little longer than usual while Barton saved a woman’s life and taught them an unexpected lesson in human compassion.

 As the 37-year-old driver pulled away from the school bus stop at about 3:50 p.m. on Oct. 18, heading southbound on Elmwood Avenue, he saw a disturbing sight on the Scajaquada Expressway overpass. A woman was on the opposite side of the railing leaning out over the traffic below.

 “I didn’t think it was real with everything else going on around her. Traffic was proceeding as normal and a couple of pedestrians walked right by her and a bicyclist rode by. I mean, they were inches from her,” said Barton, who instinctively stopped his bus and opened the doors.

 “Do you need help?” he asked.

 She looked at him and then back at the traffic on the expressway from her precarious perch on the west side of the overpass.

 Barton called the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority’s Metro Bus dispatcher and reported what was happening.

 But the reality of the situation struck him when he heard one of the students weeping and saying, “I don’t want to see someone die.”

 Cautiously, Barton stepped from the bus. He made his move when he was within a few steps of the woman.

 “She turned back to look at me and then back at the traffic and that’s when I kind of lunged and got my left arm around her body,” Barton said. “I asked her, ‘Do you want to come on this side of the guard rail now?’ and that was the first time she spoke to me and said, ‘Yeah.’ ”

 Barton said he helped her over the railing and suggested they have a seat.

 “We both sat on the sidewalk right there on Elmwood Avenue and I asked, ‘Where are you from?’ I tried to get some information. She wasn’t forthcoming. She looked down and then looked up and said, ‘You smell good.’ ”

 The simple remark brought a sense of relief to the bus driver, who’d splashed on some cologne that day before leaving for work.

 “She wasn’t that detached,” he said.

 Other concerned individuals arrived.

 A state prison corrections officer, who had been on the expressway and pulled his vehicle over, climbed up the embankment. A woman who identified herself as a crisis counselor talked to the unidentified woman, who was in her 20s.

 “The counselor was tender and compassionate,” said Barton, who never learned why the young woman had been driven to consider taking her own life.

 Buffalo police and firefighters arrived, as did police from nearby SUNY Buffalo State and the Buffalo Psychiatric Center.

 Another bus was dispatched to take the young passengers on their way while Barton, a Buffalo resident, stayed at the scene to give police an account of what had happened.

 “Darnell won’t tell you this, but when he went back on his bus, the McKinley students gave him a round of applause,” said C. Douglas Hartmayer, NFTA spokesman, adding that authority officials only recently learned of the driver’s heroic actions from earlier this month. “That’s because of Darnell’s modesty, which speaks to his demeanor of being very humble.”

 In fact, after Barton had given a statement, he continued to work, driving the outbound Route 5 route before completing his shift.

 When his adrenaline had settled down and he had time to reflect, Barton recalled thinking to himself how he had done the right thing.

 But rather than allow the spotlight to shine on him Tuesday during an interview, Barton, who drove school buses for years before landing an NFTA job three years ago, said he was impressed with the way the students on his bus had behaved.

 “They were great. They sat there quietly. It was an encouragement to me. Oftentimes we look at young people and we forget we were young,” he said. “As each of them got off the bus, they shook my hand.”

 They are not the only ones who admire Barton.

 “We are all extremely proud of Darnell’s heroic actions,” said Kimberley A. Minkel, the NFTA’s executive director. “His quick and calm response during a very stressful situation speaks volumes about his character and unwavering willingness to help someone in need.”

 Barton, though low-key, says he will be pleased if what he did helps the image of his fellow bus drivers, to show them as caring and compassionate.

 email: lmichel@buffnews.com |||||

Write a summary.

– A Buffalo bus driver is getting the hero's treatment after stopping his bus to get a suicidal young woman off a bridge overpass, reports WIVB-TV. Darnell Barton, who had just picked up about two dozen high school students, spotted the woman on the wrong side of the ledge, seemingly about to jump into traffic, reports the Buffalo News. He stopped his bus, asked her if she needed help, then slowly made his way toward her. "She was distraught, she was distant, she was really disconnected," he recalls. "I grabbed her arm and put my arm around her and said, 'Do you want to come on this side of the guardrail,' and that was actually the first time she spoke to me. She said yes." He then sat down with her on the sidewalk until authorities arrived. “Darnell won’t tell you this, but when he went back on his bus, the McKinley students gave him a round of applause,” says a spokesman for the local transit agency.